The Art of Riding with Karen Musson

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You are here: Home About Karen The Feel of Release A Brief Guide to True Feel Between Horse and Human Karen's Clinics & Coaching Clinics, Workshops Demos and Private Coaching Group Coaching & Clinics 2014 Coming to Illinois! Dates to be Announced

Coming to Illinois! Dates to be Announced

Come Ride this Summer! 
What your Horse Would Love You to Know about
Feel, Timing, Balance and more

Dates to be announced
Ready to Register? Click Here

Refine Your Feel
for YOUR HORSE, through YOUR HORSEMANSHIP

Special Coaching Clinic with Karen Musson
"Dive in" with small group with individual coaching dedicated to you and your horse...

Your Level, Your Focus, Your Speed

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questionboxJ25  Does your sensitive or "lazy" horse respond smoothly to pressure?

questionboxJ25  Are you really an "Alpha" leader, at heart?

questionboxJ25  Does your horse trust and respect you as much as you hoped he would?

Join us at this clinic to gain new insight about what's really going on inside your partnership in terms of the ultimate measure: the Feel between you and your horse. 

What's in your Feel defines your partnership. Why? Because Feel is the main thing your horse has to go on - it's how he's "wired". Your Feel is the direct line to your horse -- when it's aligned with who You are and applied with clarity that fits Your Horse.

A shift in your Feel & Timing to better fit your horse can be enough to unlock your next level of partnership. Find out:

  1. which of the main aspects of Feel is the particular key to “closing the gap" for you and your horse

  2. what exactly it is in your Feel that brings your horse’s offer of “mind, engine and feet” more readily to hand

  3. how to shift your Feel & Timing from the “closed door” Feel of a conditional release of pressure to the “open door” Feel of a carefully directed, ongoing Feel of Release

  4. why all this matters all the more "when surprising things happen"

Join us for a weekend of practical insight with one-on-one help to ensure you take home what you need for your horse.

We are limiting rider spots to ensure individual attention. Register below!

Registration is open 
(first come, first served)

Confirm your spot now by registering below - coming soon!

 

More on What to Expect from Karen:

Karen Musson is known for her warm, light-hearted way of coaching horsemen/women in the refinement of feel. She guides you to expand on the idea of an intermittent, conditonal feel of release to an ongoing feel of release that develops an open flow in your connection. Karen will show you the direct line to an ease and depth of connection you know exists... yet which might seem to come and go at times, feel fleeting or be right at your finger tips then sometimes escape your grasp. "Feel" is not exclusive or reserved for the advanced or masterful rider - it is universal. It is also the art of not tripping ourselves up as a result of a collection of common practices that unwittingly get in our way. All it really takes is gaining the awareness that fuels taking our horsemanship a little deeper in understanding of "the inner workings" of a prey animal - so we can shift from a dominant approach that promotes brace first, followed by submission, to leading from the "the higher road" of connection first to bring an offer of mind, engine and feet more readily to the hand, in unity.

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"Feel is the direct line to the whole horse: refining your feel takes the connection you have with your horse to new heights. Enjoy!"

 
"FEEL, TIMING and BALANCE: Sometimes it's best to talk about feel, timing and balance separately, and to learn how to apply each thing separately on the start. But when you go to apply these three things a little later on in your training, then you see that each of these things supports the other. They are interconnected and all three are important. If one is missing, there's sure to be a poor effect on the other two. The main one you need to have in there when you ride is balance. Without that you'd fall off your horse just as soon as you got up on him"
 
Bill Dorrance

Join Karen as she guides you through how to Refine Your Feel.  

Follow Karen's step-by-step approach to set the course for a thoroughly uplifting true connection that is both real and one you can rely on to reach your horse when things aren't so smooth.

Events offer a low-key, friendly, fun, inspirational and often deeply touching experience, while exploring in depth such topics as:

1. What is “feel” anyway? Isn’t it what we do naturally? Don’t I already use “feel”?

2. The common thread to every challenge - whether a minor ‘moment’ between you and your horse, a slight inconsistency that is on your mind or the immense frustration of hard work yielding slow progress, or perhaps an unsettling ‘trigger’ that lurks in a horse or rider, rooted in a fall, bad experience or is just a mystery. 

3. The one thing that will ALWAYS release your horse’s mind to you, and how to do it.

4. How and why does our "clear intent" and its associated Feel play a defining role in the connection between you and your horse? 

5. Refine Your Feel - as in, how do *you* do this with *your* horse? 

Whether you want to "just" find your flow out on the trail, bust open the door to master your real competitive potential
or simply refine your feel in a great connection you already enjoy, we invite you to Come Ride!

Registration open

Confirm your spot now by registering above - opening soon!

 

 

 

Mark Rashid

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"I see an 'opening' as anything that allows us to help guide, however briefly, an individual in the direction we ultimately would like to go. An 'opening' can be, and often is, a very subtle form of communication between horse and rider that can easily slip past us if we're not paying attention. 'Openings' can and do work both ways. [...] It amazes me just how small an 'opening' can actually be, whether working with horses or with people, and how easy it can be to create an 'opening' when one is needed."

Mark Rashid

"I truly believe developing the ability to see and use 'openings' effectively is only one piece of what one might refer to as the 'harmony in horsemanship' puzzle. When this idea of understanding 'openings' is brought together with the understanding of two other simlar ideas - making a connection with another indvidual, and the role distance plays in overall communication - I believe it is then that harmony in horsemanship becomes a much less daunting concept for us."

Mark Rashid

Leslie Desmond

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"Bill knew about a place I did not know existed, or could exist, between a horse and a human being [...] Bill included each one of my horses in that information exchange. Over the course of many months,... he took each one by its lead rope and, later, by the bridle reins. Using what he called his 'better feel', Bill showed me and each of them exactly what he meant by what he did [...] It was not long after I made the switch from force when needed (often) to always customizing the feel I offered to a horse, that two tough horses I had misunderstood for years developed into my most reliable mounts."

Leslie Desmond

“The lightest hands carry intent that is recognized instantly by the horse, as seen in the maneuvers he chooses to make with his feet. Whether that horse is ridden or handled, the lightest hands can purposefully influence the speed, direction and sequence of each foot with accuracy, in a manner that is reflected in the horse's body and on his face.”

Leslie Desmond

Bill Dorrance

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"The Real Masters Understood Feel [...] For example, De Kerbrech, (French officer in the cavalry of Napoleon III) really understood horses. He had it fixed up so the horse could succeed. [...] The first time I read Beudant's book was in the 1950s. The way he explained things, there was no doubt in my mind about what a person needed to do to get these little things working for them and their horse."

Bill Dorrance

“Feel, timing and balance: sometimes it’s best to talk about feel, timing and balance separately, and to learn how to apply each thing separately on the start. But when you apply these three things a little later in your training, then you see that each one of these things supports the other. They are interconnected and all three are real important. You really can’t get along without all three.”

Bill Dorrance

Faverot de Kerbrech

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“...plus le deplacement du poids est facile dans tous les sens, plus l'equilibre est parfait. En vertue de ce principe, on dit que le cheval est 'en equilibre' quand de simples indications suffisent au cavalier pour modifier a son gre la disposition du poids sur ses colonnes de soutien”

Faverot de Kerbrech

[Translation: ...the easier it is to shift the weight in any direction, the more perfect the balance. By virtue of this principle, the horse is 'in balance' when a simple indication from the rider is sufficient to modify the distribution of weight across the columns of support (four quarters) accordingly]

Duke of Newcastle

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"You must in all Airs follow the strength, spirit, and disposition of the horse, and do nothing against nature; for art is but to set nature in order, and nothing else."

William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle

"A confrontational approach ‘Astonishes the Weak Horse […] makes a Furious horse Madd; makes a Resty Horse more Resty […] and Displeases all sorts of Horses’. The alternative however is not ‘to Sit Weak […] but to Sit Easie’, in the understanding that ‘The Horse must know you are his Master’"

William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle

 

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