When we were coming home from Canada, Tommie bought me a little necklace….just something he thought I would like. It had the yin and yang symbol on it. I had noticed this symbol on some of his stuff but never really though much about it. I knew it was the pattern we look to achieve with liberty, but that was about it. I just knew it was really cool looking. When we finally returned home, my mom and I looked it up on the internet.
I have been attending expos for a while, because my family owns a stallion, that we sometimes exhibit at expos. My mother has always said that good horsemanship is just plain good horsemanship regardless of the discipline you are riding. And that the best of the best are all doing a lot of the same things. My mom in conjuction with Tommie and Elizabeth has been teaching me how to train horses various skills. I like to teach my horses to do all kinds of things, so I have begun to think about training in a way that can be used to training a horse any skill.
When watching various clinic sessions at expos, I found that many of the sessions don’t cover everything you need to know. They skip steps, forget steps or the clinician bought a horse who already knew the gig, so never really learned how to train the skill in the first place. I am a little kid, who has a bunch of young animals to work with, so I need to know every step. In addition, some programs never seem to get to the fun stuff. I want to ride and jump and do cool stuff and be safe about it.
I have started doing some teaching at expos, as well as riding in demos with Tommie. My mom says that the best students are teachers and the best teachers are students. After looking up Yin and Yang on the internet, I realized that applying those principles to horse training provides a perfect way to break down how to think about horse training.
To Read more about Taiji Horsemanship: Click Here!
Tommie, Elizabeth and my mom are the true masters of Taiji horsemanship. They can see a training challenge and know how to break down and teach the skills required to train and complete the desired skills or task. Being only eleven, if I can establish a way to think about training that allows me to better understand what they are doing and why it works maybe others can use this to help them better understand how to train their horses.
Thus with one small random act of kindness by Tommie on March 28, 2009 “Taiji Horsemanship” was born. .
The best part is….. I have never seen training presented quite like this. I have seen skills taught in a way that fits Taiji Horsemanship, but have never seen a way to look at training taught, that could be used to break down any training task. I know I am a kid, but I am a kid. I have to break it down. It has to be easy and it has to be safe or I am not going to be able to do it! I am pretty excited about mastering, refining and applying Taiji horsemanship to all kinds of training tasks and challenges, which I can use when I ride, train and teach. Maybe others will be able to use it too.
To Tommie Turvey……I love my necklace. In fact, I have worn it almost everyday, but more importantly thanks for working with and beleiving in “a little girl”. Your’e horses are amazing. I love Ace, Joker, Poker Joe and Blade. You are a great trainer and my friend. I have learned so much. I can’t wait to see what we can do with all the horses next…..Can’t wait to see what you are going to do with “The Black”! The “Black” is in a class of his own and so are you!
See you again soon!
Lizzy
