In Search of the Master Who Dances with Horses: Challenge

Foreword

This is the first of two books containing a highly edited version of my posts on a blog written over the past few years until the time of publication. It brings together the key posts in a format which offers all the conveniences which a traditional blog cannot.

First of all, the ebook format is portable, which means you can take this version of the blog with you and read it at your convenience wherever you are. Secondly, it is easier to read, because you do not have to be online to access it. Thirdly, it is searchable, making it easier to find and cross-reference information. Finally, it serves as a gateway to the blog itself, presenting the essence of the contents of the blog while offering access to it, should you wish to read an entire post and view its audio-visual content.

Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling

The blog was originally set up to catalogue my experiences and those of my partner as we prepared to spend a year living and studying full-time at Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling’s Akedah International school in Denmark. It has turned out to be a record of a life-changing set of experiences, which is drawing a growing number of people from around the world to be part of its readership for no other reason I believe than that it represents a reasonable attempt on the part of a very ordinary person without any equestrian talents to become the kind of human a horse seeks to be with, a goal which I feel is the essence of what we should be trying to achieve with those sensitive creatures. I have decided to publish these posts in book form to make them available to those potential readers who have not yet discovered the blog.

For those of you who may not yet have heard of him, Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling is arguably the most popular horse trainer in the world based on social media statistics. At the time of writing just one of his numerous videos on YouTube had been viewed well over two million times (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq06bmJLt-U), while his official Facebook page had been liked by more than 675,000 people. By way of comparison Pat Parelli’s official Facebook page had been liked by a little under 37,000 people, while that of Monty Roberts was still short of being liked by 307,000 people.

The secret to Hempfling’s enormous popularity would appear to lie in his appeal to the growing number of horse owners and carers around the world who are looking for a new, meaningful way of being and interacting with horses.

Other horse people

Although some of the actions and teachings of Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling are dealt with extensively in this book and its sequel, other great horse people have also left their impression on me in one form or another. Of these, Michael Bevilacqua, the main international representative of Nevzorov Haute Ecole, has been the most influential. Others include Linda Kohanov, Frédéric Pignon, Mark Rashid, Stormy May, Carolyn Resnick and Chuck Mintzlaff.

New generation

Yet Hempfling and these well-known individuals are not the only people whom I have looked to for guidance on how to become the kind of human a horse seeks to be with. Around the world there is a new generation of young horse people who are taking the lessons of the pioneers whom I have mentioned and are refashioning them in the language of the youth. I look at humans such as Noora Ehnqvist of Finland, Jason Alexander Wauters of Belgium, Eva Roemaat here in the Netherlands and Cloé Lacroix, the Canadian dean of Nevzorov Haute Ecole to mention but a few, and it fills me with hope to see these young horse people proclaim a new standard for interaction with our equine friends. It is a standard that is based on a commitment to love, care for and be a guide to horses and their carers. In short, it is one that seeks to help people to become the kind of human a horse seeks to be with.

As you read…

It is my hope that the story, musings, mistakes and minor successes which are documented in these pages may in some small way help to make your journey towards this goal just a little bit easier. If this occurs in just one instance, it will have all been worth it.

Andrew-Glyn Smail

The Netherlands

1 October 2014

It all starts here….

19 January 2011

It all starts right here, the very first word demanding its peculiar rationale and context: what this is all about, why we are recording everything , and why we are publishing it in the form of a blog.

In their early fifties two people, a man and a woman who are lovers, spouses, partners and business associates to each other and who have been a variety of these for close to three decades, decide to suspend a successful business in Australia to isolate themselves from society in a home to be shared with ten other people of varying ages and nationalities on a small, remote island off the south coast of Denmark in order to attend a ridiculously expensive educational programme run by an unusual man of roughly the same age who has been touted by some as the greatest horseman alive and brushed off by others as a narcissistic pretender. Her name is Vicki, his is Andrew and we are the couple involved. The unusual man is Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling.

We will be relinquishing the daily grind for a year to undergo what we believe will be a life-changing experience. Acutely conscious of this, we have decided to devote ourselves exclusively to this experience to the point where we refuse to plan a future that is to follow it. Any future will be born of the experience.

This blog has been set up to record our reflections on and in relation to this experience both in the lead-up to it and during the experience itself. In particular, we will be seeking:

to keep our family, friends and anyone else who is interested up-to-date with our progress;

to learn how to become the kind of human that a horse can trust and look to for leadership without the aid of force or mind games;

by doing this to become conscious human beings who are not ruled by regrets or fears;

to learn whether we are capable of doing this.

When we first considered this undertaking, we felt that we were stark raving mad to even think about it. Yet intuitively it represents a focus towards which we have been growing for several years now. We think that we are mad to do this but would be madder if we did not.

Horses

Horses have been prominent in their presence amongst us during this time and in our separate lives before then. For most of that time we treated them as many horse owners do: we gave them the best possible care we knew to provide and could afford, and we used them to our own ends – mainly dressage and trail riding – with little regard to their demands of us. Where we differed from most other people, is that, when our horses joined us, they did so for life. They became part of the family: ourselves and our animals (horses, dogs and cats but no kids).

By some standards we would have been judged to be enthusiasts. We even travelled the world to attend the World Equestrian Games and the equine events at the Olympic Games. Then in 2007 we discovered Parelli only to abandon his methods soon after when came across Nevzorov and Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling. Here was a different way of relating to horses, one which demanded leadership (or dominance – not to be confused with domination – as Hempfling calls it) and trust rather than punishment and reward or predatory mind games. Initially Vicki was intrigued by Nevzorov while Andrew instinctively felt drawn to Hempfling. Both of us got lost.

You can visit the websites, read the books and watch the DVDs but still miss the point. Change could not come from the horses. After all, they know how to be horses, how to walk, trot and canter, and how to collect themselves. We, however – like most people with horses – had forgotten how to be humans. While not as harsh as some, we have had our moments of treating horses in regrettable ways, ways in which we could not even bare to treat a dog. The lesson Hempfling was – and is – asking us to learn as a prerequisite for being the type of creatures whom horses trust and seek for leadership, was to rediscover our humanity, to become authentic human beings again, to learn to live each day as a new beginning, to rediscover the magic of childhood, to become aware of our bodies and to learn the art of dancing with horses.

Clearly, this was going to take some dedication and commitment. In 2010 Vicki attended Compact Schooling I and II, and Pure Practical Performance (PPP) with Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling at his Akedah International centre on the island of Lyø in southern Denmark. She returned with promises of new beginnings and Andrew promptly enrolled with Akedah for a 2011 course that had yet to be announced.

The announcement came in the final quarter of 2010, when Klaus invited 12 people to join him for a year as part of an island-mountain education programme starting in 2011. We had reached a point in our lives where we had concluded that we required a drastic change from our everyday routine. Yet the thought of closing down a successful business in Australia to isolate ourselves from society in a home to be shared with ten other people of varying ages and nationalities on a small, remote island on the other side of the world in order to attend a ridiculously expensive educational programme was sheer madness. The realisation that we were seriously considering it seemed to confirm its onset.

At the end of November 2010 we hosted a Hempfling body awareness weekend which was largely a reunion of many who had attended Klaus’ compact schooling courses earlier in the year. By the end of that weekend, as the last car drove out, we had made our decision. We had descended into insanity by all rational standards.

The Challenge

1 February 2011

If Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling is to be believed, the key to dancing with horses lies in establishing dominance and trust. Most, if not all of us, assume that trust is essential. The concept of dominance, however, raises concerns amongst many people who are seeking more humane relationships with their horses, presumably because of the negative connotations of the dominant behaviour which defines interaction with horses in conventional equestrian pursuits. The challenge lies in achieving dominance without resorting to dominant behaviour.

Perhaps the difficulty is more one of interpretation. Let me illustrate this with a reference to me working with Anaïs in what Klaus calls the magic circle, which refers to the space between the boundaries of a picadero (a small training square of between twelve and fifteen metres in length) and the perimeter of the larger manège in which it is hosted. The object is for the human to move the horse in front of them from about three to four metres behind using the most minimal body language to achieve this. Klaus explains the principle as follows:

The principle of the Magic Circle consists of moving the horse in front of you, and therefore automatically taking on the position of a high-ranking stallion. If they are done correctly and in a grounded way, these exercises make an enormous impression on the horse, so that you will be able to find your deserved position in the hierarchy without any further problems, or at least a lot more easily (The Horse Seeks Me, p. 271).

In itself the exercise appears to be rather mundane. Let us put it into perspective. As people who used to fly around the world to attend the World Equestrian Games and the equestrian component of the Olympic Games, we have witnessed world champions and their trainers showing themselves to be incapable of leading their own horses, let alone doing so on a loose lead or being able to do what I am trying to do in the magic circle.

Using Klaus’ categorisation of horses (see What Horses Reveal), Anaïs is a combination of King and to a lesser extent Child. As such, she is a dominant mare that responds to dominant behaviour in kind, but exponentially amplified. The challenge lies in dominating her without resorting to dominant behaviour. Coupled with trust and a gentle but resolute presence, the more grounded and calmer I am, the more dominance I can achieve with her. In this sense dominance could be interpreted as leadership, a concept which many find less challenging.

We have decided to take Anaïs along with us to Denmark for our one-year course with Klaus, leaving our geldings (Gulliver and Farinelli) in good care here in Australia.

How Much Dog is in a Horse?

9 February 2011

Since the beginning of the year but particularly in the past month much of our time and energy has been devoted to the vexing question as to what to do with our animals as we prepare for a lengthy sojourn in Europe. We had already decided to have our mare join Vicki for the year-long course with Klaus. So what would we do with our little, old dog and our two elderly thoroughbred geldings? While exploring the various options for travel and staying put, the responses we received from the organisations and people we have spoken to have led me to ponder the question of just how much dog is in a horse?

Our dog

The dog is a sixteen-year old Bichon Frise who is doing remarkably well for his age thanks to a diet of raw meat, vegetables and fruit, a rural lifestyle and large doses of love and affection. And yes, he only has one eye, the other lost to a stick at play while a puppy. Initially, we were thankful that Klaus had  postponed the course for three months, so giving us more time with Dubu. Now we realise that Dubu is unlikely to leave this earth immediately after this reprieve and that, if he is to travel, it will be easier for him to do so when he is younger. Three months can matter greatly at this age.

Accordingly, we have decided to leave for Europe at the beginning of May as originally planned. Our plan is to take Dubu as excess baggage and to have a one or two-day break in a pet-friendly hotel en route. The only vaccinations we are prepared to accept are what is absolutely necessary to get him into the European Union. We explored the usual Asian routes used by the pet carriers but found no satisfactory solution. Japan seemed the best option despite the bureaucratic entry and exit requirements but finding a pet-friendly hotel which did not insist on the entire gamut of vaccinations has proved to be impossible. Thankfully, a solution was forthcoming when we shifted our focus to a route via the USA.

Caring for a horse like a dog?

Almost everyone we spoke to felt that our concerns were quite normal, if perhaps tending towards the excessive. You could almost sense the resignation: this is what we Westerners do with dogs.

You can see it too in the way many little puppies (almost all stereotypically white) are pampered and spoilt by their concerned and frequently wealthy owners. Put a horse in the hands of the same person however, and suddenly you are faced with a different breed of human, who will think nothing of treating it as little more than a beast of burden to be trotted and cantered for an hour without any meaningful breaks, to be pushed and pulled from one social equestrian event to another, and to be sculpted into the ideal shape with the aid of bit, double-bridle, whip and spurs. The horse is made to serve as an accessory to its owner’s ego using any means at the latter’s disposal, something which that person would probably consider to be too ghastly to contemplate in the case of a dog.

While this is obviously an extreme example (albeit all too common), our concerns about our horses have also been greeted with a resonating sense of disbelief and laboured tolerance. Your mare is about to be separated from her little herd and torn from her closest friend, and you would like to be there for her while she is quarantine, would you? Cringe, how dare we accord our horse the same level of concern as our dog?

Lessons to be learned

So how much dog is in a horse? Put another way, should humans not be as caring about horses as they are about dogs? Put in yet another way, can humans expect to dance with horses without being as caring? What is required of us humans to learn to dance with horses? And finally, if we learn to dance with horses, how will we be changed by the time we come to do so? These are questions we hope to find answers to during our year on the island of Lyø.

Still Singing in Our Chains

2 May 2011

There is nothing that focuses the mind so matter-of-factly, albeit appreciatively, on a treasured, intimate relationship as the celebration of the anniversary of its perceived materialisation, especially where the anniversary marks a milestone usually measured in multiples of fives or tens. In this case the milestone is fifteen. On the fifteenth day of February it was fifteen years to the day when Vicki and I took our vows to each other before a small group of friends and family on the banks of a stream in a forest clearing in New Zealand. Crafted in our own words, they were vows restating a commitment to each other which has its origin in an evening thirteen years earlier when we shared a poem that has come to have special significance in our lives. The poet is Dylan Thomas, the poem is Fern Hill and it ends like this:

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

This evocation of youth contrasts its simplicity and joy with the confines imposed by and inherent in the human condition as evinced in the strictures of time. Put another way, the ease and song of youth diminish with age. This I once thought was inevitable. Now I know that it is not but only if you consciously choose to resurrect the immediacy of youth as the years advance. The challenge lies in learning to abandon the illusion of security.

Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Our decision to step out of time and spend a year living in the immediacy of the moment is effectively transforming our lives well before Klaus’ Island-Mountain Education course starts. We find ourselves called on to evaluate much that is dear to us. Will our relationship withstand the stresses of a 12-month incubation in close proximity with ten other people of varying ages? When the course finishes at the end of August 2012, will we want to return to Australia or go elsewhere? Together or alone? Do we take our horses? Anaïs definitely, but what about Gulliver and Farinelli? Gulliver is besotted with Anaïs. How much will we hurt him if we separate them? If we leave the geldings behind, it will be close to eighteen months before we see them again. Do we really want this? What about our puppy? Dubu is sixteen years old. Do we use the three-month postponement of the course to enjoy his company a little longer here in Australia and hope his life will come to a natural end before we leave, or do we assume that he will still be alive then and that it is better to travel to Europe with him sooner rather than later, because he will be more likely to withstand the trip? What if he dies en route? What do we do with all our belongings from personal effects to farm machinery? How much do we sell off and what is worth putting into storage?

Like nagging fears the questions keep restating themselves. Some we cannot answer, do not want to answer, so we put them aside. Others almost overwhelm us, those concerning the animals in particular.

What to do with the animals?

Dubu’s travel plans are a case in point. When to leave was the first major question. How was the next. We have decided to take Dubu to Europe sooner rather than later to give him a better chance of surviving the journey with a minimum of discomfort. Because of his age, we intend to confine all medical intervention to an absolute minimum while offering him maximum comfort. This means arranging as much as we can ourselves without going through a pet carrier, and scheduling a stopover in a hotel which accepts dogs without insisting on the full spectrum of vaccinations. Following much research and discussion, we are now scheduled to leave Australia for Europe (via the USA) with Dubu in mid-April. Hopefully Anaïs will join us soon after. We intend to stay in the Netherlands until we leave for Denmark towards the end of August.

What to do with the horses has been a more emotive question. Initially, we decided to take Anaïs and leave the geldings behind together. This decision was difficult enough in itself. Splitting our little herd would be difficult for the horses. Not seeing two of the three for such a long period of time would be tough for us. The scenario then switched to taking the mare and Farinelli with us, so that we would both have a horse to work with at Klaus. Leaving Gulliver behind on his own though was almost akin to abandoning him, so we examined the possibility of taking all of the horses to Europe and leaving Gulliver in the Netherlands while we attended the course with the other two horses. Farinelli has a history of back problems, which manifested themselves again, with the result that we abandoned that option and reverted to our original decision. Again the prospect of splitting up the herd and not seeing the geldings for up to one and a half years proved to be very challenging, so we reconsidered the option of taking all three horses. This would also make it easier to get Anaïs over to Europe in time for the course, as it looks as though it is going to be very difficult to slot her in with two of someone else’s horses on the standard three-horse pallet to keep costs down. Unfortunately, taking all three horses over to Europe would also effectively mean closing the door to a return to Australia, because it does not make any sense to take them over only to bring them back again. Closing the door to Australia is an option Vicki does not wish to entertain at this point in time, so we have reverted to our original decision: Anaïs goes and the geldings stay. I have no doubt that Farinelli and Gulliver will be fine but they will be sorely missed.

Life-wrenching

This is by far the most life-wrenching adventure we are embarked on and not merely because of the animals involved. Although similar in some respects to our decision to emigrate from the Netherlands to New Zealand with four cats in 1992, this move is more massive in its implications, not least because no final destination has been defined. Denmark will at most be a transit house. To where is as yet undefined. As we sell off our possessions, we find ourselves questioning their value and the illusion of security and permanence they inspire. Vicki’s twin sister, Agathe, and our New Zealand friends whose dog, Ibo, we cared for en route from the Netherlands to New