Thoughts on Teaching

Since being back out in the field a lot of people have been asking me what I chose to leave Linda's and not return to Florida this Fall. Their are obviously a lot of reasons, but the one that resonates the most for me is that I simply LOVE teaching! And I wanted to do more of it, the more knowledge that I gained from Linda, the more passionate I was to get out there and start teaching it!

Teaching has always been one of my passions, in fact it is really what got me my first opportunity to apprentice with Pat back in 2008. For those of you who don't know, my Parelli journey started on San Juan Island in Washington State at a beautiful barn called Plumb Pond. A whole group of girls and I ages ranging from about 4-25 began practicing Parelli diligently... and in that sort of environment, the progress was pretty phenomenal. With all of us helping each other and progressing, a video we made soon got Linda's attention and we were asked to perform at the Redmond, OR tour stop in 2008, after that Pat asked if I wanted to come spend some time working for him.

Because of this, I think I take the growth, satisfaction, struggles, and successes of my students incredibly personally... haha, as do most Parelli Professionals. I want people to grow and succeed as human beings as well as horseman through this incredible program.

I love watching people... trying to almost tune out their horses... until I see something that I would do differently, or I have seen Pat or Linda do differently. Then 9 times out of 10, I can check the horses response, and see some sort of brace that is telling me, "YUP, that's making me uncomfortable " In this way, I really feel like I am simply the vehicle for helping people truly see and understand Principle #7 "Horses teach humans, and humans teach horses." Helping people to see and analyze their own body language, and begin to see the way in which it effects their horses.

It is always so amazing to me to see how the Parelli program truly gives people what they need, not necessarily what they want :) This is something that I personally still struggle with, but am constantly pushing myself to believe in the process, and it hasn't steered me wrong yet! I constantly think of so many principles, tag lines, concepts, and theories that PNH has taught me about horses, and see where I can apply them as an instructor, and I just LOVE IT!

I struggle to provide people with 80% consistency, and 20% variety, just like we aim to with our horses, I continue to try to isolate the problem, separate it out, and then show people how to recombine the steps to create the original picture. Trust me! Everything connects :)!

Anyway... that is just a tad about my journey as an instructor in Parelli.