The Environment that Caused my Journey ....

So I was looking through my youtube videos to put a knew one up for you all to see, and I came across what I like to call the video that started it all for me :)

Photo by John Sinclair

These two videos, both about 10 minutes in length are of all of the girls at the barn I grew up riding at. The girls and I made the switch to natural horsemanship in about 2002, and we all threw ourselves headlong into the study of Parelli. We rode together 4-5 times a week, rain, hail or shine, and constantly just tried to get our good better and our better best! As most of you know I grew up on a small island in the puget sound in the FARTHEST northwest corner of Washington State, about two hours drive, and an HOUR AND A HALF ferry ride north of Seattle... so as you can imagine, no Parelli clinicians to be found. As such we learned purely off of the booklets, and the DVD's, purchasing them together as a barn.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv2zSMXPR8E&list=TLTgBI4RZc37w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG_zd8PVH6k&list=TLTgBI4RZc37w

In the summer of 2007, the girls and I were all riding and playing with our horses religously every morning, from 7:30-10:30AM to beat the heat... and before we all went off to summer jobs. We decided it would be a great opportunity to put together a little demonstration for friends and family... especially since none of us were competing like many young girls do betweent he ages of 8-20. We filmed this demo, it was about an hour and I pieced together 15 minutes of video  from it and stuck it onto youtube. Then,I had the impulse one afternoon in early september to send the link along to the parelli email... and three months later I got an email back from Linda herself! She invited the girls and I to perform at the Redmond, OR tourstop in 2008, AND Parelli paid all our expenses. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxvufH_5be4

At the tour stop Pat invited me to come to Colorado and work for him for the summer ... and so my journey to become an instructor TRULY began :)

I am SO grateful every day for the environment that my journey flourished in. All of the girls were constantly challenging me on theory, technique, imagination, attitude, knowledge, EVERYTHING.

 I owe so much of my own ability to their pushing and inspiration... and all of them are still an inspiration to me to this day! 

Their own hrosemanship journeys are finding new direction and twists and turns but in EVERY step they remain true to their principles and that is astounding :) 

On occasion they will refer to me as their teacher, a title that I equally see as false, and deeply honoring ... because I have learned more from them than they ever did from me :)

Hope you enjoy the videos!