SAIIER 2016:Evergreen Horses
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Introduction
Entity::Evergreen Horses is the first Natural Horsemanship school in the country that offers activities both in horse and human development. The school has started actively using materials based on the Parelli program for 2 years and the main focus has been on human development, creating a safe and fun environment where the kids can express themselves as well as learn about themselves on the physical, mental and emotional levels.
Description of project
Our one-year Natural Horsemanship program is aimed at Auroville children for them to rediscover the best way to be around horses. This past year, we wanted to build on the success of the previous years and dive deeper into the technical aspects of Natural Horsemanship. Our main focus was on helping the young adults identify and process certain feelings and emotions that usually can be discovered while playing with horses. In other words, we provided an environment in which our students could discover various skills and an inner power that they were not confident to use or express elsewhere in our very critical human world. To complement this work, we offered classes playing with horses on the ground (with or without a line) as well as riding (bareback or with a saddle), thereby delving deeper into how to use our body language.
In the course of the year, we scheduled weekly classes from July to April. As learned in the previous year, we kept the same class structure offering two types of sessions: In the first type of session, we had practical exercises which followed the Parelli method Level 1 and 2. In these sessions, children learned about ground safety first and how to get the horse mentally and emotionally ready to learn and work together with the human. The exercises were based on the Parelli 7 Games which are games that horses play among themselves in nature. Subsequently, we used these games for a purpose (working with tasks, obstacles, gymkhanas, etc) in order to develop the children's coordination, body language, awareness of their energy and state of mind and finally develop their organisational skills, team work and ultimately leadership.
The second type of sessions was based on the theory. This year, we were lucky to have the entire educational material created by Parelli in our library. We had hours of DVD's showing, explaining and demonstrating step by step various parts of the program, making the learning process easier as the children could actually see it in action. We also learned the different values that the horse and human have and other topics related to socio-educational, natural, biological, ethological and psychological aspects.
Outcomes
We discovered that the children understood that there is so much more to do with a horse than just ride! That communication is when two or more individuals understand and share the same ideas, and as humans we have to develop the skill-set to help horses become calmer, braver, more connected and ultimately willing participants in a partnership. In the process, the horses acted as a mirror and the children started to discover themselves both physically and emotionally, understanding how to deal with fear, frustration and anger and how to use their talent and qualities more successfully.
We have put a lot of energy into understanding how to troubleshoot problems and to give students the necessary strategies to be successful with horses by themselves without needing constant guidance. We find that promoting this kind of independence will also help them grow into adulthood, be more responsible and aware.
Reflections
We think that the most important part of this year was to really understand the direction of the whole project. Gathering a lot a feedback from our students and reflecting on how to better our activities, we came to the conclusion that we will need to give more topic-specific classes, that watching DVD material is good but unfortunately does not promote discussion within a group. In that respect, we would like to have mixed sessions between watching, discussing and sharing our experiences on different topics. Furthermore, following the good response on what we offered this year, we would like to offer topic-specific courses during the year in the hope of creating different study groups in other equestrian centres across the country.
Moreover, we would like to work predominantly with children, helping them with their leadership skills and offering activities adapted to their constant development, both for children already involved as well as an “open day” for children that are not already part of the school. We would also like to have more surrounding schools organise field-trips at the Evergreen Horses school where we can share our aims and ideals and where kids can have a different experience which they might not encounter in their busy city schedule.
Conclusion
This year, we had a lot of positive feedback, not only from our students but from different working groups in Auroville as well, including people from all over India that wrote us and participated to our activities. As pioneers in this field in India, we collected a lot of data and feedback on how to plan our schedule for next year, where more energy is needed, in which fields we may have started too soon and which parts of the curriculum need to be revised. We would like to conclude that the Evergreen Horses project is a valuable tool for the Auroville community and India as a whole, particularly when offering a learning opportunity in Natural Horsemanship to be applied in the mainstream equestrian world and as well to provide a safe environment to help younger people find their own life path in this horse-facilitated journey.
