REIN Rescue Two Step Way Clinic Write Up - An Exciting Day of Learning How To Help Horses To Connect and Regulate

Lady, a once wild mustang and I teach people during the REIN Two Step Way Clinic how we sync up and prepare to walk together.

On June 6th, I taught a one-day clinic at REIN Rescue in Rutherfordton, NC. REIN Rescue specializes in taking in young feral and wild horses that would otherwise likely be shipped to Mexico for slaughter (pre-the New World Screwworm outbreak shipping ban). REIN staff takes their time gentling and lightly starting these young horses so that they can find forever homes. It is an excellent, kind and beautiful place for these horses to start their lives in a human world, and it shows in their lovely, well-regulated eyes.

I spend time there most weeks helping these mustangs and feral horses learn to trust, connect and adjust to humans. I teach them to trust me, but mostly they teach me more and more about their world. They teach me how they see the world, how they are always doing exactly what they feel they need to do to keep themselves safe. How they stay in a wide-awareness focus at all times, one that relies on all their senses.

They reinforce my understanding of how important it is for us to meet them in this space of broad open awareness, a space without judgment, story, or language, the experiential, visceral, and somatic space of the present moment. They have refined my ability to see them fully and to help them feel safe by appropriately responding to their facial expressions, body language, gestures, displacement behaviors and calming signals. They have increased my ability to feel their nervous systems and manipulate my energy so they synchronize and harmonize with me. They have refined my ability to work off their will. They have strengthened my understanding of the mega importance of pauses, stillness and patience.

Feral and wild horse knowledge is good for humans to know and has ramifications for our lives far beyond our abilities to just get better at working with horses. That was why it was so nice to design and give a clinic using the REIN horses as teaching partners.

We had a crowd of 15 people taking the clinic. We worked on understanding the state of presence and how to enter and stay in it. We worked on developing broad awareness and on understanding and responding to what the horse was showing us, which I refer to as "seeing the being". We did exercises with both human partners and horses to synchronize and harmonize our energy so we could move together. We did exercises with the horses to show them we understood their concerns and could help them downregulate. We worked with connection at liberty and learned how to wait, invite and walk together.

It was a great day, and because of the wonderful sensitivity of the REIN horses and the attention and diligence of the participants, I was able to impart so much knowledge that these horses have shared with me over the years I have worked with the horses at REIN Rescue.

If you would be interested in coming to one of my clinics or retreats, or would like to have a clinic taught by me at your farm, please contact me.

Justin a once wild mustang displays signs of coming down into the parasympathetic part of his nervous system while I explain signs of horses relaxing.

Members of the REIN Rescue Two Step Way Clinic practice walking in pairs without speaking or using hand signals. They are learning to find a way to synchronize their energy through awareness of one another.

I teach one of the participants how to not engage a momentarily, mouthy mustang named Mac by neutralizing her energy and just recognizing his slightly anxious state. This will help to calm and ground him.

Clinic preperations