Rant

I stumbled upon this last night and have been thinking a lot about it. 

I have been doing Parelli for over three years now. I realized long ago that 'haters gonna hate' and I come to terms about it. I can't just tell everyone that parelli is the answer, they have to find out for themselves and all I can do is show them with my actions and keep my words to myself. 

BUT, that comic really bothered me. For one, could it be any more insulting? I know a lot of people think Parelli students just wave around their sticks, but serious? All we do is shake our sticks at horses? And along the lines of insulting, the human just had to be a cowboy, right? 

I am also annoyed that I get the feeling from the quote that "warmbloods are too good for parelli". Parelli is only good for the cowboys; quarter horses, right? ALL horses could use parelli. I don't care if it is some fancy, dancy show horse, a backyard pony, or a working plow horse. Parelli is what's natural and therefore what is best for the horse. 

Another thing that bothers me is the author's note:

I'm not against 'Natural Horsemanship' per se.... but I am baffled by how expensive it is. Does anyone else find it ironic that 'Natural Horsemanship' requires very unnatural training aids? Just a thought. 

"I am not against natural horsemanship, but I am going to straight up insult anyone who does it". And unnatural training aids? Our rope halter's and our extension of our arm's are SO unnatural, but metal bits and flash nosebands to tie your horse's mouth shut are completely natural.

My BIGGEST problem with this comic is the lack of knowledge behind it. If you are going to insult a large group of people, at least know your facts. I have shown dressage for over 10 years and done Parelli for over 3, so I have a pretty good handle on both. If you aren't familiar with dressage, let me give you a little bit of history.

As wikipedia explains it:

The Western World's earliest complete surviving work on many of the principles of classical dressage is Xenophon'sOn Horsemanship. Xenophon emphasized training the horse through kindness and reward.

Interesting. Training the horse through kindess and reward. That has doesn't have ANYTHING to do with Parelli, does it?

If you look further into Xenophon, you can easily find this:

What makes Xenophon’s work so remarkable is his concern for the horse’s well-being. He is the first author who insists that the rider has to win his horse’s friendship and willing cooperation, because otherwise the training will have very little value, aesthetic or otherwise. He wrote: “For what the horse does under compulsion, as Simon also observes, is done without understanding; and there is no beauty in it either, any more than if one should whip and spur a dancer. There would be a great deal more ungracefulness than beauty in either a horse or a man that was so treated. No, he should show off all his finest and most brilliant performances willingly and at a mere sign.” This principle remains as relevant today as it was 2500 years ago.

Source: http://www.artisticdressage.com/articles/history1.html

"He...insists that the rider has to win the horse's friendship and willing cooperation". Okay seriously, did this Xenophon guy quote Pat Parelli or what?

Obviously the ignorant author of this comic had no idea what a) dressage is truly about and b) what the principles of parelli are (putting the relationship first). I am so frustrated that dressage and parelli go so closely hand in hand, and yet there are still people out there who think their fancy warmbloods are too good for old cowboy stuff. Maybe they should ask the O'Connor's, but they weren't in the olympics or anything....

My point: If you are going to insult someone, at least have some sort of idea what you are talking about. Know your facts. And more importantly: I don't care if you like Parelli or not. I might feel sorry for your horse, but I could care less if you don't like what works so well for me. But don't insult me for my beliefs. Don't bash me for treating my horse in the way he deserves to be treated. 

There. I said it. Now I can go back to keeping my thoughts to myself.

Exactly.