>>> I came away from the expo with mixed feelings, too. Good points are >>> that none of his horses or students horses are ridden with a bit and >>> there was lots of bridleless riding. His horses and his students horses >>> seemed to be willing, happy workers. He is a round pen , join up kind of >>> trainer.
That's funny, because that wasn't my impression of him at all. Now, mind you, I haven't had RFD-TV in a couple of years - our valued shade trees kept growing over our satellite dish, to the point that we were going to have to cut a big tree to get reliable signal, so we switched to cable. I used to watch him occasionally, and he intrigued me - but it might have been just the subject matter he was covering at the time. During the episodes I watched, I don't remember him using a round-pen at all - maybe he did, but it wasn't THE focus like it seems to be with Monty Roberts. What I DO remember was that he was one of the few natural horsemen type clinicians I'd seen that seemed to have a genuine understanding of dressage, at least enough to explain some things clearly, and how to apply NH to the sport. This was about the time that Linda Parelli was starting to talk about Fluidity, but for a good ten years prior, I'd been working with Shirley as we both delved into NH, trying to figure out ways to apply it to dressage - she is a long-time student of serious dressage, more classical in intent, although she has competed to some pretty serious levels in the past. Up until 5-8 years ago, we were pretty much doing our own thing trying to blend NH and dressage - Shirley doing much of the blending of course, and me trying to keep up as I was learning the basics of both. One Dennis Reis episode I saw that knocked my socks off - and I REALLY wish I had it on video - was where he explained SO clearly the difference between leg yields and shoulder-ins. He demonstrated the difference himself (no horse), by showing the difference in the way his body was bent compared to the way he was looking, and I did the same while I watched him do it. If ever I had any doubts that shoulder-in is indeed much more difficult than leg-yields, going through the motions myself (the best a two-legged creature can) really made the point that books and demos had never truly conveyed to me. I think about that episode often now, since so many Icelander trainers talk about "shoulder-in to get tolt", especially when what I see them doing is RARELY really shoulder-in, and is usually some sort of bastardized leg-yield/shoulder-in/yanking-around being done in very poor form. >>> I think this horse could have been better turned around with clicker >>> training/ Parelli, etc, but that would have taken too long for it to be >>> good theater. Good theater - that's what it boils down to too often isn't it? Of course, I shouldn't lecture on this subject. The other thing I remember about Dennis Reis is that he is certainly one who sure needs a dash of "theater"! That's one reason I was never sure how much I liked him. And I'm pretty serious about this stuff - I can't really imagine how he ever developed the following he has developed. So, maybe he DID use a round pen a lot and maybe I just slept through those parts! Karen Thomas, NC
