"What I was looking for and more!"
- N. Warwick
"...beautiful and important course..."
"This is a beautiful and important course to undo cultural constructs that keep us from being truly connected to ourselves and our horses. Lockie is creating a safe space for people to hear their horses and each other. Thank you Lockie "
- R. Waugaman
Committed to Interrupting the Cycles of Abuse that Often Populate Horse Training Approaches
Creating Patience, Care, Technique, Attention to Detail and Emotional Balance in the Technical Development of Your Horse and Horsemanship.
These days, everyone is on a LEARNING JOURNEY.
If all we do is journey, it is "homelessness", not journeying.
Journeys are super important to learning, development and improvement. But in our haste to improve, our hustle to learn and our eagerness to do better for horses... we seem to have missed an obvious detail.
One of the biggest problems that deeply caring horse people experience these days is confusion. But not regular confusion. It is a deep aimlessness. A wandering through a fog. That horsemanship, and their horse pursuits has become a game of how well we can navigate having no idea who we are, or what we are doing.
It time to stop that.
For a journey to be a journey we have to have a home.
A home for our horsemanship.
For many of us, the concept of home is synonymous with
1. Stagnation
2. Abuse
3. Restriction of Freedom
But that is a toxic concept of home. That has nothing to do with a true sense of comfort and belonging, or the quality of learning and development that can only occur in secure and confident places of home and belonging.
Having a home for your horsemanship means that YOUR LEARNING JOURNEYS MAKE SENSE and always return to centre.
No matter how far you stray, who you learn from, or what you try, that you have a core sense of stability that helps you always come home.
Come home to your body.
Come home to your horse.
Come home to your horsemanship.
Knowing WHO you ARE
What is important to you
And what you DO with your horse when you're not journeying, but feeling into the profound freedom and peace that comes from feeling fundamental belonging with your horse.
From September to December 2023, HOMECOMING 1.0 ran with over 80 deeply caring horse people from all around the world.
In this program we explored GROUP and PRIVATE tuition. As well as theory, practical techniques. All of which explore intermediate Emotional Horsemanship techniques as a stand alone horse training approach for you to work solely with, OR add to your current toolbox... it works both ways.
The Word "Method" has a Bad Reputation
Too Often, Methods are Made for the Human, Not the Horse.
Emotional Horsemanship is a Method that Adapts to the Horse First, Not the Other Way Around!
Homecoming is a structured, step by step program focusing on fundamentals through to intermediate, we start with first contact and end at the mounting block.
Including:
EMOTIONAL NEUROSCIENCE DEEP DIVES:
Modules focused on 7 Primary Emotional Systems and the Science that underpins these emotions that your horse might experience, including their neurological and neuroendocrine profiles, evolution, and past and present biological applications.
GROUNDWORK TECHNIQUES THAT CAN CORRELATE TO EACH EMOTIONAL SYSTEM:
Though it is scientifically unfounded that a single technique will always trigger the same emotion in all horses, we do explore general trends, and offer training techniques that very frequently correlate to each emotion, and/or gives you a meaningful feel-based starting point to begin developing that emotional connection with your horse in specifics.
TRAINING PLAN DESIGN
Confused on how to put techniques together over-time into a training plan that actually develops you and your horse? Homecoming 1.0 offers you a detailed tutorial on how to assess your horse and your unique situation, so that you can craft an on-going horsemanship routine that is appropriate for you, and builds your horse up properly.
PROCESS OVER RESULTS
If you focus on results, your results will be haphazard by luck alone. If you focus on a quality process with your techniques, you are guaranteed success. Homecoming 1.0 shows you a training process that adapts to each unique horse and horse person, that you can use when implementing techniques. It is the secret sauce that binds everything together seamlessly!
RECORDINGS OF LIVE LESSONS WITH REAL STUDENTS
In conjunction with practical demonstrations with the EH horses, many recordings of lessons with EH students are included, with their consent. This enables you to vastly enhance your grasp of the techniques taught, and inspire you as you watch folks just like you, have a go, and develop their abilities with horses in real time.
GROUP Q&A AND COACHING SESSIONS
Two is company, three is a crowd. During the live cohort we had a minimum 25 people attending live Coaching sessions weekly and as many as 60. This was an important aspect of Homecoming 1.0, because everyone will learn from the questions that are asked and the discussions that are generated. Community learning is no longer the future, it is right here right now. You are not alone!
Replacing Escalations with De-Escalations.
Replacing Drilling with Appropriate Repetition.
Replacing Punishment with Proper Technical Process.
Replacing Emotional Neutrality with Feel and Affection.
Replacing Excessive Behaviour-Augmentation with Consensual Development.
Inspired by Horses, Always Inspired By Horses.
Working in Curated Community.
Horses have been trained and handled by human beings for at least 5,500 years. Up until the early 20th century, horses were a fact of life, and an aspect of almost all industries. We needed horses to do things for us or the human world stopped spinning.
Horses helped us build our civilisations.
Now? They help us build our civility.
It is time that horsemanship reflected the respect, kindness, patience, civility and grace that horses have shown human beings for 5,500 years or more.
Many of the practices inside training methods today were designed for a different time, a different world. Pockets of those cultures of course still exist, and some communities are faster to adopt change than others. But the point is, we have options.
Violence, force, heavy use of pressure, war-based training, manipulations, excessive use of 1950's behaviourism, obsession with mechanics, these are all hang-ups from an era that is now long gone.
What horse people are to do now, is review traditional practices with the care and gratitude of a historian preserving a found relic, but at the same time, editing out of these practices elements that are no longer part of the world horses inhabit today. Removing from ancient artefacts of horsemanship the parts that don't align with horse people of today.
Most horses, actually, DON'T have to comply... right now.
Most horses, actually, RESENT being forced by discomfort, pain or fear, to give us what we want.
Most horses, actually, are EXCEPTIONALLY willing and patient, to understand our requests of them.
It is time that training reflected all of this, and much more.
Homecoming 1.0 presents our offering for today's horse person, who is ready to be a part of today's horse society.