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21d (edited) • 💚 Groundwork to Liberty
💚 What liberty really is (and what it isn’t)...
Hey friends,
Did you know that Liberty is often misunderstood!?
Liberty isn’t about avoiding the rope.
And it’s not about working, playing and training free while skipping the foundations that real life actually requires.
At Get Good With Horses, we want both.
The rope is not a failure.
Going back to it is not a step backwards.
The rope is a tool for guidance rather than leaving them lost.
Here’s how I see it:
- Rope work = teaching AND testing - It gives the horse information, guidance, and support. It helps them understand the question.
- Liberty = testing first - It shows us what the horse has truly understood without physical connection.
When you get good - really good - you can begin to teach at liberty, without accidentally teaching the wrong things. But that only works once the foundations are solid.
Skipping the rope and working only in freedom often isn’t helpful for horses in real life.
Real life includes:
- handling
- care
- environmental safety
- care professional help
- other peoples help
Basically, Liberty without foundational preparation can create confusion, not confidence.
It is better for them to accept and soften into a halter and lead-rope rather than fight it.
If we work on line to the point of not needing to use the rope, we arre already working at Liberty.
This is what my 100 exercises - Groundwork to Liberty Communications teaches you.
👉 And here’s something important to remember: A horse usually only needs 1–3 repetitions to learn something. Sometimes just one, if they make a clear decision about it.
Humans? We often need around 21 😅
So if something isn’t working at liberty, it’s not a problem, it’s information.
Go back to teaching. Clarify. Then test again.
And…remember we learn slower than horses.
Therefore we forgive.
Exercises like Zero On Expectations is a bonding tool of which the horse is at Liberty, but you have no expectations, so you are not teaching anything other than showing your horse you care and that the predator in you is sleeping. You step into their world as a prey animal and connect through presense and heart connection.
One final note is that we must be careful of what we see on social media and think is cool but actually is not a great representation of reality. We must do what is best for them, therefore our dreams and goals may well take a bit more time. But the result is very worth it.
This is not failing, it’s good horsemanship and tells me the human has a great understanding of the process and how to set the horse up for a life in a man made world.
Let's hear your thoughts in the comments.
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💚 What liberty really is (and what it isn’t)...
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