Dressage, Naturally with Karen Rohlf

Creating healthy biomechanics and stronger partnerships through combining natural horsemanship principles with the art of dressage...

photo: Terri Miller

never underestimate the potential for harmony & lightness to improve in ways you cannot yet imagine

This Month:• A quick newsletter from the

road!

• Clinics in Holland and Poland

Upcoming Clinics: Clinic schedule: CLICK HERE

July 29-31 Upward Spiral of SuccessWiltshire, United KingdomContact: Lyla Cansfield +44 (0) 798 930 497 info@playlikeahorse.com

August 3-7 Upward SpiralAvenches, SwitzerlandContact:carmen.zulauf@pnhforyou.com

J U N E 2 0 0 9

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Welcome back to the Temenos...Temenos is an ancient Greek word. It refers to a sacred space that has no lim-its, where special rules apply and extra-ordinary events are free to occur.

This will be a short newsletter!! I am traveling, but wanted to get

something out to you!Happy Summertime!

~Karen

Photo Above: Dana Rasmussen

Auditors welcome at all events!

Home of:

I am writing this from Europe where I just finished up clinics at Parelli Instructor, Eddy Modde’s Horseman’s retreat in Oostburg, NL (3 days of ‘Finding the Sweet Spot’ and 3 days of The Upward Spiral of Success) and Poland, hostessed by Beata Filonowicz, (4 days of The Up-ward Spiral of Success).

We were lucky to have Eddy’s wonderful indoor as sometimes the weather ex-plored its possibilities of clouds and rain before finding its sweet spot of sunny and beautiful!

I was so excited to meet new students and also see the progress of returning students. Participants came from Nether-lands, Belgium and Germany.

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Netherlands: Finding The Sweet Spot

Netherlands: Upward Spiral of Success

And I now have a new clinic-hosting requirement: there must be kittens for me to play with! Eddy and Marieke Modde had 2 little kittens and 1 big kitten that were highly entertaining and really helped me relax after a day of teaching... it was better than anything on TV, for sure!I left several of my book/DVD sets in the Netherlands, so if you are near there and would like to purchase my book and save on shipping and import fees, please contact Marieke at info@parelli.nl

Read on to hear about Poland...

The Netherlands:

Clinics in The Netherlands

and Poland!

Yes, life is tough... The cubicle that I work in is so ugly and has no air-circulation... I am surrounded by nothing but brick and artificial lighting.... WAIT. Just kidding... I have the best office in the world and some of those days during my clinic in Poland really reminded me of this. A beautiful freshly mowed meadow, sur-rounded by poppies (my favorite flower, by the way) and beautiful horses and

wonderful students and big puffy clouds and perfect temperatures...

Beata Filonowicz (pictured with me, be-low) organized and translated for the clinic...no small feat. It was a lot of fun and so nice to see the progress. It takes a lot of concentration to work through the language difference, but student’s posi-tive attitudes and strong desire for the information made it possible. We had two

students drive from Germany to partici-pate.

It is always an interesting lesson for me to see how I can say what I want to say in the fewest and clearest words... I am not sure I used the fewest words, but Beata helped me to be understood. She also organizes a club in Poland, you can visit their website at: www.parelli-info.waw.pl

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Poland

Photos Courtesy of: Pawel Siwek - www.fotosiwek.com

NEWSFilmingI am in the middle of editing a new DVD for the Results in Harmony Series!

This one is on developing trot lengthen-ings, and once again, Ovation helps us out by being so generous as to allow us to film him in his process. You will learn about the ingredients I prepare in order to develop lengthenings, and watch a com-plete riding session with Ovation. I am doing my best to film him as much as possible as he is in this exciting stage of just learning many of the basic elements of dressage... a stage that many of my students are in. I am so excited about his mental, emotional and physical progress! So stay tuned!

Article by KarenThere is an article I wrote featured in this season’s issue of The Horse’s Hoof on-line magazine. Issue #35 (www.thehorseshoof.com).

Please check out this great resource; They give a lot of information on all things barefoot. I was honored to be asked to contribute to it. The article describes my ‘Journey to Barefoot’.

Here is a note from the editor, Yvonne:

Hi Karen,

I thought maybe you could let eve-ryone know: I have posted a free copy of THH PDF issue #30 - free for everyone to download and take a look at what the magazine is like. We also have a subscription sale for June - All the info is right at the top of our site, can't miss it: www.thehorseshoof.com

Thanks,Yvonne

FeedbackDear Karen, I viewed the second DVD in the series and just loved, loved, loved it! It was so clear to me that Barney (my RB extrovert) was so ready for these mobility exercises. I had already been working with him on the ground with yielding his shoulders and hind quarters by touch. I also had been experimenting with turns on the fore-hand and haunches under saddle but with no real direction or purpose. Your exercises were just what we needed to play and experiment with the building blocks. I tried them today after viewing the DVD and Barney responded beautifully. You could tell he just felt so smart! We started on the ground and he responded posi-tively on the first try (I told you he was so ready). Under saddle, he just got better and better and more confident in the exercises. He felt like a feather. Now I can’t wait to view #3 and #4. Thank you so much for putting out an outstanding training tool for us who want to pursue dressage but remain true to the Parelli principles. I hope to participate in one of your clinics at Temenos Fields, space per-mitting. Thanks again for all you do, Tina

Team KarenI met Karen Jones at a Karen Rohlf clinic in April, 2008.  I had attended a clinic with K1 [Karen Rohlf] in Baker, FL and she invited me to participate in a week long clinic/seminar at her farm near Ocala. Karen was one of 7 other participants, Parelli aficionados who were interested in learning “Dressage Naturally” and I was a dressage stu-

dent interested in learning “Dressage Naturally.”  While I watched in amazement 7 ladies and their horses, in halters and rope reins(most of the reins were long or loose), some in western saddles produced some of the most relaxed and soft lateral work I have ever seen.  I, on the other hand spent the week on my warmblood dressage horse learning about foun-dational yields, horsanality strategies for relaxation and the power of natural horsemanship. I did manage to win the award for “most improved,” as my very high strung, right brained mare began to relax and give me glimpses of the talented horse I knew was in there. I returned to K1’s for more les-sons but I knew that my foundation really needed work and when I found out the Karen Jones(K2) came to the area where I lived I jumped on the opportunity and persuaded her to come to Bay County for a day of her schedule.  She hit the ground running and found the cracks in each stu-dent’s foundation in a very short time. She has an amazingly huge quiver of arrows and gave each student several tasks, tool handling techniques and exercises for their horse.  She reads the horse and his needs instantly and is an exceptional communicator to horse and rider. She has been back 3 times and we have had to add days each time as more and more students of riding learn the value of becoming a student of the horse, with Karen as our coach.  My mare is the poster child of before and after results of consistent play with careful coaching and I am soo thankful for Karen’s insight and experience. I spend as much time as I can watching her coach when my les-sons are done and have learned as much and more from observing how she interacts with each horse/rider combination.We never want her to leave and count the days between her visits. I can’t wait for the next one!Sandy Filippi

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Nullam arcu leo, facilisis ut 5

...Just some thoughts

I am writing this while sitting in an outdoor cafe in the beautiful central square of Krakow. I just returned from a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and as you can imagine, it has given me much to think and feel about. I need to get this newsletter out tonight, but what can I write after that? So please allow me to share some things that are swimming in my mind. In the room I stayed in in Holland, Marieke and Eddy have a poster that says something like: Success is not where you are standing, but in which direction you look. I will take that further and say it is even more about in which direction you are headed. From studying Toltec philosophies (a pre-mayan civilization of scientists and artists who gathered to find the key to happiness) there is the practice of being impeccable with your word, to not speak against anyone, including yourself. Another exercise I have practiced in life to help me make decisions, is to project forward, and ask myself: If I follow the natural progression of what I am doing and thinking to its absolute conclusion... where would I be? If nothing else, Auschwitz is a reminder of what can hap-pen if enough power and momentum get behind a simple, flawed thought or attitude. Any thoughts in the direction of one having more rights than another are dangerous. I guess it just made me think about how we, who put ourselves in positions of control over other living creatures, must be especially careful of our thoughts and words. Of course I realize this is an extreme example to use as an analogy for how we care for animals... But I thought of the frustrated, angry rider hitting his horse, a child calling her pony stupid. I thought of the people who don’t think horses feel. How seemingly insignificant actions, although maybe not extreme, are still a step onto the tracks of a destination we don’t want to go to. I suppose the experience just renewed my feelings of how important it is to honor these creatures who follow us, and how much this teaches humans about partnership in general, to be able to see from another’s perspective and... who knows... maybe the practice of being better partners for our horses really could make the world a better place. We get to practice knowing that even their willingness to comply doesn’t give us the right to demand. There were teenagers in groups, playing on these tracks, laughing, trying to balance on them, one foot in front of the other, calling each other ‘stupid’. On the one hand, how nice that perhaps they cannot fully take in the reality of where they were... but how dangerous also. ~Karen

(The unloading platform at Auschwitz-Birkenhau... looking towards the place where it was decided who goes imme-diately to their death.)

above photo: dana rasmussen

Instructional Book / DVDs

BOOK:

Dressage Naturally... Results in Harmony: A Guide to the Basics of Dressage from a Natural Horsemanship Perspective.

A result of Karen Rohlf's combined experience as a dressage professional and her immersion in natural horsemanship, this book/DVD bridges the gap between these two worlds. The material will take every horseman on a practical and philosophical journey to create healthy biomechanics and stronger partnerships through combining principles of natu-ral horsemanship with the art of dressage.

Spiral Bound / Hard cover

184 pages

59 Exercises

Forewords by Anne Gribbons and Linda Parelli

53 Illustrations by the author

Almost 3 hours of DVD

DVDs:

Results in Harmony Series 4 DVDs so far! Subjects include: Riding in Connec-tion with the reins, Developing Mobility. & Playing with Posture I & II.

Reins

DN Reins: The best of both worlds!

These reins have the elegant look and quiet connection to the bit of a leather dressage rein, but the 'live feel' of a rope. They are hand made from qual-ity yachting line and leather.Available in 10 and 12 foot lengths

T-Shirts & Riding Pants

Organic Cotton T Shirts Available in Women’s style in Chocolate and Black

Unisex style in Black

Sonnenreiter Riding PantsON SALE! A limited number are left... Buy now before we stop carrying them!

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Visit the Web shop www.dressagenaturally.net