Therapeutic Horsemanship developing confidence, communication and emotional intelligence

Yesterday we finished our group programme for students from a FLO programme. For the past 8 weeks every Friday morning we have had a group of students learning with the horses, it has been amazing! So what have we been doing?

We started off with basic safety rules and learning about the importance of being grounded and calm around horses, learning some basic mindfulness techniques. We introduced the horses and the students did lots of observation of the horses and learnt about their characters.

In order to work in the arena with the horses we needed to ensure that the students were aware of their personal space and the horses personal space. This was a really interesting exercise as it can be quite scary when you have a big horse walking towards you and you have to step towards the horse! The students got a lot from this exercise observing each other and identifying who was good at establishing boundaries and who struggled.

Self compassion was introduced in week three, the importance of looking after yourself for overall wellbeing. We explored love and fear, and introduced grooming as a way of looking after the horses, and discussed what students did to show them self self compassion. Next we moved onto confidence and intention setting and discussed venerability, fear of the unknown, and Courage, overcoming fear. We made a route using different objects and walked the horses around the route with ropes and some students tried without ropes.

Week 5 saw us exploring person health and goal setting. We adopted mantras or quotes to incorporate into breathing exercises. We discussed what supports were needed to achieve goals, a student volunteered her goal and this was built in the centre of the arena, students built the support stations and each student took the horse around the stations. The students observed the horse and the student to identify which supports the student was relaxed with and which supports may be a struggle.

The following week we focused on communication, the horses are excellent non verbal communicators and over the weeks the students learnt to watch the horses, body language, in particular their ears, eyes and breathing. The importance of active listening was emphasised and we did an exercise were one student was the brain and 2 students were left and right arm they had to carry out a series of exercises with the horses. These exercise saw the students learning some valuable skills in relation to communication and leadership.

In our final weeks we introduced the body scan and being aware of the sensations in our body that accompany emotions - Introspection. We discussed feelings and behaviours that accompany feelings. In the last session students chose an exercise they would like to do with each horse, some students just wanted to hang out while others worked at liberty (no ropes listening to the students voice and body language) with them. It was a lovely way to finish, lots of photos, a barbie and certificates of attendance. The evaluations showed that students confidence, communications and horsemanship skills grew during the programme. We will miss our Friday students but are looking forward to new students next term.

For further information about our individual or group Therapeutic Horsemanship programmes call or email Jo 0434201106. jo@wayofthehorsecoaching.com