6/27/2013- Welcome to Virginia!! Well if you aren’t here you should be! After a year of being on the road and choosing to not have a set home base to go back to, I have settled in Marshall, Virginia at the wonderful Quail Run Farm which now is the home of the Pear Tree Ranch experience. It is very exciting because this facility has so much available for me to be able to develop horses and host events. We have a beautiful indoor arena, outdoor round pen, outdoor arena, a playground, a beautiful barn with stalls, a bunk house where people can rent a bed during a clinic, paddocks and pastures for the horses with a LOT of grass and so much more. Everyday I look around still in amazement at how wonderful a place this is. And I can not wait to share it with all of you!!
I will be offering Lessons, Workshops, Clinics, Play Days, Horse Development and the Pear Tree Ranch Experience (formally known as “Biernbaum Bootcamp”) which will be lesson packages which will save you money by buying in bulk. I will still travel and teach in places that I have been going or new places but I will have a home base to operate out of and it will be so wonderful here you won’t be able to stay away!
Something else I have added is a few horses. I will be introducing them to you as they get a few hours on them. They are going to be “inventory” so that as students have a need for a new horse/partner I will have something that I know where it has been and the kind of development it has. This will also be fun for me to have a few longer term projects to share with you and others what more than a month or two can do for a horse here with me.
Before I sign off I will leave you with a horsemanship thought. We have talked about awareness and perspective in the last two updates. I have been teaching an idea/technique when covering the figure 8 pattern that I will share with you in case you haven’t been out for a lesson lately. We can teach a horse a pattern and a lot of times we get stuck always telling them what to do and when to do it and micro-managing them all the time even if we are not aware we are doing it. But if we refer to the Responsibilities For a Horse, after they Act Like a Partner they are supposed to Maintain Gait, Maintain Direction and Look Where They are Going. So why is it we always tell them to turn on the figure eight and don’t get to where we just allow them to do the pattern? Next time you play the figure eight think about can you encourage your horse to have ownership of their responsibilities. Maybe instead of leading them through the turn or causing them to doa change of direction, you could have your back to a wall and if they dont turn you could just use the sick to say “I wouldn’t be there” and spank the wall until they get their feet moving again. Instead of using the “rein” (lead rope) to tell them where to go, just discourage where they are stuck and encourage them to find a better spot, like back on their pattern. Remember, do not tell them what to do or where to be! Try and share with them where not to be and allow them to find a more appropriate place by using their brain. Sounds like making it a game to me. Set up your rope and use your stick to politely create some guidelines that help them find the sweet spot, on a pattern. Remember, keep that hand down! Maybe grab your pants to keep yourself from always just leading. Try it out and let me know how you go. Or if you get stuck, get signed up for some help!
I look forward to seeing you sooner rather than later and I hope you make it out to see the new Pear Tree Ranch location.
Jake