Energetic Horsemanship creates harmonious partnerships with horses based on mutual love, trust and respect.
What is Energetic Horsemanship?
Energetic Horsemanship will take you on a journey of discovery into the true nature and spirit of the horse and into self-discovery that will empower your relationships with horses and people.
Energetic Horsemanship explores how horses and humans communicate energetically, emotionally and spiritually and how you can use this method of communication to develop a heartfelt connection that creates a joyful partnership.
Energetic Horsemanship helps you develop a mutually respectful, trusting, harmonious and loving relationship with your horse by working with the energy, spirit and psychology of the horse using our unique energy consciousness. We also incorporate aspects of natural horsemanship and classical training principles.
Horses are spiritual creatures and deserve to be treated in a way that makes their interaction with humans as enjoyable as possible.
How did Energetic Horsemanship Develop?
Jan Shaw and Voto
First, let me introduce myself. My name is Jan Shaw. I’m from the UK and lived in England until 2010 when I moved to the USA. I now live and work near Durango, Colorado.
I was born with a passion for horses that baffled my mother as our family had no connection with horses other than occasional visits to a cousin’s farm during my childhood where the huge Shire horses provided ‘tractor power’. One of the earliest photos of me is as a tiny tot sat astride one of these massive horses and looking completely at home. I have always felt connected to horses at the heart and soul level.
I was always drawn to the more ‘spirited’ horses – Arabians, Anglo-Arabs, Thoroughbreds, and Andalusians. These sensitive horses often struggled with the conventional approach to horsemanship that focused on domination and force and they became fearful, reactive and lacking in self-confidence.
Over time, I discovered how to manage my own emotions and energy in order to influence and calm the behavior of my horse. My biggest breakthrough came in 2004 when I was faced with the extreme challenge of how to cope with my 5-year-old Andalusian (PRE) gelding whose emotional breakdown had made him dangerously over-reactive and panic-stricken when being ridden.
The Energetic Horsemanship approach has been almost 10 years in the making and is the result of over 30 years of ‘hands-on’ experience of horse training and rehabilitation, plus in-depth study and research into horse psychology and behavior.
If you’d like to know more about my experiences that led to the development of Energetic Horsemanship, you can read the full story about me here.
Why does Energetic Horsemanship Work?
It isn’t just about the horse!
Most approaches to horsemanship concentrate on the horse and limit the focus on the rider or handler to physical techniques. What makes Energetic Horsemanship different is that at the core is self-discovery – how you can only have a harmonious and rewarding relationship with your horse by developing your own inner harmony and self-control.
By following the Energetic Horsemanship approach, not only will you achieve wonderful results with your horse but you will experience positive changes in all aspects of your life.
You see, as well as training and rehabilitating horses I am a spiritual coach and teacher. The issues that people have in being and working with their horses are fundamentally the same as the issues they have in other aspects of their life. Horses mirror our emotions and state of mind which is why they are used extensively in emotional rehabilitation, psychotherapy and leadership development.
So Energetic Horsemanship will be focused on you – the rider, trainer and handler – as much as your horse. We’ll deal with how to overcome fear and build confidence in yourself and your horse and how to become an empowered, empathic leader. Many aspects of the Energetic Horsemanship approach will have a powerful impact on your whole life – not just on your relationship with your horse.
The Energetic Horsemanship approach will help you to communicate more effectively with your horse using your intuition, awareness and ‘feel’ and to manage your own energy (your mood, emotions, and thoughts) so that you influence your horse’s behavior in a positive way.
The Energetic Horsemanship website will also bring you resources and information from other sources related to methods of care, management, and training of horses that are most beneficial and the least stressful to your horse.
Horses give us so much and often willingly co-operate in situations that instinctively they would avoid or flee from. We owe it to them to make their life with us as happy and stress-free as possible.
