What is Natural Academic Riding Art?

Natural Academic Riding Art is a training philosophy based on the Academic Riding Art but with one important difference: The horse is Master over his own training. Force nor punishment is never used within the Natural Academic Riding Art. What we do use is reward. Therefore we do not train our horse, we train with our horse!

The goal of Natural Academic Riding Art is to aid the horse to develop his psychical and mental abilities as wide as possible to reach Equus Universalis: Be all you can be.

The founder of Natural Academic Riding Art is Josepha Guillaume.

We view Natural Academic Riding Art  as the purest form of riding known to us.

With pure we mean that we strip the Riding Art completely until only a few items remain:

-          The horse and his natural abilities, preferences and biomechanics.

-          The Rider who constantly works on developing himself to be able to give the right aids and stimulation to the horse 

-           A few soft and friendly tack items who make force nearly impossible but are an addition to the communication between horse and human.

Lessons & Courses

Lessons can be followed at TAONARA which is located at the same grounds as Equihof. Our can be organised in every country in the world. Please visit the link ‘clinics on location for more information’.

TAONARA stands for The Academy of Natural Academic Riding Art. Founder by Josepha Guillaume and Ralph Duncan Scheffer. Next to Josepha’s teachings you can find revolutionary instructors from different countries.

Why ‘Natural’?

Riding Art and dressage is in fact based on the natural movement horses present on special and less speicial occasion.

But riding isn’t natural?

True. Riding without certain precautions can even be very harmful for horses. However by keeping the horse’s natural movement, biomechanics and instinct in account and helping the horse to develop certain natural abilities are we able to limit or even guard the horse completely from injury.

Which Natural Abilities of the horse do we have to help him develop?

The ability to seek balance, protect his body from harm, his strength and flexibility which all lead the natural collection.

How are we going to develop these natural abilities?

By asking the horse to perform the Academic and Classical exercises which have been known of benefit to the horse for many eras and are underlined more and more by modern science.

The difference however with traditional training methods is the fact that we never punish the horse or force him into doing certain things as that would come in the way of the horse’s natural ability to keep himself from harm. Health, fun and communication is what we work on. Absolute obedience therefore does not interest us because it would keep the horse from listening to his body which can in time develop injury. Next to that, demanding absolute obedience blocks the horse’s initiative completely because he will fear pressure or punishment. This can stand in the way of positive development and the road to natural collection.

So in stead of focussing on obedience, we focus on giving the correct ‘aids’ in order for the horse to be able to carry out certain exercises that add to his physical and mental development. That is why they have named this ‘aids’ in the first place and not ‘commands’. Note that nowadays the term ‘aid’ is being used for what in fact are ‘commands’. As said before, at TAONARA we bring Riding Art back to it’s purest form, therefore aids are nothing more then aids.

When the horse perform exercises under pressure, the chance that he is performing them incorrect is huge and the chance that he will injure himself over time even huger. Proof of that are the many horses who are injured already on an age they just reached mental and physical adulthood, which is 8 or 9.

Within the Natural Riding Art it is not about when a horse performs something, it is about how he does it.

Is Natural Riding Art the same as Natural Horsemanship?

No. Within regular Natural horsemanship the goal is to convince the human of his absolute dominance and leadership. The reason behind this is to create a safe and relax manner in which the human can use his horse for his leisure. The methods involved are based on some natural behaviours of the horse. Though in fact there is nothing natural about a horse who pressures an other horse to perform certain actions. A horse shall never push an other horse to perform an exercise or go somewhere the other does not want to, not even if he is an alpha or leading horse.

Within Natural Academic Riding art we are not interested in human dominance and leadership but in health, personal development of both Equine and human, communication and above all fun, first for the horse and then for the human. With this starter points in the horse human relationship and the communication between them that follows, we have experienced over and over that human and horse safety is a side effect that sort of develops on his own. After all, the horse does not feel threatened so he does not feel the desire to flight or fight.

Often the horse even decided over time that the human can be trusted to be leader in certain situations for the simple reason that the human has proved over and over to the horse that he makes decisions of benefit to the horse if he decided to follow them.

Because of this free choice to participate being given to the horse, if and when choosing to participate, the horse is a real motivated and thinking partner in. As soon as horses understand that they get to say ‘no’, they often start to say ‘yes’ to many things with all their heart and they follow their human around every where.

What is the goal of Natural Academic Riding Art?

The goal is for horse and human to help each other in their development by their natural abilities.

As Riding is not natural, horses get injured. Natural Academic Riding Art helps the horse to become stronger, more flexibible, straight then he naturally is to be able to perform the challenges of being ridden in a safe manner. We borrow techniques which have been beneficial to horses for many centuries, however the ultimate goal has changed (not war but leisure time) therefore we adjusted the techniques to the new rider’s way.

The crown piece of Natural Academic Ridinng Art is Natural Collection. With Natural collection we mean the biomechanical correct collection which stems from a certain frame of the horse’s mind and body. This true or natural collection can not be forced from the horse. It can only be achieved by developing the horse’s physical abilities and helping him to reach a psychical mind set which sets of the need for collection. A rider can in fact never ‘collect a horse’ only a horse can collect himself.

A (healthy) horse collects himself under certain circumstances such as: (Positive) excitement, seduction, sheer joy, self reflection, self expression and duel.

That is why developing the horse’s pride and self confidence is at least as important as developing his physical abilities in which the horse seeks out his own boundaries.

What tack is used within Natural Academic Riding Art?

Every rider is of course free to use what he things best, as long as the horse is not forced within our courses.

To remain a communication as pure as possible, it is of the utmost importance that the horse is restricted in his movements and choices.

General tack we use:

-         body language

-         cordeo

-         soft cavesson (as was first designed by De Pluvinel)

-         a branch or long whip as ‘arm extension’

-         a purse with treats

-         a treeless saddle or bareback pad

Next to that we often use all sorts of things that have in fact nothing to do with the Equine world such as

fitness balls, poolnoodles etc. to stimulate the horse towards play and interaction.

So what is The Art of Natural Dressage (AND)?

The Art of Natural Dressage has in fact the same philosophy as Natural Academic Riding Art however riding does not have to be a part of AND at all. Within AND the focus is for the largest part on groundwork in which the foundation is layed for a ‘two way communication’ between horse and human. The two way communication is the basis of the horse ruling his own training in which he can develop his mental and phical abilities to his fullest potential. This process we call Equus Universalis, which stems from the term Homo Universalis, a renaissance way to say ‘Be all you can be’.

For more information on AND please visit www.artofnaturaldressage.com

Natural Lifestyle

This way of training with horses works best when the horse is allowed a more natural lifestyle.  For more info on the Natural Lifestyle please visit:

www.equihof.com

www.paddockparadise.com

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