Well said all of you who who made the same point as Fizz:
Personally I think as owners it is our responsibilty to not follow anybody blindly but to listen and make our own decisions what is correct for our animal and our situation whether that be a trainer, vet, whatever. Sadly though there are those that follow almost with cult like mentality.
I do think it's useful to debate these things though. And not just state that we like or dislike, agree or disagree, without being prepared to discuss in more detail as some of you have. Especially for those who might value more information to help them form their views.
So my views on lunging: when done to help the horse move in balance and to correct crookedness by someone who understands how to influence the horse to the good it is indispensable. I cannot imagine lungeing not being an integral part of my horses training programme. It is such a useful way of being able to positively influence their bodies and also to see what is going on.
My view on IH. My impression is that Kelly is someone who is genuine in her intent. But years ago I went to one of her demos and disagreed strongly with a) taking 30 minutes to take an unstarted baby into a round pen and break it in in front a huge audience. How could this be anything other than hugely traumatic? And where would the owners go from there?
b)The other dem which upset me was a beautiful mare who wouldn't load. So much so that her behaviour was dangerous. In fact part of the audience who were seated in the arena had to move out. Kelly worked with great skill and patience to win this mare's trust. And in less than 30 minutes had her loading. ........ then the ramp went up and she was driven off! I just felt this was a huge betrayal. This mare needed a lot more than a 30 minute demo. And her owners needed training to.
Well having met Monty, and become friendly with Kelly over the last few years, I can truly say that although I dont agree with everything he does, I use a lot of the IH groundwork methods myself with horses, and find that they work extremely well, but without the zombifying that Parelli stuff seems to engender.
As you know, Heather, Mike in particular and I, find some of "the Parelli stuff" very useful parts of our toolkits. Although I started studying it from the original packs - so I can understand and have seen first hand how they can be misinterpreted to the bad (just like everything including "classical horsemanship") - I think that the new material is light years away from this and is excellent. And if people are open minded enough to review it they will see that the Parelli's have learned to avoid their material being misinterpreted as far as is possible and who knows - they might even find it interesting and useful. Like everything what you get is not only dependant on what you're taught but probably more fundamentally on the type of person you are! And there are bits of the Parelli programme that I would never ever use e.g. any of the actual riding or the circle game as it is a zillion miles removed from the work I do with my horses on the lunge.
