I met Albert Fulcher last week while in California doing a clinic at the Magic Horse Therapeutic Riding Center. He is the Editor of the East County Californian and emailed me yesterday a link to an article he wrote.
Mind Your Horse
I met Albert Fulcher last week while in California doing a clinic at the Magic Horse Therapeutic Riding Center. He is the Editor of the East County Californian and emailed me yesterday a link to an article he wrote.
Chris honouring and congratulating Birgit Stutz of Falling Star Ranch in Dunster, British Columbia, Canada, for her exceptional work with her horses in achieving her GOLD riding certification. And it looks like her horse Mojo is quite interested and impressed as well! 🙂
Greetings to all my dear friends, certified trainers and founding members, from the land of cheese, tulips, windmills, wooden shoes and magnificent horses. In other words, hello from Holland!
April is a time of resurrection. The season when we can all experience an old life being reborn and beginning anew. And this, thankfully, is very much the theme of the moment for me.
In many ways this past winter was the most difficult time of my life both personally and professionally. And yet, just like the horses will change and allow us to guide them once they know that our intention is to help them find the “sweet spot” in their frame of body in order to feel good in their frame of mind – I am experiencing a similar shift as I seek the critical balance between “making life happen” and “letting life happen”. To be more specific – I am emerging from a winter where “survival of the fittest” required finding the sweet spot between “letting go and letting God” and “God helps those that help themselves”.
And so it is a sheer JOY for me to share with the spirit of springtime that SHIFT HAPPENS! The message of EAPD is real – we truly CAN do for ourselves what we can do for our horses. WE CAN EVOLVE into peace with our body, mind and spirit. We can indeed train our own inner horse to be the best that we can be! Miracles do happen, JOY is available to us, and we can live healthy and happily.
So, aside from this glorious natural high I am on these days I do have some business news to announce. First and foremost is that my new website will be launched within the next few days.
It has been a long time coming but I can assure you that this new website is far less complicated and much more user-friendly to experience. However, for those of you who subscribe to the Video Training Library, please know that it will take a few days, or possibly a week or so, before the library is back on line. We’ll need some time “live” to work out all the glitches and challenges that come with offering so much video from the website.
So please be patient with us during this brief time of technological changes and challenges. I can assure you that all of us involved with Horsepower Productions are doing our very best to upgrade and improve the quality of services we provide.
With the launch of the new website you will find my 2013 event schedule. Thanks to the growing awareness for my work this will be my busiest season ever for travelling to clinics. I am happy because more important then my being able to work from home is for me to be able to serve the growing interest in my way of working with horses. Since calls are coming in from far and wide to be of service as a coach it is time for me to answer the call rather then to continue to develop Riversong.
With the call comes the need for integrity. And nothing challenges my integrity more then “biting off more work then I can chew”. So this year I am not taking in horses for training or working students at Riversong and I am not going to produce new videos or attempt to find time to write another book. My focus must first and foremost be the quality assurance of the experience I offer students and horses attending my clinics and workshops.
So, in essence, this is not going to be a year of “growing” as much as it is a year of “refining”. No new markets to develop, no new products to announce, just a dedicated focus to be the best that I can be as a coach, living in the moment, one day at a time, at all the venues around North America and Europe that have honored me with the request for coaching.
I am also seeing that more and more people are looking for help with their horses by finding and hiring a Certified Trainer from my website. And so it is, with a dedication to quality assurance, that this new website will only promote Certified Trainers that I have worked with in recent memory that I know for a fact are retaining and improving their competencies with the horses. This update has been needed for a long time and will be implemented with the new website.
And so a special reminder to all Founding Members of the Irwin Institute that your lifetime discount always applies to any and all events and merchandise anywhere I offer a clinic or workshop.
In closing, I can sum up this message by saying that this year I am not raising the bar to jump higher in the horse industry but instead training to be able to jump the same heights with better balance for more enjoyment and fulfillment.
This is the season where, speaking for myself, there is less and less distinction between horsemanship and EAPD. I say this because it is so simply true that to be the best horse trainers we can be requires our own ongoing personal development. It is what it is. Our own internal Shift Happens when we think horse, speak horse, play horse games by horse rules and become the best horse that we can be.
And so all the best to you and yours for healthy and happy trails and may the road rise to meet you, may the wind be at your back, and may you strive to be the best horse you can be.
Be the change,
Christian Irwin
Back in 2009, I had the pleasure of watching Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro perform. At that time, this is what I had to say about their performance in a blog for BarnMice.com – thought I’d share it now that my prediction has come true!
“In closing, and in fairness to our sport, I did see an unbelievable Prix St. George dressage demonstration by a lovely rider named Charlotte Dujardin on a horse by the name of Valegro. I have not met Charlotte, I know nothing about her or her British coach and trainer Carl Hester. But I can tell you without hesitation that it was one of the most beautiful rides I have ever witnessed. Watch out for Charlotte and this gorgeous dark bay/black horse at the 2012 Olympics because they are a thing of beauty to behold and a force to be reckoned with. I have never seen such power, such elegance and such poised relaxation. Not once did this horse even swish his tail during the entire ride and he was so elastic and supple he looked more like a 17-hand jaguar than a horse. He loved his job. Now THAT is dressage.”
Just in case you aren’t aware – Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro won EVERY Dressage event at the 2012 Olympics in London! They scored a 90.089 in the Freestyle and broke three (3) Olympic records! Can I call ’em or what?!
I’m just sayin’… ~ Chris Irwin
I often remind students “not to buy into the drama of their horse.” As the leader, we must mentor the same quality of calm, self-assured focus that we expect from our horses.
In EAPD, equine assisted personal development, the message is “anything we can do for our horses we can do for ourselves”.
And so I begin this newsletter with EAPD because I’ve realized that I have too often become reactive with the challenges of my business in much the same way that people get stressed out by a difficult horse. How ironic! Talk about Healer Heal Thyself!
So I can’t help but laugh at myself as I finally learn the difference between reacting and responding. I now see that to “re-act” means to be an actor in a repetitive drama. Better late then never, I’m learning how to respond instead of react. To respond is to be responsible. And so my next great lesson in life is to consciously practice responsibility instead of unconsciously repeating drama!
I have within me a wild horse that has been fighting, fleeing and shutting down about all the “boundaries” of administrative responsibilities that come with owning a complex business.
For instance, the Train the Trainer program has grown into an international movement for change in the horse industry. And I have morphed over many years from clinician into a War Horse determined to fight the good fight for the humane training of horses.
I wanted to build an Army of Empathy for the horses. But war is not pretty. War is not fun. War leaves casualties.
I must expand awareness for how we work with horses while also spending more time at home with my family and responsibilities at Riversong. I must now rein in my time spent travelling to clinics and instead stay home more to write my next book and produce a television show from Riversong. It is time for my warhorse to evolve into a SHOW horse.
The timing is perfect and all indicators are promising. For instance, I have been selected as the keynote speaker for the upcoming conference for the Alberta Equestrian Federation. And while so many of our Certified Trainers are doing great work with their students we have successfully launched our community EAPD initiatives for local at-risk youth at Riversong. I’m finally inspired to write my next book and we are now in the beginning stages of planning an EAPD themed television show to be broadcast in the United States.
But first, I need to hold my anxious horses for the future as I bow and apologize for the recent gaps and lapse in professionalism in my business administration these last few years.
There is not enough space in this newsletter to explain why a few of the Founding Members still have not received your jackets. And I will not list all the reasons why emails and phone calls are too often not returned in a timely manner, why the EAPD dvd is still not finished, or why frustrations continue with the website. Suffice to say that while I have found my way with horses I’m just now realizing what it takes for me to find my way with managing the complexities of my business.
Horses Don’t Lie and here’s the simple truth. We got kicked incredibly hard by the recession in America during 2009/2010. The issue has been that I can now see that my reactions to our financial challenges (as opposed to responsible responses) have been more like that of a high-strung horse instead of a competent horse trainer.
As the economic crisis continued to haunt us I have too often responded to our vulnerability like a horse in fight or flight and sometimes even just “shutting down” and refusing to go forward.
While the future indicators look great, the fact is that we are now hunting for the financing we need to stay in business. I feel like a horse galloping to the biggest, most daunting fence it has ever approached! There is no guarantee that we can make this huge jump and it is such a very long way to fall!
So my friends, I will still travel to events such as horse industry expo’s and speaking engagements, but soon I will hand over the reins of my clinics into the good hands of a select few of the top certified trainers I am confident to endorse. And these trainers will have lots of work ahead of them as requests for clinics are coming not only from my established markets in North America and Europe but now also from as far and wide as France, Germany, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Australia and South America.
I will restructure and evolve the Train the Trainer program once again in 2013 and this will likely involve fewer events instead of more. I say this because while my goal for the television show is to exponentially expand our movement for change in the horse industry, and more effectively promote my certified trainers, when it comes to my personal time in the arena with students I will continue to focus on quality instead of quantity.
Meanwhile, to assure the quality of the Train the Trainer Program my first responsibility is to start upholding my own boundaries regarding certification qualifications.
It has long been policy that I must work with certified trainers at least once per year (in a clinic or private session) to maintain or upgrade their certification. But I have been too forgiving and am past due for culling out the trainers who have not maintained their certification.
So, the time has finally come and those certified trainers who have not felt it necessary to participate in a workshop in 2012 will soon be removed from the trainer directory.
EAPD is much more then a metaphor. EAPD is working with Horse Sense as Natural Law. And I know that as soon as I start managing my business like I do the horses then I will be the change I have needed to be.
And so I bow deeply and ask for your support. Please buy the videos you have yet to add to your collection or purchase a few books or dvd’s to give away as gifts. Please come as a spectator, and bring a few friends with you the next time I am in your area for an event.
Perhaps you can treat yourself to a visit with us at Riversong, stay in our cozy guest cabin and take a clinic or a private lesson with Kathryn or myself. Please do whatever you can to help us make it over this incredibly difficult jump. The show MUST and WILL go on.
There are 3 new Train the Trainer and private clinic events now posted on the website. These events will take place at Blue Heron Stables in Ontario, Riversong Ranch in Alberta and Stal Mansour in the Netherlands.
Each of these Train the Trainer workshops will include a special evening celebration of food, drink and good cheer, and everyone is welcome to attend. You do not need to be a certified trainer nor be enrolled as a participant at the event to join us in these celebrations. For more information please visit my website at www.chrisirwin.com
In closing, it warms my heart to honestly say that I am not ashamed to bow and bend to loyal students that I can truly call friends.
Thank you for your continued support, keep the faith alive and May the Horse be with you.
Accomplishments in equine personal development amidst the beauty and serenity of nature is what this video is intended to impart.
On the near horizon, new EAPD programs with the local schools designed and in place for helping “at risk youth” are coming on line at Riversong in January. Discussions are also underway for designing sustainable EAPD programs with prison systems here in Canada and abroad. The LEAD program (leadership through equine assisted discovery) Chris designed last year for the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, coordinated and facilitated by Ruth Heney one of our top certified trainers, has been a great success. Now other institutions are inquiring as to how we can develop EAPD programs for their curriculums. American TV producers are working with Chris to host a nationally broadcast EAPD themed TV show in the United States.
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Chris Irwin is The Master of Awareness.
Chris Irwin has an incredible ability to develop courage and confidence in nervous horses.
Chris Irwin is more horse than human. The horses look at him as if he is a God.
Chris Irwin is on a mission to change the way we communicate with each other, one horse at a time.
…an inexhaustible wealth of horse knowledge.
Irwin’s success is not because he is commercialized but because he is an extraordinary horseman and personal coach.
Irwin is the evolution of the Natural Horsemanship
Nobody understands and explains the horse-human relationship better than Chris Irwin.