Hi Stormy..just wanted to say that I enjoyed your DVD, Path of the Horse, immensely and I've been sharing the DVD with my friends, I expect you'll get a few more people buying it. It was so beautiful and it's all the feelings I have inside and you spelled it all out so wonderfully in your DVD.
I also wondered if you knew where I might find specific information on results of tests done to prove that riding horses can be damaging for their backs. Lydia has not been able to translate their work into English as of yet, but I wondered if there were other studies done perhaps in the States or Canada that I might be able to find. I appreciate your help in this..sometimes people need to see it written on paper but it seems to help to confirm the results to people. Thank you again for sharing your story, it truly was beautiful.
TB - USA
There are several places online where you can find an article Stormy wrote compiling some of the research she did back in 2006. The article is called The Truth About Backs (The Truth in the Back in Horses for Life magazine Oct. 2008) Here is one place you can view the article for free:
The Truth about Backs on HorseYard.com.au
Hi TB,
ReplyDeleteThere's another study of the damage done by riding, perhaps will be interesting for you:
http://www.academialiberti.de/en/articles/read/6/Harm-of-riding-study-Part-I/
Thank you so very much... I'm trying to understand, if this information is out there and the results are valid, then the question remains...why???? there should be a warning sticker on all saddles sold to horse owners advising of the damage that will be done when you decide to ride your horse. Hopefully with blogs such as these, it will help to remind people to perhaps shift their thoughts as to why horses are in our lives.
ReplyDeleteFirst, at the moment, it is just the too huge industry, the riding industry, bringing billions and billions of $ to allow such sticker to be put on the saddles. They prefer not to know such researches exist, and of course they never put money into more such researches, this is why you don't find anything like this in 'scientific' magazines or riding magazines. Another sad thing, how many owners still will buy these saddles, as the 'itch in their asses' or pain in their souls have still to be relieved and they don't want to know another way how to do it as only using their horses, making all those million excuses 'I ride just a little bit', 'my horse is happy to be ridden, I know him the best', 'I don't hurt as I ride without a bit', etc. etc. etc.
DeleteBut we do everything what we can to change it, don't we? :) And results shows little by little. :)
The way I see the change happening is by people who don't want horses to be hurt learning how to empathize and communicate with people who are unconscious of what they are doing to horses. When we are speaking the same language of love and respect to each other, both will be able to listen and learn a new perspective of life.
DeleteThe perspective that feels best will naturally gain more support.
Many of us, myself included, still use language that separates us. "Us and them" "I would never..." "People shouldn't..." It may be helpful to look back and see what our words say about us.
I totally agree about how we communicate and looking at the words we use. It's key to empathize, to remember what Natalija is saying - the pain in people's souls needs to be relieved. We need to speak to each other (and ourselves) with compassion, knowing that pain is there. I am fully on this path, but the pain of letting go of the past, and the pain of knowing harm I have caused horses in the past, is with me all the time. There is much healing to be done here, and a lot of care is needed.
DeleteThanks for this info, Stormy. "The Truth About Backs" is great, and I'd like to share it with folks. There are problems I'm seeing with the spacing between a bunch of the words. Do you know if this particular article is posted online somewhere where it doesn't have the spacing problems?
ReplyDelete