Dear friends,

We just completed the Sahaja 2019 – Liberty Training Clinic here at Richmond Vale Academy and what a wonderful time we had! The participants came from Barbados, Israel, Poland, USA and Hungary.

It was three very special days and we learned, we laughed and we enjoyed the company of each other, the horses and our incredible surroundings.

In the next blogs you can read more about the clinic and first out is Kareem from Barbados;

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“My horse story started about four years old. I can’t even say how exactly but I can remember sitting on a horse going somewhere. Ever since then I have been with horses but there has also been moments where I have gone away from the horse. Even when owning horses, I have stepped away, but there has always been something that pulls me back to the horse.

In this interaction with the horse (At Richmond Vale Academy), in spite of everything I have gotten from the traditional world, which it’s not to say that now I am burning saddles and bridles, but there is a way more respectful way to interact with the horse.

After these three days (Sahaja Liberty Horse Training Clinic),  I think what I will put into my tool box is; Let’s not say – don’t have an agenda, but have an agenda which is flexible on the terms of the horse.  I am also trying to use the experiences to help build and shape my own character.

I don’t think any of us falls in love with a horse standing in a stable, it’s that horse in the field wild and free.

In the usual way of going (about horse training ) there are lots of exercises to gain relaxation because of the lack of connection. But what I take away from this – is that maybe the three months or three weeks or a year, that it takes you to build connection – definitely reduces the next ten years of kicking and pulling that horse around the arena.  What we’re asking really is for respect and understanding on behalf of the horse and on behalf of the human, because of what we see in the horse really is a reflection of yourself.

The physical environment of what is Richmond Vale with the entire surroundings; makes the horses happy with lots of food lands make them physically more supple and it also encourages them to work themselves. I think really this environment is close to ideal.

This morning I watched the horses swim in the river, and that was one of the things that impressed me also, they have a pool! For me it seemed like coming here was a faraway possibility. I said to myself maybe things aren’t ideal, but we have to make it ideal so there was something pulling me here.

What you take from here is that there is so much to be done and there is so much You can do also.”  – Kareem Smith, Horse Trainer, Barbados

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