Yup, went to his clinic this past weekend. It was definitely for those interested in getting a lot out of their hard-earned cash, as it went from 9am-5/6pm with nary a break except for lunch! It felt strenuous for my days off, I mean, no sleeping in time??
Worth it, in my experience. What I really enjoyed was his 'it's ok' view. Horse freaks out? No problem. My friend's horse was getting snitty on the ground and tried to rear when Paul was showing us a half-pass on the ground, and what did he do? Stuck with her and was like, it's cool. She forgot about her temper tantrum and kept working. He said we often mirror the horse and when they freak out, we freak out. If we just keep on keeping on, the horse will be like, oh, ok, my human thinks we're doing fine. Guess there's nothing to worry about, carry on.
And that is so true, I mean, I would freeze up if my horse tried to rear when I was leading her!
We did some cool exercises, like 'driving' a horse over a tarp with us between a barrel and the tarp in case the horse decided 'no more' and wanted to buffalo past us, or jump the tarp. An important lesson, 'never get between your horse and a scary thing'
We encouraged our horses to be ok with us kicking a bag full of tin cans around, a giant neon soccer ball (my horse knows the ball and wasn't impressed still) and step up on command on a small platform. We weren't allowed to let our horses jump on it and stay there, as they will fall off and who wants a 1300lb animal falling on them??
My horse liked the platform and leapt on it and tried to climb right on, and I was like, nooo way!!
We also worked on a lot of 'poll bending' exercises, getting the horse's head lowered and comfortable. We practiced this exercise on horseback as well as on the ground.
Good clinic, be prepared for long ass days. You definitely get your money's worth, and a great tool for bravery and 'keeping your cool' which I needed.
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