Here’s a lovely STory from ST Mastery student Hans Tzeng 曾漢斯 from Taiwan.
“Today when we did the groundwork, two kids got into the arena, playing around and asking some innocent but significant questions. I felt like I gave a mini introduction on ST to two little girls!!
Kids: What are you doing ?
Me: We are practicing, learning how to move better.
Kids: You are doing dressage, aren’t you? (how do they know this word?) What are these movements for ?
Here’s the STory of Meg Brauch, where she puts into words how she found the true art of horsemanship:
“Almost 3 years ago now I came across the world of Straightness Training. It was not by accident. I was on a quest to improve my horsemanship and find the missing links in my training.
When I found videos of Marijke de Jong working with her horses, I was blown away by the beauty, softness and connection she had with them. I knew immediately that she was the person I wanted to learn from.
I read through all the free material I could find and then promptly joined the first ST Mastery course in 2013 and I haven’t looked back.
For the next few weeks we’ll be partnering with ST Mastery students to tell the STories of their horses. This is a great group of ST practioners who made a difference for their horse and added value to the lives of their horse. And we are very thankful that they’ve volunteered to share their STories to give us hope and inspiration!
Here’s the first story, the story of the horse Ripple and ST Mastery student Zaria Gaydon:
“Enough now. I’m sitting on the sofa with a mug of steaming tea and a discarded note pad beside me. On the TV there is a girl putting a bareback on a spotted mare. The mare stands quietly, her head slightly raised accepting the bareback being placed and the girth being done up. The mare is Ripple, my Princess Ripple, and the girl is me. For some saddling a horse is a task, no more than just an occurrence, something that is done before the real work begins. For me it is marvellous.
Since childhood, Yasmain & Yolain have been fascinated by horses.
For 21 years they had been twin sisters and best friends.
They were identical in nearly every way.
They had the same grades in school and wore the same clothes.
They were both good riders and had great fun with horses.
At the age of 21 they were still similar in appearance and outlook, but then something changed ….
Once there was a farmer who owned an old mule.
The mule fell into the farmer’s well……
The farmer heard the mule ‘braying’ – or – whatever mules do when they fall into wells.
After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving.
Instead, he called his neighbours together and told them what had happened…and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery….
