Straightness Training

Kadri’s STory

“I would like to introduce myself to you and share my story of how the horses have designed my life.

My name is Kadri Mäkišev and I live in Estonia.

I become a horse-crazy person in my childhood. As we moved to live in the country with my parents after my grandfather died, I started to dream that one day we will have a horse, our native Tori breed horse. Sadly, my parents didn’t agree with my idea. Years passed, but my passion and interest in horses grew bigger and bigger. I read every book that I found about keeping them, working with them, etc, I collected every item that had a horse picture on it. Unfortunately, currently, there weren’t any possibilities to go riding in my area.

When I was 12 I heard that there is one horse some kilometers away from us and its owner also gives riding lessons, I was over the moon when my parents allowed me to go there. With that horse, I took long rides in the nearby forests and roads, and it was so great.

During the following years I had a chance to take riding lessons in a bigger stable as well, but it wasn’t my cup of tea, because I didn´t see any spak in those horses’ eyes.

When I graduated high school, I decided that I want to contribute to my future career for animals, so I decided to become a veterinarian. During my university years I finally got my horse, it was a 17 years old standardbred stallion called Napoleon Star, who had had a long career in racing. He had a lot of physical and mental imbalances, and I wished to have knowledge of how to handle all these challenges. But I was happy that I could offer him a good retirement home with 24/7 free access to the outside for the five last years of his life.

In 2016 I was informed that one young horse who I knew since her birth was for sale. It was a light-yellow Tori breed mare called Lemmi and I decided to buy her. She was 4 years old then and had just been saddled. I realized quite quickly that she was a very sensitive horse who is not very keen on humans. I decided to start educating her by introducing her to pulling the horse cart. During the summer I also started to ride with her, but then very soon I faced mental and physical imbalances that became worse with every training session. At the end of the summer, I faced a situation where my loved horse didn´t let me catch her from the paddock. I was so unhappy, I had a beautiful young horse, who didn´t want to be with me. Once my friend told me that Lemmi is physically imbalanced, and Straightness Training would be beneficial to her. I started to find out more information about it and joined the Mini-Mastery Course. When I had watched all the 4 episodes, I was sure that I want to join this. At the beginning of 2017, I took the Home Study Course, but then after a week, I decided to buy the full ST Mastery course.

I was so amazed by the amount of materials about horses and also humans. As I had challenging times in my personal life at that time, the human psychology part was a huge help for me.

The starting point with educating Lemmi was a challenge, she showed me every kind of displaced behavior, and she had a huge push in her hind legs. I submitted several Touchstones, but during the first year after passing the Groundwork 1 I only got resubmissions from other pillars. But I had decided that no matter what I will help her to become a mentally and physically balanced horse as I wanted to provide her a healthy and long life. So, I continued struggling

During the following years, I became more and more fascinated with this method and wished that one day I could contribute to spreading this into the world as well. In July 2020 the Scholars program was introduced and I got an opportunity to join. It was so fantastic to watch all these lessons with different riders and horses and also to get coached regularly on my own by submitting HotSeats, Breakthroughs, joining the Mastermind sessions, and submitting Touchstones at the end of the month. This concept fast-forwarded my training process a lot. I also enjoyed the Self-Mastery part as the most important is to train our own heart, mind, and soul to become a good horse trainer.

At the end of 2020, I got a real Christmas gift, I was invited to become an ST Instructor and Evaluator. 2021 was an intense year full of studying, but I enjoyed it to the max, I took so much out of it. Since January 2022 I am a licensed ST Instructor and Evaluator. I enjoy this work so much, it is so great to help the horses and their riders to become better physically and mentally by helping them in person or online by evaluating the Touchstones. Since the beginning of this year, I also started educating my other horse, a 4 years old gelding Haarald, Lemmi’s son.

I hope that you all enjoy the following Masterclass to the max and that the knowledge you get, helps you to create a transformation in your journey with your lovely horses!”

~ Kadri Mäkišev, ST Instructor, Estonia

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Kadri Mäkishev

You can contact Kadri for:

Kadri’s STory