Rhythmic Riding™
Immersion
Learn the Science and the Art of Therapeutic Horseback Riding.
4 days of movement, rhythmic connection, and FUN—
AND the ultimate brain integration activity
Have you ever danced with a horse?
During this four-day Rhythmic Riding™ Immersion, you will experience the powerful mounted component of Natural Lifemanship, and complete your training by participating in the ultimate brain integration activity––Riding to the rhythm of music, with a horse, to the song of your choosing.
One of the greatest challenges of doing or facilitating mounted work is that people tend to lose a focus on connection, and instead (inadvertently) resort to power, domination and control while on the horse’s back.
Although you may work hard at building a connected relationship on the ground, you may feel a natural need to control your horse once you are on his or her back. Reasons for this include vulnerability, muscle memory, or simply habit. It takes practice to stay in connection as intimacy grows.
When you attend this training, you will learn to integrate rhythm and movement into your work to build a trusting relationship with your horse that transfers from the ground to your horse’s back.
You will work with the same horse throughout to measure relationship progress.
“Another amazing Natural Lifemanship training completed! Each one just gets better and better and I find myself craving the trainings to come! My spirit is singing after 4 days of friendship, laughter, rhythm, and connection!”
Wendi McCutchen-Adams
Details
What: Rhythmic Riding Immersion™
When: May 14-17, 2025
Time: 9am to 5pm local time
Where: Brenham, Texas
Why: This is the ultimate experience in connection and will transform the way you interact with your clients and equine partners.
Trainers: Bettina Shultz-Jobe, Tim Jobe, Mary Oliver, & Tanner Jobe
Cost: $1,999
Contact us to secure the NL Friends and Family Discount for onsite lodging at the NL HomePlace Inn.
Prerequisites: The Fundamentals of NL (Level 1 trained) and the NL Intensive (Level 2 trained)
The Rhythmic Riding Immersion™ will teach you:
- Therapeutic drumming to get you in touch with your internal rhythm
- How to use “found sounds.” So many things in the environment and the barn can become an instrument
- How to use body percussion to create music (clapping, snapping, stomping, etc)
- How to use rhythm and movement in trauma informed work through individual and group activities
Experience The Ride of Your Life
On the final day of this unique training, you’ll take rhythmic riding to a whole new level.
After days of practicing slow and intentional Rhythmic Riding™ in a contained space bareback or with a bareback pad, you’ll enter the large arena (usually with an actual saddle) while you and your relationship partner ride to the rhythm of music. There, you will share a dance with your horse as a true testament to the relationship built through connection, respect and trust.
This activity is the ultimate brain integration activity where every single area of the brain is engaged–neurons are firing, connections are being made, and secure attachments are being formed!
Here’s what else you’ll learn from the Rhythmic Riding Immersion™:
- How to tell when areas of the brain are regulated or dysregulated
- How to promote bottom-up regulation with various kinds of sensory input
- How to teach top-down regulation capitalizing on the eustress provided while mounted
- How to introduce mounted work in a way that promotes bottom-up and/or top-down regulation while deepening the client’s sense of connection with self and with their horse
- When it is appropriate to dismount and practice regulation skills outside the round pen
- How the equine professional may discern when to maintain the connection with the horse on a lead rope or release that connection to the client who is mounted
- The difference between making a request by connecting with the horse versus by controlling her
How this impacts your work with clients
Properly facilitated by the therapy team, mounted work provides a powerful opportunity for the client to deepen their sense of connection with themselves and with their horse while experiencing somatosensory input of a quality that reorganizes the brain.
Bottom-up regulation is promoted by engaging the brainstem with rhythmic, patterned, repetitive, bilateral movement that the client does not have to produce for themselves. With the lower regions regulated and organized, the client is better able to access the midbrain regions responsible for connection and emotions.
The purpose of mounted work is to deepen the connection the client experiences with the horse while leveraging the physiological support that the movement of the horse provides.
What to Expect:
- You will do lots of self-regulation, co-regulation and building rhythm in the relationship with your horse partner before you move to mounted work, if and when the relationship is ready
- This is a small training limited to 12 people with no more than 4 participants per trainer
- This training provides the foundation for trauma processing and EC-EMDR
- The Fundamentals of NL and the NL Intensive are prerequisites
- Earn 25 CE credits (NBCC)
- This training counts towards Advanced Natural Lifemanship Certification.
Approved Training Provider
Learn more about earning CE credits through NBCC.
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