Customer Reviews

Equus As a Second Language: A Translation Guide for Horse Lovers

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love this DVD. It's different from all the other books and DVDs I've read and seen. It's not direct instruction about training or about riding, but the information I've gotten from it help me in both. The emphasis of the whole DVD is on just how effective our most subtle and silent movements can be in getting our horses to do what we ask. One correctly timed subtle movement, like just the lift of our head, can make a horse know to stay out of our space. On the other hand, one "incorrect" or ill-timed subtle movement (incorrect in that we intend to be saying something other than what we actually do say -- like we've just been using the wrong word all this time!) can, for example, cause the horse to leave when we actually want him to stay.

The DVD shows horses interacting in the herd, and, then, the trainer, Marlis Amato, working with individual horses using the language she has learned from watching the herd. It's amazing! The horses respond immediately because, as she says on the DVD, they learned this stuff as babies. We just have to tell it to them the way their mom did.

Most of the other stuff out there is about sporadically observed herd behavior in the wild. This is about behavior in the domestic herd, behavior that the trainer sees every day. Her explanations of how humans can communicate the same way as the mom or the alpha mare do are very understandable. And, bottom line, it's really working with my two quarter horses.

Finally, a DVD that explains how the dynamics of a herd relates to the interaction of humans to horses. It has helped me see what my horses want from me in working with them, what they need from me in order to understand what I want out of them. Makes training and ground work so much more enjoyable, once you understand what you are trying to achieve.

It is a great way to understand how the wild herds talk to one another and take that information to your training methods. This DVD translates "horse" to words humans can understand.

You will watch this DVD over and over again and see something different that you can use each time you see it.

Money WELL spent.

My friend and I watched Equus as A Second Language the first evening it arrived in the mail. Firstly, I must say it is absolutely beautiful! I could sit there and watch those Arabians running around all day. Even for someone not closely involved with horses, there is much to watch and enjoy. The horse farm is beautiful, the sense of space for the horses is magnificent. My friend thought Marlis Amato, the trainer, is very much like the horse whisperer. She said she wished she had seen this DVD before she started working with horses because it would have been very helpful to her. She says there is not enough good stuff like this out there. Our favorite scene is the one with the mare and filly, in which the Mom is teaching the baby how to behave. And we really loved the music. Somehow the music makes this DVD more exciting than the usual training DVDs. I would recommend this DVD for people wanting to know more about how to be with horses as well as for their friends and families who just enjoy watching animals interacting with each other. Watching the herd line up in the same order every time they felt threatened was really surprising and interesting. The herder on the hill

I bought a copy based on the glowing reviews, but was not satisfied, both with the production quality or the content. The DVD is expensive for a homemade type DVD.

My husband and I both watched this DVD. The information contained in it was very helpful for us, and it made it easier to work with our horse, but we both agreed that the narration was painfully slow and boring--in a Ben Stein monotone sort of way. It was clearly not done by anyone with any public speaking experience or voice training.

If you can stay awake through it, however, you'll learn a lot. Just wish she had hired someone to read her script for her!

This is an excellent presentation! Demonstrations of every point the author makes are clearly shown with video of horses in their natural setting and relating with one another. She then translates that to clarify the meaning to anyone who works with horses. Very powerful stuff!