Using a young, confident, newly started, herd bound horse who hasn't been ridden in over a month, Jonathan covers core safety skills ALL riders and their horses can benefit from. Whether you have been around horses all your life or you are brand new to horses, you'll learn fundamental skills that will ensure you greater success in your horsemanship goals.

*Learn fundamental skills that will help you progress safely, whatever your horsemanship goals.

*Learn how to determine whether or not your horse is safe to ride and ready to learn.

*Understand the benefits of starting in a natural rope hackamore.

*Learn the three core rein positions: neutral lateral, indirect, and direct.

*Learn the one rein and the two rein back-up.

*Understand how your horse can be "running away" with you at the standstill.

*Learn safe saddling and mounting procedures.

*Jonathan answers the critical question "When and why should I get off?

Sometimes becoming a better rider is about you and sometimes it is about your horse! Using two horses, Jonathan first breaks down the three core components, - balance, mobility, and posture - to becoming a great rider and then demonstrates how to teach your horse to become the easy, smooth horse you want to ride.

*Understand how balance, mobility, and posture work together to make you a more relaxed and competent rider.

*Learn how to be an active rider.

*Learn how to feel your horse's movement to become a more fluid, balanced rider.

*Learn to self-examine as you ride in order to diagnose brace and tension in your body.

*Understand more clearly posture as it relates to both you and your horse.

*Discover the fundamental skills your horse needs to help you progress as a rider.

Using three horses, all at different stages in their development, Jonathan thoroughly explains the components that make up lead changes. He gives you a clear step-by-step process to go achieve clean and consistent lead departures, simple drop-to-the-trot lead changes and, ultimately, flying lead changes.

*Jonathan takes the mystery and confusion out of leads and lead changes in a fifty minute session with one of his top horses, Boo.

*Learn the 7 Step Process to the Flying lead change and watch as Jonathan takes a nine year old ranch horse through the steps in a complete tutorial.

*Watch Jonathan ride a dressage horse and get him moving forward easily in order to get clean flying changes.

*Understand the importance of setting the proper flexion.

*Learn how to keep your horse relaxed while doing flying lead changes. (This DVD is strongly linked to Developing a Great Riding Horse From the Ground DVD 3 GROUND)

Using one of his top horses, Quincy, Jonathan discusses feel, flexion and shape and how combining the three sets your horse up to perform to the best of his ability. He then teaches you how to achieve all three with your horse so that you both can go out and progress to higher level maneuvers with ease.

-Learn how offering a better feel to your horse allows him to connect with you.

-Understand how to shape and balance your horse properly on a straight line, circle, and around turns.

-Understand the "bow bend" and how to get your horse to bend laterally through his whole body, not just his head and neck.

-Learn the "I set it, you hold it" training principle.

-Watch Jonathan teach a young horse still learning to have balance how to hold herself more athletically.

-Allow your horse to find comfort between the reins and legs with the “responsibility rein."

-Understand and develop the half pass and leg yield. (This DVD is strongly linked to Long lining: A Great Way to Build Connection DVD 4 GROUND)

In order to progress, you need to know where you are! Using two horses, Jonathan gives you exercises and ideas to test your horsemanship skills and keep your horse asking, "What's next?"

*Watch as Jonathan, using barrels, cones and balls, presents many fun and interesting ways to "test your teaching" and help you and your horse progress.

*Develop yourself as a rider with fun exercises designed to challenge your feel, release, timing, and balance.

*Challenge your horse with fun exercises designed to shorten and lengthen his stride, create balance and shape in his body, and build his confidence.

*Create a feedback loop so that you can diagnose your strongest and weakest links and move forward.

*Learn how to "freeplay" and break out of your box.

*Learn the one rein riding technique to determine if your horse is soft and responsive or if you are holding him in position.

*Give you and your horse something fun to do together!

Teaching you how with a Very Hard to Catch Horse Jonathan takes a very hard to catch horse and shows you all the steps he would use to teach the horse to actually want to be caught. Starting out in a small area with the goal of being able to catch this horse in any place, you see in several real time sessions, exactly what to do when the horse decides to run away. Over time you’ll see how this advances all the way to where this very hard to catch horse trots to Jonathan at Liberty in a large open arena. You’ll witness this amazing change in a horse that lived wild at one point, then was given reason not to be caught and learned how to evade people so expertly that he could go for weeks without being touched.

Product Description

True liberty, says Jonathan Field, is much more than simply removing equipment and stepping outside the pen or arena:  It is moving with your horse, communicating only with intention, and creating a seamless, smooth and rhythmic dance.

“When you do liberty right, you become one with the herd,” he writes.  “And not only do you develop an amazing connection with your horse, but it’s one of the most fun things you will ever do.”

Developing communication skills and your relationship with your horse through liberty benefits all that you do, whether on the ground or in the saddle, whether competing or riding for pleasure.  Quick responses to subtle cues, clear aids, and a relaxed and attentive horse:  These are the keys to liberty, and they are also objectives when you ride, drive, or interact with the horse on the ground around the barn.  Liberty, therefore, teaches you to be an all-around better horseman or horsewoman.

With Jonathan’s step-by-step liberty training method, you learn to have a better ‘feel’, to reward the horse sooner, and to time your aids just right to ensure you get the response you want.  Plus, you discover how to approach things from the individual horse’s perspective – an important key to getting a horse to act because he wants to, rather than because he has to.  Fabulously illustrated with hundreds of action-packed photographs taken on Jonathan’s spectacular ranch in British Columbia, this book can change the way you are with horses and change the way horses are around you.

“The horsemanship journey doesn’t end with liberty,” writes Field.  “It’s just the beginning of connection.”