He’s a “Cribber” is a statement I’ve heard my entire life with horses and it translates in to “that horse has a horrible habit/behavior issue and it makes him/her a liability.  That’s a horse that will ruin the rest of your horses, destroy property and is essentially better off not existing”.

I have to say that as a child I didn’t know what else to believe and never really “bought in” to that belief system entirely.  Now days I have a diferent perception…

We have a “Cribber”.  His story is significant… In a previous life (younger years) he was a show horse and showed at the national level VERY successfully.  He’s been in the Rose Bowl Parade and for a time, everyone who followed his event knew his name.  Pretty cool, right?  Well the stress that went along with that caused him to find a coping mechanism and THAT”S how he began “cribbing”.  All that information, his accomplshments, his perceived misbehavior - is NOT who he is.

I think, quite simply, that we are not what we do.  There’s so much more to each one of us. None of us are our behaviors.  We are not just bipolar, depressed, a single parent, over the hill; we, like this horse, are so much more!  These things that we define ourselves and others by are a drop in the bucket of who each of us are…

Our “Cribber” is actually an amazing being and teacher.  He brings to the table his life experiences, how he dealt with sucess, performed at a high level for others, gave 110% to humans, thrived under stress and found a coping mechanism to help “get through” it all.  When he interacts with clients he brings to the ring an innate knowing, loving and teaching energy that is always in/for their highest good.  He gives us the gift of acceptance of self and an understanding that we are not our behaviors’ we are ALL so much more and have so much more to offer…

By the way, he’s chosen more than any other teaching horse here - not bad for a “Cribber”!

Cathy Huddleston

Meet Beau, a 16 year old Quarter Horse and Master Teacher…

We are excited to announce that the Southern California Equestrian Directory has selected Challenge U as the September Featured Business of the Month! Below is Challenge U’s Featured Business article as it will appear on socalequine.com this September.

Challenge U, LLC is an experiential education based company that has been in business in Southern California since 1996.   Challenge U specializes in personal and professional team and leadership development programs via experiential formats. The experiential formats include The Extraordinary Team using the ropes course, The Samurai Game® and the DiSC® Learning Instrument, as well as customized programs.  Founder/Owner Andi Burgis is excited to announce the addition of Equine Experiential Learning, or EEL.

Andi started her horse career with Morgan horses in Pennsylvania then moved to Scottsdale, Arizona and began working for Lasma Arabians. She continued her horse focus in a variety of roles for several other large Arabian horse operations until 1986. In 1986 her second son came along and it was time for a change, so she left the horse world behind to raise a family.  When Andi recognized the importance of the horses as another component of the learning formats she wanted to bring to clients, she found the Epona approach to be the right fit to her already existing philosophy.  The Epona Approach was developed by Linda Kohanov, Author of “The Tao of Equus”, and Kathleen Barry-Ingram, therapist.  These women were pioneers in the development of EEL as we know it today.

Sampson and Andi

The Epona Approach focuses on the horses as equal facilitators in the education based process of EEL.  The horses, because of their innate ability to sense emotion and incongruence at extremely high levels, utilize emotions simply as information. They then model the ability to be present in the moment, making them living, breathing, sentient “biofeedback machines”.

Andi, who is an Epona Approved Facilitator, has assembled a skilled and intuitive EEL team by bringing in Cathy Huddleston and Wendy LeRoy. Cathy is an advanced Epona Approved Facilitator who taught at the Epona Center and has been a professional horse trainer, riding instructor, relationship coach and lifelong horse lover. Wendy is an Epona Approved Facilitator who is also a life-long horse enthusiast and licensed counselor.  These three women, who bring over 80 years of combined horse experience, are a part of a much larger team that includes 12 horses who are trained in this field of work and bring to the table a diverse background in experiences, genders and breeds.

One question often asked is “Why Horses?”  Domesticated horses retain the thought and behavior patterns of their nomadic ancestors.  Interacting with these animals on their own terms encourages a fluidity of human thought, emotion, and behavior that sedentary twenty-first-century life makes difficult.  Horses also model the strengths of what are often referred to as “feminine values”; cooperation over competition, relationship over territory, responsiveness over strategy, emotion and intuition over logic, process over goal, and the creative approach to life that these qualities engender. The result of all of this is amazing formats designed to benefit humans through the teachings of the horses.

The basic EEL format is available in one day to five day workshops that consist of ground activities with horses.  These formats do not include any horseback riding and are appropriate for people with or without horse experience.  There are also formats available for equestrians, beginner through advanced, that help riders better understand and grow their relationships with their own horses through EEL.  These focuses include, but are not limited to, better communication and understanding of the horse-human relationship, learning how to create a like language on the horse’s terms, and learning how to understand and embrace fear simply as information after experiencing any kind of fear based experience with one’s horse.  The facilities provide the ability for equestrians to bring their horses with them. Or, one of Challenge-U’s highly qualified facilitators can travel to you and your horse at your location.

Challenge U would like to invite you to come and check out one of their programs at their new 12 acre retreat site in beautiful Fallbrook, CA.  Please go to the website at www.Challenge-U.com or call Andi Burgis in the Challenge U office at (760) 535-3052 for more information on any of these programs.  Please mention you heard about Challenge U on the So Cal Equestrian Directory and receive 10% off of your first workshop in EEL at Challenge U.

Hello Sampson followers! (and those of you yet to come)

We are pleased to announce that Sampson is doing well post surgery. Sampson, our star equine facilitator,   came down with a major sinus infection as a result of a complication from a tooth removal. He was taken to the San Luis Rey Equine Hospital, an interesting task for a 2200 pound being! Sampson was an angel and cooperated well with Dr. Cannon and Dr. Richardson. The doctors performed a surgical procedure on Sampson’s face in order to clean out the infection and install a drain and Sampson was able to come home the same day of the procedure. Unfortunately, the drain installed was not doing the trick, and Sampson had to be taken back to the vet for a little extra help. Again, Dr. Richardson and Dr. Cannon jumped into action to solve the problem and were able to get his healing moving in the right direction. After a week of dealing with the infection and vet visits, Sampson is feeling much better and recuperating well!

Sampson recovering from his surgery

Hello Everyone! This is Baylee writing again, this time with an update on the latest activities at the Challenge U property.

Last week we held the first Equine Experiential Learning workshop at the new Challenge U property! Being the first event held at the new property, a lot of preparation went into making the day run as smoothly as possible. We were all very excited to see the end result come out so successfully. We had a great turnout, with participants coming for both the purposes of professional and personal development.

The workshop, called Horse Wisdom in Leadership: Communication - The Other 90%,  was a leadership focused format. While it’s commonly recognized that only 10% of communication is verbal, in our culture, we’ve virtually become mesmerized by words as our social and educational systems teach us to dissociate from the body, the environment, and the subtle nuances of nonverbal communication. This one day introductory workshop included skills for accessing that “other 90%” with the help of the horses, exercising the non-verbal communication, assertiveness, emotional fitness, and relationship skills essential to leadership - as managers, innovators, entrepreneurs, educators, parents and mentors of the next generation.

Sampson teaching participants the skills involved in clear communication.

Below is a testimonial from one of the workshop attendees:

“IT WAS THE MOST VALUABLE LESSONS I EVER HAVE GOTTEN ON MISS-COMMUNICATIONS. Trust your gut and do this training! It may save your marriage or save a client or save you from having to fire an employee. I strongly strongly strongly recommend this workshop if you are a manager or if you depend on your communication skills to make a living.”

We are excited to announce that we have added more dates to the calendar and are runnig specials now! The next Horse Wisdom in Leadership workshop is coming up this Thursday, June 25th, 2009. For more information or to register, please visit http://challenge-u.com/events.html.

Last month, Challenge U held several equine experiential workshops in Southern California. We are so excited to begin this next chapter of transformational work that we can offer our clients. We are also in the final stages of securing an amazing property of our own in Fallbrook, CA to use horses for team and leadership development. If you are wondering what we mean by using horses or “the Way of the Horse” then let us explain…

Horses responding to their surroundings

Our last equine event started with a deeper understanding of what the messages are behind the emotions we experience and how to access those messages. Instead of assigning good-bad-right-wrong to emotions, we can simply look to them for the information they are providing.

To horses, emotion is simply information. It it just an important for them to know when another herd member is feeling afraid or angry as it is for them to know when that same horse is feeling content or playful. Because they are preyed upon in nature, these sensitive, mindful creatures have maintained a highly developed ability to respond to subtle changes in stance, muscle tension, breathing and hence the general arousal level of other horses as well as predators, an ability they easily transfer to human beings.

An interesting fact is that creatures with a keen emotional sense cannot easily be manipulated or lied to; they are only comfortable when authentic feelings and motivations are being acknowledged. The physical behavior of horses provides a dramatic illustration of this point. As we watch horses, we noticed that they pick up on everything going on around them, but typically only react strongly when they feel threatened. They don’t suppress their emotions, while at the same time they don’t just react wildly to everything they experience.

One of the greatest tool we taught the participants at our last event was how to develop Emotional Agility. This refers to the ability to get the message behind the emotion, to adjust behavior, relationship or environment accordingly, and then let that emotion go and return to grazing. This ability helps us humans not panic or overreact when faced with strong emotions, while also not suppressing uncomfortable emotions that could lead to whirlwinds of uncontrollable expressions later.

As you probably have already recognized, developing Emotional Agility will dramatically alter how you receive and respond to the world around you. Here is a testimonial of how it is already changing the participants of the workshop…

“This experience has helped me make connection to things I have pushed aisde because I didn’t know how to deal with them. Now I feel pretty comfortable addressing those issues and staying true to me and defining my boundaries.”

The most exciting part about this learning is it’s only the beginning of what horses can teach us and what we want to share with you. We encourage you to check out all the workshops we are offering involving Equine Expereintial Learning at our Upcoming Events page.