Friendly Trails
Center for Equine Assisted Leadership
 Holistic Training for Horses and Humans

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THE FRIENDLY TRAILS CAPABILITY CURRICULUM

Equine Assisted Learning Center

Holistic Training for Horses and Humans

CAPABLE (defined by Webster’s) means having attributes (physical or mental power) required for performance or accomplishment; having general efficiency and ability; Capability: The facility or potential for an indicated use or deployment. Potentiality.

We may not like to think of deploying our children into the world, but in many ways that is just what they will need in order to reach their POTENTIAL with the power they need to perform and be accomplished.

Through EAL and the Capability Curriculum, every visit to the Friendly Trails barn will focus in one way or many toward developing youth who are able:

We foster and hold in high expectation these abilities in the members of our community:

  • DEPENDABILITY—You will do what you say you will do

  • CAPABILITY—You can do what you say you will do.

  • ACCOUNTABILITY—We can count on you to take responsibility for your actions, remaining mindful and not placing blame.

We hold the same standards for all members, young and old. However, we adjust our expectations to be appropriate to each member of our herd be they children, teens, adults, or even horses.

Our culture has developed in such a way that our children lack the kind of modeling I experienced when young. On the ranch, a child worked alongside the adults, learning, doing, imitating, and just shooting the breeze. In this environment many core values were taught including a strong work ethic, independence, and the parental values about personal and spiritual issues. In order for our children to be strong in body, mind and spirit, to be CAPABLE, they need places to slow down and practice these skills and values.

At Friendly Trails, children and adults work together to help the herd be its strongest, healthiest and best. We use our muscles, our hearts, and our minds with dedication and commitment. This is called MINDFULNESS, a cornerstone of the Capability Curriculum. Mindfulness is a Buddhist principle that calls us to apply our whole selves—body, mind and spirit/heart to any task before us. Horses are ever mindful. In fact, they are so good at mindfulness that we sometimes have to work very hard to distract them into a training task:

Horses practice perfect mindfulness about two things: Finding and eating food and making sure they don’t become food for someone else.

The more mindfulness a human has, the better her focus and the more capability she will demonstrate at any task, be it grooming a horse, cleaning poop, trotting a perfect 10 meter circle, or emptying the dishwasher. It feels good to practice mindfulness, and we always try our hardest to be as mindful as we can.

No one can teach riding as well as a horse—in fact, no one can teach life as well as a horse. Hang out at the ranch and see your life transform.