Natural
Horsemanship
Horsemanship is about a lot more than just "making a horse do something", in fact it could be said that it is nothing to do with that at all. Properly speaking horsemanship is an art not a competition, the art of (two way!) communicating with the horse.
This is of course where "natural horsemanship" has (re)entered the public eye, as a very necessary reaction to... well shall we just say a tendency towards a less two-way relationship.
Natural horsemanship encourages us to get the horse's mind involved with what we're doing.
Natural horsemanship does not suggest that everything will be luvvy-duvvy and we'll never need to stand up for ourselves.
The horse (desparately) needs a leader. If no-one else steps up to the plate then the horse will take the lead. That's rarely a good enough idea, enough of the time for it to be a sensible option.
Funnily enough, when the horse is frightened she gets frightening, even the smallest horse is pretty strong. So learning to allow them to be safe usually allows us the same thing.
The first element of horsemanship is nothing to do with getting on a horse's back. It's about finding a way to communicate with the horse so that he is clear what's going on and is not frightened. Then when she feels safe she can get interested enough to participate rather than object.
You will notice that I said that natural horsemanship has "re-entered" the public eye. If you read some classical horsemanship literature, particularly the by French authors, you will find many of the same ideas expressed; allowing the horse time to understand, letting the horse be free, being extremely light.
In fact this is not as surprising as it may at first sound. When the American cavalry was looking around for a training model to follow, they settled on the French tradition. There is particular reference to the garrison at Fort Worth (?), and you will also find Bill DorranceHailed by many as the founder of "Natural Horsemanship", Bills book, True Horsemanship Through Feel, is definitely a "must read". In fact it's a "must re-read and re-read and re-read" referring to a French book by Francois Baucher, one of the giants of the French tradition that he had read.