Thanks for a Great Clinic in Essex!

I just wanted to thank you once again for a most interesting and informative clinic.
I suppose that I was expecting there to be a lot of talk about moving 'energy' and of 'chi' - which, by the way, is fine by me too as the horses seem to respond to this type of approach too - but it is all too easy for this approach to become too 'airy fairy', as you put it.
What I was not expecting was to be more than impressed by your extensive anatomical and bio-mechanical knowledge. Being a Mechanical Engineering graduate and practising Osteopath, it takes a lot to impress me!
Likewise, with a background in Tai Chi (short Yang form - for 3 yrs some 25 yrs ago), Aikido - for the last 5 yrs, Yoga, Pilates, Qi Gong and one year of continual Alexander Technique lessons - all over a period of 30 yrs - I was amazed at the effectiveness of your Laing Gong exercises. I found myself able to access and stretch parts of my body that I had not been able to reach since an old back injury at the age of 27 - 20 yrs ago! The deceptively simple instruction to 'hollow' the lumbar spine before forward bending automatically made me - and my fellow students - forward bend by rotating the ilia about the femoral heads. This too is what Alexander is aiming for but it took me many lessons to break my of forward bending from the lumbo-sacral area. This one piece of advice produced the same elegant, pain-free mechanics!
However, the biggest revelation to me was the re-alignment exercise at the start which you called, 'Standing Meditation'. My mind reeled against the idea of an apparently 'leaning forward' posture but I was determined to keep an open mind and to accept and try these new ideas. I was grateful that your work is so rooted in practical application. I few quick physical tests of the 'heels' vs 'balls of feet' posture told me immediately that this was correct! Also, within a minute of standing in this new posture, I had the same releases that I'd experienced only after about 10 Alexander Lessons; I was breathing into the posterior and inferior aspects of my back (activating my floating ribs or 'widening the back' as F. M. Alexander put it). Some time later, I realised that your suggested posture had activated my core, pulled in by middle-age-spread of a tummy and allowed the front of my chest to expand - all with no conscious effort! It felt wonderful!
Finally, as I drove home yesterday, I had a bit of a personal revelation regarding my understanding of basic equitation. I had puzzled for ages why so many people and equitation instructors seemed obsessed with 'transitions'. Even Linda Parelli has been encouraging her L3 students to use 'a million transitions' to help them progress their 'Finesse', presumably due to her experiences with Walter Zetl. Having only been riding for about 5 yrs in total, having no goals to succeed in Dressage - and having a rather under-motivated 'been-there-seen-that-go-ahead-and-impress-me' kind of a horse (yeah! I know we should be careful about how we describe our horses - they are our mirrors, after all! Lol!) - I was having trouble seeing how I was going to present these types of exercises to Jo (my horse) when I was unclear of the purpose.
Anyway, suddenly it came to me - by following your example and applying a mechanical analysis....
It suddenly became clear to me that transitions (changes of gait) are Accelerations and Decelerations and this is where Anterior/Posterior forces are developed. It is these forces that easily cause the human to become UNbalanced and to tense and to grip!
It is one thing (not easy - but relatively easy) to sit to a regular walk or trot or even canter - ie at relatively constant velocity - but to be able to do the same whilst accelerating or decelerating is quite another! Horses can easily do all these transitions in the field, carrying only themselves, even Flying Changes etc - and it became clear to me that they could fairly easily do this with us aboard if only we could 'stay connected'; could shift our weight to match theirs; could keep our centre over their centre; could balance OUR bodies without levering against them!. In Tai Chi terms its no more then 'Pushing Hands' done with the whole body.
So....if a human is seeking to develop that type of connection; if they want to allow the horse to perform as well as they can in the field etc then staying in balance during transitions is one of the keys! The other side of the coin is that it suddenly became equally clear to me just why the average human has so many problems with their horse doing transitions! The missing key, which YOU are providing for us all is how can WE do transitions with our bodies and then, further, how can we learn to be aware enough of our own bodies so that we can organise them to follow the horse's movements.
In Parelli-land students often experience BFOs ('Blinding Flashes of the Obvious'!). Penny expressed one on Sunday morning. She suddenly a connection with something you had shown them on the Fri evening talk. Suddenly she did not just understand what you had said, she had made it her own. I think this is part and parcel of what you eloquently described as not you 'giving' the information but us actively 'taking' it. My 'transitions' is just the same. It was a BFO and, by definition, is probably 'Blindingly Obvious' to everyone else. Nonetheless it is precious to me and I want to thank you for that inspiration from the bottom of my heart : )
I am sure we will meet again, James and hopefully quite soon. As you can see, my head is bubbling over with the info you shared. I will certainly be recommended all my Natural Horsemanship friends to investigate your approach and to take a clinic with you to experience it for themselves. As I tried to express to you as I left on Sunday, your approach fits so well with a lot of my past experiences and existing knowledge that I know that your way is definitely a way in for me to better understand and further explore my horsemanship.
"When the student is ready, the Master appears."
Kind regards
Steve Miller