Go to the new Discussion Forum to post your questions and read the discussions.  It's a great way to connect with others using the Masterson Method and witness their experiences.  Jim and the Level I Certification Graduates are there to help you, and it is a good forum for you to share your successes with the Masterson Method.  Go to the Forum =>

Three-Day Advanced Course - Enthusiast Path:   For those that have taken the Weekend Seminar-Workshop and want to continue on working with Jim, now's your chance.  Read more =>

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Our new Calendar page:  Color coded to find the seminar-workshop or the Advanced courses for your participation.  Go to Calendar page =>

Training Video Clips:  Watch Jim work and teach with these short, 4-5 minute video clips.  Watch now =>

In the Media:  Watch videos of Jim in the Media, and short clips from other internet websites and magazines.  Read pdf articles written on Jim's work.  Go now =>

Level I Certification Practitioners:  Find a Certification Practitioner in your area to help you work on your horse(s), the list is growing.  Find one now=>

Ask Jim:  

Dear Jim: Have you ever had a horse that you've worked on regularly begin to show signs of release just by seeing you? I've got a filly at the track who would lick and chew every time I would stop to talk to her (without even going in the stall). I thought I was imagining it, but the last few times she has stretched and chewed, or shook and chewed - classical conditioning maybe?   Cyndi

Hi Cyndi,

It happens all the time. Horses are so tuned-in to our body language that often I'll be standing in the aisle talking to someone about their horse and the horse will start yawning. When you think about it, there's really nothing else for them to do but stay closely tuned in to every moving thing, or being around them.

Something as subtle as softening of the eye to us can be like shouting to them. It has to do with their survival. That's why how you enter the stall, approach the horse, even touch the horse, has so much to do with your effectiveness. Even the translation of your thought, or intention, or deliberateness, into your own body can be recognized, either visually or through feel, by the horse.

The brain is an integral part of the nervous system; even more so for the horse. We're the ones that keep thinking confined to the brain, or think we do. They have a much less static - a much more direct connection between the body and the brain. I think that what we think of as "thinking", in the horse is integrated even more into the body.

This takes classical conditioning to a new level. The input, or stimulus can be so subtle that we don't even recognize the behavior, or response, unless we're looking, or feeling, very closely (sound familiar?). So we are conditioning the horse to release even as we are doing it. Once we bypass the survival response and get under the radar, we are conditioning the horse to release even more ( different degrees, depending on how strong and what type of survival response is programmed into that particular horse).

Of course, horses yawn all the time, and blink, lick, snort, etc.  But as you know the key is in recognizing the correlation between what you are doing and what the horse is doing.

So, as I said during the course, don't doubt that you are being effective using softer, lighter, subtler inputs. Doubt the doubt. Your horse just told you, or rather shouted, that it's working.  Jim