This month, YPOD toured Horse Empower, a ranch devoted to Equine Assisted Learning founded by Kim Hardesty.

Horse Empower offers horse-centric team building and personal development to all ages. Some come to develop better communication or self-confidence; others choose to enjoy a ladies night or date night off the beaten path.

Everyone enjoyed their time among the gentle giants, appreciating their intuition, and feeling nibbly lips on our palms as we fed them cookies.

First, a lesson in first impressions. We observed five horses, picking which horse we felt most drawn to. Some of us were smitten with the leader horses, others by the jokester or the shyest. After interacting with each horse some impressions were overwritten - a metaphor for life.

It’s astonishing what non-human animals can teach us about being human.

Next, we divided in half for a riddle: get the light-colored horses to one corner of the arena and the dark-colored horses to another without talking (to the horses or each other), touching, or luring them. My team formed a hand-linked chain to corral horses. That didn’t work, but other tactics like snapping behind the horses and leading got the job done.

Kim explained that dysfunction and conflict in a group becomes glaringly obvious with this nonverbal teamwork. We were praised for having a cohesiveness that helped us swiftly meet the challenge. Well done, YPOD!

There’s just one thing hella-harmonious YPOD are missing... you!
Come see what all the (lack of) fuss is about at our NEXT EVENTS.

Maddie Côté
Freelance Copywriter