A Journey to Softness

Mark Rashid shares personal stories about events in his life that helped him on his journey to softness, as well as the stumbling blocks along the way. The narrative includes a section in which Mark passes on the experiences of others from a wide variety of walks of life and occupations, all sharing their views on how feel, connection and softness apply to their respective professions. Those interviewed for this special section include a musician who has written and performed several number one country music hits, a highly decorated helicopter pilot, a movie actor, a college professor, a master carpenter, an artist, and numerous others. What the reader learns by example is how to develop feel, relaxation, connection, and softness in both horse and rider. The methods and techniques Mark demonstrated have been gleaned from decades of work with horses and horse people, as well as while he trained with world-class martial artists whose lives have been dedicated to developing softness and connection with a partner through feel.



Mark Rashid is an internationally acclaimed horse trainer known for his ability to understand the horse's point of view and solve difficult problems with communication rather than force. He began working with horses at age ten, when he met the 'old man', who taught him to work with horses, not against them, and to listen to what the horse is trying to say. Mark's clinics centre on one-on-one work with horse and rider and are immensely popular with people around the world.He is the author of several books – Considering the Horse, A Good Horse is Never a Bad Color; Horses Never Lie; Life Lessons from a Ranch Horse; Horsemanship Through Life; Big Horses, Good Dogs, & Straight Fences; A Life With Horses; Whole Heart, Whole Horse; and his latest, a novel, Out of the Wild. He is based in Colorado