CARLSBORG — Yvette Ludwar’s kind of therapy comes with a whole lot of horse sense and humanity.
Since 2004, she’s been teaching youngsters from the age of 3 and older how to ride horses, which she said eliminates fear and self-doubt at an early age.
“I say start ’em while they’re young. At 3 years old, it teaches them balance and self-esteem,” Ludwar said at her Native Horsemanship Riding Center on Taylor Cutoff Road. “By placing them in a safe atmosphere, you are going to help their courage, thereby their self-esteem.”
Her equine therapy helps the mentally and physically abused child cope, she said, adding that Child Protective Services, the state agency that watches over abused youths, periodically refers children to her.
It is a program designed to help children create a frame of trust and cooperation that promotes self-esteem, teaches responsibility in caring for a horse and imparts positive life skills that carry over to school, home and social life, she said.
She chose to train in horse-assisted therapy at the Pony Farm in Temple, N.H., to grow beyond her instruction skills in basic horsemanship after hearing several parents ask if she could teach disabled children to ride.
Her special training through the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association certifies her in horse-assisted therapy, which gives those unable to walk a new set of legs up on the saddle.
Mimics walking
“Riding is the only thing that mimics the body’s walking,” she said. “It can wake up nerves that would ordinarily be dead. The wheelchair-bound get total body stimulation.”
She recalls a child with cerebral palsy who arrived hunched over in a wheelchair but later rose up straight and tall in the saddle atop one of her ponies.
Part Oklahoma Cherokee, Ludwar teaches using the native horsemanship style of horse training and riding.
“It’s a 100 percent gentle method for training horses,” she said. “Even patting is aggressive behavior to horses.”
They prefer a good rub or relaxing scratch over an unnerving pat, she explained.
“That’s why I believe our horses are gentler and kinder,” she said, adding that riders are taught to use the “wiggle, wiggle, smooch” method of asking a horse to move rather than kicking it in the sides.
The rider simply wiggles twice back and forth in the saddle and makes a kissing sound with the lips.
Children can learn to ride small horses through an obstacle course as well as ride the trails.
Safety helmets and boots are provided for those who lack them.
The program also can help a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome or someone who has just been through a stressful, nasty divorce.
Five $150 Veterans of Foreign Wars scholarships are given to each year qualifying disabled individuals and children.
All that is necessary is a letter to the VFW expressing the need, Ludwar said.
Ludwar, who teaches up to 200 to ride every summer, dreams of one day having access to an indoor arena to teach year-round.
“What we need is a fairy godmother,” she said, smiling.
Those at the center praised Ludwar’s approach.
‘Having a blast’
“They’re both having a blast,” Sequim mom Amy Klippert said of her daughters, Isabelle, 7, and Sarah, 5, who were finishing up their pony riding lessons with Ludwar, whose volunteers then led the girls on a short trail ride around the center’s treed 5 acres of maintained trails.
“Yvette really breaks it down for them to learn.”
Their grandmother, Donna Spivey of Sequim, called Ludwar “a wonderful lady.”
“I am so impressed,” she added. “To have the love of horses like she does, I couldn’t ask for anything better than this.”
Ludwar can be contacted at 360-582-0907.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
