If someone would mention the name “Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling” in the horse world some years ago, would often get reactions like: “Who?’ and then “O, that one” Not so strange, because Hempfling vanished for a while suddenly out of the spotlights, after very turbulent and active years. So where should we know him from?

Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling lived until his 29th birthday completely without horses.” I was someone who really had no understanding of what a horse might be” are his own words. Rather he did not want to have it, he was an engineer and teacher on a kind of High school.

In time he discovered that two things were very important to him: Authenticity and Nature. He noticed that both these statements where always connected to horses. “So if it is like this then I have to go there”.

Remaining a teacher

He went on a journey and saw a lot of different riding styles. He saw how people in general interacted with their horses and thought, this is not the way. Hempfling was interested in art and technique, both in connection to nature. Technique ok, but humanity and nature should stay on the spot. Finally he arrived in Spain and developed the “Dance with Horses”.

“I have always been a teacher, that belongs to my life,” he explains, “and I did it immediately with horses. I have no choice and a logical consequence was that I wrote at once the book: “Dancing with horses”. That was in 1993 and to everybody’s astonishment the book was enormously well sold. This resulted in a lot of attention: It came suddenly like an high wave on top of me” I was not prepared for this, also not as a person and I really was turned inside out Maybe I was also naïve, I mean, I come from the world of dance, all very creative. And what I did was to transpose this “being natural” towards the horses. Like: ‘there is a horse, here and me and I am doing it like this’ I did hit them, never! So quite a naïve approach, still it worked. The problem was only that I thought, that if it were so easy, then it would be easy to teach. And that was not always the case.

On a certain moment it was the time for Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling to look at himself very closely. In the meantime he was married and moved to Denmark.” I asked myself, how do I want to continue? Look I have always tried to make things clear to human beings. I am an artist a Philosopher, but one who really tries to understand the world. That is a big difference to 15 years ago, then it was also about me, now I would like to give the world a chance to be authentical and true to themselves, the symbol for this is the horse”.

Thee great challenge for Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling was how he could adjust this concept to his own development and experiences. In the meantime he is already for a while so far that he comes out with this way of working. From the whole world people are visiting him at his Danish residence, and the 26 and 27th of April he will be in Holland. In the former KNHS centre in Wanroij together with ROS magazine he organises on two days a clinic. The first day he will be working with a horse that is already given up by its owners: impossible to deal with, not to ride (any more), not to train (any more).

For Klaus Ferndinand Hempfling this project in Holland is absolutely a next step in his way to deal with horses:” You will see me working on my own borderlines with the most difficult horses we have. But in this way it is also the best way to make it visible how a horse reacts to you. It is in fact very effective because you should experience it like being a horse.

On this one day Hempfling is going to discover how this horse has become the way it is now. Then comes the step towards discovery of which way you can go together with the horse to repair the connection. It is about the feeling, how can we do this. That’s what its all about. They are pure forms, which are really able to transmit your feeling to the horse. It is not only an explanation, because the horse should also bring in his feeling. I want to give the spectators an experience that touches them.

This experience they will never forget and so I will able to give them a hand. (To help them). Together back to the origin of the horse and everybody who likes to can participate, or what he also says, discover things in it, in this original feeling he wants to transmit to the horse.”

I can be honest and sincere and you have the possibility to see if you also can… With the impulse that you get from me you can develop this more and more. And looking back, in former times I thought: It is so simple, why don’t you understand it.

Until I understood that I had to go deeper in the essence of other human beings. It took me more then 10 years to understand that. Nowadays I know it, because I experienced it, it is in me. I know that I still want to go too quick, but it makes no sense to come up with a lot of explanations. The strongest reactions come if you say,” look and let it take place, experience it because de explanations can be found in the feeling.”

You have to experience it emotionally and from there the explanation comes, but will never stand alone any more. So people can understand me better and from there on their own horse”.