Natural horsemanship is a way of communicating with your horse in the way another horse would.  Horses will respond quickly to these methods as it is their natural way of communicating. 
For example, if a horse felt another horse was getting too close to him, he would send that horse a series of signals.  The first would be he would put his ears back and pull a "mean" face at the horse.  If that were ignored, he would then maybe lunge towards the horse with a mock charge.  If the first horse was still in his space, he would spin round and threaten to kick.  If the horse is still in his space(chances are it wouldnt be!) then he would kick,bite or chase the offending horse and make him move away.

The space invading horse would know for next time, that a horse putting his ears back wants him to move away, and he will usually move before he gets kicked or bitten.
 Look in the field when your horse is out with other horses, dominant horses need only give other horses a mean stare to get them to move out of their way. Horses assert their dominance over over horses by getting them to move thier feet.
 Horses can also invite each other into their personal space by using body language. By teaching our horses that we can speak this language too, we can use this horse communication to our advantage and ask our horses to move away or come closer with just a look or hand signal. 

For example, you have your horse on a rope and halter.  You want him to move away from you. First you wave your finger at his at him from side to side.  If he steps back, great!  If not, wave your whole hand at him, the rop will start to sway from side to side also.  If he doesn't step back still, then you wave your arem from the elbow down, making bigger movements with your hand and the rope.  If he still doesnt move, you wave your whole arm form the shoulder from side to side in a big movement.  The rope will be moving around a LOT now.  Keep this up until your horse takes a step back, then instantly stop the movement, relax and reward your horse with a rub/scratch. (or click and treat if clicker training)
Then try again from the finger waving.  Your horse will start to respond to the earlier signals as he wont want the pressure of the rope and your arm waving around, he will learn if he steps back at your earlier signal, the pressure will be avoided.  (See my video "TedsDance")  Soon you will be able to wiggle your finger and your horse will step back without the need for further pressure.

There are many ways NH communicates with horses what you want them to do.

This way of training horses makes it clear to your horse what you want and when they have done what you want.  You will find your horse will want to hang around with you more once you can speak his language.  My horses used to run away from me went I went to catch them.  Since changing my approach to Natural Horsemanship methods, they are glad to see me and will come over willingly, even if that means they will be ridden. Natural horsemanship works very well alongside clicker training and I use both methods simultaneously.  If you think you would be interested in Natural horsemanship, keep an eye out on this site, I will be explaining some of the ways you can teach it to your horse. 


EQUIPMENT

The basic equipment needed for NH methods is a rope halter, a 12ft horsemans rope (made from marine grade rope) and a horsemans stick.  You will more often than not find the horsemans sticks sold as "carrot sticks" with a "savvy string", the ropes as "parelli ropes" and "parelli halters"   These are the names Parelli followers call them, although not the actual names of the items, the items were used by horse trainers long before Parelli got going. I get mine from Ebay.

Rope Halter.  This is a headcollar made from rope.  If the horse pulls against it, he will feel pressure from the rope.  You will teach him to move away from pressure, so therefore he will not pull against the rope halter.  He will also learn to foll the feel and direction of the halter. 

12ft Horsemans rope.  This is a heavy feeling rope with a lot of "feel" in it.  It feels a lot different to a normal leadrope.  You can feel what the horse is doing on the other end of the rope, and he can feel you also.  They usually come with a metal clip on one end and a leather flappy bit on the other

Horsemans Stick (or carrot stick)  Is a 4ft ish stick usually made from fiberglass, with a leather loop at one end, onto which you can loop a "string".  It is not a whip, it is to be used as an extension of you. The string is a 6ft piece of thin rope.  The stick is not bendy or very flexible.  It is quite light and easy to use.  This is used to send signals to your horse in a variety of ways as well as being used to desensitise your horse.  It is not used for beating your horse up!


I will write some articles soon with projects to keep you going with NH.  If you find it is for you, I would recommend starting on the Parelli sucess series of DVD's.  You would need to start at level 1/2 at first.  The level 1/2 packs can be found on ebay for around £50.  There are other methods of NH apart from Parelli, but in my opinion, Parelli have found a way of making it into an easy to follow program, something which I think no other NH method has done so far.  I read/watch as many NH methods as possible and pick out bits from each, as well as using clicker training.