Trainer Bios

Mike Sikorski Bio

Mike Sikorski comes from a 30 years of sales and senior sales management in various industries, primarily construction equipment. This sales and management background has helped Mike develop his communications and interpersonal skills that allow him effectively coach and guide his students.

Mike Sikorski did not grow up with horses, but with a city boy’s dream of owning horses some day. In 1996 Mike moved to New Mexico and the first thing he did way buy his first horse, 2-year-old unbroken Appaloosa. It did not take long for Mike to find out that he needed to learn more about horses, and quickly.

Over the last eight years, Mike has studied with many leading horsemen including: Buck Brannaman, Ray Hunt, Pat Parelli, and Linda Parelli. Mike has also studied with many of the Parelli Professionals including Andrew Booth, Steve Byrne, and Randal Moore.

In 1998 Mike and his wife adopted 2 BLM Mustangs, and 3 weeks later were surprised by the addition of a foal. This began Mike’s experience and enjoyment starting horses and his love of Mustangs. Since that time Mike has started many horses including other Mustangs, PMU mares, PMU foals, and your average young horses.

In addition to the horses, Mike also loves working with people, so he specializes in giving human lessons. His approach is to become a coach for his students and to encourage them to grow their relationship with their horse as much as they can – yet at their own pace. One of the primary things Mike works at is:

The horse – human relationship, developing mutual respect so that the horse understands that its good to be with the person and the person understands that it is safe to be with the horse. Mike helps students with the following:
o Conquering fear and building confidence
o Being calmer
o Paying attention
o Not allowing crowding

Mike enjoys watching (and helping) his students and their horse’s progress on to more advanced riding and horsemanship.

Mike Sikorski Bio

Mike Sikorski comes from a 30 years of sales and senior sales management in various industries, primarily construction equipment. This sales and management background has helped Mike develop his communications and interpersonal skills that allow him effectively coach and guide his students.

Mike Sikorski did not grow up with horses, but with a city boy’s dream of owning horses some day. In 1996 Mike moved to New Mexico and the first thing he did way buy his first horse, 2-year-old unbroken Appaloosa. It did not take long for Mike to find out that he needed to learn more about horses, and quickly.

Over the last eight years, Mike has studied with many leading horsemen including: Buck Brannaman, Ray Hunt, Pat Parelli, and Linda Parelli. Mike has also studied with many of the Parelli Professionals including Andrew Booth, Steve Byrne, and Randal Moore.

In 1998 Mike and his wife adopted 2 BLM Mustangs, and 3 weeks later were surprised by the addition of a foal. This began Mike’s experience and enjoyment starting horses and his love of Mustangs. Since that time Mike has started many horses including other Mustangs, PMU mares, PMU foals, and your average young horses.

In addition to the horses, Mike also loves working with people, so he specializes in giving human lessons. His approach is to become a coach for his students and to encourage them to grow their relationship with their horse as much as they can – yet at their own pace. One of the primary things Mike works at is:

The horse – human relationship, developing mutual respect so that the horse understands that its good to be with the person and the person understands that it is safe to be with the horse. Mike helps students with the following:
o Conquering fear and building confidence
o Being calmer
o Paying attention
o Not allowing crowding

Mike enjoys watching (and helping) his students and their horse’s progress on to more advanced riding and horsemanship.

BERNIE WILIMITIS BIO

Bernard (Bernie) Wilimitis grew up in an agricultural community in Indiana where he learned the importance of taking care of the land and learning about multiple kinds of animals through hands on experience. He worked for farm owners helping to grow their crops and taking care of their animals, hogs, cattle, sheep, and horses. Horses were his favorite. Bernie started to develop his passion for horses at a very young age when he worked cleaning stalls and caretaking for a horse barn. He continued working for this barn, and for other farmers, through his high school years. During this time, Bernie developed his skills enough to start training and showing for the barn and was eventually given 2 horses for his own. He pursued training/showing in halter, western pleasure, and timed events, winning numerous local and state events. He was active in 4H horse programs and FFA livestock judging teams.

After high school, Bernie volunteered for the Army National Guard and started working towards his Agricultural Business degree focused on Equine Business. Unfortunately, Bernie was unable to keep his 2 horses during college and sold them, knowing that although it may not be those same horses, but he would get back into it as soon as he could. Well, even though he did not own horses, he continued his studies on horses attending clinics, seminars, classes, and studying. Bernie’s education lead him down multiple paths of learning and more years of studying, until his military obligation was up and at the same time, the degree he was working on came within reach. He decided to move west to New Mexico to work for a semiconductor company developing people.

Once he completed his move, it wasn’t 3 months and Bernie was back into horses purchasing 2 more. Now it was time for Bernie to gain more hands on experience with both horses and people. Knowing that each, the horse and human, without each other around, exist happily on their own. He started his journey down the path of understanding the horse and the human and why they do the things that they do. It is not each of them alone that causes the other frustration, but it is when the two are together, that causes the frustration between them. Neither can speak the other’s language, and neither can read the other’s mind, so the development of a common communication channel was the only way. It is like those movies where you see an alien coming down from outerspace and the earthling tries to communicate with them, yet they don’t understand and can take it the wrong way, and the earthling doesn’t understand and does something that may make them not trust us or worse attack us. Bernie has focused his last 11 years on learning how to break down the barriers and, behaviorally develop both the horse and the human to be willing to accept creating that common communication channel.

Bernie’s experiences with understanding and developing people to achieve their best, and his experiences with developing teams and partnerships directly feed into his experiences with understanding and developing horses to achieve their best and to develop an accepting partnership with the human. The two go hand in hand, developing people and developing horses.

Bernie believes that there is a reason for the actions that horses and humans take. Whether it is due to cause and effect, or whether it is from a previous experience as an infant or foal, most animals do things or react certain ways because of experiences. Once we knowingly start asking ourselves why the horse reacted that way or why we reacted that way, only then can we start to understand ourselves and the horse enough to deliver accurate communications. He believes that the very first action 2 animals (horse and human) do when they start to communicate is Listen and Read each other, even before one or the other tries to ask for something. We read each other’s micro-messages in a flash of a second and if we are listening objectively, we then know the state the other is in. From this we can modify our communication style to meet the other’s needs. Some horses and people are very sensitive and will only go more instinctual with force and heavy handedness, other horses have a larger pressure tolerance level and can handle more ambiguity in communications. Bernie focuses on training the thinking side of the brain vs. the instinctual side. The instinctual side will always be there, it is what has kept the horse alive for so long and we do not want to change that, what he wants to influence is the side that says it’s ok to keep calm and control your emotions and trust the human.

Bernie abides by the motto of “Seek to Understand” first, before casting judgment or direction. He holds true to the values of Honesty, Integrity, Fairness and values Dedication and Trying. Bernie’s biggest reward and energizer is when the horse and the human trust him enough to confront their challenge and succeed.

 

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