As I understand it, the Jefferies Method was pioneered in Australia by a non-horseman who was able to tame and ride an "un-tamable" horse using this technique.
I start by getting the horse comfortable with me jumping up and down on the ground a safe distance away from him. If the horse moves, I usually allow it it, but I keep hopping up and down until his feet are still. Then I stop and rub him all over.
If he stands still while I jump, I'll usually jump for 15-20 times and then stop to release the pressure and reward him for standing. If he shows one of the 5 main signs of relaxing (licking or chewing, lowering his head, blinking, letting out a breath, or cocking his hip) when I'm hopping up and down, I will stop jumping immediately. I gradually get closer to the horse, until I am able to jump up and down right next to him.
The next step is to jump up and down while resting my hands on his back. Then I start letting him feel some of my weight. The whole time I'm rubbing him all over, even back over his rump and down the back of his legs. Before I'm done, I want to be able to slide myself back off his rear and I don't want a close up of his hind feet in my face when I do.
If he moves away, I will slide off and say "Whoa", while pull him around firmly to face up to me. Then I go back to what I was doing like nothing happened. In this video, there were a couple times when Ranger took a step or two and I let it pass, because I felt like he was shifting his feet to help himself be more balanced. It was similar to if I were carrying someone on my back and needed to take a step to better balance myself.
Once the horse stands comfortably with me lying perpendicular on his back, I then start to swing my legs up so that I'm lying parallel . I like to let my legs swing along his side sometimes, or will sometimes rub one leg on his hindquarters as I'm lying parallel. Each time I drop down off his back, I try to do it a little closer toward the hindquarters, but still from off of the side. Finally, I take a leap of faith, and scooch my way all the way along his back until I slide straight off his rear end.
The rubbing is very relaxing to the horse (think of getting a massage!). In this video, you'll see I used a step stool to facilitate climbing on Ranger's back. Most of the time I don't use a stool, but it depends on the size of the horse. Ranger is about 15 hands 3 inches. I've been under the weather this week, so I decided to take it easy on myself. It was probably also nicer for Ranger because I wasn't repeatedly slamming into him trying to hop up on him!
Below is a clip of Ranger being saddled and bridled for the second time. I noticed yesterday he seemed a little nervous about the sound of the girth buckle jingling when I took off the saddle, so I took a moment today to desensitize him to the sound of the saddle before swinging it up on his back.
Safety note: Normally when doing these exercises, I prefer to be in the center of the arena or round pen. It gives the horse room to move and is safer for me. In this case, I was pretty close to the wall to try to make sure I was in view of my un-manned camera. I've done a lot of desensitizing with Ranger already. If I hadn't been pretty confident of Ranger staying calm through this, though, I wouldn't have been so close to the wall, camera or no camera.