This is Duck and I in our last private lesson. I didn't get too many pictures of the clinic, the camera was dying and I never remembered it. But Niels came one day and took these.
From the lesson. We were playing with Rhythm, and bending. The beginnings of going the direction of finesse.
We're both focused over there! I think we were both looking at the trailer that had been backed into the arena for practicing the trailer loading later that day. I was trying to keep Duck AWAY from the trailer and she was trying to take me IN the trailer a couple times during the lesson!
I love this picture. It is my favorite from the clinic. We actually look good!
Carol telling me how a couple habits I had needed fixed. When tying up the lead line, don't fasten it at the top, only daisy chain it. Her other instruction was not to tie the lead line up until AFTER you get on your horse, and to undo it BEFORE you get off. Why? Well you might need them mounting and dismounting. Yep, seems logical but I was taught incorrectly earlier in my education in Parelli.
Warm up and getting ready to mount.
Duck in her stall. Isn't she cute? And below, Duck and I. Duck is a lick-a-holic!
I had the great opportunity last week to attend a long awaited Parelli Level 2/3 Camp. It was held at 5* Parelli Professional Carol Coppinger's Farm in Mt. Juliet, TN. It was about a 7 hour drive for us, which I had been preparing for with trailer loading practice with Duck for the last several months. (See prior posts about Trailer loading prep.)I am probably going to post in a few posts about this trip as there was SO much to it! I'll start here.
The loading and trip there was uneventful except for the beginning. Duck was pretty nervous as we were leaving the barn, calling for her pasture mate Kay. We had to make a quick stop for gas and she was still quite jittery (RB for sure!) and calling for Kay. She did the same when we stopped in Asheville for gas, but then after that she calmed down quite a bit and would eat some hay when we were stopped (as long as someone was with her).
The first night Duck was defending her large personal bubble in her stall. We were having an informational meeting in the barn, and Duck was squealing and kicking the stall a lot! Her former pasture mate, Jody's horse Spirit, was stabled next to her. Spirit is also Duck's half brother, they share the same Sire.
After about a day the squealing lessened and she quit kicking the stall. I was totally worried about dealing with RB behavior the whole time we were there. Honestly, I didn't even know if I was going to be able to ride in that big of a group so I went in with no expectations. The first day she did go RBE on me a little bit on the way out to the playground, but then settled in. She did keep pinning her ears as horses would go by but it was nothing like the first clinic I took her to 2 + years ago. I felt like I was going to die at that one! She was lunging at the other horses with teeth bared, and I had practically NO steering! Thankfully the time we've put in together and the opportunity at Sundance to ride around other horses a lot more seems to really have helped. And the clinic helped even more. Yesterday I took Duck out to graze and she touched noses with a horse over the fence which almost always elicit's a huge squeal, but not this time! She just sniffed a little and moved on! WOW!
The general format for the clinic was private lessons in the morning starting at 8am, group groundwork/liberty starting around 10am or so, lunch about 12:30-2, and then ride from 2 till about 5 followed by more private lessons in the evening until about 7pm. That kind of schedule in the heat well lets just say I was pretty tired by the time I got back to the hotel and would pass out quickly and get up and repeat the whole thing again times 4 days!
There are so many concepts that we played with that I am going to do some separate posts on them but to give a couple to lick and chew on that happened in the first hour of the first day of the camp. We were doing lightness simulations with each other and no horses. How little does it take for your partner to notice what it is you want them to do? Amazingly the belly of the rope doesn't even have to move off the ground before you feel the change. Try it sometime with a friend. You will feel a lightness you didn't know existed. And then you will know how much you might have been "screaming" at your horse.
The other part before the simulation just blew my mind and everyone joked that we payed for the first hour of the clinic and the next 4 days were free.
Carol asked us "Are you pleased with your horse, your relationship with your horse?" And most of us said "no", we wanted this or that, or whatever, and we went on complaining about what was wrong. And then she responded by saying "Your horses can feel you being displeased with them, and it is a form pressure from which they get no release because they try and try, but they can never please you. ("It is the pressure that motivates, but the release that teaches." -PP) And then it turns into opposition reflex." And she followed this up by saying "Be pleased with your horses but not satisfied with where you are" That hit the whole group pretty hard I think. We all sat and licked and chewed on that thought for a long time. How to be "pleased" but not satisfied (always leaving room for improvement). Or even pleased AND satisfied.
For me it was a big, fat lightbulb and it didn't just relate to horses, but just life in general. Was I pleased with life? Was I pleased with Duck? And I realized in that moment that I hadn't been. I always wanted more, never was happy with what we had done, it was never enough. And I know she felt it too, because after I changed my attitude, so did she over the next 4 days. Hmm, how interesting!
Are you pleased with the relationship with your horse? Are you pleased with YOUR life? Satisfied? Good food for thought, isn't it?
More to follow...
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