The month of Lessons

The month of October went by super quickly, and what a savvy month of learning it was! I was able to do two lessons with Parelli professionals in October. One with newly trained 1* Annie Shank, and another with 3* Professional Jesse Peters!

The lesson with Annie was first at our stable, so I didn't even have to trailer out! That was a first for me with Parelli lessons. I had never taken one at my barn! So it was very nice just with that!

There were 4 of us that joined in on the lesson, and Annie taught us 2 at a time. The weather wasn't super cooperative, it was pretty cold and windy, but we made the best of it. It was very muddy in the arenas so we opted for the grass play area by the pond to be our lesson spot.

We did simulations, how to play the circle game, how little does it take for your horse to feel you on the rope, and yo-yo phases. It is amazing how little it takes for your horse to feel you. And the fact that I need to be constantly reminded of that!

I was able to play with my circling game, which had previously been broken when trying to ask her for the canter. And finding out that I have been nagging Duck in my send. We played with refining the send and transitions on the circle, specifically walk, trot and then trot, walk to keep her attention and focus. Annie has such a fun personality and made it so enjoyable. She even played with me, with Duck. Then I played with using ALL of my 22ft line for obstacles and driving in zone 3,4,5. Duck likes to be close to me (for security) and I go close to her as well, but moving into level 3 concepts we need to build our relationship up so we are both comfortable and confident out on the 22ft and eventually the 45ft line.

For our lesson with Jesse Peters we traveled to York, SC which was supposed to be about an hour away. Well it was drizzling, dark and there was traffic so it ended up taking about twice that long to get there (and back). I have been playing with Duck and the trailer a lot quite awhile back and a little bit recently, and Duck is getting much more confident loading. I was even able to load her from zone 5 the other day into the 2 horse! When there is another horse in the trailer, that is another issue. So I decided to do some prior preparation before our lesson. Two days before the lesson Liz, my friend and the one that was going to be trailering Duck with her trailer and herhorse was gracious enough to come over and let me practice loading Duck while her horse Eli was in there. I let Duck approach and retreat as needed and it didn't take too long and she was doing pretty well! So when the morning came, she only back out once when Eli pinned his ears at her, and then after that went in just fine and besides them rocking the trailer from nipping at each other it was an uneventful ride. I was thinking that she may lose confidence from it on the way back and not want to load with him, but I was pleasantly surprised that when we were done Duck really loaded herself. Almost too much! I was trying to put up the other divider so I could get her in and she kept trying to get in! It feels SO good to have her more confident with loading and that wasn't even part of the lesson!

This was my first lesson with Jesse. Liz and Melissa were also there and it was their first lesson with him as well. He was fabulous! What a great instructor. We started out on the ground playing with the figure 8. Duck has always like to tromp the cones and not go around super nicely. Jesse came and took Duck and showed me the leadership I needed to get to be clear to her and gain her respect and confidence. He really encouraged us to"dance" with our horses, not drill them mindlessly and turn it into the 7 jobs, or the 7 tortures! When Duck was ready I was able to mount up and even more fun began!

We played with being effective. Specifically my leg and positioning, and my rein positions. We played "The Matador" game which was the indirect/direct rein in flowing succession, but amped up! Jesse was on the ground supporting with the carrot stick while I was riding it! WOW! It was amazing how swift and clean the exercise felt while he was supporting. And a wake up call to me to how ineffective I have been! I spent the next half hour playing this in conjunction with follow the rail and perfectly trying to practice that concept. I was struggling with my leg being in the effective position for the direct rein. Plus Duck was a lot more sticky when I wasn't focused correctly and didn't follow through with my phases. We got a few really good ones though, and I was quite pleased!

We also played follow the rail (making sure to use ALL of our corners) and doing small circles around barrels placed in the corners and along the half way point of the long side of the arena. My goal was to do them without using my reins and to be effective with my leg. It seemed every time I was effective with my direct rein leg she would speed up and get impulsive, so I played with interrupting that pattern with a direct transition to a 9 step back up. The 9 step back up was also improved by Jesse showing me how to lift the reins even more (and don't pull) and also move one up at at time in conjunction with Ducks front legs.

Other topics we covered over the whole lesson were NO BRACE and DON'T EVER RELEASE ON A BRACE! I can't tell you how many times I have heard this and thought I was getting softness but right off Jesse said our horses all looked bracey, and he was right. So we played around with lateral flexion softness both with the rein and then with the CS and then transitions from the walk to halt using lateral flexion and then the trot to halt the same. He kept telling me to hold it until it was soft and then release. I thought I had been doing that but not enough apparently!

Jesse also touched on horsenality when we first began. And I was shocked! I had said Duck was lbi/lbe which I thought she was. In fact I had just done another chart and was thinking that was correct, but he said that from his observation that Duck is most likely an RBI. I had thought that for a long time, especially in the beginning of our relationship, but as her confidence has grown in quite a few areas, she shows LBI traits as well and I thought that was really what she was. But the licking (for security), needing to be close to me and the way she shrinks and says "I can't" when pressure is applied are all traits of a RBI. He says she is just pretty centered RBI. WHEW! That makes me even more grateful that I hadn't bought the cradle bridle since I would have bought the wrong bit! I felt pretty stupid though, not even knowing her horsenality correctly. I mean gosh, I am supposed to be a level 3 student, and I have had her almost 2 years! How embarrising! I sure licked and chewed on that a lot, and am glad it is cleared up though because I had been wondering what she truly is for so long!

Another thing we talked about was having the "perfect picture" and it's relationship to attitude. And this goes back to the figure 8 online, but Duck is always crabby doing the figure 8 and so am I because it doesn't go very well usually. Jesse warned me to have a better attitude! He said he is always happy for a challenge, or to fix something. I told him that my attitude was just because of the lack of arrows in my quiver, to which he responded that he has lots of arrows in his quiver! Yep I believe that! It sure changes your attitude the more arrows you have! But that being said, he really played up the fact that I need to have a perfect picture in my head of the exercise, both what it is and where it is going. For instance he made the example on the figure 8 of what would Linda Parelli's horse Remmer look like doing this figure 8? WOW! yeah, so that is something to aspire to. But I got the idea and I have gone with it.

We also played with the question box pattern. Jesse had said this was a very important pattern that he chalked up passing his level 3 (which then included flying lead changes. Those are now level 4). We played with walking and trotting on this pattern. Again, using perfect practice. I was supposed to do it without my reins but quickly found out that we aren't there yet. We'd done this pattern before, first at Carol's place back in June, but it was far from perfect. I had a heck of a time keeping Duck super close to the cones. And he said that eventually I should be able to walk, trot and canter that pattern with my arms folded. Now there is my perfect vision!

We played this pattern using monopoly money. For every correction with the CS it would cost me $5, and $10 to use my reins for a correction. $5 if she hit the cone or barrel. But $100 if she left the circle completely. He was again trying to reiterate that everything on the pattern must have some value, or it really isn't a game. Point taken!

I've had very little time to practice at all this month. Between sick kids, work, and camping I haven't been with Duck hardly at all. In fact I hadn't touched Duck for two weeks prior to our lesson with Annie. And then I had only ridden once and played one very short session before we met with Jesse (and that was the trailer loading). And this week isn't much better. Kids are out of school since last week, and 2 days this week and I work all weekend. So I don't know how much playtime I am going to get, but I will for sure try and focus on quality and perfect practice as much as possible in the time I have.

Horsenality Test for humans

Someone had this link posted on the Parelli Savvy Club forum. Looked like fun so I took it. A type of "horsenality" test for humans.

http://mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler

These are my results...

Lisa, your hemispheric dominance is equally divided between left and right brain, while you show a moderate preference for auditory versus visual learning, signs of a balanced and flexible person.

Your balance gives you the enviable capacity to be verbal and literate while retaining a certain "flair" and individuality. You are logical and compliant but only to a degree. You are organized without being compulsive, goal-directed without being driven, and a "thinking" individual without being excessively so.

The one problem you might have is that your learning might not be as efficient as you would like. At times you will work from the specific to the general, while at other times you'll work from the general to the specific. Sometimes you will be logical in your approach while at other times random. Since you cannot always control the choice, you may experience frustrations not normally felt by persons with a more defined and directed learning style.

You may also minimally experience conflicts associated with auditory processing. You will be systematic and sequential in your processing of information, you will most often focus on a single dimension of the problem or material, and you will be more reflective, i.e., "taking the data in" as opposed to "devouring" it.

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself - and of others - while maintaining an "openness" which is redeeming. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity is not in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, the more obvious and the more functional.

Hmm, how interesting!!!

The Flag

So I had found a hole in my program that I wasn't quite willing to tackle for some time. The flag. I know it shouldn't be that big of a deal, but the saying "my horse doesn't to plastic" really applied to Duck. Not big flat blue tarps, she doesn't seem to have so much a problem with those or stepping on them, but smaller pieces of plastic and plastic bags. Especially if they come towards her at all. She can be quite reactive, striking out when startled. And one time when I was riding in the arena there was a small piece of tarp, it was about 1 ft by 3 ft on the ground. She was fine around it, but then it moved in the wind and I about came off. This was several months ago and despite trying to do tarps and stuff with wind swirly things I hadn't had much progress. That was back in June. Fast forward to about 3 weeks ago and I was riding in the hayfield. Since there is a road somewhat near the hayfield some trash makes its way to the field, plastic grocery bags especially. When I was riding one day I saw one stuck in the grass and thought (and paniked) to myself that if that thing moves in the wind I am a goner! That is how I finally came to terms with it that I had become an "avoid-a-holic" from plastic bags. I recently decided to change that.

So in comes the flag. I decided that I would use a grocery bag tied pretty tightly onto the carrot stick. Not to flappy for starters. And I made a program of it. We are on day 5 as of today. Every day I have played the friendly game with the bag. Rubbing (and now tapping) it all over her body. The hardest for her to tolerate is in zone one. Especially if the bag moves at all towards zone one, she had been leaping out of the way, quickly! We have made a lot of progress though beings how the first day I could hardly touch her with it. Today we can touch her all over, and are starting to get a little more confidence in zone 1. I had her follow it with her nose to it quite a ways to retreat. I even put a treat on the bag to see if she was confident enough to eat it from there and she was.

And today I finally got to ride on the trails around the barn (it has been a couple months) and she stepped on a plastic bag on the trail and didn't so much as look at it. Now, I don't think she'd like it if one came flying by still, but it is a good start. So I am pleased, and I am going to keep on with our program to gain her confidence with the flag.

We also have been doing circling game with obstacles at the trot, beginning to canter on the 22ft circle. We have gotten about 4 laps. She is struggling with her leads, but I am not being picky about that yet, just maintaining the gait. I would do it in the round corral as Carol Coppinger suggested, but I think with it's high walls and smaller diameter (60ft) it is just too much pressure for her. She goes totally RB. We have been playing a little in there and retreating out but certainly not anything too demanding!

I am also trying to use lighter phases and longer phase one. I tend to get jumbled and when things don't go right I go too fast and get harder which just loses her confidence. Somewhere along the line our liberty is gone again so I am not even going there right now!

All in all we've been having a good time and I really enjoyed riding on the trails today. It was a nice break from the arena. I would love to do it more often but I have to have people to ride with, and not just any people, people that understand that I want to keep mine and my horses' confidence both in tact!

Today there was a group of 5 deer that went sprinting through the woods spooking both of our horses. Duck did calm down enough to stop but then all communication was lost. I got off and sent her over a log, backed her a ways and then got back on. Things went much better and I played with disengaging her hindquarters while on the trails. See, the communication breaks down because she gets going and worried about what is going on around her and I simply don't exist. So we are playing with that!

In the arena things have been going pretty well. We have been doing lots of freestyle riding with one carrot stick, a few times totally bridle less with just the neck string at the walk and trot doing some patterns, and most recently follow the rail. She gets going at the trot and there is no rhythm in the trot, she gets rushy. So the last few times we've ridden I have done follow the rail at the trot focusing on her rhythm and relaxation. I have been seeing improvements there but still more to go. I would like to get to cantering and get her balanced at the trot and canter. Her impulsivness and forwardness have her with her head up (and emotions up) and on the forehand. I am trying to get her more relaxed, and reward the relaxation.

So many fun things we are playing with! Still enjoying the journey, and enjoying some new friends that have started on the journey as well.

Savvy on!

Catch up!

We've been playing around on the 45 ft line a little here and there. Let's just say that I need increase my rope savvy! :) That is a lot of rope! Yesterday we did some yo-yo's on the 45 ft line over a pole. I was really focused on straightness, and trying to get her draw back. Her butt always drifts to the left while backing is what I noticed. 45 ft is a L-O-N-G way away too! We also did the figure 8 at the walk and trot. It went really well, in fact better than I had been getting. Much softer, less ears pinned. We rode freestyle for awhile. I usually just don't use the reins but have them there. She was offering the canter yesterday, so we cantered (I was bareback, with no pad and noticed how much I missed my bareback pad and it's stickiness!) and it was smooth, with a good rhythm for 6-8 strides for a couple times.

The day before we had ridden in the evening. Usually I am at the barn in the morning, while my kids are in preschool/school. In the morning there is no one around usually. Every once and a while a friend will show up. But the evening, wow! There were so many people! It was 8:30pm when I got out there so it was dark. That just leaves me the main arena to ride in as it is the only one with lights. I did some light warm ups in the round pen on the ground. Then we went to the arena. The UNCC (college) team was having a lesson. There must have been 6 of them, plus others just riding like myself. Talk about thresholds for Duck. We have come such a long way. Even though now she pins her ears still when other horses come into her bubble, I don't lose all control. I remember when I first started riding her and went to my first clinic with her. I had almost zero communication with other horses in the arena. She would just pin her ears and lunge at them, forgetting I was even up there! So now the worst was her getting a bit rushy if they were next to her too long. I will continue to play with it. But our brakes still work!

The day before this I played quite a bit on the ground and then rode some freestyle. The freestyle has really helped my seat. Now I just need to get better at cantering. I still have a gripping reflex when cantering. We did bulls eye a couple times and I put a treat on the barrel to get her thinking to the barrel. Well when I rode the next day all she wanted to do was play bull's eye! She kept spiraling down around barrels, and even the jump standards! I would like to learn more about the fine line between accepting what they offer and being the leader and calling the shots.

That same day I rode bridle less for awhile, following the rail and doing figure 8's etc. I still love it!

We have also been introducing the flag on the carrot stick. Friendly game with it. She is ok in zone 3,4, but still goes RBI when in zones 1 and 2. I have been trying to retreat but she still turns away and can't look towards it (and freezes up), so I am trying to go real slow but keep it in my program.

That is what we've been up to! October is going to be crazy busy. I am working a bit extra, but will have 2 lesson with PNH professionals in October! On the 17th, 1* Annie Shank is coming to our stable to help all of us PNH students along as part of her 50 hrs of lessons she needs to log with PNH. Then on the 27th 3 of us will be heading to York for a lesson with 3* Jesse Peters! I am so excited!!!

Question Box

Yesterday I finally got up the nerve to play with the question box. Why would I need nerve? Oh yeah did I mention that this is what we were playing (and not so well) when Duck went lame the next session way back in June? Well, it was. Question box at the trot to the left. I was trying to get her relaxed and not have to correct on the circle. She kept running out. I guess I should have listened to the feedback that she was DONE with it! LOL

So yesterday I went to set it up in the lower arena. Nope, it was too hard and crunchy for my liking (like it was when she hurt herself). So I turned her loose in that arena while I moved everything to the main arena. I realized after I set it all up that I had put my markers (chairs) in the wrong spot. Oh well I'd just work around it. They are just guidelines anyway, right? :)

We warmed up on the ground first. I have been playing with getting Duck to canter on the 22ft. Our canter riding isn't great, and then it dawned on me that we really haven't cantered much online. She either breaks gait to to a trot or gallops like a mad horse. Really no inbetween there. So I had just did a snappy back up with her and sent her off to the left and she took off! I let her drift to the end of the 22ft rope. She came right back. WOW! I guess I amped her up a bit to much or I had too much "I'm going to tag you" feeling! Either that or she just wanted to GO! But away she went, running like a mad horse. I decided to just stick with it. The nice thing is that she is getting better running fast. Not tripping as much and she isn't pulling me as she's going, there was actually quite a bit of slack in the line which is good! After about 7 laps she slowed down and cantered 1 good lap. So I quit there. I used the CS to slow her (which was a complete halt!) So that is good too, starting to get more downward transitions with the CS online.

So we rode the question box pattern starting at a walk and even though it has been 3 months, she still remembered the pattern and to my surprise did it much better than last time in that I didn't have to correct her to stay on the circle hardly at all compared to in June. Trotting was better too, but she still FLIES around at the trot wanting to break into a canter (and did a few times). We played with it both directions and when she finally slowed down for a lap I quit.

Then we cooled out riding at a a walk and following the rail. This went really well, she didn't stray from the rail at all and had a really nice, forward walk. And like always we ended with some grazing time on our way back to the barn.

I love my horse!

The bridge incident and setbacks...

So even before our 1st bridle less ride I think I didn't mention that about a week after we got home from our clinic in June Duck went lame on her left front and it has been kind of a comedy of errors since then. About 2 weeks of rest, one vet exam including a nerve block and a horse chiropractic visit later we were ready to roll again, until the bridge incident.

So I have to preface this by saying that the play area is by the big pond. We have a bridge, pedestal, trailer, barrels and the pond there to play with. It's great but the storms we kept having in July kept blowing the barrels into the pond. So we had 6 swimming barrels. After a couple weeks Liz was kind enough to "fish" the barrels out of the pond. Thing is, they were on the FAR side of the pond. Liz asked me to take the farm's Kubota to go get them. So I did. Then I set them all upright on the off side of the bridge so they wouldn't roll down the hill into the pond again.

The next day Duck was doing much better and I was cleared to ride. So I saddled up and had a few hours to ride. I had signed my boys up for a 4 hour camp Mon-Thurs that week. So it's Monday and I figure I'll head down to the playground. Everything was going really well.

We'd been playing with front feet on the pedestal and then the trailer. So then I figure we'll go over the bridge which we've done several times before. Well I figured the barrels would be just fine over there. I had a fleeting though that I should move them. Of course I ignored it...

So Duck had put her front feet on the ramp a few times and so I asked her to go over the bridge. Well she got on at an odd angle and ended up with her front feet on the tall flat part of the bridge and the upright barrel under her belly. (she is nowhere near tall enough to have that fit under her, even with her front feet on the bridge). She didn't panic although I was feeling really tense. She sat there for what felt like an eternity. Then she lurched to get her back feet on the bridge. She tried so hard but her back legs came up short and she ended up scraping quite a bit of hide off her back legs. Needless to say I didn't get to ride all week, and was still letting her heal the next one as well. Too bad I didn't go with my gut instinct to move the barrels...

There's a good reason to listen to your gut right there. I was lazy and Duck paid the price. I haven't been back down there since. I want to rubberize the sides so that will never happen again. It's just plywood, but it still scrapes pretty bad when they hit it like that.

She's almost all healed up now, but it has been several weeks. Meanwhile I think I lost a ton of leadership points grazing for weeks at a time.

I've been getting a lot of feedback from her that she isn't enjoying what we are doing. I've been trying out the 45 ft line and her confidence hasn't been great on it. Our liberty that had been so good when to pot as well. And I am trying to figure out where it all went bad and rebuild. Of course it doesn't help that she has round pen phobia. She just wigs out in there for liberty so I am always playing in the big arena.

We have ridden a couple more times bridle less, but generally there are other riders in the arena so I have just been dropping the reins, not taking the bridle all the way off.

Our other issue lately is that we're real heavy on the forehand, and she is constantly tripping because of it. So I am needing to look into how to get her to shift that weight back some.

But the last couple weeks with school starting I haven't done hardly anything with her because of a bunch of other commitments but am going to try and get back into it next week again.

I could sure use A LOT more arrows in my quiver right about now!

Our First Bridle-less Ride!!!

Life Goals: 1. Ride Bridle-less. CHECK!!!!!!!!

I've been wanting to ride Bridle-less for SO long! As long as I have loved horses (which is as far back as I can remember) the idea of having the communication to ride without a bridle has always fascinated me. The type of partnership required for that kind of riding is the kind of partnership I knew I wanted. And that was WAY before I knew about Parelli or any other natural horsemanship.

When I was 13 I bought a book about riding bridle less, but it never worked. And then with Kira I was getting just to the point where we were getting close to it but then I had to make the decision to send her to her new home and start all over with Duck. So I never got there with Kira.

Perhaps that desire of that type of partnership is why I was SO quick to take on the "Parelli" way when I was finally introduced to it at a tour stop so long ago in Utah in 2002. I saw not only one person ride bridle less, but tons more on the savvy team. People that started as regular as I was and ended up with such great relationships with their horses. That and the whole way of thinking about horses was what I had always wanted. I am totally amazed and love the learning that occurs by constantly trying to"read" my horse and her body language.

So last week we finally did it! Duck and I went Bareback and Bridle-less in our large practice arena. I wasn't going to do it at first, but then I realized that it just comes down to a matter of trust. Do I trust her enough not to take off and buck me off? Did I trust that I had laid down the lines of communication well enough to be understood without the safety net of the rein to stop her? One of my biggest concerns are the sudden "spooks" that all horses can have. The "what if" scenario kept running through my head. After all, Duck is still pretty green, and we've been together less than 2 years.

Turns out I did trust her! But it was kind of like the first time you go rock climbing. You are SO excited to get up that wall and then you realize once you get going that someone else is holding your very life in their hands at the bottom. The higher you climb the farther it is to fall. I had to learn to trust my belayer to climb, and I needed to take the plunge and trust Duck, too.

That being said I didn't just jump on and ride bridle-less because it struck my fancy. No, I've been putting in a lot of effort to refining our communication to the point that I felt safe enough to go there. Ever since I got home from the Carol Coppinger clinic in June I have been practicing NOT touching my reins, so doing a lot of carrot stick riding with 1-2 sticks.

I've learned a lot about balance. And I've learned even more about how to communicate with Duck. I was doing a TON of micromanaging with the reins prior to the clinic in June. So my independent seat has come a long way, too

So here's how it went. A friend and fellow Parelli student at my barn Liz offered to take some pictures of Duck and I with her nice camera so we played with our horses in the arena and then went to the pond and did that. (Those cute pics to follow in the next post). Then we went back the arena and I was in there talking to Liz saying "I really want to ride bridle-less" and she says well "why don't you?" to which I reply "I am scared to take off the halter." So she says "well just take off the lead then and start with that." So I did a few steering and brake checks and then unclipped the leadrope. A few straight lines and a couple turns that went smoothly bolstered my confidence and Duck seemed to be doing well. So off it all came! We were totally "naked" besides the savvy string around her neck.

And off we went! We did walk, trot, halt transitions, played with the figure 8 a few times and even took a shot at sideways (we need more practice on that for sure!). All in all, 10 minutes or so and I was BEAMING! I kept telling Liz how happy I was and how for so long I had waited for this moment. For a minute I really did think I was going to cry!

And then she came up with the brilliant idea that she still had the camera so she went and got it and took some pictures! How cool is that? Pictures of our very first Bridle-less ride!

All I can say is YEAH!!!!

Here we are on the figure 8

Looking at something. I think I was thinking "go right"
trotting around
More figure 8 at the trot
Look Mom, no hands!!! :)

Ok I know you can't totally see me in this picture but I am grinning ear to ear. I love this picture!