More Impulsion!

I spent a nice morning with Iona, mostly riding. The weather is very hot here, and it's a struggle for me to get up and out early enough to beat the heat. I just don't sleep well if I go to bed unusually early. I'm working on it! However, I have done a little better this week - played with Iona a couple of mornings and Hunter once, too. (Pat on back!)

Circles aren't going as well again. I suspect there is some "make" creeping in on my part. So the pendulum has already swung a little too far in the dominance game, I guess. Iona is playing The Eating Game with me, and the Running Off With the Line Attached Game. I am finally learning to hang on a little better, so I am grateful for the chance to learn about that. I see that my assertiveness is starting to border on aggression about the eating, though. Need to think of some Savvy Arrows quick. Maybe I just need to play the Own the Grass/Food game more, and build the distance. Yep, that should work. Okaaaaay.....it's not as much fun as making her run around, but I'll put it on the list.

I think one reason I was impatient this morning was because I had a plan about riding, and Travelling Circles on the 45' line were supposed to be the warm up. Which they were, but not that pretty. All the eating/running off stuff happened on the right rein as I was trying to increase the distance and just walk around a little, doing walk-trot transitions. We did finally get to the end of the line with some respect. I did a few trot-canter transitons on the left rein, then felt more like doing simple changes instead, so we did a few of those, which she was better with, so I stopped.

She was now all saddled up and I think she was surprised when we left the playground and headed out on the track. Part one of my plan was underway! Hunter and Bruce had obliged nicely by leaving beforehand and going about 1/2 mile or so around. So we were going to have no impulsion problems getting that far! My plan was to catch up with them, and then play with overtaking them, retreating back to them, etc. Play was the important word in that last sentence. We started down the drive at a brisk walk, and I worked on my Fluidity, which has been really lacking in the saddle, the odd time I've bothered with one recently. It really felt awful at first - a foreign object wedged between me and my horse. (Yes, I mean my beautifully fitting and seriously expensive Balance saddle.) I peddled like crazy. We did a little sitting and rising trot. That felt a bit better.We turned the first corner in walk. I decided to involve my arms in my fluidity exercises, and that was an excuse to trot. That was okay with me, but downward transitions were hard and not very long lasting, so we did some direct and indirect reins, just to resume communication. Around the next corner and I figured she was ready to canter. Yep! So we trotted and cantered most of the rest of the way, then hung out with the boys for a bit.

The going ahead and retreating went much more easily than I expected, thanks to Mr Hunter. What I hadn't realised was that he will go with Iona and leave Bruce, I still did some approach and retreat, but it turned out to be pretty easy for the next half mile or so. One place where she's always sticky she went "I'm gonna sull up and buck now." I said "Go ahead" and she said "Yeah, never mind." Hmmmm. The first time I asked for canter she wouldn't, so I just blew her mind by asking her to do a short one back toward Bruce (who hadn't bothered to follow us at all). Then I let her eat (still a long way from Bruce) and after that canter was easy. Fancy that!

When we got half way around by the olive trees we lost Hunter, and I thought we would have an arguement. Wrong. Now bugs came to my aid. I suspect Hunter knew about these, which is why he left us. However, Iona decided any direction would do as long as we kept moving, so the rest of my ride was controlled, but quite speedy. Fun! Well, except for the flies and mosquitos...

I was so pleased, I wondered whether to quit for the day, but I decided to go ahead with part two of my plan. Patterns in the playground. These went so well that there's not really much to describe. I managed to do both Figure 8 and Weave at trot, with just a few corrections at first and finished up both of them without using my reins or stick. Hooray!! I'm sure that long warm up ride helped us both.

One other thing I noticed was from a tip I had from Jerry Williams about the Theraflex pad. I've been using the sideways shimming pattern that Linda P now recommends for low withered horses for awhile, but Jerry told me to actually let the two halves of the pad splay apart at the front, and this seemed to help today with the pad and saddle going in opposite directions, Everything stayed in place better, and I think we were both more comfortable as a result.

What a great morning! I watched some Parelli DVDs in the nice cool house after that to celebrate.

Learning Frame of Mind

Had a session with Iona yesterday. Even though we started fairly early in the morning, it was very hot! Think it got up to 101F or something yesteday. However, I was determined, and thankfully a breeze and a few clouds made it possible for awhile! We played with canter circles, which ended up taking some time. She's in season, and was making a fuss about being away from Bruce. There was a bit of running off, but we weren't in a very big space, so I just persevered. I was trying for six laps. Got three easily each way, but when I went for six, she would get almost to six and then break gait. This happens so often that I wonder whether there is a change in my energy when we get close. I do my best to control it, but I still wonder...

We got six on the left rein with either a minor correction from me or self correction. Then on the right she decided to run around and leave me because Bruce and Hunter were on the move on the track. We went into a roundpen and finished pretty easily there. We were both hot and sweaty, so we called it a day and I hosed her off.

I got up nice and early this morning to beat the heat, and it worked out really well. We headed out to the playground where I had set out some half barrels for a Weave and cones for a Figure 8. I wanted to work on Weave on the 45' line. This hasn't been going well. We warmed up with some Traveling Circles. Iona is still Iona, and has her opinions, but I was left feeling like "When did we get to the place where I can move you through time and space on a longer line, and you do maintain gait? Wow! This is new and cool!" (I had much the same feeling playing with Bruce the other night. Gee - maybe I'm changing...) So we did that for awhile, and she was great! Then I realised that I needed to go shut a gate out in the pasture, so I left her happily eating grass or a few minutes.

Okay, time for the dreaded Weave!! The first thing I noticed was that she had lots of go. Excellent! The next thing I noticed was that I wasn't doing a great job of directing her. She was actually trying, but when I was unclear she just made up her own stuff, like jump the half barrel, go around two, stop and eat... I bagan to sort out my timing, and in the process I realised that the further away I am the less I have to move and the easier it is to be clear, too, I think. Again, Iona did a pretty good job of maintaining gait, and really tried for me. That, in turn, made it a lot easier to be able to work on my end of the deal. It's a completely different game than when a horse is just stopping and goofing off all the time. Then it's very hard for the human to make progress. I was really pleased with Iona and I felt we made a lot of progress on this!

After a suitable break, we moved on to Freestyle Figure 8 at trot. Or tried to. Again, Iona got really distracted by Bruce and Hunter out on the track. She was actually going around with her head in the air calling to them. If she could get that big tail in the air she'd have been doing a pretty good imitation of an Arab. I thought we'd start with a little point to point just to see where we were. Did I mention we were bareback? I was gonna use tack, but discovered a HUGE welt from a bug bite just where the girth goes.... Boy am I out of shape! Haven't been riding enough, so I'm up there slipping around on her nice shiny summer coat. Yikes!

Point to point was do-able, so I decided to just go for it. Then I remembered I was supposed to be riding with my stick. Doh! Got that, and Iona took off in her punchiest, most jarring fast trot, with a big loop on the side where the boys were and completely missing X, also in favour of going toward males, then trying to just go straight and run around at the other end of the pattern. Great. I was all over the place - trying to resist te urge to use my reins for balance, frustrated by the stick and must have left my balance point at the breakfast table. Wonderful.

This whole crazy trot thing seems to surface at times when I am bareback and/or riding with the stick. I've wondered why. I'm not always that unbalanced, but have wondered if there's a lack of confidence with the stick, a discomfort with the bareback trot, or what. Still don't know the answer, However, what I learned today was that it is okay to do something about it. I think I have been sort of like a rabbit in the headlights with it. Just gamely riding it and waiting and hoping for a change. Sometimes it does come eventually.... So after 5 or 10 minutes (felt much longer!) of awful, during which I managed to stay on, stay roughly on the pattern and saw no improvement - I had a brainstorm........I sinply asked her to slow down. Not walk. We could do that. Just trot slower and relax. And then we did it. Problem solved.

I also discovered some of the same problems with my timing on asking for a change of bend, that I found earlier on the Weave. I'm really happy with what I learned today. Sometimes I feel like I'm not progressing, because I can't figure out what I need to learn. I love breakthrough days!

Oh, yes - she never bucked.

More fun with Bruce!

My Beautiful Brucie

(taken in Scotland)

Denise and I have had a few sessions with Bruce since I last posted. Their partnership is improving. Denise has stepped up to take on the things I am asking her to do with him, and he is having a lot of fun playing and enjoying the extra attention. Yesterday evening was really fun, though!

We started by looking at playing Games 4-7 in a flow, and I suggested that Brucie should really be trotting 90% of the time. I played first, and I have to say I was surprised at just how well he did. I didn't need to ask him to pick up the pace much at all - he just went. Denise also had a good little session, although she needed to remember to "expect a lot" as she just didn't realise he could easily do much more for her at first.

We then had a look at tacking him up with a bareback pad. Typically, he was trying to undo the latigos and "help" her put it on. He is always impatient with tacking up. He thinks it take too long.

In the interest of continuing with the Impulsion Programs, I had to think of a way to play the Trotting Game dismounted. I decided we could try Liberty. We were in the small arena, so Denise and I each took a half and I sent him off - really to go where he liked as long as he trotted! And if he went over to Denise's side, then it was up to her to keep him trotting. Naturally, he had no idea what we were asking him to do. However, that just seemed to make it more fun for him and he was pretty expressive. Only one or two little moments of "uh-oh, I guess I'm wrong!" He mostly offered to do big circles around us, and we ended up having to sort of discuss how to get him to go to the other person's side. We all had a blast, and ended up asking him not to canter more than not to walk, by far. It would be very easy to get him to do a big Figure 8 around the two of us, I think.

Denise then mounted up to work on her lateral flexion, friendly game and a bit of Passenger Lesson. I'm not sure that too much Passenger Lesson will be a good thing for Bruce, so this may be a bit of a compromise. Hopefully, Denise can sort of get that just riding him around with me and Iona before too long.

Because of Bruce's impending trip, I thought I'd better work on his trailer loading. We haven't done much with it since the Trailer Woes thing this autumn. However, after a little initial scepticism he went on and off several times easily. I then experimented with how he felt about me coming in. No problem, so we played a little Yo-yo game and stuff in there, and I also experimented with running the lead rope through the bars to simulate tying him up. That also went just fine. I think that's where we had problems the last time - or at the next step, where I dallied the rope to something and left him - and then he panicked a little. No problem this time. I didn't dally the rope, but did get out of the trailer and go around and give him a treat through the bars from the outside. A pattern he knows from our old trailer in Scotland. I was really happy with that session, and with how the whole evening went.

Fun with Bruce

Had a fun sesion with Denise and Bruce on Saturday. Denise just passed L1 with Dakota, but is currently horseless, so she's filling in with Bruce until he goes to Pagosa with and extern in July. Of course, Bruce graduated L2 a couple of years ago with my friend Hazel. My feeling is that he is not a pony who really wants to do L2 again, so the challenge is to find ways to help Denise progress and help Brucie progress, too with the time that we have.

Denise needs to learn the L2 material, I have things I want to do with Bruce, and I also feel that the three of us would benefit from having a look at the Impulsion Programs from the original L2 pack. Denise would also like to begin riding, but is pretty rusty and a little unfit. This is nothing two enthusiastic women and a Fell pony can't handle! Today we made a start!

And it really started when we went out to bring the horses in. We decided to lead them in by taking a shortcut through some pretty lush grass. However, we made sure that we owned that grass! They got to stop and enjoy eating some, but we gave well defined signals for "yes you may eat" and "now we are walking and not eating", This went really well and set us up for the day, I think.

Before we started we also talked about how Bruce switches between Left Brained Introvert and Extrovert, and that we need to see the changes and deal with him accordingly. When you get his energy UP then it's good to go fast with things and keep him engaged with lots of little changes and plenty to do. And also to be as firm as he is with other horses. Treats would just be a distraction. However, when he's quiet, unmotivated, "stubborn" treats may help to get him going again and we may need to slow down.

It was windy, so we used the small arena behind the visitors shed. It's currently full of tasty kochia weed, so I was glad we'd already had the grass discussion. We started by letting them eat while we tried some simulations from the latest L2 DVDs. Handling the 22' line in the Yo-Yo game - where to put all that extra rope, Denise did really well with this. I made some discoveries about keeping my hands more still and creating less "noise" with the rope, which was useful. Then we worked on power positions which led us to trying other things that help when a horse tries to run off, as well as those that just lean on the rope and say "NO!"

We had a little look at the backwards test from Backwards and Sideways in the Impulsion Programs. For this you try to back your horse about 30' between a lane of poles or other markers. It needs to be straight, willing, etc and you need to do it in 30 seconds. This is meant to be a ridden exercise but we adapted it and started off Yo-Yo style. I tried this first with Iona. She was pretty willing but very crooked. I improved it after a couple of tries. Bruce was really slow, so I stepped in and showed Denise what I thought an effective phase 4 would be for Bruce. I reminded her that although she is learning this, Bruce knows it well, so she doesn't need to act as though she is in the teaching phase. We had already talked earlier about Bruce's leadership style in the herd and how we might try to mirror that when playing with him. Subtle phase one ... VERYFAST!!! phase 4. We both got more interesting in his eyes, it seemed. I then hopped on Iona and demonstrated the ridden version of this with one rein, and then Denise tried it from zone three.

Denise did some bareback mounting and dismounting, and then I played with Bruce a little while she watched. We did just a little backing and drawing on the 45' line. But I didn't want to wear this out after what we had already done. I finished up by riding the Figure 8 Pattern. Bruce and I are only on the Level 1 Freestyle version of this as a partnership. It did start off a little sticky, but we were soon pretty good in walk after a few rewards at X. When I got a couple of rounds in trot I was very pleased. However, I was still using my reins more than I would have liked. So I tried again in walk and was able to use them much less. Yay!! I was pretty sure that doing the trot again in this session would result in me using the reins more once again, so I decided to trot the rail a couple of time aound the arena, then I turned him in and finished at the X we had been using in the Figure 8.

As so often happens, I felt that I did a much better job because I had someone watching me to whom I was explaining things as I went along. I don't quite understand why that improves the quality of what I do so much, but I'm sure it does. I must think about that! The other thing that I'm noticing is that when I watch Bruce objectively when Denise plays with him, I seem to see his tries much more easily and read him better than when I play with him myself.

Denise and I had another session on Sunday, which I might find time to write up later. It also went really well, and I'm sure that this can be a successful recipe for all three of us.

Auditions!

On April 25th, Petra helped Denise Hosea, Kathy Eddy and Sara Williamson film their On Line auditions.
I thought I would share them here.

 Denise and Dakota, Level 1


Kathy and Sierra, Level 2 On Line


Newsflash! Congratulations, Sara, on your L1++ pass!
Sara and Sis, Level 1/Level 2 On Line

Congratulations are already due to Kathy, who has received word that she passed!

Jerry's Clinic - Personal Notes

Denise and I are still sorting through her fab photos of the clinic, and I hope to post some here, along with a further clinic report soon. But before I lose the feel of the weekend and the buzz of what I learned, I thought I would go ahead and write about my own perspective of the past few days.

The weeks ahead of the clinic were remarkably windy. Mark and I kept thinking that we would get started on the various jobs that needed to be done, plus we have our first weed problem of the year: mustard/flixweed to contend with, which meant I should really be out on that tractor mowing the stuff down before it goes to seed. I have done some mowing, and we did get the essential prep work done, but it felt more like a battle than a pleasure, and as I write this the wind is still blowing, the flixweed is still growing, and I am trying to remember what it's like to play with Iona. 

The weekend had many personal highlights for me. Things I learned from Jerry, progress in new and old friendships and also seeing another milestone reached for Springvalley Farm with our first multi-day clinic. And I have to say - it's all been great!

Jenifer and Lily

As I wrote previously, I have been excited about finally making contact with Jenifer Morrissey, so I was over the moon when she decided to attend Jerry's Horsenality Clinic on Friday. Jenifer and Don arrived on Thursday night with Jenifer's mare, Lily. We had a nice evening together, in spite of there still being quite a few things left to do. They are both great company, and pitched in and helped while we talked, and the evening really helped to set me up for the weekend ahead.

Friday's clinic was awesome. Jerry started off by asking all of us to state our own horsenality! He then came up with a simple diagnostic tool for determining this which I found very powerful. Here it is:

When making decisions, introverts make them slowly and extraverts make them quickly. Basing decisions on facts is a left brained approach, basing them on feelings is a right brained approach.

Jerry used examples from his own life which really helped me to identify some issues in my own relationships both with horses and humans. One thing I realised is that many times we confuse feelings with facts (or at least I do!). Another thing I realised was that although I would generally classify myself as an introvert with both right and left brained tendencies, I have a lot of learned LBE behaviour, and this is particularly true in how I relate to horses. My energy is definitely higher than Iona's, which I know is a source of irritation to her. I hope that I can now figure out what to do with this realisation, which also explains why I find it so easy to blow more sensitive horses up, or create brace in horses. 

Other notes from the classroom session were -

- a reminder to get in harmony with the horse first, then we can begin to ask them to get in harmony with us!

- The 5 areas of confidence: Self, Leader, Environment, Learning and Herd.  I would say that that Iona is least confident with environment, followed by learning. However, it's possible that some of her bully behaviour in the herd could be lack of confidence - I don't know!)

We moved out to the playground with our horses, where Jerry asked us to play some games so he could get a look at everybody and he gave everyone some individual help as they needed it. My most memorable piece of learning from that session was the Quadrant Game. This is a version of the Circle Game for horses who already know the game but don't want to go forward. The deal is to give them a long phase one, but then you get to tag them as many times as possible within the first quarter of the circle only. It is very motivating. Of course it also motivated Iona to run off. Jerry's suggestion here was to go toward her hindquarters. I didn't really get to explore that strategy, as she didn't happen to run off again, but I will try to remember it!

Playing the Circle Game

We each had an individual session in the roundpen with Jerry. Iona wasn't sticking to me very well, and Jerry's tips were that I needed to be slower and less jerky, which made it much easier for her to stay with me, particularly on the turns. He reminded me to find her rhythm before trying to set one of my own. He played with her for awhile, and I noticed that he did a little more with the stick than I did. He explained that once he took his energy up and either forward or backward in an obvious way, that he wanted her to start moving, and if she didn't he would gently encourage her with the stick rather than leave without her. That was useful. I see that I was just walking off without her and then having to be more argumentative in the long run.

In the Roundpen

Stick to Me

He also emphasised the importance of what happens when you start a liberty session. Many humans will take the halter off, and then break the connection with the horse by walking away to where they want to put the halter and rope. This led on to some interesting topics about keeping and breaking the connection generally. For example, Jerry suggested that when breaking the connection (or leaving your horse) you walk from the head toward the tail with your nearest hand still in contact in a friendly way, rather than walk directly away from their head. This makes it more obvious that you no longer expect them to follow. He also talked about the importance of breaking the connection gracefully when turning a horse out. So doing something similar, and perhaps even taking the horse to the herd, rather than it running off toward the herd. No hard and fast rules here, but judge the situation so that everybody has a good feeling about it and you are well set up for next time being even better. He also pointed out that when you tie a horse up, in a way this maintains the connection while you are gone. "This is where I would like you to wait for me" sort of thing. I knew that, but couldn't have put it in words, and of course I see how it makes ground tying or teaching a horse to stand at it's place is a refinement of the same thing! Jerry called this keeping the conection by giving the horse a job, and used the example of how Pat will get Magic to go and stand on the pedestal while he is working with another horse.

I had what I think may turn out to be another big moment when Jerry said something about treating a horse the way they treat other horses. We were talking a lot about phases, as one of the themes of the weekend was Teach-Control-Reinforce-Refine and how this affects the use of phases. Jerry said something almost in passing about playing with a horse and noticing how he was very bossy in the herd, and using the same approach with him. At lunchtime I asked Jerry about this by asking about Bruce and Iona. Bruce has a long and subtle phase one, but the lower ranking herd members tend to be very attentive to him and move off his slightest glance. However, if they don't, he has a lightening quick and effective phase 4. Usually a bite! Iona, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have much in the way of phases. I think that I am right about this, because if she did, more horses would get out of her way in time, because she double-barrels them really hard! I have noticed that they do try to respect her space (even Bruce), but she is pretty calculated about setting herself up to get that kick in if she can.

As I write this, I don't see how it could possibly be fair to try to sneak into a position where I can just smack Iona, or what that would achieve. However, perhaps I should be really particular about my space, and see what that does for her respect. Hmmmmm. I also doubt (from experience) that I could hit her hard enough to simulate one of her kicks or that I would like myself if I did. But I think I will be looking for a more effective phase 4 again, and for better or worse, I have never really been afraid to use the stick on her. With Bruce, I suspect that making a sort of  slow "I'm gonna get you" game out of things will be pretty ineffective if I don't also learn to at least follow it up with a really FAST phase 4, and make the "gonna get you" part more subtle, as the more he has to watch me to see if it is coming, the more interesting I will probably become!

An unmotivated moment

A motivating moment

A motivated moment

With all this talk of phase 4, I will just end with another important thought from Jerry, which was about setting the horse up well, so that it can at least achieve a small part of the task, so that you can reward it. I'm sure that for Iona I will continue to use food rewards quite a bit. I have taken David Lichman's statement to heart that she needs to see what's in it for her. However, I also have the idea in my mind that once you become interesting enough or significant enough as a leader, this will not be as important. But I see this concept of setting the horse up to do something that you CAN reward as the essence of what David was telling me. I may not end up breaking it down in quite the same way he described, but I will try to make sure that I set her up to both progress and succeed.

Can you see why I'm so interesting at this moment?

That's probably most of the Horsenality Clinic stuff. I will include some ideas from the Refinement clinic in the next installment.

Looking Back at Petra's Lesson Series

The graduating class! Congratulations, everybody!

Gail, Sara C, Denise, Petra, Sara W, Jacque and Kathy

Petra's lesson series ended on Sunday with a great playday. I have not been writing reports as we went along. For some strange reason, I always seem to be tired after a lesson Sunday. So I thought I would write a little report now, and mostly let the photos tell the story.

The first lesson day was in February and it was c-c-c-cold! Petra sensibly decided to break everyone in easy with a horseless day of classroom work and learning games indoors, and just a few quick simulations outside for as long as people could cope! It really set the following weeks up for success. 

The following weeks saw things gradually warm up, and everyone made clear progress toward their goals, having a lot of fun in the process.

   

By week four everybody was looking great, and so was the weather! We all enjoyed that magical combination of increasing Savvy and wearing less layers! For me it was a really special day, seeing everyone playing so successfully. It's been an amazing journey to get Springvalley Farm to this point, and I admit that I'm feeling quite pleased to have achieved this in just a year!  

I had some pretty nice icing on my cake that particular Sunday, too, as we had severel extra visitors. Linda and her dad, Barney came with their horses for the afternoon play session, and we had 2* instructor Kime Conkright and her dad Ray, visiting for the weekend, too. I have known Ray through some Parelli forums like Parellinaturally for many years, but it's only recently that we got to meet in person. Plus, another friend whom I had only met through her writing about Fell ponies, also mostly through the internet, visited us for a little while on Sunday. Her name is Jenifer Morrissey. She is also a Parelli student, but I admit that she and her husband Don, and I mostly talked Fells for a couple of happy hours. I'm really pleased that they have decided to visit us again during the Jerry Williams clinic next week, and Jenifer is bringing her mare, Lily.  

 The pot luck lunches were a lot of fun, too!

The weekends brought a few other nice milestones, too. Mark made his first "public appearance" with Hunter, and Sara began riding Sis at home, recently. Luckily, Denise was there to snap a photo! The planets must have been in alignment, as the very same day, I finally got on Hunter and had a litte ride. Unfortunately, no photos, though.

And on the subject of photos, I would like to say thanks to Denise whose photographic skills are better than mine. She is now taking the majority of the photos on this blog. As a consequence, there are not so many photos of the "Get Started" class, because Denise had her hands rather busy during that one! I do apologise to the members of that group for leaving them out a little!

Here are some photos from our final playday on Sunday. Not only did we have a blast, but Petra helped Sara and Kathy film their L2 On Line auditions, and Denise her L1 audition! Watch this space for links to their YouTube videos, and announcements of their passes, of course!

 It's Linda and Ducky!

 Mark with Sara's daughter Summer

Barney and Scooter 

Me and Iona 

Denise and Dakota 

Sara and Sis 

Mark and Hunter 

My carrot stick experiment 

Who is that cowboy? 

Petra with her camera 

Lunchtime in the pens 

Kathy and Sierra