So I rode for five minutes :)

     It was so nice today that it made me really anxious to ride!  Lately Marsy has been trying very hard to get my attention anyway so today was really the perfect day.  The only thing that made today sorta imperfect was that after school I only had thirty minutes!  I felt my direct-line predetorial side creeping up on me, and I kept saying to myself, "slow down, put the horse before task!"  I guess reminding myself constantly helped me to stay positive, progressive, and natural. 

      Marsy was a little nervous about me doing friendly game with the cs* and ss* and she was a little concerned about stuff in z4/5* but we worked through that.  Actually for the most part she was too busy consuming hay to worry to much about what I was doing.  She didn't really want to get her feet cleaned out, but we worked through that too.   It seemed to me that Marsy was just being difficult about her feet because she was busy and happy eating hay.  Therefore I moved her to a place that didn't have hay.  Once we did that she licked her lips and let me do one side.  Then she tried to slip away to eat more hay.  I had to be pretty firm with her on that point and she did return to me to let me do her other side. 

     We did a few circles at the walk and some lateral flexion.  I also had to play with her a little on me jumping on her back as she was a little tense.  Finally I felt she was relaxed enough for me to climb aboard.  Once I was up the first thing she did was go scouting for hay.  So we played a little game of going to all of  the different hay piles.  That's where my mom found us when she came down with the car ready to go to town.

      Today was a lot of fun and I feel accomplished to know that I didn't get mean and mad even though I had a time limit(that's not easy for me!).  Actually I learned a lot about how to handle Marsan's challenges.  Before I had believed that she was an inocent little RB(poor little RB, ha) and she is...a RB, but they need an assertive leader too!  I guess I let my assertiveness go out the window in an effort to get her confident, no wonder she displayed playful dominance and tenseness at the same time!  Well now I know how it feels to do what's right for her, which means I'll be able to do that more often.