I relax, my horse relaxes it's that simple.

     I played with Marsan for about an hour and a half today.  Toward the end of our session, Marsan started to tip towards being catatonic.  I waited for her to tell me something, then I asked firmly for her to move forward with me at her shoulder.  She didn't want to, but I insisted because I didn't want her to have time to wander off mentally again.  This got a slightly better response, so I let her have some time to think about it.  While we were just standing there Marsan started reaching her head around as if to nudge me, but it was as though she couldn't quite relax enough to actually make contact.  As I watched her repeat this process several times I realized how tense I was because I wanted her to snap out of it and relax!  I sighed deeply and let go of my worries about Marsan, the change in was almost instantaneous.  Marsan reached around and gave me a solid nudge, then she licked her lips.  I asked to her move forward and she did on phase 1* but this time her gait was rhythmic, not jerky and uncertain as it had been.  I guess at least for Marsan, how I feel can be the difference between confidence and hesitancy.

Falling asleep on the job...

     My mom got me up early this morning to put the horses out on their forty acre pasture.  When we got down there I was still a little groggy LOL.  We usually ride Marsan and Cherroke up to close all of the gates and today was no different.  I positioned Marsan next to the ledge so I wouldn't have to jump on like I usually do.  I couldn't quite get my leg over her back to I have make a little jump across gap.  Well....I over shot and started falling off the other side!!  You'll be happy to know that I landed feet first LOL.  I guess I need to be a little more awake, when we're getting them out to pasture LOL.

It's my birthday! Oh how time flies!

      Yep, today I'm 15 :)  I just can't believe I'm this old LOL.  It seems like just yesterday I was six and I thought that was a pretty big number! 

Match his energy(or lack there of LOL)

     I took Gingy out to play in the pasture the other day.  At the beginning he showed a definite lack of energy and interest.  First I tried adding adding extra vigor to my requests, but this got an even less enthusiastic response.  Then it Linda's words about doing less so that they want to do more dawned on me.  So I matched is energy and then a little less and that's what it took.  It was actually kind of fun, to play the dominant little lazy horse. 

     For the rest of the session, whenever he lost interest, I would amble towards him(using as little energy as possible) and then give him a little flick.  Pretty soon he was jumping out of his skin every time I turned my gaze on him LOL.  He still kept trying to for the grass, but he kept an eye on me and that's what I wanted. 

     We did some pretty neat stuff with sideways and circling.  We did sideways, both towards and away over the pole, on both sides.  Then we worked on the falling leaf pattern.  Playing with the falling leaf was really fun, because Gingy actually wanted to trot, and he had a hard time walking!  So he made a definite change over the course of the session, in terms of energy.  He had a little trouble with the disengament part going to the right, so I broke it down for him.  In fact I got use the new sideways stuff I taught him to help him learn the falling leaf.  I would have him sideways out a fair distance while my feet remained still, then I would disengage him.  When he was good at this we did the falling leaf at the walk and then at the trot.  He gave me one really good disengagement and that's where we ended the online portion of the session. 

      I ended up sitting on Gingy for awhile, just doing lateral flexion, and direct rein.  It ended up that once again, we needed to go shut the gate.  So Mom lead Gingy with me atop him down the road to accomplish our mission.  It went really well and Gingy was perfectly calm.  He was also a perfect gentleman; he didn't try to push mom from behind as he as done in past and he had a good expression on his face.  Ah, it was a nice horse day.
     

Recap of this week.

     Goodness, I have been super busy this week!  So I'm devoting this post to catching up on things.

~June 16~

     I took Marsan for a short ride down the road tonight.  She was pretty calm tonight so it made everything a lot easier, although she was rather domiant.  With that being said picking up two of her feet was a little difficult, so we had to play some respect games until she was more willing.  She didn't really want the saddle in z3*  so we did some squeeze game until she put the saddle in z3* by herself, which was awesome.  She felt really good to me so I did a little driving game and some circles than I mounted up.  We mostly worked on transitions and her listening to my body.  It went really well, she actually made several different transitions with only my body.  The big thing that I learned was that sometimes fun is more important than being picky about every little detail.  In other words, it's good to prioritize.  I would have liked to work with her more on her saddling issue, but that wasn't why I came out and since she didn't have an extreme reaction due to the saddle I felt like I could move on. 

~June 17~

     We put the horses out on pasture today and that of course went just fine.  It was the coming in that was difficult as always LOL.  Marsy and Cherroke were grazing near the barn and the others where farther down the road.  I thought I could catch Marsy and ride her down to where the others were, then pony Gingy back.  I guess I set my sights a little to high and I was rather direct-line too.  When I approached Marsan she moseyed away and I followed her, silly me!  I think it would of been okay if I had matched her energy, but I had more intent than she did so it probably felt like I was chasing her.  Anyway her and Cherroke headed for the rest of the herd.  We walked down there and I tried to approach in a nicer, friendlier, manner.  This time she came to me.  Riding back didn't work quite as well as I had hoped, but that's okay.  The lesson I learned from this rather difficult session, was that you need to be flexible on your plan and take the time it takes.

~June 18~

      Tonight we had bible study at our house and all of the kids wandered down to the horses.  Gingy needed a grooming anyway so I invited them all to participate in grooming him at liberty.  He was a perfect gentleman for everyone!  He even let them touch him on his head, which is pretty amazing since he usually doesn't like that.  Even though he was very gentle with all of the kids he did establish bounderies with them as well; such as not letting them yank on his forelock.  The really interesting thing was that there was only one girl out of nine kids that Marsan allowed to approach her.  With the rest she was very shy.  The kids wanted to see what Gingy could do, so we showed them some of our best tricks.  I'm now convinced that Gingy feeds off of attention.  It was like just knowing that all of the kids where watching him inspired him.  He backed into the bucket, lifted his legs when I tapped them, let me toss a hoola-hoop over his head, lead by the tail over a pole, and went sideway to and way from me over the bucket. 
    
     We also had to load Marsan tonight to go with me to my friend's house.  It went pretty well, although Marsan was quite adament about not getting in.  I let her have some time to meander a little bit until she lost interested then I asked more try.  Eventually she got in and backed up by herself, which was her cue last summer for us to shut the gate.  I could tell she was little nervous one everything was closed, but she was really quite calm for doing this for the first time this year.

~June 19~

      We went to the gymkhanas today and Marsan did awesome!  It was a really hot day which always helps with her because it calms her down, but I could still tell a big different from the last time I took her.  She unloaded nicely from the trailer, let me groom her, and saddle her.  I sat on her for awhile just watching the events and that went well.  At first she didn't really want to stand still, so we did some figure eights until she was more relaxed.  After awhile my behind got sore from sitting her with only the bare back pad for so long, so I tied her up for awhile with the hay bag.  Marsan is good about being tied up, but she likes to move around a lot.  I think the funnest part was when I loped her, it kind of happened by accident.  I was riding with a girl who needed to lope her horse because he getting balky and when she took off Marsan wanted to as well.  I felt like she was calm, so I let her go for it.  She went into this really nice balanced lope and I fell right into the rhythm of it.  It was so cool! 

       Hope you enjoyed with summary of our crazy horse week.  I really enjoyed writing it.

Fun at the arena

     Some friends and I went to the local riding arena with the horses, just to hang out and maybe do some barrels and patterns.  I took Marsan and a friend of my friends rode Cherroke since she couldn't transport her horse to the arena.  I am proud to say that they both did beautifully!  Cherroke ended giving a ride to each of us in turn and with each person he ajusted to fit their needs.  I rode Marsan most of the time and although she didn't always want to go where I asked she tried really hard.  We walked, backed, trotted, and loped!  I was so happy.  Plus all I had was a bare back pad :)

      I must admit that I had some intitial misgivings about taking Marsan to this new place with Cherroke, since she usually sticks to him like glue.  So I sent up a small silent prayer asking God to help me to have a good time and know what to do if Marsan got nervous.  I guess he aswered that prayer, by showing me the confident LB side of Marsan.  For as long as I've had her, I've alway visualized her as little RBI.  Try as I might, I couldn't see her as a confident, bossy, LB!  Today I was able to, so that is a big step for both of us.

A nice ride with the Grass Maniac :P

     My Mom and I took Marsy and Cherroke for a short trail ride down the road.  It was really, fun even though Marsan couldn't get her mind off of grass LOL. 

      It was nice to be able to just ride along and not have to worry that Marsan was going to take off, as has been the case in the past.  I found that if I relaxed my body she would respond by following suite.  I focused a lot on getting her to respond to my body although it ended up more of an evaluation, which was fine.  We did zig-zags down the road, lateral flexion, indirect rein(moving the back feet around), direct rein(moving the front feet around), nine step back-up, and some trotting.  Marsan did really well with this.  As I said though, she was having a little trouble focusing on me and not the grass.  This is something I need to work with her on because it's rather dangerous, since it puts me in a precarious situation fast.  What I mean is that we'll be walking and suddenly she veers off the side of the road and heads a down steep incline, but then she jirks to a stop on the incline to eat grass.  I almost flipped off the front end a couple of times as a result of her whims.

       When we got back Marsan found a threshold concerning going back down the road even though Cherroke was heading in the other direction.  I stopped her and waited, eventually she lowered her head a little and started giving me lateral flexion, so I started asking for it.  Pretty soon she was able to go down the road in the direction I dictated, although we had to use the zig-zag pattern.  It was good ride :)

A way to come in from pasture!

     A quick note before I get started with this post: I'm changing my blog's colors around right now so things might look a little weird for awhile LOL.

     Let me start by saying that with summer comes putting horses out on pasture and the catching game.  Putting the horses out is easy, but getting them back in can be a big time consuming, chore!  Especially with Marsan and Cherroke, all of the other horses either come or will allow you to approach them.  Today I devoted an hour or so to experimenting to see if I could find a natural solution to the catching problem. 

      First I caught all of the other horses since they needed to come in first.  Then I tried several different approaches with the wild ones LOL.  The first thing that I found was that they weren't RB*.  They were diliberate and relaxed.  Once I realized this, I decided to play the game more from a point of dominance.  I was straight foward with them, in that I simply walked up towards them until they noticed me.  Then I waited until they made their move.  They were pretty disinterested until I got within about twenty feet of them, then the fun began.  They ran up to the barn, then they ran into an adjoining valley, then back down the road to where we started!  Upon reapproaching them for the second time since their little run, a strange thing occurred.  They ran towards me!  I perceived that they were really trying to get to the barn so I ran away from them.  It's pretty weird to be chased by your, horse of you own free will, down the road!  Eventually they slowed down, Marsan notice I was there and came to me.  I tried to get Cherroke to the point where he would let me catch him, but he wasn't ready for that.

In the end Marsan and I ran ahead of Cherroke back to the barn.  I put Marsan in and then Cherroke seeing a gate open to another pen entered it.  That's where we left him, hopefully we can continue to work with him on these strange tendencies.  I would love to hear everyone's comments on this!
  

An interesting ride with Marsan

     This morning I took Marsan for another ride, this time with going in a new direction to the same gate.  There were some changes and Marsan picked up on those right away.  The first one was that the rest of the herd left, so consiquently the new horse started whinnying a lot.  Secondly, we didn't stay on the road we went through a valley and up a trail.  So it was a bit tricky working with these changes and Marsan's response to them.

      She did pretty good going down the valley, but when we got to the trail she began to get pretty nervous.  I think she has an innate dislike for these mountain trails of ours, because there aren't very many good ways to turn around on them.  Since she really didn't feel confident to go up the trail with me on her, I go off and led her up it.  She was fine with the leading.  Once we were up on the ridge again, I tried mounting.  She promtly got nervous again, so I dismounted again and led her some more.  I asked her to walk with me in z3* which she was able to do.  So I was in the process of mounting again LOL, when my mom showed up.  She had taken the herd to the gate were I was going to meet, her and had come to see how we were doing. 

       Marsan like following mom a lot, so I tried asking her to not follow mom...she really didn't like that.  The long and short of it is that we spent some more time on ground work.  When I got on her for the last time though, she did what I asked and tried very hard. 

        Interestingly enough, when I let her go.  She just started grazing instead of taking off to find her herd mates.  I walked up to her several times, just to pet her and she didn't leave.  In fact when we started walking back the house, she looked at us for a moment, like she was going to come before going back to her grass.  Lots to think about I guess....

Today my dream came true.

      To start with this morning I took Marsan on another longer walk.  Instead of staying on the drive way, we went back to the barn through a valley and down a trail.  Throughout this journey Marsan remained almost perfectly calm.  I did lots of different things just see how she would respond.  We did backing between and under trees, lots of driving in z3*, and HQ* disengagement.  With all of these things she did great!

       Now the second part.  Tonight we had go on another adventure because mom needed me to close the gate again.  I really felt like Marsan was ready for a bigger challenge, so I came out of the tack room with her hackamore and my helmet.  You guessed it, without delay I climbed aboard and we set out.  Although she tried circle back a few times, it was always because she wanted to eat grass.  I let her do her circle and well, she magically ended up facing in the right direction again LOL.  Usually all it took was a little suggestion with my body and the reins to put her back on course.  Most of the time she walked with her head down, a little below her withers and there was a lot of rhythm in her gait. 

     It was then  as we were walking along in the peaceful state, that it occured to me that I was doing what I'd been dreaming about last week.  I was on ride with my partner without the herd and she was perfectly trusting and calm!  So we got the gate and on the way home we did trotting, stopping, and backing up :D  It was an awesome ride!  Thank you Parelli for giving me the tools, inspiration, and support to do this.  Most of all thank you God for caring about me dreams and helping me to make them come true.

A walk with Marsy

      I had to walk down the road to close a gate tonight so I thought I'd take Marsy and see what she thought.  My big goal this year is to get her confident enough to take me on a trail ride or to an event CALMLY!!!!  And part of that is being able to go places alone where she has to put her trust in me and not in the herd.  Tonight I decided that if she started to get really upset I put the brakes on, so to speak and we'd go back.  However, she was actually really calm on our walk.  I was the nervous one for once, I guess I was kind of afraid of her getting afraid.  I told her so and took some deep breaths, stopped for a few thresholds and we proceeded.  There were times when I thought she was going to give a big whinney and then I'd know she was really scared out of her whits!  But, then she'd just blow her nose instead LOL.  We played some squeeze game with the gate, but she was really more interested in other things.  Finally I just asked her to back through the gate, sometimes she can do this and sometimes she can't.  We did some approach and retreat for good measure and she backed right through.  So that pretty much told me that she was calm.

     What I learned tonight was that I have thresholds too and that doesn't mean I have to stop everything and avoid those scarey situations.  It just means I need to be honest with my partner and work through it.  The other thing I learned is that you don't have to pick on every little challenge you come across, you can wait for a better opportunity.  Now that's setting it up for success.

It was absolutely amazing!

     I went out to catch Gingy in the pasture and that's where the story begins....

     Yesterday when I tried tried to get Gingy to catch me, he decided it would be easier to leave LOL.  This time I approached and tried to be open not tense or sneaky and I figured out that it doesn't really matter how you physically approach, it's about how you feel inside.  When I got close he started to meander my way.  So I waited...and he came.  I thought, "hmmmmm how interesting I didn't have to do anything, he made the decision on his own."  This was really a remarkable thing to me, because I'm always trying to carefully affect the situation.  Now I know that sometimes you can let them decide and it's almost always better that way.

     Once caught he didn't really want to focus in on me and leave his grass.  I tried being annoying by constantly asking him to move his HQ* away and this worked okay.  Then I went back to just backing him up since that meant he had to lift his head.  I allowed him to graze for awhile with me sitting on the panel fence and experimented with getting to recognize when I was going to ask for something and when he could relax.  This wasn't an extremely successful campaign I must say, but that was okay because I've let go of the need to controll everything!  Oh, it just feels to good not to worry!  Now I can focus on talking to Gingy, playing with him, and having fun!

     We did some stuff in the pasture after he had grazed for awhile.  I started out thinking that he would probably keep his focus centered on me as long as I was asking stuff, but it didn't quite happen that way.  Once again, I thought, "this is okay!  We can play with what we have."  I asked him to trot some circles over the pole and then we did some trot to halt transition at the pole.  He did really good with that so we moved to sideways over the pole.  Then sideways towards and he did that just beautifully.  We also attempted him jumping the jump and he did once, which was great.  It was funny though, because it was like he ended up not going where he intended and there was the jump!  You could literally see it in his expression, "obstacle...JUMP" and there he went LOL.

      Today was just so amazing, in that I could breath, I could play, I didn't have to be afraid of not doing it right!  I think Gingy sensed that to and thus, he let go and gave it his all.  It was just such a playful session and I found myself laughing all of the time.  You know what?  I think Gingy was laughing too.

Lots of stuff to do!

     Today I think I spent about four hours down at the barn with the horses!  I guess that's because there was so much stuff to attend to. 

      Now that the green grass is taller, we are getting the horses used to eating it for longer periods of time.  Last week we started with fifteen minutes and now they are up to a whole hour.  Also we have new horse(with no name!) staying at our place on trial for a few weeks(he might be staying permanently!), and he could only be out fifteen minutes.  So we pretty much had to supervise everything to make sure Cherroke(alpha) didn't start kicking him through the fence!  I decided to use the time to get some grooming done on Gingy and Marsan.  

      I started with Gingy and I must say that when I was done he look a lot better.  He's shiny now :)  I used this grooming time to teach Gingy how to come to attention when I was ready to do something, which is not easy for him because he gets so busy eating LOL.  By the time I was satisfied with how he looked he was doing pretty good with being ready to do something.  We tested this on our way back to the corral too and he really did very well.  Sometimes though Gingy does need me to be effective with a phase 4* and that was what I worked on with him today for myself.

       Next was Marsan.  I had a little trouble catching her because her buddy Sug started running so she had the urge to run.  Eventually, they stopped and weren't bothered when I approached.  I clipped a lead to her halter and we moseyed back to the grooming tools.  She didn't need much done with her fur, it was her mane and tail that were the problem.  I ended up braiding her tail.  While I was occupied doing that she stepped on her rope and of course when she started moving I was attached to her tail.  She was pretty LB, thus I felt that she could figure everything out if I just held on.  She did, so I resumed my braiding and she resumed her eating.  Her mane was hardest part and it took an hour!  I was really proud of her though because for that whole hour she stood almost completely still, on a loose rope, and totally relaxed!  Last time I had to do stuff with her mane she was on the move 24/7.

      Today was a lot of fun :)  Oh and about the new horse hopefully I'll have pics soon and also some pics of Marsy and Gingy with their new haircuts LOL.

I played with Gingy to have fun

     Today I got Gingy out and I did it because I wanted to, not because I thought it would make me look better!  Like I said in my last post, this just feels amazing to let go of my fears and enjoy being with my horses.

      I really wanted to sit on Gingy today so that's what I worked towards in the session.  At first when I came down he was actually kind of RBI, he kept backing away from me.  I sat for awhile by myself and comtemplated.  Then I tried just walking around him, he and the herd headed away from me and into the barn.  I finally decided that I needed to get Gingy out in the open so I suggested they leave the barn.  Well, they left...at rocket speed LOL.  After I did some approach and retreat, Gingy got curious and came to me.  So we sat for awhile, which was nice since he was very respectful and didn't try to envade my space.  This was partly because he was a little RB.  Pretty soon his LB side appeared again, so I haltered him. 

      We did lead by leg, FQ* yields with me farther away from him, and some simulations of a cinch tightening around his girth.  At one point he did get kind of irritated with the cinch simulation friendly game, so he walked off(typical LBI LOL).   With some patience and persistence he came back a little more connected than before.  So then I got the hoola-hoop out and shook it over his back, because usually it's when you sit upright on a horse that they become afraid.  He did care at all and was more interested in eating the hoola-hoop(hehehe).  He was pretty dirty, thus I gave him a thorough grooming too. 

       Finally, I felt ready to mount up.  He didn't mind at all and seemed quite happy with me up there.  He kept wanting to eat, but I just bumped his head up every time put it down, so eventually he stopped trying.  We did some lateral flexion, which is pretty good although he is a little stiff bending to one side.  We watched some cars going down our driveway, but he remained calm.  Things were so nice that I decided to dismount, Gingy followed me to the gate when I took his halter off.  It was the perfect end to a nice session.

Letting go...

     It's been too long since I have last posted, but there is a reason.  The reason is that I have been so confused about everything for the last few months so that there hasn't been much for me to write, except, "I'm still confused!" As of now though I am starting to make some head-way with this new  level of conscious incompetence. 


      All that I can really say is that with the help of my horses and my family I have taken another step in letting go of one of my deepest fears.  That fear being that I'm not good enough, or moreover that I'm not "cool" enough to merit the respect of those whom I call my friends.  I cannot begin to describe how wonderful it is to be a little less afraid than before, all the sudden I see the world in a different way.  It's like breathing clean air for the first time.  Moving past that new level of conscious incompetence is never easy and it took a huge frustration to bring about this change in my confidence and perspective.  However, it was all worth it, letting go of your fear to embrace the love others want to give you is the experience of a life time.  My frustration was in fact that I thought God had foresaken me, I prayed all of the time that he would show me how to be good with the horses, but I prayed that prayer because fear.  I wanted him to make me better with horses, because I thought that would make me good enough(and "cool" enough).  Now I see that because of his tremendous love for me, he gave me what I needed most, a breath of fresh air.