Catching Up! weeks four through six

So it’s been three weeks since I last blogged! Week 4 was my team’s turn to do the notes for the group which meant I was on my lap top every night typing up my notes and some nights compiling the notes of others, so I ran out of energy for my blog. Unfortunately, with so much happening, knowing you have so much to write about just makes the prospect more tiring and so I have finally reached the point where I’d better update my blog or else I will never do it! Which I think would be a shame.... So, I’m going to wrack my memory and do my best to recap everything, if I do a good job of it then this will be a very long post! If not... well then you won’t have to read so much!

Ok, stepping into the time machine and transporting us back three weeks ago, to where I last left you ...

I was hoping that after a very undemanding weekend for Boaz he might be a little less disenchanted with me. I was wrong. Maurice began the week by demonstrating another method for developing connection on the circling game but, when I played with it, it didn’t really work.  We reached the same point as always, and then he began squealing and turning and leaping to the end of the line and at one point he took off and I let go of the rope because the memory of Friday’s learn burns were still fresh. I had prepared for this eventuality by playing with Boaz in a small area. Maurice saw me struggling and he took Boaz and played with him whilst I held his horse. The other students played until they made a little bit of progress and then saddled up to practice opening gates. Boaz was being equally difficult for Maurice and he said that he would help me with Boaz. By the time Boaz gave one fairly ok lap he was mentally tired, blinking slowly. I spent a little undemanding time with him whilst the others finished up, before heading to lunch.

In the afternoon, Maurice and Susan were finishing the goal setting interviews and so I could not get any help with Boaz. I was still tired from the weekend and when I clipped the 45 ft line onto Boaz I felt my emotions come up. This was not going to go well. So I decided to play a short liberty session of the connection game and then sat on Boaz and took him to grass for the rest of the afternoon. If I wasn’t able to fix things I certainly didn’t want to make them worse. That night I forced myself to have an early night to recharge my batteries, which I know has a very clear link to my mental and emotional fitness!

The next morning I just rode Boaz. We were looking at the bowtie pattern, making sure we really understood it and were able to ride and teach it as Pat would like. I was grateful for all the time I had spent with Marie-Claire and Riva on this pattern because it was much easier to take in the finer details when the basics were already there. I don’t know why but the bowtie pattern is not in the Freestyle Patterns DVD. It really is a very useful pattern and Maurice explained how to vary it to make it suitable and useful for under and over impulsive horses.

The afternoon disappeared in a haze of theory lessons and presentations. Maurice had said he wanted to help me with Boaz online, so I didn’t want to do anything with that until he was able to help me, I was worried about reinforcing a negative pattern and doing more damage to my relationship with Boaz. It was very un-nerving to know I was doing my absolute best and it just wasn’t working, and now I was starting to feel a barrier when I thought of paying online with Boaz.

Wednesday morning was a reminder of everything we had already learned, plus we focused on trot and canter with a light seat, and getting canter departures using just our energy and weight. It was a very cool session and we took the horses out into the 160 acre pasture so it was a nice change from the arena.

In the afternoon, after some theory about the bosal, the class was allowed to focus on their own horse development. Maurice came to my rescue and played with Boaz. In the end, most of the class were perched on the rails of the arena watching. They had all seen my online audition wth him, and knew he had started to run off with the rope. Some people already had horses with similar issues, others just wanted to know, just in case they came across it. Maurice is obviously more skilled with the techniques he has been teaching us, and knows a fair few more, but as he played with Boaz I was reassured that whilst there were differences I had been mostly thinking on the same track as Maurice. He said that Boaz was very difficult because he felt no need to connect with people at all, he would stay as far away as he could, he was also extremely smart and worked out your new strategy within a few minutes and found a new way to out smart it. In the end Maurice had Boaz close to him and had to end the session after just one lap of a walk circle because it was the most connection he was able to get from Boaz. The whole time Boaz had been flitting from left brain punk to insecure and even fearful. Maurice likened him to the playground bully that got scared when someone finally stood up to him. I decided, whilst watching, that I would remove the water from Boaz’ pen and start a program of giving him his dinner, water and grass only when I was with him. I needed to become important to him. 

Thursday morning we went back to the 160 pasture for our light seat and canter depart exercises and then trail rode up the big hills and took turns making our way down Scootch Hill, a pretty steep slope where the horses really have to get under themselves and focus to make their way down. I love this kind of thing and had a grin from ear to ear the whole way down. 

In the afternoon Susan and Maurice were going around giving 30 minute private sessions to individuals. I decided to warm Boaz up with the connection game at liberty, as our issues seemed to be purely about connection. By the time Susan came over we were still very much into our liberty session so Susan gave me some tips to go even slower and break it down even more for Boaz as he was showing that he felt lost and bothered and didn’t know where to be. We spent a lot of time just standing together so that h could make the connection that being with me was a desirable and comfortable place to be. Boaz began investigating me, showing more interest than ever before and was licking and chewing loads. The session seemed to really make a big impact on his mind and he looked very tired so I ended the afternoon with undemanding time.

By Friday, the day we organised the Open House, Boaz was already starting to look for me so he could have water and get out f his pen for grass. I did feel bad that he only had hay and a salt block to entertain him when I wasn’t there but I had to change things. I found out that I was on the Savvy Team and had to ride freestyle in the following day’s Open House. Christie Smith gave us some advice, which included not doing anything new during the show. I decided to test Boaz out in the arena to see whether he already knew some cool things so that I could do them and they would not be technically new. I already knew he had great downward transitions, and fair upward ones. I tested my extreme friendly from the saddle and it was a real non-event for him, even at the trot, so I decided to include that. I tried to stand up on him but my saddle is so soft and moveable that I felt it was a bit too risky. I then reasoned that, when I was avoiding using the bit I had been riding him freestyle with only the neck string and carrot stick. I unclipped my reins and trotted some figure eight patterns and then cantered a cloverleaf. Boaz was awesome and I felt like, if everything lined up and went ok I might be able to take the bridle off during the Open House.

Needless to say, I played it sensible and stayed home Friday night so I would be in best mental and emotional shape for the Open House.

We were all up early Saturday morning to go get horses ready and set up obstacles for the day. I set about getting Boaz as clean as possible without getting him completely soaked. I am very conscious about the fact that water here is absolutely a finite resource and I don’t like bathing horses unnecessarily anyway. So I washed his white socks and groomed him until he sparkled. I then lead him up to the lodge so that I could tack him up and change into my nicest riding clothes. By the time we got there he already had black feet. I reassured myself that with the arena sand it would not be so obvious. Once ready, I mounted Boaz and we headed for the honeycomb to warm up out of the way of our awesome ground crew who were busy sorting out the obstacles in the arena and setting up the sound system. As I began to trot around the honeycomb I felt Boaz respond to my different energy. Boaz does not become particularly emotional when your energy changes, he become mentally bracey! So he started to jump sideways off of our track or into the rail, bashing my leg as he did. He would speed up then slow down and I felt that moment of “oh no! Why now?” My thoughts apparently escaped out my mouth because my fellow team members saif “maybe it’s your energy?!”

Hmmmm, how interesting?! Although this question was not reassuring (because I knew it was the case and I didn’t know what to do about it) I had to face the fact that we were about to be called into the arena to show what we could do.

We were then called over, the music started, Shirley, our MC, introduced each team member and we set off in our different directions. Immediately I felt myself change. I relaxed to the music, smiled at the audience, and felt like “we can ‘t change things now, let’s just make the most of it”. And funnily enough Boaz became my perfect partner. He had go and whoa, was steerable, would stand on the pedestal, jump the jumps, and was not bothered by the spectators and atmosphere.

The moment came sooner than I had thought that I decided we were ready to take off the bridle. I slid it off and threw it over the rail, did a turn on the hind end and headed off on a follow the rail. We did transitions, trotted the figure eight, cantered point to points and then did the jump a couple of times. Boaz was just as cool bridleless as with it and after the show I had a couple of spectators come and talk to me and tell me how impressed they were. Shirley had mentioned he is only 4 years old and I have been playing with him for one month so they were extra impressed by the relationship I had with him already. I smiled at the irony, in the saddle our relationship was going from strength to strength but our relationship on the ground had some serious catching up to do.

Pat always says Good Better Best, Never Let it Rest, Get Your Good Better and Your Better Best. So I have been putting time into improving our freestyle and finesse but I am also very careful to keep making progress on our ground savvies without burning the poor boy out.

The rest of the Open House was equally a booming success. My other team mates put in stirling performances, the Parelli Games ran smoothly and were a lot of fun, thanks to the hard work of the Games Team, and our Savvy Spotlights provided inspiration in all four savvies. Saturday night was a good night to go out with everyone and celebrate! We went to an Italian restaurant and then on to On the Rocks to dance and play table tennis!

Sunday was a recovery day, and I sat with Boaz in the sun for a long time, letting him eat grass. It didn’t feel so warm but the sun’s intensity got to me and I got a little burned on my back and neck.

I’m afraid I can’t remember exactly what classes we had in what order for last week, because I have already hacked up my notes. I have been making notes daily and then I am cutting and pasting them, with additional information, into one document so that rather than be in chronological order bouncing about from this tip to that, I have put information into topics and chapters. The idea is to have a kind of reference manual of everything I have learned from the externship by the end. My notes are pretty detailed and it’s taking a lot of effort! Some people have asked me to share my notes and I certainly am open to bribes! However, I want it made clear that these are my personal notes and they have not been endorsed or approved by Parelli.

We focused on two stick riding, haunches in and keeping soft touch and all the other lessons we had learned. Linda came and noticed that we had all made an effort to improve the forwardness of our horses and our soft touch. She gave us some exercises to focus on our rhythm which is crucial to good riding and the first step on the scale to collection. I also continued playing the connection game with Boaz at liberty and then played with him online as if we were at liberty, still playing the connection game and using the end of the rope as the wall of the round pen. It’s something we hear all the time in Parelli – “Play at liberty as if you’re online and online as if you’re at liberty” – and yet it felt like I was just really getting it. No matter how many times someone tells you the solution, there is nothing like working it out for yourself! I noticed at liberty that Boaz got insecure whenever I started doing the driving game because he wasn’t sure where he should be. This meant that all the following games were broken. The driving game is involved in all of them! I spent a lot of time in phase one, waiting for him to begin to feel for the right answer and then I would quit. I’d like to say that I quit everytime he felt for the right answer but honestly most times I only quit when he showed he was on the right track by shifting his weight or even his feet in the right direction. Technically this is too late if you want to be a master horseman. We had the privilege of watching Pat play with a problem horse and he was constantly quitting when we thought it was too soon. But Pat is a master at reading the horse, he sees the horse feeling the right answer, he sees when it goes into the horse’s mind. This is why he can get results so much faster than most of us! Pat says “mind, flexion, weight, feet”, I have some way to go to learn how to read the flexion, let alone the mind of the horse!

Anyway, by giving Boaz so much more time to think he started to get more confident and relaxed and was able to go onto a circle at a walk on phase one. If he wanted to come to me I would allow him in, make contact with him and them gently ask him back out in a friendly way with a smile on my face. This gave my energy a whole different feel, I was genuinely fascinated, not frustrated and I got immense satisfaction with every extra step he took on my phase one. I built this up and now we have managed to have 3 quarters of a truly connected circle at the canter on a 22 ft line. Before this I couldn’t get him to really canter on the 22 ft line, he would pull on it and constantly break gait.

I am very excited because his whole attitude to me is changing. He wants to be with me, even meeting me at the gate of the pasture when he is out loose at grass, cantering to me if I ask it. He calls to me whenever he sees me and when we’re together he is now asking me streams of questions, making contact with me, and making an effort to stay with me when I move. Sometimes he gets distracted and I disengage his hindquarters to get his two eyes back. This has really improved his disengagement. Before he had no disengagement, he would march forward and if you were lucky he would turn around his front end to come to you. When I first played with improving it, getting him to cross his legs he learned to pivot his hind end to stop you from tagging it but not actually come forward, because he lost trust in me and felt defensive. Now that we have done so much undemanding time, quiet time together when he finds me, he disengages with a different attitude and comes to me.  One of the other externs asked me if the water treatment was making a difference. I told her it had made a massive difference. She then said “it would be nice if he wanted to be with you without it being about the water”.  Now this is my view on it, if you control the water the horse knows you control his life. So you are important. You’re worth paying attention to. But does that make you someone he likes? Not necessarily. It could be a form of servitude and does nothing to stop the enslaved feeling contempt for their captor. But as well as controlling his water I have been offering him free time to be a horse, grazing time, play time, comfort, relaxation, treats, scratches, I am attentive to any need he might have. I have attempted to fill the role of loving parent (parents control the access of young children to water, food and anything else) rather than prison warden. I feel like by associating myself with so many positive things in his life it makes it easier for him to just feel positive emotions whenever he sees me. Our relationship is improving on a daily basis and today Boaz followed me everywhere at liberty. It was also today that he met me at the gate of the field. I expect that if I started allowing him to have water in his pen again but kept the other positives in our relationship things would not go so terribly wrong, but I actually enjoy our time at the “water hole” together. We have really bonded in the last couple of weeks and I want to keep that going!

I did have a hiccup early this week when I played with him at liberty. I was beginning to up to anti, asking him to actually go faster. This was before we got our cantering online. I sent Boaz out on the circle and he stopped. I followed through with my promise by putting pressure way out in zone 5 but as the string flew through the air he span around and it landed in zone 1, blocking him. Boaz felt like I was doing it to him because his immediate reaction was to turn away and leap out of the round pen. As soon as I knew he wasn’t hurt I set about making sure that he did not learn that as a pattern. Just like the pulling the rope out of your hand, jumping out of a round pen can be a serious problem. As soon as he found me again he was incredibly connected and we ended the session with a lovely connected circle on phase one. I realised that him jumping out had been the result of an error in timing and technique, not a loss of connection, and so I filed it in the “lesson learned” category. Be careful! Zone 5 can turn into zone 1 very quickly! He hasn’t done it again, and has made so much more progress that I am not panicking about it. I am of course very careful when we play at liberty in the round pen because I do not want to put the wrong pressure at the wrong time on to cause him to jump out, but this is not more likely to happen than with any other horse.

This week we have built a couple of precision pens to give us more focus in our finesse. We have been developing more feel and better technique with exercises like backward circles. In preparation for our future careers as Parelli Professionals we have been learning about emergency first aid procedures and saddle fitting too.  Saddle fitting has always made me right brained but Letitia of Parelli Saddles came out yesterday and made things so much more simple that I felt more able to give things a try. I bougt some of the new foam shims to optimise my saddle and pad combination for the duration of my externship and to take home and use on Paris as, after listening to Letitia, I am sure they will help him!

I plan to put Paris on a program of hill therapy and focus on our online and liberty when I get home to really build his topline. When the time comes to ride him I will see what I can do about my saddle situation. We got to look at the new Natural Rider saddle, which is a western saddle half the price of all the other Parelli saddles.  The difference is due to a slightly different material in the tree and thinner leather. I don’t ride western but having a western saddle will be great for trail rides, for Will playing silly buggers and for situations when I need to help someone feel more confident or get a horse used to a saddle. Obviously my dreams are not getting any less expensive so I better get a decent job when I get home – if anyone knows of anything let me know!

Pat dropped by for a visit today and explained to us just how good it is for a horse to be galloped out for a decent distance to “unclog the carbon”. I sent Boaz forward and got him really going much more than normal in the warm up for our afternoon session and he blew out loads and gave me a great session. I ended up finishing early because he was giving me everything I was asking for.

We have our mid-term reports at the end of this week, and some of the class are heading for Denver on the weekend to go to the Horse and Soul Tour. I would have loved to have gone, but I also enjoy being here so much and I decided to stay with Boaz instead.

We might have a lesson with Linda next week and things really seem to be continually gathering momentum! At least now I am caught up on my blog it should be easier for me to get back to my regular updates! Let’s see what next week as in store...!