Level One with Excellence

Monday started off with a theory lesson on strategies to improve the quality of our circling game, based on horsenalities and using the appropriate psychology. We want, at level four, for our horses to be making real circles around us with the belly of the rope on the floor and a positive expression. Basically for the Right brain horses there are two strategies to help them to focus on you and therefore look in on the circle which helps them to create the correct bend and not drift to the end of the line. The first is to wait until the horse looks out on the circle and walk forward to where the tail was at the moment the infraction was made. The act of moving into the horses blind spot may be enough to get the horse to think “what are you doing?” and return it’s focus on you. You stop and your new position becomes the new centre of the circle. This is about capturing the horse’s mind. If the horse doesn’t get curious, as you walk toward the original position of the horse’s tail, the rope will begin to lift and the horse can feel you moving behind them, this is like phases two and three. If the horse continues to go straight it will hit the end of the rope which will bring its head round. This is phase four.  The second strategy, which can help them to discover that there is comfort in putting slack in the line is to set your horse up near a fence or corner. As the horse goes between you and the fence it cannot pull the slack away. In fact, you are guaranteed to have excess slack which you should carefully gather, making sure you leave some rope on the ground so it does not send a feel to the horse’s head. As the horse comes away from the fence, you have enough rope in your hand to put a slight dragging feel down the line as the horse drifts from you. This drag gets firmer as the horse reaches the end of the line, you may need to step back into the power position if the horse is not responding to the drag. This was you are not being abrupt or rude, but rather increasing discomfort in a gentle way. You are not adding emotion to the horse’s problems, just making a clear distinction between comfort and discomfort. Horses seek comfort and so you are still leaving the horse with freedom to choose, and dignity.

For left brain introverts there is a game to be played. When the horse lifts the line off the ground you need to immediately reel him in as fast as possible. When you have the horse and all the rope re-send the horse in the same direction and demonstratively drop the slack of the rope on the ground. Make sure you are holding the end of the line (we have been practicing these techniques on the 22ft line). This method worked great for Boaz to the right but did not work to the left. Instead he got more extroverted and was marching to the end of the line and then turning and coming straight back to me. I was finding that he was getting worse and I was starting to doubt myself so I decided to experiment with the other methods. Susan had said that the key for left brain extroverts was leadership and had shown how she used transitions and changes of direction to get her LBE tuned in to circles. I tried transitions with Boaz but he just started changing direction by his self and taking off in canter and then stopping dead. Maybe I was doing too much? So I tried the right brain strategies, but he was clearly not right brain. In the end I got one good lap. I had used the technique of giving his tail an intense look and then rewarding him when he left slack on the floor.

After lunch we did conga horse simulations of the strategies we had been learning in the morning. It was interesting to get feedback on how our rope handling felt to the horse. I realised that I would not be a very nice horse! I’m easily offended! Trying to put drag into the line was difficult for me because apparently it takes a lot less pressure than I had thought to actually block the horse from drifting. It is important that the horse still has the choice.

We were then told to tack up our horses, warm up online and prepare to ride soft touch. The aim of the session was for us to begin riding on varied terrain with soft touch so we have to really challenge ourselves to follow the horse’s mouth. It was my first time of wearing spurs so I took a while during the warm up to check everything out. I was pleased to find that I was not jabbing him with the spurs and I could feel when they were making any kind of contact. I was most worried about cantering because I have had a long established habit of getting tight in my knees, which in turn pulls my heels up. Well I don’t know if it was due to improved riding or just pure focus but I was not spurring Boaz in the canter either. A couple of times I felt the spur touch Boaz unintentionally and he swished his tail. This actually reassured me that I was not doing anything unknowingly. I spent the evening watching more of the old Parelli level two.

Tuesday we discussed the steady and relaxation reins, their use and application. We did simulations in pairs. The steady rein is when you have a California roll in order to hold the reins in one hand at a shortened length. You keep neutral by resting the rein hand on the horse’s withers/neck in front of the saddle. If the horse loses balance or gets a little impulsive and picks up speed you simply engage your core muscles and then gently but firmly bring your hand back toward your bellybutton. This acts in the same way as a half halt simply re-balancing the horse and reminding him to stay with your focus. You can use it to bring the horse back to your focus when steering by bringing the rein hand back to the respective hip. You just need to do enough to bring the horse’s mind back to the task, not necessarily the body.  The relaxation rein is more for emotional impulsiveness. It is the first step toward partial disengagement and then full disengagement. If the horse is tense and hurried or jigging you can use this rein to create a slight bend which takes a bit of the power from their hind quarters and enables you to reward relaxation with comfort. Horses usually prefer to move straight. You just want to gently take a feel on the rein toward the rail so that you bring the horse’s nose around so you can just see the eye. Try to keep a steady feel on the rein, like with soft touch, even though the horse is likely jigging and fussing. It may take several laps for the horse to make a change but as soon as the horse makes and small sign of trying to relax or calm, release the rein. If the horse gets impulsive again simply re-take the relaxation rein. We did not have enough time to ride our horses so we played online with our circling games, changes of direction, and sideways game. The circling game went better for Boaz and he gave me a few good steps of sideways. I decided to also play with his porcupine game as I noticed that it is his biggest weakness and is critical to our riding. Maurice came over and reminded me to use the driving game to reinforce the porcupine game to improve positive response. After lunch Susan told us that we would be required, at some point in the future, to give a 5 minute presentation each on a breed of horse. The idea behind this is to give us an opportunity to practice public speaking and to also help us identify less well known breeds, which may come in handy when we have students with all kinds of horses. I have to do a presentation on the Missouri Fox Trotter. Next Maurice demonstrated the steady rein and relaxation rein on his mare and then we all got our horses and rode, practicing those rein positions and returning to soft touch in the playground. A few people have told me that Boaz and I were looking good but I felt like I wasn’t really getting the soft touch, especially in the trot. I find it very hard to use my triceps muscles and relax my lower arm muscles. I spoke to Maurice and we decided I should try training my muscles to get softer by riding with my thumbs up. Boaz had made a few good efforts and was getting tired of me riding around the playground so I found a good spot to end on but I felt not entirely satisfied with myself. Not only did I feel I had made no marked improvement in the soft touch but I had shortened my stirrups because I had had the feeling I was stretching into them the day before. Now it was much harder for me to keep the spurs away from Boaz and a few times he had picked up a much more forward pace. He was very clear he did not appreciate them digging him. I was able to correct my legs but it was disappointing after the previous day. Maurice had also noticed and said that it was an adjustment. I went home tired with a full head. I am spending a lot of time outside my comfort zone, which is where learning occurs, but it was getting a bit much and I spent the evening retreating into introversion, my coping strategy.

Wednesday was a much better day. We went up to the Arena Grande to practice our steady and relaxation reins, soft touch and a new manoeuvre in a new environment. We don’t want the horses to get sour to our arena by doing too much heavy repetitive stuff there, but we need repetition in order to reprogram muscle memories and establish new patterns in our brains. I warmed Boaz up with relaxation rein in both directions as he was rather up in his energy and focused on his new surroundings. We did three laps of the large arena at a trot practicing soft touch and I felt like maybe, just maybe, we were making progress. We all then began practicing the steady rein, especially when we were trotting downhill. I didn’t need it so often with Boaz because I was able to use my core, seat and slow my rising in order to steady him. I used the rein when he began to get a bit of a roll on. Maurice even commented that my rising trot had improved over the last week, which pleased me because I was really focussing on it. I had a much better day with the spurs too, except that I lost one after our ride. The final exercise we had to do was to ride into the corners, use an indirect rein to bring the outside hind out, back up a few steps until the right came of the inside fore and then use direct rein to guide the inside fore out and around to do a 180 degree turn and then trot out of the turn. The idea was to have us start refining the old level one direct and indirect reins by having us tune into the foot falls of the horses. It was a great exercise and it improved Boaz’s backup. I left Boaz in a pen by the arena during lunch so he could take advantage of the grass. When I finished lunch Boaz was the last horse at the arena so I tacked him up and headed back to the pens. He wanted to canter across the field and for the first time ever I had a bit of difficulty slowing him down.

We had our usual afternoon meeting discussing what we learned or observed or enjoyed in the morning session. Maurice asked if anyone had any jokes and I told my one about the 3 men who go to heaven. We had a theory lesson on how to improve the porcupine game and were tasked to spend the afternoon playing with our horses in the playground and to focus on the porcupine game amongst the other things we had been doing, circles and sideways. As soon as I took Boaz toward the playground I felt his focus become completely fixed on the grass. He would kind of do what I asked and go back to eating as quickly as possible. I had to really be clear, consistent and sometimes much stronger than fees comfortable to me, in order to get him to focus on me rather than the grass. I had a moment where I wondered if I had been too strong. When I bring my energy up and shale the rope strongly it causes me to brace a little and grit my teeth, I haven’t recovered from my level one days of whacking myself in the face! This brace triggers a fear of being emotional at the horse and so my discomfort only goes up. But Boaz could suddenly maintain several laps in each direction on the circle game with a nice bend and plenty of slack on the ground. He also gave me the best porcupine and sideways he has ever given me. Susan came to see if everything was going ok and I told her about my leadership discovery and we talked about leadership and grass. The whole time you could see that Boaz wanted to eat the grass but was waiting for permission. He was completely with me. He had a tired look on his face after our not-so-long session, because he is doing a lot of thinking and learning. I am being careful not to burn him out physically, but also I have to look after him mentally and emotionally. At only four he’s not used to the same amount of play and intense learning as many of the other older horses. He’s doing me proud though, and I am absolutely loving playing with and riding him. Two mornings in a row he has been laying down when I went to get him. I can sit on him, lay on him whatever. I have never met such a laid back dude! He is so funny he makes me laugh out loud quite often, and he always lifts my spirits when he nickers to me when I’m walking toward his pen.

Thursday we rode in the morning. We used our steady and relaxation reins and then began playing with carrot stick riding. We are just using one at the moment and developing positive responses and more refined use. All of us have done carrot stick riding before but these sessions are focusing on our use of the carrot stick as an appropriate phase with feel and timing, rather than mere guess work. I was feeling a little rough and tight in my body so I knew Boaz would be feeling that. I decided to keep our session short and focus on our back up and isolations. Boaz made some improvement and I jumped off twice when I felt him make a good effort. We spent the rest of the session with me on the ground with him following Maurice around and listening to the pointers he was giving the other students. Mostly it was about the isolations.

After lunch we went on a tour of the Parelli Office in town. I bought a few items (a couple of shirts, sticks, a new hackamore for Mum and a replacement green savvy string). Apparently there was a lot going on upstairs where the media and IT departments are so we couldn’t go up, but the Professionals team came down to introduce themselves so we can put names to faces once we start emailing with Parelli as professionals. It was cool to see old Parelli memorabilia and walking through the manufacturing room and the warehouse was like being a kid in a chocolate factory!

Back on the ranch we were given a lesson in rope handling. Maurice ran through the finer points of handling a lasso, we had a “hunker down” tournament (two people stand on up-turned buckets and have to play a kind of tug of war whilst remaining on their bucket) and then we were shown how to use our ropes to catch an animal. In this case our animal was a 3 foot high wooden “cow”. It was hard to get a try on the cow as there were so many of us doing it and at one point Maurice asked me if I needed help, to which I replied “is it that obvious I’ve never done this before?” and he laughed and said “You look like a girl from London trying to rope a boyfriend!” He explained that I needed to make my loop bigger and twist my wrist so the back of my hand came in front of my face as if I was going to kiss it. I had to stop practicing and start doing chores but I tried it again the next morning and just before our morning meeting I managed to catch one of the posts of the fence.

We rode again in the morning, focusing on all the things we had been doing in the week. Boaz started much better than the day before and I got some better back-ups from my seat. I feel like our progress is slow but we’re getting there.   

The horses had the afternoon off as we had a demonstration on different bits, how they work in the horse’s mouth, their purposes and had a discussion about the pros and cons of riding in a hackamore versus a bridle. Maurice gave us a lot of advice, from his time as an instructor, on how to set up our students for success with freestyle riding.  It was cool to be able to share opinions and experiences and consider how we would deal with issues as professionals. The afternoon flew by and soon it was time to do the chores. My team have been on facility duties this week, which means raking the aisles, in front of the pens, and removing poop from all the arenas, round pens and the playground. It is definitely the task with the most work but each team takes turns so we will all only have 3 weeks each of it. Next week we have barn duties, which is putting chairs away, sweeping the barn and cleaning the horse shower, seeping the office and closing all the doors. Next is the notes team, which is what the name suggests, taking notes from all the theory lessons and discussions, compiling them and handing them in to Susan for a complete record of what was taught.   The fourth team has the week off, which I’m sure will be very welcome when it’s our turn next! I went home with a dehydration headache; despite having drunk more water than I normally do. It’s so easy to get caught out here, the air is thinner because of the altitude and so you lose more water through breathing, plus the thin atmosphere makes the effect of the sun stronger. It might not be so hot in temperature but it will dry you up! So I spent the evening and night trying to drink water and sleep. When I woke up in the morning I was not happy to find that I still had a headache. It felt like a hangover. I drank yet more water and ate a banana and went back to bed. Eventually I decided to get up and check in with my other house mates. Everyone was having a lazy morning so I continued to nurse my dehydration until just before midday when we headed to the ranch. By then it wasn’t so bad and I took a couple of headache tablets just to make myself more comfortable. The headache went away and fingers crossed hasn’t come back yet so I guess I’m at a healthy hydration level, really have to watch out here though!  I spent a few hours at the ranch letting Boaz have free time out in the Savvy Park eating grass and playing with other horses. At one point they all went galloping and I stood watching with my heart in my throat praying he wouldn’t get hurt and marvelling at the fact that he can actually shift his butt! He was clearly having fun and as the horses came hurtling along the fence line where I stood he stopped by me and checked in and we had a cuddle. He did this twice. I left him out and got my 45 ft rope and the toy cow out and practiced roping again. This time I was making a real improvement and caught the rope a few times. Maurice saw me and gave me a couple more tips and it really helped. I’m still a real beginner but it’s a lot of fun and I will keep practicing. I had a nice skype session with Will and Summer and when Lena got back from the shops I went to bring Boaz in. Just while I was checking his pen and Samantha’s horse’s water he followed Cari’s mare into the small forest on the hill. I had to trek up there to find him and I was really wondering if I was going the right way when I heard a noise and looked up and saw two fly mask ears peeking through the trees at me. I called him and he came straight over to me and I gave him some treats and a hug. He was looking a little worried so I haltered him and lead him along the narrow deer path bath to the field. I had to send him away from me a few times because his nerves were causing him to want to crowd me but soon he was following me at a respectable distance and we felt very connected as we reached the bottom of the hill and made our way to his pen. After his long day in the field I think he was actually happy to go back to the safety of his pen, with water and dinner waiting for him.

Lena and I got home with 30 minutes to get ready for going out to dinner to celebrate Anne’s birthday. I ran downstairs and got undressed to shower and heard footsteps on the stairs and ran for a towel and just covered myself as Lena appeared at my doorway to lend me a pair of tweasers. I’m not sure how much she actually saw but we laughed that it was inevitably going to happen at some point. A quick shower, some make up, getting dressed and blow drying my hair and I resembled a respectable human being again, ready to be shown in public. We went to a pub restaurant called “Pagosa Pubworks” formerly “On the Rocks” and I had a delicious fish and chip dinner whilst chatting with some of the externs. It was a great time. A few people headed home but I joined the group that moved on to “Coyote Moon”, which is very close to our condo, so we could go dancing. Before long I was dancing like a crazy person but I was certainly in good company – those girls have the moves! It wasn’t too long before some of the local guys were sending their attention our way. I was driving so I took Lena, Anne and Graham home and then returned to the bar. By that time most of the girls were dancing or talking with different guys. I stood nearby and saw a young guy who was doing the same and I asked if the guys my friends were talking to were his friends. He said they were. I told him I was in the same boat and we got chatting. I told him that I was here with Parelli for three months and that I’m engaged. He told me that he has been single for 3 weeks and doesn’t know much about Parelli. I think he found it a bit weird that I had immediately told him about my finace, maybe he was worried that I thought he was trying to hit on me but I just told him life is much easier and simpler if we are clear about things. We had a nice chat and soon hit the dance floor. It was fun dancing with Tom, he kept spinning me around and it felt like just being kids messing around, not trying to show off to each other or anything. After three songs our energetic jumping around had worn us both out so Tom bought me a coke and we headed outside to chat where we could hear each other. We were chatting about Parelli and the more normal way of doing ranch work and handling horses. Tom could see that Parelli was about building a trusting relationship with your horse, but as a ranch hand he had a job to do and I could understand that putting the time in to build that relationship was not such a ready possibility. I got chilly so I went inside for my jacket and saw that all the other externs had left! I was surprised; some of Tom’s friends had left too. I found Tom again and we chatted for a bit more. One random lady came over congratulating us (I still don’t know why) and then asked for beer money! Then another girl just joined us and started telling us her life story about where she came from and all the places she had lived. We moved inside and sat by the pool tables where the music wasn’t quite so loud. We were just talking about how someone should shoot the DJ when there was a loud bang and the music stopped. I laughed so hard. Obviously the DJ had just turned the sound system off but it was very funny, especially as the DJ was a friend of Tom’s (when you live in a small town like Pagosa you pretty much know everyone). Tom’s friend came over and told me to make sure Tom went to work the next day as he had cows to brand. I said he would be at work then they invited me to join them. I said I would love to see it but was worried I would get in the way or not be much help as I had never worked with cows. They looked a bit disappointed and asked if I rode English, to which I replied yes and they pulled a face. Tom asked if I would like to meet up to go for a ride sometime and I said that would be cool but my phone’s not working here so I told him to add me on Facebook. I can imagine one person who might not like me spending time with a cowboy but he was a nice guy and I want to make the most of my American experience, what can be more American than riding on a ranch with real working cowboys?  

Finally at 2 in the morning I got home... and skyped with Will.

My plan for today (Sunday) is to sleep, and go to the barn and do the same as today. The restful weekend is good for me and Boaz and I want us both to last the next 10 weeks. It still feels like a long time for Will, but the last 4 weeks have flown by for me and I know the next 10 will be no different!

And anyone who knows my blogging history will know this is a big achievement for me to keep up so regular! I’m patting myself on the back and promise to post the next instalment in a week’s time. J