Finding a Rhythm

Okay, so this phrase "No rest for the weary." ? Yeah, definitely true and then some. I'm never going to give up on that conviction. I just cannot seem to get a good night's sleep in my life. Today, I played with horses for 3 hours, and went shopping for 3 hours, and since have done nothing, but yet, am TOTALLY exausted. So, I'm writing this post as the cream of mushroom soup simmers on the stove, and after I consume said delicacy, I'm effing GOING TO BED!

Anyway, to the horsey part of my day. Firstly, Anne and I went out on a trail ride. Which, on a normal day, wouldn't be a BIG thing, but first of all, it was a freaking GORGEOUS day, and secondly, it was Anne's FIRST TRAIL RIDE on her property! How EXCITING, right? It went GREAT, we rode all over the place, we both rode Clearwater and Bailey, and everyone was happy and enjoying themselves.

Later on in the afternoon, (well, evening actually) I went back out with Anne to do a low-key session with Blixen. I've been using Blix as a guinea pig of sorts this visit, since I'm so fascinated with his horsenality, and so I've been playing with every single possibility as to what he could be, plotting charts for every imaginable situation, trying to get a grasp for this horse's pattern.

Anyway, we got out there, and this session, I decided that I wanted to play with keeping my energy low, but requesting things, regardless, and seeing how Blixen would respond. Blix started out totally RBE reactive, just totally could NOT collect himself mentally. He'd over react at a tiny movement, and would seriously try to escape pressure so violently that it scared me a couple of times. I brought my energy up a little bit to take care of that, but more kept my intention up, and in director/leader mode. Eventually he came to the point that he was actually doing things with his brain, and then I passed him off to Anne, with the instruction to keep her energy low, but make firm requests, as well.

Things started out really well, I directed Anne through a series of little challenges, and then decided to up the ante in the sideways game, and introduce an element (PVC pole) under Zone 3. Blixen went almost instantly RB again, being a very claustrophobic horse, and I took him back to play with zone 3 confidence. We started out squeezing between the pole and me, then between the fence and the pole, then over a log, then over a log stopping straddling with it under zone 3 and friendly-ing, then finally putting it all together. Blixen actually OFFERED his zone 3 and went sideways both directions beautifully.

Next, I started to play with finding a rhythm over an obstacle. We played with an exercise from "Jumping with Confidence" where I sent Blix over a log in a circle 10 laps, switched direction, did 10 the other direction (or until he found the rhythm. At any point, if he lost his rhythm, or got RB, I would send him in a squeeze so that he would have to collect himself mentally. He did GREAT there, took two rounds of 10 each direction, and he was totally level, even, and relaxed. Even offered a trotting change of direction which, for the horse who had no draw whatsoever 2 days ago, is great. Then, we moved to the same concept but moving through a narrow space and not getting claustrophobic or bracy. That took a bit more, since Blixen would just tense and speed up a little within gait. But again, just a few repeats, and he got it.

We unhaltered on that note, and he just hung out with us, which is HUGE for Blix, who is usually straight back to his herd after a session. I realized just how important it is for a RB horse to find that rhythm. The change in Blixen, while subtle, was profound. Definitely a wonderful note to end on, can't wait to play with him more tomorrow!

Bedtime now.

My soup is long since gone, and I want some ZZZZZZZZZ's!

Savvy out!

AHHH!!! OH MY GOD!!! YES!!!

I am positively BOUNCING as I write this post. (Number two for the day?)

A little back story here: My parents, but particularly my mom have always been VERY skeptical of my journey towards becoming a Parelli pro, and have never really supported me financially AT ALL.

So, the week before my 18th birthday, Farrah told me she was going down to FL this winter for a 4 week masterclass, and that if I wanted, I could ride down with her, since she had room in her trailer for a horse. The catch is, um...the $6000 I'd have to earn in the mean time to pay for the course. NOT an easy feat for me, being that I didn't have much notice ahead of time. I was determined to go, and told my parents this from the get-go. There were several nasty arguments about it the past few weeks, how PNH couldn't support me, etc.

And then, tonight. My mom just called for me to come into the kitchen about 5 minutes ago. I went in, and she's holding a Florida Course Application in her hand, and says "What dates do you want to go, and what's your Savvy Club number? If you're going to this thing, I'm paying for it tomorrow so you save $1000."

OH MY GOD. I am SHOCKED. THRILLED. AMAZED. I am going to FLORIDA FOR A COURSE. And my MOTHER is ARRANGING IT so that I save MONEY! Of course, I have to pay them back, but I don't care. All I know is that I'm GOING! I'm holding back tears and screaming!

FINALLY!!!

Hehehe...www.pnhsavvy.com check out the "New L2 Graduates" list.

It's a VERY long story, and I actually graduated L2 a LONG time ago (Lets try June 07) but thru a series of very bogus twists and turns, it never became official.

See, I was on the Savvy Team in Madison in June of 2007. I was not an L2 graduate officially, but when Pat was announcing/introducing the Savvy Team, he announced that I was one. Of course I was curious about this, so I asked him afterwards (at the end of the day) and he shrugged it off, and said "I've seen your videos, I saw you ride last night...you're L2." and that was that. But unfortunately, that never went into the computer system, so I never got an awards pack, just Pat's word saying I was L2 (which is lovely, don't get me wrong, but kind of hard to explain)

So anyway, fast forward to Savvy Conference. Farrah has amazing powers of persuasion, and managed to talk me into approaching Linda about this whole thing, to get it official. That didn't get me anywhere really (other than a big ego boost, because Linda thinks I should go for green/black NOW) and so I left, still a bit uneasy. Interestingly enough, during lunch right after that conversation, I ran into one of my long-time instructors, Nita Jo Rush. After some discussion, Nita Jo and I came up with a plan, and what you see on her site is the product of her brilliance, and I owe her a lot. I will have a blue string in about 3-4 weeks...FINALLY :) So happy!

Advancing Porcupine, Bareback and Bridless

Tonight was a night for the Crest-myster, and a VERY interesting evening indeed! I decided to try a little more in the round pen, since it was a rocky thing the other night, and boy, things were different.

Started out a little RB again, very reactive and flighty to every little thing, but that got better as we kept playing. Started building up to some extreme friendly game again, since that seems to be his biggest issue at liberty (which is funny, because online, when mommy's holding his hand, he's FINE). Anyway, played some friendly and did some sideways, cutting and circling. Once he got moving around, Crest was feelin' fine, because he was tossing his head around, and kicking and playing. It's always fun to watch him be exuberant.

So then,(don't ask about my motivation) I decided that we needed to do some new things to advance our porcupine game. During the spring/early summer, Crest learned how to back by the tail, which was very cool, because he used to not let me even touch his zone 5. But anyway, back to this advancing porcupine. Tonight I decided to re-approach teaching Crest to follow a feel and back up by his hocks. This was kind of a gamble, and I knew it going into it, Crest is still unconfident with ropes and things around his back legs, but I figured that at least we'd get some good friendly in. In the past, when we've played with this, he's kicked, panicked and run off, started spinning, etc. So with that in mind, tonight I friendlied him up REALLY good, then, when I felt he was confident enough,I just asked him back really lightly, and much to my suprise (and satisfaction!) he was like..."mmmokay..." and just started walking backwards. Well, you can imagine how pleased I was!

After finishing up on the ground, I took a really HUGE leap of faith in my horse. Let me give you a bit of back story here. Some of you know this story already, but for those who don't, about 18 months ago, I had a pretty intense riding accident with Crest when we were riding bridless. There were some pretty raw emotions flowing through my mind, and Crest, being sensitive and 10x more RB than he is now, got scared, vaulted a 4.5 foot fence from a standstill with me on him, didn't quite clear it, got hung up, flipped, and landed on top of me. He crushed my knees physically, and mentally damaged my confidence hugely, not only in riding him, but riding in a round corral, in jumping any horse in general, and especially the idea of riding him bridless.

Tonight, for the first time successfully since that accident, I rode Crest bareback and bridless, and for the record, it was in a round corral! It wasn't like we just took off into the sunset, I assure you it was much lower key than that, but it was bareback and bridless. We were under control, LB (LBI to be exact...grass-diver!) and we did transitions! Walk-halt-back transitions, and we also turned, both yielding HQ and FQ. All this without even a rope around his neck! Of course, through the entire ride, I was trying not to start crying(mainly because, to be totally honest, I was scared shitless), but after I got off, I let out a big sigh, a laugh, and started crying and giggling into Crest's shoulder, while repeating (Dane Cook fans, see the Crying Sketch) "I survived, Cresty!!". That was HUGE for us! HUGE! AH! So excited!!

You want to______? LET ME HELP YOU!

Oh yeah...and breath while you do it!

I had an adventuresome session with a VERY RBE Scoot this morning, and I thought my readers might like to hear about my handling my least "savvy" horsenality.

The RBE has always been kind of a rough area for me. I come from owning one EXTREMELY LB mare, and then a gelding who was RBE for about 6 months and then turned mostly LBE (He still has his RBE moments, but they're mild). Handling extreme fear in a horse is not something I'm particularly good at. I know what to do only from hearing Pat and Linda and other people's experiences, and I probably handle it fairly well in retrospect, being a L3 student, but compared to my imagination and creativity for the LB side, RB isn't fantastic.

Today, my plan with Scoot was to build his confidence a bit. I've played with him about 4 times previous to this session, teaching him the principle games and getting some purpose, and have basically found that he's that he's a very smart, sensitive horse, who is easily offended and bothered by too much of anything. My phases have to be perfect, etc. I anticipated him to be a bit like Crest to start out with, but little did I realize, he's almost IDENTICAL.

One of my greatest...erm...(I don't want to say "regrets", Linda's been training that word out of my vocabulary) Okay, one of the things I feel the worst about (and have since learned from) is the arrogance I went into starting Crest with. I was a cocky, arrogant 14 year old who thought she could handle way more than she could, and I've learned through the amount of times that horse has hurt me in one way or another, that I need to rely on the knowledge and information that others willingly have shared, and not think I know everything in the process. So anyway, to my story.

I started out today, feeling like Scoot was just being a bit TOO offended. I mean, there's a good reason when my phases aren't right, but after 4 sessions of earning his trust (Which I do have, he trots to me when he sees me coming)acting like a baby when I THINK about throwing the savvy string over his back in a friendly way, is a bit much.

Those of you who follow the program religiously know that Pat and Linda say to interrupt the pattern when a horse goes RB. Well, let me put it this way. Scoot was LEAPING around on the end of the line...not just prancing a little, he was LEAPING, and I wasn't even trying to get the savvy string on him. I wanted to see him stand still before I even tried that. Well the little Australian voice in the back of my head (yes, I do have Linda in there!) was shouting "INTERRUPT THE PATTERN!!" and I tried...as hard as I could...multiple times...and then, all of a sudden, That little voice started to talk again "Fran...if you can't shut it down, then what? Make it your idea!" and I FLEW into action...My energy came up, my intention came up, and my attitude shifted to exactly what my blog title is..."You want to go CRAZY?! LET ME HELP YOU!!!"

Now I was in an area where I have several obstacles...a log, several fence lines, a round corral, a jump, a pedestal, and water tubs and buckets. Well, we went FLYING. I sent Scoot over the jumps, into the fence, through the water trough, between things, over the pedestal, into the round pen. We circled, squeezed, sidewaysed (is that a WORD?!) crazy fast. We changed directions more times than I think Scoot could comprehend. We were basically insane. About 3/4 way through this entire episode, I started to realize how TIRED I was getting, I was really winded. And then another voice came into my head, and she'll be flattered to know it. Farrah Green started saying to me "Breath, Fran...Breath while you do it!" and I couldn't help but laugh. Go figure. I'm running around like a lunatic with my breath held. As soon as I started to breath, so did Scoot, and then all of a sudden, he just stopped and LOOKED at me. He started licking his lips like mad, and I realized something.

I handled a pretty extreme RBE fit CORRECTLY! I scored BIGTIME points with myself, and I'm REALLY proud! All that, and following the little voices of my mentors in my head, which are slowly but surely becoming my own voice.

The rest of my session was uninteresting in comparision. We did some things, yes, but that was what i wanted to share. Hope someone found that interesting, and please tell me what you thought!

Clinic Exhaustion

Okay...Just got home from a 5 day L1/L2 clinic with Farrah Green, my dear friend and 2 star PNH instructor.

I'm wiped out, and have hardly any energy left to type. So, I'm writing this blog only as a reminder that I still exist. A complete recap of the clinic day-by-day, as well as some photos and revised list of goals will come tomorrow, as soon as I've regained the ability to think and comprehend complete sentences.

For now, all you get to know is that I learned a lot and have a new found motivation and ideas in lots of places in my horsemanship.

More tomorrow.