Slow and Right...

"Slow and right beats fast and wrong, and slow and right BUILDS fast and right, and NOTHING beats fast and right!" ~Pat Parelli


Over the past few days, I've gained a new appreciation for that Parelli-ism. You see, I've been hitting a new level of incompetence with Crest. It seems to happen more often with him than with my other projects, which is not all-together to shocking, but this particular bout of incompetence has been a bit more extreme, in that I couldn't simply step back and research my way out of it.

To be honest, this all started with my realizing that I'm unconfident enough that I cannot canter on Crest and feel safe, and I feel like that's really holding us back from progressing into L3 freestyle.

It's cause by different things for both of us. For me, it's fear. I've never been hurt cantering on him, but I've had too many near misses and little hits to my confidence that have built up over time, as well as not recognizing fear and plowing my own thresholds. That's an easy enough problem to solve with approach and retreat mentally--but then actually fixing my fear on his back is really hard, especially since it's not a worry about my ABILITY to canter (put me on any other horse and I'll canter standing up, backwards, forwards, you name it, all with confidence), but in my ability to canter ON HIM.

For Crest, it's an emotional issue. He comes unglued really fast and really easily with a rider. You've probably heard me elude to that fact in prior posts. It used to be that he had a hard time controlling his body--he'd get very emotional even cantering online, but after spending the early summer with Farrah, and spending the majority of the fall developing his online to L4, that's not much of an issue anymore. When I get on his back, though, he falls apart. I'm sure I'm not helping. I tend to want to canter, but only a little bit, so to speak. That trust isn't there 100% a lot of the time.

The issue I was faced with was how one builds confidence as a rider, while helping the horse become a less-emotional individual WITH a rider. To me, it seemed like the kind of thing that shouldn't be solved at the same time, but the problem was, I couldn't seem to find another way to do it.

I sent emails to 3 friends of mine who are Parelli professionals, seeking their thoughts and feedback. Two of the three gave me really really good philosophical thoughts to ponder...post-its with these thoughts now line the frame on my monitor as I type this. The third came back with "hands-on" information, and this is where "Slow and right" comes in.

We often generalize that extroverts need to move their feet. They are, after-all, extroverts. What I seem to forget, apparently too often, is that confident, Left-Brained horses are not always confident left-brained learners. In fact, in Crest's case, he's not a confident learner at all.

The FIRST thing my friend said in her email was this thought-provoking paragraph:

"You have to make your horse's confidence primary. When you get him calm, confident and trusting, it will be easier for you to trust him. I think that you're not paying enough attention to his emotional state and pushing him over thresholds that you are probably not even aware of. Slow down, make it easier for him. Break things down in to little chunks. And where necessary, get off for HIS confidence - which probably goes before yours. And when I talk about his confidence, it may not be that he's afraid, as in prey animal afraid, but that he's lost confidence in your leadership."

...Naturally. We've been through this before. I think there's a blog entry from early 2008 with nearly the same advice with regard to a different subject.

So for the past week, Crest and I have been taking it SLOWLY. When I say slowly, I mean observing MICROSCOPIC behaviors. I've re-watched some key demos in the Liberty and Horse Behavior pack, and have actually incorporated some things Pat has done with Casper into our liberty play, here, as well as lots of short pattern-oriented rides. Haven't seen any huge effect yet, but again, "slow and right..." We'll get there, it's been a great lesson in dropping the time-line (which I hadn't even realized I had on him!)

Interestingly enough, the effect that this has had on Prin is for the better, too--I think my introvert is feeling a little resentful--"Sure, you'll finally slow down if it's HIM?" ...nah, kidding! But seriously, she's doing really well as a result, too--the giddyup and go that she's got in her draw, flying changes, and circling game are pretty impressive. It's only taken me 7 years and another horse to teach me the lesson, but hey!

So anyway, with that said, I'm off to go play with a couple ponies.

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!!

Great playday!

I had a GREAT evening play session with Mickey, Prin, and Knightly last night. I was kind of insistant with Mickey that she play with a horse, because the past few sessions, she's come down and watched me and asked questions, which is GREAT, but she needs to get some play time in where she APPLIES the knowledge too-haha. I didn't get to watch much, I played with Prin mostly (more on that in a sec) but what I saw was really great. Mickey started out with Knight, who she's absolutely in love with. They warmed up playing on the 12' line, playing games with cones and working on refining the yoyo game. Knight's got personal space issues, which is hysterical, because he's such a little horse and Mickey's so tall, that it's a bit like a Shetland pony trying to shove over a tree. They did really well on that though, from what I saw.

I played with Princess on getting her to lighten up and be snappier on her transitions and send on the 45' line, and then did some liberty. She's getting more and more extroverted by the day. What's REALLY funny is that last weekend, Linda told me Remmer was getting the same way, so COOL!

I swear, even 6 weeks ago, I never would have dreampt of having THIS MUCH FUN with Prin, and that's saying something, because we always have fun. It seems like we've all of a sudden hit another breakthrough period, and things are just GREAT now. She's becoming more of an extrovert, and we're starting to blossom.

After the ground stuff, we hopped on and I did some bridless riding, and Micky and I played follow the leader (Princess did all the leading, we just sat back and let 'er rip) and then we switched horses.

Knight and I tore around causing trouble (LBEs need something to DO!!!!) and Micky experienced her very first bridless ride!! I was SO PROUD of her. She kept marvelling over how LIGHT and RESPONSIVE Princess was, and almost how comforting it was to not NEED the reins. They walked and trotted, turned, changed directions, did some circles and some backing. I was really impressed with how well Micky did, and also, how great Prin was. She was REALLY responsive to what Micky asked, and took it slow at first when she felt Micky's unconfidence. I'm SO proud of my horse, and of my "little sister" :)

So that was my great session last night. I expect I'll blog again later today about today's sessions. I have a lesson lined up in 1/2 an hour, so I'll talk about that for sure! Thanks for reading.

Trail riding and Fluid Reins

Had one very long, busy horsey day today. Got up to the farm around 2 O'clock with every intention of reading for most of the afternoon (BLOODY HOT! DANG!!)and then riding in the evening. Well, I got out there, and Cricket, my poor poor Cricket, was solidly REFUSING to use her lame leg. So, slowly and carefully, I put her, Princess, and Knight in the north paddock, and let them graze, and then called Virge, who, thank GOODNESS is home now. From what I described, Virge said it sounded like Cricket might have a deep absess in her foot. So, this afternoon involved lots of running around looking for epsom salt and hot water to soak feet in. Hopefully she gets better after this treatment.

But now for something completely different, related to the headline of this blog. I rode Cresty tonight on a trail ride. This new saddle has given me OODLES of new reasons to ride him, and I'm not regretting a second of it! The past few rides I've put a bridle and confidence snaffle on him so we can start actually erm, PROGRESSING into our riding. And I'm finding, go figure, that part of our riding issue is caused by Crest's complete and total BOREDOM with what we've been doing. He gets out on trail and he's completely different...he goes "OOH! This is INTERESTING! New places! New things! SPOOKY MAIL BOXES! New sights!" Once he settles into a rhythm though, I've found that I'm able to start some fluid rein concept, and that he GETS IT. Gets it so well, in fact, that I had Mikaela hop on and ride him tonight...she rode him about 3/4 of the distance home, and she did fluid rein, as well as some sideways and back, and she DID NOT stop marvelling about how well he's doing once. And this is coming from MICKEY...Who isn't the most confident rider on an energetic horse. So YAY!

Pix and updates to come soon! Sorry, I'm bad, but hey, I'm BUSY!

Lameness, Lessons, and Learning

HA! Do you know HOW LONG it took me to come up with that third "L" word to finish the alliterative (I think I just made that word up!) title? HUZZAH!! Anyway, back on topic, while I can still hold my eyes open.

Lameness: POOR CRICKET! She is still unbelievably sore. I have NEVER seen a limp this bad in a horse before other than a founder case in all 4 feet, but this is only one leg. We poked and prodded and wrenched her poor leg around today, TRYING to find the source of the pain, and we're having little luck. Her foot isn't hot, it's not cracked, she's not swollen anywhere, and there's no evidence of abraision. We did find a little hot pocket in what would be considered her "armpit", but it's not tender to the touch, so we have no clue what happened. I'm hoping it's not a fracture or something more serious, although I would guess that would be more than a little tender to the touch if it were the case. Anyway, she's gimping around, we let her into the north paddock to fill her belly in peace (she's low on the totem pole and they push her around on that leg) and also, we tried to get some bute into her as well, to at least make the pain more tolerable. She's pretty sore, but man did she fight the syringe going into her mouth. For having a bad leg, she did surprisingly well.

Lessons: Gave 2 lessons today, both of which were very successful. First came Phoebe. Such a talented rider in such a little package. She rode Princess in my Wintec Wide ("It's actually pretty comfortable" she says!) and had her first (That I know of) cross country gallop, completed in two point, with her whooping and hollering, and Princess looking sheepishly proud (she loves to teach kids, whether she'll admit it or not). I was impressed with the pair of them!

Next came Cynde and Shashi. They had a HUGE breakthrough, and it made me feel wonderful as a teacher. The breakthrough was fairly simple, and that was that Cynde interrupted a RBE blasting circle VERY assertively (but neutrally), then brought Shash in and stroked him with a friendly look. For Cynde, this is HUGE because she's got a fear of being firm with Shash. For me, it was a wonderful breakthrough, because I was the one shouting "INTERRUPT THE PATTERN!" and she listened and acted on it. Makes me feel effective and VERY proud of my students.

Also had some good effects with "Breathing while you act"...Something Farrah REALLY emphasized in the clinic was how important breathing was as you played with a horse, especially with a tense person/pair. From the second she mentioned it last weekend, I realized that breathing, as well as possibly singing (LOL... Farrah, if you ever read this, Cynde was ready to stab me after singing the ABC's 3 times!) while she played would greatly benefit Cynde, because of how tense and nervous she is. So whenver I saw her get tense, I'd just lightly say "Breath while you do that..." and she'd exhale and say "Thank you, HOW can you see that?!" and then she'd get WAY more confident. Interesting, eh?

As far as learning goes, I'm referring to Princess, here. We did some learning of new actions in 3 separate short sessions today. First we played with lifting and placing a single leg (Prep for Spanish Walk and bowing/lying down) and then we worked on getting more energy underneath us in the back up, and then we played with "How SMALL can we canter?" when we went on a trail ride. Prin's doing really well with the bowing, backing, and tiny cantering (Richard was teasing Amigo, saying "Why can't you just copy her?" as he jogged along beside us as we loped like seasoned pleasure riders) but we're still sort of struggling with the concept of picking up a foot and holding with the driving game, though I'm sure it'll come, since she's sort of getting it.

Her bows were probably the high point for me, she REALLY got down low today, on her knees twice (and NOT because I pushed her, either) and completely LB andconfidently. So proud!

Anyway, off to bed. Pray for Cricket please!

Home again, home again, Jiggity-jig

Ooooohhhh boy it's been a long week!

I've been in Mosinee, Wisconsin, visiting my friend Jessica, my friend Heidi, and giving lessons to another friend, Anne. It's been a wonderful week, we goofed around, played with horses and cameras, took one horrifyingly LONG road-trip to Green Bay to visit Heidi and her horse Charmer, and we all had a good time, and most of all, we all learned something.


It was a big week for Anne more than anyone I think. Anne has a bit of history with all her horses, and while I won't delve into why, she's got some very respectable (and justifiable!) confidence issues around them. Starting out on day one, I could tell even since last time I'd been out, that things had changed in her confidence level. The way she moved about and handled her horses was considerably more relaxed.

The first couple of days, we went about learning the seven games, and breaking them down into reasonable bits of information for Anne (and the horse for that matter) to digest. They did really well, and I was very impressed with their quick progress. I did spend a day and a half puzzling over Blixen's horsenality, before answering my own question by telling Anne that he needed to be calmer and more trusting. RBE with RBI...and then a little later, realized that innately he was totally different. I filled out about 7 horsenality charts for different situations...man he's an interesting horse, someone remind me and I'll post his charts in a couple days.

Day 3 was really interesting, because then the saddle came out. Blixen has always been reactive, but man, it was impressive, he bucked...and bucked, and bucked, and bucked...WOW. It was impressive. Again, remind me, I have pictures! Holy CRAP, I don't want to ride that horse in that state. We also played with Bailey that day, little miss sassypants. LBI classic, and oh so eager to charge through the gait to her yummy green grass. 2 hours of reverse psychology in the rain later, and she was doing all 7 games, going through the gate, and being ridden willingly enough. I LOVE my LBI horses-haha.

Day 4 we played with Blixen again, and he and Anne were looking really sharp. They got their sideways going pretty snazzily, and we took some videos. Fun! Also went to visit Heidi in Green Bay. The barn where she boards is possibly the most perfect place ever, and I loved Charmer, although I really have realized now just how EXTROVERTED Prin is. Charm rings true to the "real" LBI stuff, and Heidi's done a wonderful job in developing it. Got to try her out in the cradle bridle, and now that's on my "must have" list as well...man am I spoiled!

Today was el finale for lessons in Mosinee. We first played with Bailey, then Anne casually asked me to ride her. I did. I got on, played around a little with walk, trot, halt transitions, and got miss LBI going pretty well. Then, the most remarkable, impressive, amazing testimant to my teaching came out of the woodwork. Anne, who has not ridden since last July, asked if I thought she could ride Bailey. I didn't show her then (Anne, if you read this, be GLAD you didn't see it!) but I teared up. I really did. I am SOOOOOO proud of Anne for coming as far as she has this week. I know how much emotional fitness and downright courage it must have taken to ask me that. She rode around the paddock for 10 minutes, and she LOOKED FANTASTIC! Not at all tense, sitting very naturally balanced and relaxed, I was just...ahhh! So PROUD!



Anyway, time for Fran to hit the hay. I've got a long weekend coming up, starting in about 5.5 hours, so yeah. Adios. Someone remind me about pix please!

Horsenalities and Confidence

Had a very interesting session tonight with one of my students. She just got her first horse, a rescued 2 year old Paint stallion.

Monday night, she had some drama with him, he's a LB dominant type of stud colt, and I *think* (I wasn't there, so don't know for sure) he reared up out of playful dominance, and he knocked her to the ground where she somehow dislocated her shoulder. Anyway, being a first time horse owner, that's kind of a nasty blow to experience a month into owning, so she called me,asking what she should do.

So I got up there tonight, and walked into his stall, and fascinatingly enough, he decided to play the "you can't catch me game" (his stall is attached to a small 20x30 corral.) So I snatched the opportunity to talk a little bit about a horse's confidence vs. unconfidence as well, and how to read if he's confident and snotty vs. scared and unconfident. He came to me pretty quickly (It was LB snotty-haha), and then I led him to the round corral.

I then started to teach my student the concept of Move Closer, Stay Longer, an idea and formula developed by Dr. Stephanie Burns. I asked her to come into the pen and come as close as possible to her horse without feeling like she HAD to run, and to just hang out there for 10 seconds, then back off. Then walk a step closer, do the same, rinse and repeat. It wasn't more than 5 minutes and she was back to feeling comfortable petting him all over, being friendly, etc.

Next, my student asked me if I would work with her horse so she could watch. I was, of course, happy to. This caused the conversation and education to turn to Horsenalities. I explained that I thought her colt was a LBI with some extroverted tendencies, and I explained how LB horses were motivated, and what strategies can be used to motivate LB horse, but also how to gain respect and rapport. All in all it was interesting.

After that, we drove out to the barn, and we played with Princess and Crest, and I showed her a little bit about how a refined and finished horse should feel and act, as well as a difference in horsenalities and how they respond, and I gave a mini demo with Prin and Crest. It was all in all a very fun evening, and I think we learned a lot, I learned how to present my information better, and she learned it. I'm happy with the turn out. Updates will keep coming as we move on!