Another wet ride – but progress!

Another wet ride to and from the grounds for the Perfect Practice Playgroup. The rains let up just long enough for the ride there and  to allow us some time to play in the sodden arena and round pen. Liberty sideways towards!! Wheee! Fun was had, and then Kathleen and I rode home in the rain. Thanks for the company, Kathleen!

The ride out went better than any so far – it keeps improving so that’s a good thing. I decided not to have the driveway battle tonight and ground drove Maya up the road a-ways before mounting. That went quite well. We’ve started a bit of driving fom Zone 4/5. I didn’t have to get off tonight. The spooky spot was pretty easy – less than five minutes all told and the grassy field… she went for it, wouldn’t come out towards the road, so we rode towards the driveway that leads back to the road! That worked. Heheh. Watch out lateral thinking, here I come. When she got “sticky” and didn’t want to continue down 49 creek road at one junction, I started to ask her to go and then whoa right away. A little mini-million transistions LBI style. Go…. now STOP! (before she wanted to stop) it made her want to keep going!! =-)

Today I started working on teaching Maya an “it’s okay to graze now” head-down cue when riding. I think I’ll work on it when there isn’t any grass for a bit, like in the arena! She just dives for it at this point and I want to get our communication around it better. She was ouchy with her front feet on the way there, so I put her boots on for the ride home. They made quite a difference, though she stumbled a bit at the steep part of Kays road near our driveway, so I got off and let her walk home. Sharon Edgar is coming out on Thursday to see her back… hope she can help and give me some advice around it. I wonder if it’s bugging her.

After leaving Kathleen on Turner road, we rode quietly through the woods, grazed a bit at the end of Verigin and then did lots of HQ disengagment to FQ turns all the way home both sides.  We also did lots of transitions to whoa – with lots of backups. Funny how she whoas soooo easily on the way out and not very easily at all on the way home. We’ll get that evened up with time, I’m sure of it.

My one complaint… could we get a little sunny summer kootenay weather, please?

Frustration, a pox on thee!!

Well… frustration reared it’s ugly head yesterday. After not playing with Maya for a month as we were away and then she was healing up… I was so pleased that everything we had established on the ground was there and more! We got sideways towards me over a barrel online and jump a single barrel lying down at liberty!!! Amazing. There was no frustration, there.

The frustration for me comes in when I’m riding. My focus needs work. Tough love. Jail time. Whatever it takes to reform it!! I’m working on it and I will be diligently studying the Mastery Manual on Focus tonight and for the next week while I also play with Maya and ride her.

Here’s what happened (as far as my frustration addled brain can remember) There is a ‘spooky spot’ at the junction of Kays and Verigin road – most horses have an issue with it the first few times. Maya hasn’t had enough exposure to it to get over it, yet – and I have this unreasonable expectation that she should just GET over it. I do know better, but that expectation was deep, deep within me. The frustration that not having enough Savvy arrows caused me last night caused me to get off my horse in a fury and proceed to chase her hind end and get it to MOVE and MOVE NOW with the carrot stick. I probably only raged for about three minutes – but I was so mad it felt like an eternity.

When I finally realized how I had ignored the fact that she was scared, I calmed down and SLOWED down and tried to just ask her for a small try. Soft lateral flexion from the ground with her feet still took about 20 minutes. When I got back on I had to use a small bank to do it (my backpack just makes me not quite so springy!) She seemed relaxed, but just after I got my bellybutton over her withers, she headed up the bank. Thankfully that gets her hind end lower and I was able to swing my leg over, bend her and go back down the bank to the road. I was cursing her at that point, “I just HATE you right now, horse!”. After we got soft relaxed lateral flexion on her back (about 5 minutes) I asked her to face the scary spot. Not go towards it, just look towards it. After about 10 minutes of me sitting relaxed, correcting her when necessary with a light indirect rein, she sighed and offered to walk forwards through the scary spot.

I slowly bent her to a stop a ways down the road on the other side (squeeze game style!) and asked her to turn, face and wait. This was heading towards home and she was antsy. She stood still, but only in her body and only just barely. I had to bump her back a few times and I could feel the muscles in her back building tension and releasing it as she tried to stand still. Her mind was running about 200 kph. More lateral flexion until a HUGE sigh – about 15 minutes (??) and then she stood still in her mind, too. I asked her to walk forward and she did, bend to a stop past the threshold and turn, face, wait. We did this one more time, but it took a bit longer to get the relaxation on the other side facing towards home, again. . Then, as it was getting dark, we rode calmly home.

I realize now that I was able to steer her from side to side on the road using only my legs and focus – I also remembered to stop looking down or at her when trying to focus. So that is a good thing. Have to remember to note the good things!

A gunshot when we arrived in our driveway caused her to leap forward a few strides, but I went with her, bent to a stop and got off without even thinking about it! Yay for practice! Stupid gunshots. There weren’t any more, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I’m much more savvy on the grounds (usually).

Anyway… what I learned from this was that I’m far too direct line sometimes, still a predator, rather than a partner and I need to slow down and consider why Maya is refusing something. She’s not ALWAYS left brained. I need more savvy arrows for my quiver when it comes to riding – and I’m going to get them this summer – but not at the cost of my relationship with my horse. Somehow, it always goes better, and quicker, when you put that first.
Whew! Now you know the battles I go through with myself somtimes on my way to becoming savvy.

My Level 2 Online Audition Results

So tonight, after playing with Maya for the first time in about three weeks due to us being away on holiday and Maya suffering from Mystery Lameness since then, I checked my email.

Normally this wouldn’t inspire a blog post, however this time, I finally got the email I’ve been waiting for since late April. The email from auditions@parelli.com in which they give me the results of my Level 2 Online Audition. In the one dream that I had about it – I achieved my Level 1++ and was thrilled about it until I realized that I was already Level 1!

Well, my dream certainly didn’t come true in that case. I am shocked, chuffed, pleased as punch, filled with joy and grateful to say that Maya and I earned our Level 3 Online PASS with that audition. I cried. I called my friend Jai -who filmed for us – and cried (so did she). I walked out to thank Maya and Bailey in the dark, and I cried. Tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of motivation!

It was perfect timing, since Matthew and I had a long and somewhat difficult talk about where all of this horsemanship stuff was going and WHEN it might be going there, just the night before. It’s hard enough for me to realize my own progress, let alone for Matthew to see it. Now I have it, right from the horses’ mouth, as it were… I am also thrilled to say that we have a long and rewarding journey ahead of us, still. That’s the part that I like best. The never-ending self-improvement.

Time for sleep.