Parelli Savvy Club Deal…

If you have a spare $60 floating around and you’re a Savvy Club member, you should check out this deal at Parelli.com

Playing with Solly last night went very well. He’s leading by his front leg nicely, he’s confident on the pedestal to he point that he gets on it easily, his friendly game has progressed to helicopter and also to being able to read my body language at the trot and relax to a walk and a halt! I think we need some more work on squeeze, at this point. He’s unconfident in zone 4 – it goes twice as high over the jump as zone 1 does! IF he goes over… so Sunday that’s my plan. Get some confident squeezes over one jump, then another jump – then alternate. He’s really starting to THINK his way through what I ask him instead of REACTING. I even got to play with him on the 12′ line – he’s needing less and less drift! Very cool horse. As I always do when I play with a horse and get to know it’s horsenality… I’m in love. =)

Sarah – you now have to officially write me into your will! If anything happens to you, I’ll play with Solly and give him a good home.

Play, play, play, progress!

Playing a little with porcupine each time I see Maya – and the understanding is coming slowly… mainly because I don’t think I’m sticking with it long enough to get a big enough change… but it will come. When we start riding again I’m going to bring more awareness and intention to the basic yields at the halt before we progress to trying anything else in motion aside from passenger and follow the rail.

Solly was brilliant and fun last night. I concentrated on friendly and ensuring that he was reading me and not just the rhythmic motion of my tools. He was really getting it by the end of the night – calm and confident stepping his front feet on the pedestal and even accepting friendly in motion at the walk from zone 3. We started on “lead by the front leg” lat the end of the session, just as something calm and quiet to do, and he really caught on quick (after the first five minute “hold”….) I think this will really help his confidence and his dominance – as will the friendly in Zone 4 on his hind legs. He’s between “tolerating” and “accepting” at the moment… maybe next time it will be “accepting”! We’ll see. I have two more sessions with Solly. Thursday and Sunday. We’ll see how far we go together.

I’ve noticed that his tail swishing and head tossing have decreased over the last five sessions, his yields are getting lighter and he’s putting effort into relaxing into what I ask of him… It’s very cool to watch him progress.

Thanks for coming out last night Sarah and Paula. =-)

Playing till the end of time…

Had a really nice play session with “Solly” yesterday. His proud owner came to watch and took a few photos and some video of the first time he put weight on the pedestal and him pushing a barrel and playing with it. He’s an interesting horse. Very LBE, but he gets emotional quite easily and needs to move his feet. It’s hard for him to stand still and RELAX. We achieved that yesterday with him cocking a leg while we chatted in the parking lot after the session. He played with a ball for the first time (he’s a natural – pushing and pawing at it with a ton of interest and focus) squeezed confidently over a small jump for the first time and changed his evil thoughts to partnership thoughts for the first time during figure 8, too. He’s starting to be able to offer me more energy without getting snotty – probably because I just ask him for energy and don’t ask him to sustain it (and also shut down the evil thoughts as soon as they manifest visibly, too) Some of the time, he’s offering softer trots instead of sprinting and leaping away from me. It’s been a lot of fun playing with him – and I have a few more nights to do so until the end of January.

Here’s Solly on the pedestal for the first time. He’s not confident, yet – but he became so later in the session.

While it’s actually been great for Maya to be left behind when Mystery and Carolyn and I head over to the arena, in February, I’ll start bringing Maya regularly, again. We’ve started to seriously refine her porcupine game FQ and HQ yields just hanging out in the paddock, and though it still needs work, they’re getting better. I’m fairly sure they’ve been holding us back from making much progress in freestyle riding – and in other things, too. Her yields with driving are light and consistent, but I had been avoiding the porcupine, subconsciously, consciously… I’m not really sure. Reading Karen Rohlf’s book “Dressage, Naturally” made me see where my foundation needed to be in order to pursue some more sport specific training – it’s given ME more of a purpose in getting all of these basic yields light and responsive.. other than achieving my Parelli Levels. Check out Karen’s website “Temenos Fields” – the link is at the right…

Carolyn B has been playing with Maya in January and I’m so happy that they’re getting along well. Maya is strong enough in her ground skills to be able to let someone know when they’ve got “it” right and usually not be TOO wild and crazy – though sometimes she likes to blow off LBE steam.