MO CAN JUMP!

WHOOHOO!!!
Wednesday was Jumping/Squeeze game day and we had soooooooooo much fun!!!
Firstly we got to be in the demo in front of the whole class with two other people and their horses - affectionately called the Black Horse Demo, all were black - and it was super fun!!

After being in the demo and figuring out how to motivate Mo through the sand which slows her basically to a stop, we had a workshop in the afternoon. OH WAIT. I should explain about Parelli Jumping. Its much different that normal jumping... in parelli style jumping you dont lift up in the saddle, but keep you balance pushed back to help the horse engage their hidquarters. So you do pushing jumping, and for now, only at the walk to build confidence. SO lots of horses just walk over the jumps by stepping, but Mo decided in the afternoon workshop that it would be super fun to do little hops! YEY!

So there we were, up on the hill with everyone else going through the jumps - which were real stadium style jumps, set lowish - actually jumping them! The whole thing is about confidence and impulsion - sure you can gallop your horse up to a jump and force their momentum to take them over, but can you make it their idea to go over, and put the effort forth when the momentum isnt there to push them over. Hence the low jumps - obviously not going to jump 4 feet at a walk!

Me and Mo went around at a walk popping over various jumps and having a blast. Something Kathy said that day really resonated in me - Delight in your horse. Hmm... one would think thats a no brainer, but how often do we get direct line and get the thinking pattern of frustration and internal narration along the lines of "Why cant you just do this already!" instead, delight in everything your horse offers. Laugh at them, smile when they do something, ENJOY being with the animal you profess to love! I did a lot of laughing at Mo on wednesday... but then again, I usually do because she is such a goober. Iris has lots of pictures to prove this.

Yesterday was American Thanksgiving. We had a dinner thing and that was cool - the whole turkey gambit. When that was done I went out to play with Mo and wait for Iris and Anne to come out so I could return the favor and ake some pictures of the two of them! While I waited I played with some uber balance point things and I think I finally got it right at Mo's canter - although I am still getting dry spots under my shims, so I am going to ask Kathy about that again today.

After taking a bunch of pictures for Iris we moseyed around up the hill and played a little over the jumps and mostly just let the ponies graze before it was their idea to head back. We had to go back into the honeycomb to get our things and so naturally to Left Bain Extroverts get distracted at the carwash and have to take pictures of each other going through it! Which led to an entire session of me getting Mo to jump the various logs and things so Iris could take pictures and then her doing the same thing - although on the shorter side since she was bareback.

That is what happens when you combine to LBE's, a camera, two horses, and a playground.. hahaha!

It was a very awesome few days! Today is bit savvy day so who knows what I will learn!
Tomorow is beach day, and that should be AWESOME!

:-)
S

Mo's Most Interesting Day....

This is day one officially of Fluidity two and it was by far Mo's most interesting day here - for me.

First thing this morning was interesting and very cool thing number one. Every morning I come in, I grab a wheel barrow, then I say good morning to Mo, get her buckets, fill them, and leave them to soak while I clean out her pen. Usually, Mo stands and stares forlornly at her buckets trying to phase them through the bars of her pen so she can reach them.

This morning Iris was kind enough to give me one of the carrots she brought for her horse Anne and so I broke that up into bits in my pocket and gave one to Mo on my approach. She must have really liked that because it intrigued her enough that alfway thorugh mucking out she gave up her eternal quest for mind bending powers to come and hang out with me while I finished. I was floored!!! She was standing right beside me, intered in what I was doing, not even in a "give me a treat" kind of way! How cool is that?? To top of the awesomeness of the morning ritual, today when I brought her bucket into the pen she BACKED out of my way, with EARS FORWARD! Usually I get her to back out of my space, but uasually she does it with a snarky look on her face. I make her wait til happy ears, but anways, today she got out of the ay, with happy ears and did it voluntairily. I didnt even ask her to. How awesome !!!

Which brings us to the afternoon. Today we talked about finesse and finding it with zero brace, so everything we did today had the zero brace underline in my head. Right from appraching Mo to haltering and every thing else. I have been trying really had to look at everything that way since I got here, but the reitteration has really helped me today.

On my approach today I was watching extra carefully for any brace - there was none, just happy "Oh boy come play with me!" which was stellar. Then we were scheduled to play with Me and My Shadow on the ground and riding today. So off we went, first to the water trough and then I got us into the playground via Mo's suggestion. We roamed the fenceline over towards the drive for a bit until she got a little to impulsive for me to be able to keep up [keep in mind this is total LBE WHOOHOO speed walk] so I disengaged her and got a squeal/grunt and a FLINGING of the hindquarters away from me..... well... now the game was ON!

In my head I was totally thinking "Oh boy this is fun, look at her ENTHUSIASM!" . So we played. Hard. For maybe only ten minutes, but it was so fun, AND ALL ZERO BRACE - which is HUGE for us because usually when she gets like hat all she wants to do is pull away and just leave to play with her own friends and thats that. But not this time. This time we got tiny soft canter circles, change of direction, sideways circles , yo-yos with trot draw with no drag on the line, mirroring each other with impulsion forwards and back and it was all happy playing with enthusiasm and exuberence. It was so neat and refreshing to know that I CAN go there now and not have to worry that my horse is going to leave me!

From there we went back to me and my shadow when I was content that Mo was going to respect her 51% and not take off with 65%. We walked the fenceline around until we crossed the creek - by her choice!- and then she got impulsive and took about 54% again so we went back to doing things. This time it wasnt as much squealy play but it was still play and she offered to go up on the high side of the two step cross country jump! That was a first. I ended p using the high side there to mount and move into the riden portion of the game.

Our walk went really well, Mo powered around pretty happily in the back corner, and over to the side where she stodd for a while watching Vanna and Magic with serious fascination which was pretty funny. From there she aimed at the pedestal - which is like the green ones they have on tour - and proceded to attempt eating the green foam that covers the top of it. My goodness that was FUNNY! It was so slow and deliberate - opening her mouth, pressing her teeth against it and trying so hard to get a bite off and then licking and chewing furiously when she couldnt. What a goof. I have to say I directed her away from that after laughing hysterically for a few mintues because inside I was secetly terrified that she would get a chunk off and it would be Dusty all over again except horse sized.

Near the pedestal was the big dressage arena thing where the Patterns were filmed I think so we went in there to have a confined but big area to practice our trot. Trotting went ok. At times I felt like I was bouncing all over because she would really open up and do her speed trotting which really isnt the best thing for riding bareback. I mirrored her as best I could and then when I finally felt good I jumpd off because I was out of ideas. WELL. As soon as my feet hit the ground and I was finished undoing my 22' from reins I had Miss Playful Goober from earlier back and so we played some more HARD. I kept thinking how much of and extrovert she was as she went around and then wasnt being food motivated at all - it was all play motivation.

Even though she was winging around though, there was no brace, it was all light and soft and FUN. I worked hard trying to keep up with ideas and things, and I think I did ok. Lots of change of direction, circles into sideways into yo-yo and things like that. Even got a few flying lead changes on the change of direction at the canter. THAT was cool. But she was right with me the whole time - my changes were litterally one step back and one step forwards. Incredible. So soft. I was just loving eevery second of it. Then when she calmed down and stopped offering a canter at every little gesture I got into really playing with circles into sideways and really refining that into a valid thing, which was really neat and really empowered Mo a lot - the whole coiling the spring and then letting it loose when she went out on the circle again - very cool. Canter departs while being rocked on her haunches are very pretty and powerful looking!

After playing with that for a while until Mo was out of exuberence for a second we walked out over to the honeyomb and I mounted again to see if we could trot slow in the honeycomb. Answer was no sorta kinda, but she was focused enough to do canter transitions, so we did that some, and played with upping the speed and still stopping off my body language. When I got bored with that I went over to visit J who was just mounting and we hung out and talked until Julia on faculty came by and somehow we attached ourselves to her horse and three of us ended up shadowing her around the yard and out into the hill playground where finally Mo decided to head back to her pen.

So that was our awesome day. Some very cool things for Mo, and some very interesting lessons in lightness for me!!
WHOO!!

:-)
S

Time Flies

Time really flies when you are having fun. Week four of my six week journey is nearly over. I dont know what to feel anymore. I am so glad I am staying, and so sad that another course is almost over.... and devestated that I have to leave this wonderful environment to return to cold dreary Canada. ALTHOUGH its effing minus 2 celcius this morning. ICE I tell you was on my windshield this morning :-(

Anyways.... yesterday was a great day for Mo and me. We played on the ground being soft an responsive before saddling - I am finding that for Mo, warm up strong doesnt mean run run run til you are out of steam - she just gets high on adrenaline. To her it means getting engaged and thinking and giving her puzzles to keep her crazy brain on me and not plots to leave. So we played, andI played the ""how little does it take" game, seeing just how little I could offer her and still get a response. We did that on tuesday in workshops - offering lateral flexion in just your body and being able to get a response before going to the rein - now THAT is cool. Lateral flexion because I look at her bum.. hmmm... the places that could go! So lightness is a big deal - and has been for my time here - but now I am really starting to have soaked on it long enough to try to apply it!

In yesterdays workshop we went to visit Kathy and played with fluidity and got some ideas abotu not over posting the trot - really really just letting the horse push you out of the saddle. I have a hard time with that, because for some reason I am uber programed to rise and fall on my own...? So Mo trotted and let me mess with my own self. Very nice. OH ! Online before we had been doing transitions within gait at the trot - very cool stuff - fast trot slow trot and back again, very fun, very good for energy control! So Mo trotted the rail of the honeycomb while I tried six million and three different ways of posting and flowing with her. I could really tell when we got it right. When we got it right we got this gorgeous slow lovely relaxed trot, and from that trot, without speedingup at all, we could pick up a gorgeous slow rounded canter for six strides and halt. YEEHAW MO!

That was just amazing and awesome for us. Tuesday I got lazy and didnt saddle and we had a good ride but our impulsion was a little off - she kept rushing the trot instead of cantering, so this huge change was VERY welcome and felt incredible. I tried to tell her that I need those quicke asy transitions bareback and I can deal with the sloppy ones under saddle LOL.

I also changed up my shims yesterday, taking it down to one thick in a sideways wedge type thing. I still got dry spots so today I am trying on thin in the same place. If that doesnt work I am going to try none and see how down hill the saddle is - because thats the only reason I am using shims right now, is to suit the saddle, because Mo has no hollows and is uphill. So we will try that today and see how it goes, if I feel thrown forwards I have no clue what to do next. Will have to ask a faculty member.

I still havent edited my L2 video. Need to do that soon. There hasnt been time! We watch an old video last night of Linda warming up Allure, adn all I could think of was how grateful I am the none of my horses are that extreme! On the subject of my other horses, I miss them terribly but I am learning SO MANY good strategis for both of them!! I am going to approach them both completely differently now! I cant wait to play with them!!

Thats about everything for now... GOING TO SEE TWILIGHT TOMORROW!!!

:-)
S

Flying and Taping!

Firstly about Flying:
Friday was a good day, me and Mo rode up in the Hill Honeycomb with our pen neighbour amigos and had a lot of fun with that. I was practicing my uber pedalling trying to aleviate some dry spots under the saddle. When I moved the saddle afterwards though they were still there and my ruffled hair had changed sides..? Avery gave the ok to play with shims now, so we will see how that goes!

Right at the end of the ride Mo and I went out of the honeycomb over on of the log entrances. Going out was fine, she just walked over it but then coming back in... my lazy pony dragged her feet over the log [which I didnt realize was on a stand and not the ground..bad me] and she actullay PULLED the log off the stand with her hind foot. UGH.

SO Log chases us and Mo goes OMG and jumps STRAIGHT UP in the air. Needless to say.. we didnt land together and I am now the proud owner of one delightfully dark purple bruise on the left side of my posterior... think the background of this page color. Its quite awesome.

To top of this set of new bruises, I also ran into the counter in the lodge on the corner RIGHT on my hip bone, so that hurts more than everything else! DOH!

Friday night J came and picked up Mo and we went to her place. Mo was awesome and settled great. Saturday morning was grey and a bit grossly wet, but we played and then... *drumroll*
J FILMED MY LEVEL 2 FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Since it is likely to be snowy gross when I get home, this was an excellant oppurtunity so when she offered I jumped at the chance and now its done! We got it all and hopefully its ok! I am REALLY proud of Mo because the one part I was worried about - simple changes - went FLAWLESSLY!! I am so excited! I honestly didnt know I could do them that easy LOL!!!

So that was spectacular. And now I have to edit. I am so pumped.

:-)
S


PS: C&T I miss you guys lots and lots <3

Riding in the RAIN!

Wednesday has come and gone and we were finally allowed to RIDE! Of course this is the day a mild tropical storm decided to blow through. Lovely. It was actually really really fun to ride in though. It was hot and sticky [and I loved it] and then it rained while maintaining that lovely warmness. Mo and I cantered across the playground in the rain. Super fun.

I actually changed Mo's shim pattern again, so we will see how that goes. I got a few tips from Avery yesterday about dry spots so today is going ot be my experiment day with that.

Yesterday we rode again, lots of point to point with trees, wokring on riding off just my energy and things instead of reins, and that went pretty well. I got to help out Jamie cantering the perimete of the ring to help Raisin get used to being around other horses. That was fun. Mo was having fun. After our ride she was all super warm though so I let her sit in the pond for fifteen minutes. THAT was funny! She went in over her back, stopped, turned and looked at me and just stood there. Priceless. I love my horse!

This afternoon J is coming to pick us up to go over to her place, so that tomorrow morning we can tape my level two. That should be fun. Then in the afternoon we are going to a horse sale and a horse expo. I LOVE FLORIDA! So many horsey activities!

Ummmm... what else is new? Dancing Pete came back lat night, and that was uber fun. And I had my first Ben and JErry's ice cream to - cookie dough - and that was really good ! Scoff if you want, but I havent ever had it, so I didnt know it was good!

I think thats about it. Today is leadership day, and that should be interesting. I also have to learn how to post without squeezing with my legs. Let Mo push me out of the saddle. That is one of the things Avery said could be causing the dry spots. How interesting! Experimenting day!!!

:-)
S

Course 2 Begins!

So we had check in and orientation on Sunday - I got to help with check in which was ultra fun and orientation was just an overview of the course and the logistics part I was told in the begining on L&HB.

After that was over around 3 ish I took Mo out to play since she didnt get to come out in the morning because I was to busy checking people in! OH AND BIG NEWS!! We arent penned in the end of the world anymore!!! We have moved from the verrrryyy last pen [A1] to a pen about 50 feet from the lodge!! [D9] I feel so spoiled now yeehaw!

So we went out ostensiably on a grazing route but then I decided to change it up and pick the grass for Mo so I got particular about snappy departures and things and her play drive just went through the roof! She wouldnt graze just kept looking at me with two eyes like "OMG WHOO HOO!!" and we PLAYED. And then the coolest thing happened...

Out on the circle [on the 45' that I am trying to break in] she picked up the wrong lead cantering and THEN did a FLYING CHANGE to the correct lead. Post haste she caught some adrenaline and started speeding up to much so I decided to slow her down so I raised my stick in front of zone one and what happens but ANOTHER flying change to a counter canter again.. hmm... so I disengage to bring her in and she offers ANOTHER flying change to the correct lead so that she can come in properly. HOLY WOW... I LOVE MY HORSE!

They say mental and emotional collection brings physical collection... I am SO seeing the results of this! I LOVE IT! Yesterday again Mo was super play-y and we played for real doing lots of sideways with energy and circling with change of direction on the smallest suggestion. She got really into it doing her squeally thing and LAUNCHING herself in the other direction. It was really funny and then she would stop and look at me all "OH BOY THIS IS FUN"

It is really fun to playw ith her on the 45' because I can allow her so much more drift that when she gets in her little tiffs about being online, I can let her go and then she stops on her own and goes "Oh, right, Im with you..." And trots back to me, and I just coil in the line.

Yesterday we just did a revisit of the Me and My Shadow game for the new people. And a saddling pre requisite demo - we have permission to saddle today, and ride tomorrow - and today is our study in horse posture which I am really excited about. We also got to be on the seat builders yesterday which was SUPER fun and I want one installed in my backyard post haste.

:-)
S

Last day Course One!

I am so sad course one is overrrr :-( It is so sad seeing everyone go home!
Yesterday was kind of a non event day. The whole atmosphere was just sad and melancholy and so Mo and I didnt do much but take a few passes through the pond and hang and talk with Barb, who had to go [I miss you Barb!!!]

So after a not so productive play time we went over to Brittneys and had pancakes and bacon [mmm] and assaulted the walmart staff for a few hours. That was fun.

The day before yesterday was sideways/squeeze day and even though I didnt really work on to many things other than being particular about zones moving, Mo got really actually playful so we had a blast with that for the next twenty minutes until she said it was to hot and she needed a swim and went and stood in the pond in the deep end for another fifteen minutes.

So my brain is full. I need to digest some of this info before tomorrow because tomorrow is orientation for course two which i have to pay hella attention to because as much as I adored L&HB I live to ride and thats what I want to learn the most.

So yesterday was finale and we all got our certificates and a t-shirt that says Its not abut the... which is the theme in the course, so that was really cool. We just sort of reviewed what BFO's people had had, and how we were going to address the "So, what did you learn??" attacks when we get home. I still havent figured out the answer to that because everything we are soing is so intrinsic, its not lke THINGS its like growing roots to a plant, not the flower... you know?

My journals are getting worse and I am sad about that... I will try to get better at recording things, time is just not the easiest to find because I am always DOING and not thinking about doing like I used to at home.

I promise I will try to do better for course 2 for those living vicariously through my sadly put together journals!
<3
S

Circling Day

OH JEEZ I FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT YESTERDAY!
LINDA GAVE US MORE DEMOS!!! COOLEST THING EVER!!! one was a mule who pulled away and she showed us how not to pull back but to drift with him into zone five to create curitosity and like magic he turned and looked for her. The other was a big holstiener gelding who pulled off on the figure eight and first she had the person try driving zone 1/2 harder for lb snotty, but that didnt work and he took off so then she took over and it turned out it was unconfidence enough to send him catatonic! It was very interesting watching her just wait wait wait wait wait until he came out of it! BIG CHANGES!

So since it was circling day me and Mo worked on lightness in circles since we have been having some troubles going to the right - going to the left everything is dandy and light no worries, but she pulls to the right. On the plus side about half the time when she canters to the right and picks up the wrong lead she is now doing a FLYING change to correct it! MO! FLYING CHANGE! COOL!

Ugh.. I left this to long again so I gotta go... so more later for real today since I drove myself now!!

Yo-Yo focus day - yo-yo from zone five, backing by the tail!

So yesterday was yo yo focus day and Mo did great - the title says it all... and since I am to distracted by fbook to get to this in time I am going to have to fill this out later - sorry guys!

Ok, so im back! I didnt get to post yesterday because I had to go pick up my truck from the garage - its all better now and I have transpo so WHOOHOO!

So the other day was yoyo day. When it came time to play me and Mo headed to a roundpen to experiment. We played with yoyo from zone three and got almost to canter departs which was way cool .

In a crowning Mo-ment we were playing with driving from zone five and yoyoing back and I thought it would be cool to see if I could get her to walk forwards and then stop and back up by the tail... and SHE DID! It was so cool. It has been soooo neat having these focus days because I am usuallly terrible at keeping focused on one thing so these days have really helped me refine and concentrate on things!

So there we were, backing around by the tail and driving forwards at the lightest suggestion. Very cool stuff!

It was interesting trying to tech Mo initially about moving away from the carrot stick because she really likes to turn and face - which is a left brain thing because getting zone 1 driven is a dominance thing that they dont like. So it was really neat when she started to yeild to it and stay straight. We were still working on the rail though to use that as reinforment and an extra support for her. And me.

OH AND LATER!
DANCING PETE TAUGHT US ALL THE SEVEN GAMES DANCING !!!!!!!!
So much funnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!! I did it in Colorado when I went to Savvy Conference and it was still sooooooooooooooooo cool!!!

Principle Games Day

Today was an indepth study of the three principle games - Friendly, Porcupine and Driving. We had demos and remudas about them and it was very interesting to test how far you can take it, and tolerate vs accept and adding imagination etc...

So that was the theme for my play sessions with Mo today. We didnt do anything fancy, we just moseyed our way into a free round pen by the lodge and played in there. We started out doing some driving from zone 4/5 and playing follow the rail. It was interesting. Mo sort of got the concept but then didnt want to stop so we went into a version of a million transitions on the ground, walking, stopping and backing by the tail. This was all well and good going to the right but when I changed it up going to the left it sort of fell apart so we started up really slow again until it was ok.

So then we started working on following with backing by the tail because she tends to go in just straight lines or pull AWAY from me instead of with whatever direction I am going. We took it slow, and I released with just a step or two and got lots of licking and chewing. That was really cool.

I only had a little time because there was a workshop at 3 for 45' rope handling that I really wanted to attend so we pretty much finished up with that and went back to the pen so I could put Mo away and grab my rope.

Rope handling was fun, my rope has a lot more breaking in to do ! So do I before I am competent enough to use it wiht a horse attached to the other end. After rope things I got Mo out again but I am pooped today so I grabbed my book and we just grazed for a while til dinner and then I went to the intern/extern thing to get a new booklet [Suzie, I swear Im emailing you, give me time!LOL] I really want to apply for it, its affordable [comparatively] and coming out of it I could be a trainer or go on to intern or whatever... but I just have to get my Level 2 officially.... so we will see about that!

J said she would help me video, I just have to wait for the first week of fluidity when I can ride to film the riding portion... I should see if maybe she wants to come do the online/liberty stuff this weekend or something....

blargh.,... planning! Anyone want to donate to the send S to school fund???!?!?!?

Sorry this is short, it was a short sort of day...