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