Last Day of Week One :-(

One whole week has already flown by. How sad :-( I have learned so much and it is slowly sinking into my brain.... slowly. I will have to read all of this again when I get home to remind myself of several things.

Today was Leadership day. Kathy gave us an excellent presentation on leadership and what it means in each different horsenality AND we charted ourselves for personality to compare to what our horses are. Me and Mo are both LBE with a few LBI tendencies - AND I found out I am imulsive so that might be a lead on some of our ocaisional impulsion issues... how interesting! [oh boy!]

During remuda today we were with our LBE group again - what a fun crew! I am so proud to have actually had the confidence to jump into the extrovert group, and BE an extrovert. I love it. We talked about mirroring and energy and about Linda's lesson yesterday with the energy holding in the core and then we did simulations with a partner to mirror. I partnered with Iris and off we went - I got to lead first. Being me, I took off at a 'canter' and played with flying lead changes and canter/halt transitions - at first my partner was ehind but then she kept up really well - reading and mirroring me as I did what I did. Then it was her turn and I think I did a poorer job of keeping up with her - how interesting! So when I did finally get out with Mo I was really conscious of staying WITH her and not a step ahead or behind when I was trying to mirror her.

I was able to get my hands on some Sneak E Snacks today for Mo. She is very much a food monger and would be very easy to turn into a cookie monster, in fact I almost did today before I got it through my head that licking my pockets wasnt the best plan, no matter how funny/cute it was. She asked politely after that and started trying things to win a cookie instead of demanding one.

We also got to watch a trailer loading demo today by Kathy and a students horse named Shannon - a RBI. I dont know what the full story on her was, but we were asked for a non-extreme horse volunteer who just didnt consistently go into the trailer. We got to see just HOW MUCH waiting is needed for an introvert - and how much safety/comfort matters to a right brain horse - vs yesterdays demo with an left brain introvert. She was very much an obediant horse, a lot like Dakota on some days, and just sort of did things because she thought that was the right thing to do instead of actually wanting to do them. After Kathy played she offered a few really nice things and quit there - not even doing more than giving a really good confident lok into the trailer because ... guess what... ITS NOT ABOUT THE TRAILER!

After that Avery and her two horses Ahug and Akiss gave an inspirational trailer loading demo. These two huge belgain crosses [bakshir curly and paint respectively] went into the tiny two horse straight load in tandem. How cool!

And so my playtime begins.....

Mo met me at the gate, she usually does, and if she doesnt its because shes unsticking her head from out the window to get around the corner to come greet me. She has nickered at me every day for the last three days, almost every time I get up to her pen. SO COOL!! So haltered and armed with cookies, we took off down then lane and into the Enchanted Forest. I experimented with driving from zone four and five the whole way and learned a lot because one of the things that is hard for a left brain extrovert horse is giving up control of zone one [their nose, my dear C and T <3] SO being able to direct Mo's nose from allll the way back behind her was a fairly cool achievement since I couldnt do that a week ago!

Once inside the allocated area we pit stoppd at the first pond to see what would happen and I found out Mo wasnt really about offering things, and was really more interested in having her cookies. Hmm. Oky, well we moved on because she was getting unconfident about the whole water thing and I really dont want a horse afraid of water.

When we got to the bridge that crosses the creek I thought about needing a plan for oday and needing to engage my LBE horsey... well... one of the 'solutions' on my horsenality card for LBE's is backing! So I felt brilliant and decided to back Mo across the bridge. I found a rather large amount of hesitation and lack of confidence with things is zone five...[behind her] so that was really interesting to me, since I have no problems *personally* flopping all over her no matter the zone. I guess thats the difference between *things* and ..well, me! So there we are, zone five facing the incline [mild] for the bridge and Mo looking at me like " Are you crazy?! I cant back up this!" I took a second and actually thought about it to make sure I was reading her right, and that it was a mild unconfidence thing and not a snotty "yea right" thing. But nope, it was her not being ok [in a really mild manner] with things behind her, so I took a page from Kathy and WAITED. OMG do you know how hard it is for an extrovert to WAIT?? They have actually suggested a stop watch to time it - and I know I am guilty of the wait 5 seconds OK we're good, so I had my ipod and I listened to a song and waited for Mo to relax.

Lo and Behold, 3/4 of the way through the song Mo lowers her head and relaxes and licks and chews ultra over time. HOW INTERESTING! And then we back up another three steps and lather rinse repeat [ I swear I WAITED every single time and I am SO proud!] This went on until I got all four feet on the bridge [ that she has no problem crossing going forwards] and thats where I quit. Mo looked delighted and empowered and totally like "OH HEY thanks for waiting!" Which Ithought was really neat given her *usual* confidence with everything - which I now know is everything in FRONT of her.

By this point I am debating asking a faculty member about how to build confidence in zone 5 and as I am thinking it my brain is coming up with plans on its own so I didnt ask. I decided to devote today to mostly gaining that confidence by back and sidepassing up to things and wokring on backing up - since it was and has been sticky since I got here [dominance thing]

After crossing the bridge we went over to the honey comb in a sort of zig zag and appropriated the giant log to use as a confidence builder #1. Sidepassing Mo up against the log I found a big, ok well not big, but issue getting zone four to line up! How interesting. So I stop and think about this again. I realize [ok, admited] that in my sideways game zone 4 lags and I have not really ever addressed it, so now it is showing up here and it is unconfidence to go some where with zone four without leading with zone one first... hmm....

We worked with that for a bit until she was ok touching the log with her whole body and then went into an open round corral in the honeycomb. I set up two barrels in the figure eight pattern and thought about how to get creative and use backing so I went back to my attempt to back through the pattern. Hmm... V e r y s l o w l y things went at first, and I backed with her the whole time until I thought "I wonder if I can do this from farther away" and that went... well.. interestingly. I could get so far through the pattern and then she would get stuck and turn and face. SO then I went to our sadly underused backing by the tail. Mo picked THAT up in a *snap* and then we went ok through the pattern one and a hlaf times before she got bored and made up her own games.

*will finish later, have to catch my rid ein ten minutes!*