Fun Times at the Intern Barn!

Week two as an Intern is coming to a close. Life has been pretty exciting this week. We had a lot of focus on driving, with Nate Bowers teaching us the fundamentals of harnessing and the systems that are involved in driving teams and singles. We mostly finished with our testing now, and are all eagerly awaiting our results! I feel like things mostly went well so far. It has been fun learning about driving, even if it isnt where I want my main focus to be.

During our horsemanship time we have played with a lot of different things, like bridless yeilds, fluid rein and cloverleaf patterns. During personal horsemanship time today I lost a bit of focus [oops] and wandered into the round pen to see what I could come up with. Well now! What my idle brain ended up coming up with was this... backwards riding! Waaaay back, years ago, when I first started Parelli, or shortly thereafter, I had a goal of backing my horse by the tail while riding. I decided that since I had addressed this quite a bit from the ground lately, now would be a fabulous time to readdress it under saddle. Well, bareback.

SO! I went around-the-world as it were and was sitting backwards on my ever wonderful and loving Mo. She really does make this whole being away from home at such important times thing bearable. Id be crazy[er] without her. Sitting backwards I lean down and gently tug a few hairs like I would on the ground and VOILA ! Insta backwards steps! How cool is that? To fun.

Of course, being me, I couldnt stop there. Nope. Then I started doing walk/stop/backup transitions while sitting backwards. SO much fun. I think I smiled and laughed the whole time. Im sure I got some silly looks, but I was to focused on my entertainment to notice. Then I got really brave.... I tried some trot steps! It felt so odd! But it was so fun! Mo was a complete rockstar super trooper and just toodled on, behaving perfectly. We even got some awesome direct/indirect rein once I figured out where I needed to arrange myself since I was backwards!

Hows that for a fluidity lesson?
Pretty fun I think. Maybe Ill do it again tomorrow.....

:-)
S

BIG NEWS!!!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I really havent done ANYTHING because of the weather - rain, rain and more rain. That, coupled with several work roadtrips, means very little more than "Hi ponies" *brush brush brush* and leaving again.

IN OTHER NEWS!

From a WONDERFUL Savvy Club member one of my long standing dreams has finally come true!  I FINALLY OWN A FLUIDITY SADDLE!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEE

And of course, today is the first blizzard of the year so the odds of said saddle seeing a horse before spring... slim! Oh well! Until then, I get to polish it and drool near it and enjoy the smell of leather!

:-)
S

So When You Think The Girth May Not Be Small Enough...

Indy had a really great day yesterday. I am incrediably proud of her. Firstly, I clipped her legs for the third or fourth time and she was an angel. THEN we saddled up in a borrowed Parelli Fluidity [which I have to stop doing, because I know Indy LOVES it and not my saddle anymore] and a borrowed girth. Well.... the girth, on both sides of top holes was really just holding the saddle in place, but it was ok, so off we went.

We rode in an arena starting at a walk and then she kept wanting to trot so I said hey cool lets do a cloverleaf pattern then. So clover leaf at a trot we did... except on the long ends, where she cantered. Overall very impulsive and go-y and not so much paying attention to me, so I didnt slow her down, a couple of times we used the fence to stop, but really we just kept on the pattern. Until she finally just trotted the pattern and then *poof* clicked over to LBI and stopped in the middle and looked at me like "So.. what are we moving around for?" Which was perfect. We walked around a little more and then I jumped off.

When I got off I noticed something rather interesting. While riding I thought my stirrups sounded extra jingly when hitting the girth buckes but just thought it was because they were to high. Now that I was on the ground I could see the actual issue. I could see AIR between Indy and the girth. AIR! It was just hanging there, completely loose, not doing anything at all really. HMM! The saddle didnt even move though, so I suppose thats nice that I am balanced? At least a little bit. Anyways, that was fairly interesting, so I just unsaddled her then re-mounted bareback because it was nearly lunch time. We moved a couple of cows before heading down.

THEN after lunch Indy and I played cow pony a little and it was fantastic and I am so proud of her. We also got some help with our fore/hind quarter isolations for pivot/turns and that helped LOADS. So.. YEY INDY!

Both girls got their inspection today for their health certificates to go home.... I am planning on it being toasty warm when I get there. I am having to much fun here though.. I cant believe its been three months already! Where has the time gone?!!??! I am so not ready to go home, but the bank account demands I must. Dang.

On the up swing, I may be able to conduct a sort of business proposal that will result in my having a delightful Parelli boarding/lesson barn in my area. So joy for that, because it has an indoor arena! I am trying anyways! So, if you could have a playground to play in at your boarding barn, what would you put in it? A honeycomb? A bridge? A pedestal [or several?] Trees to jump? I need ideas so I can plan. I have some, but others are always welcome!

:-)
S

Finding Fluidity....

Saturday dawned bright and shiny. Or at least I am sure dawn was fairly pretty, as I was asleep at the time. Personally didnt crawl out of bed until ten thirty or something. Even that late Cairo was sprawled ignomiously across the bed, enjoying his sleep. I love that cat.... sleep as much as I want and he's like "Hey cool.. SLEEP!" Not like Jones - aka the Demon Spawn, who got up at six and ran around "Are you up yet?...how bout now...*poke* Now?" *headdeskrepeat* So glad Davey Jones is a happy barn cat now.

Anyways! Saturday-day was a non event. Weddinged with mom, played the ever faithful photographers assstant, carrying things to and fro, holding flowers, picking up trains, etc.... was a short one at least - and there was NO first corintians!!! YAYAY! Srlsy, C, if/when you get married, if you put the First Corinthians speech [you know, the love is patient, love is kind BS] in your cermony, I will smack you upside the head. Instead there was a reading about marrying your best friend, which was the nicest thing I have heard at the forty some odd weddings I have been to!

So boringness aside, when we got home it was late-ish - 7 I think - so I didnt know what to do. I knew I wanted to play, but more than that I knew I wanted to work on ME. The evidence is in the pictures, two posts down - knees gripping and coming up making my seat unstable! OH NOES! Bless Mo forever more, she allowed me to just walk over, play some very minimal games and hop on bareback [..fourth try this time] My fluidity issue with her is at the trot. That sounds wrong, like its her fault somehow, but its all me, and I know it, so now you know it!

We set of at a trot, and of course Mo is Miss Energy going "OH BOY! Whats that over there? Oh AND THAT!" And so on. In addition to mastering [attempting] fluidity, my independant seat got a work out to boot. [Wii Fit says my balance is decent, so that was a surprise, I thought I was waaay off.... I credit Mo entirely with her wiggleyness for making me be balanced just to survive!]

I rode with just a halter and one rein and did a basica passenger lesson, messing with different things in my body, trying to move in harmony with her trot. I focused on keeping my weight back, but stretching my legs DOWN. There is an SC DVD somewhere with that on it... Yvonne and her balance point... I should find and watch that. Around and Around the pasture we went on our snaky trail. Mo played the extrovert being long and wanting to speed up - I had to remind her we were trotting a few times, but nothing major.

I found that if I have my hands in front of me, even if they arent on the reins, I have better balance, so I practiced with them up by my chest and back leaning on Mo's bum and everywhere else. I was really concious of MOVING my lower back and shoulders, because I think I tend to "get in the position' to ride, and then stay there trying not to move, even if it is subconcious because I sure dont do it on purpose!

Finally I felt something resembling fluidness and going in harmony. I wasnt bouncing like a maniac and my bum wasnt catching air at every stride [total plus!] and Mo was starting to stretch down and blow out [whoo!] So since I had things working fairly well at the trot I decided to move things up into a canter. WELL NOW! Mo thought it would be SUPER FUN to gallop around instead. Hang onto your hats ladies and gents because apparently when Mo wants to go Mo can GO!!!

I have to admit I sort of played daredevil teenager and just hung on for the wild ride for a bit before asking her back to a more respectable canter. It wasnt dangerous or out of control, just FAST, which for me, equals FUN. Plus it was SMOOTH. At the canter I found an interesting dilemma. When I stayed sitting where I was at the trot I ended up 'waxing the saddle' as it were, even though there was no saddle. For any one who has done that bareback, its not comfy... going the wrong way against the hair, so I knew something was wrong. I proceded to repeat my trotty exercises with substantialy faster success. The canter isnt really that hard with Mo, especially when she is willing to keep going forwards. I just thought it was interesting that where it worked for the trot, it was wrong for the canter. It makes sense of course because of the weight shift from 50/50 to 40/60, it was just fun to put it into practical experience.

Mo was being pretty go-y so I started doing some big canter circles using my focus. That was pretty cool. I had to support zone one a bit with my rein, but all the other zones followed my focus and the feel off of my legs - which was a weird experience, with her nose going the opposite way of the rest of her! We did that both ways for quite a while until she settled down into a nice easy cadenced canter. It was pretty much dark by now so we walked out then.

Pretty interesting stuff! Apparently I have been using a saddle to much and need to brush up on my bareback on more than just comfy Kota!

:-)
S