20 June 2010
I’v mentioned briefly Shinobi’s RBI tendencies when carrying a rider. As soon as your back pockets touch his back, he plants his feet, switches off, and does not move.
Its only been recently that iv felt savvy enough to tackle the issues he has with being under saddle and I hope today proved to him that im becoming the partner he needs me to be.
Today we literally took our first steps in overcoming this confidence issue Shinobi has and we went trotting around the field :) Okay so nothing technical, nothing fancy, nothing that to most people is even worth a second look, but I don’t care what it wasn’t, I care that for the first time since I can remember Shinobi was carrying me with confidence :)
Iv played with him on and off but in the recent weeks we’ve stuck to it. During each online play Shinobi’s confidence and enthusiasm has been flourishing. He’s been offering nippy little trots when playing with patterns, and when drawing him in and just generally being a little star :)
When it came to hopping on I allowed him to graze for a while then gathered the reins and started with a passenger lesson, to my surprise he began pawing the floor! A left brain introvert tantrum to let me know he want to continue stuffing his face!
“Expect a lot, Except a little and Reward the slightest try”
With those words in mind I continued to apply pressure and he gave me a step,
b-e-a-uuuuu-tiful!
So I quite with the pressure, rubbed him, allowed him to graze and then asked again, we repeated with no real problems, allowing him one mouthful of grass per step, needless to say we were then able to build this up to walking a couple of dozen steps to different obstacles.
When ever id attempted this previously I tried steering right form the off and often too sharply so he’d stop, duh me, didn’t realise I was only going and punishing for stepping forwards!
This time steering came later :)
And then came the trot! a little pressure with the legs and he was off, ears forward and focused on the barrel (rest point) ahead. Go Shinobi and Go Parelli, Ye-Hah!
Play On, Em x
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