Decided to play with Piggles today, had no real plan other than to get his feet moving, heart going, and mind thinking. It was one of those 'lets see' sessions, lets see how little i can do, lets see how subtle i can be, lets see if i can get him asking questions, lets see if we can have a conversation.
We started off with some very simple tasks like backing up through the gate, sideways away and towards. Bringing my energy way way down i tried to be as subtle in my suggestions as i possibly could, Piggles found this rather interesting and i could see the curiosity and try build in his face as he focused intently on my body language trying to work out what i was asking. It got to the point where he was backing up with just me holding tension in my upper body and leaning slightly forward with 'that look'! Like a porcupine game with focus.
We've managed to improve our sideways towards to a similar standard, he'll sidepass towards me from about 12tf away just by me raising my hand in the air in his zone 3.... cool!
However being a Left Brain horse its no supprise he enjoys bending his ribcage towards me, and iv noticed that when i ask him to do this in order for me to mount he then bucks when ever i squeeze and ask him to go forwards... hmmm how interesting. I pulled 3 arrows from my savvy quiver;
1. Its a great deal harder for him to brace against rhythmical pressure so i shall ask him to back up by rasinging and dropping my feet on his shoulder... sure enough he began responding appropriately and backed up nicely.
2. Bend his ridcage. He scored some dominance points on the ground my bending his ribs towards me and sidepassing over so now i will gain some dominance points of my own by pushing oh his ribcage with my leg and asking for sidepasses both ways, again he responded appropriately and i could dictate the amount of steps sidepassed to each side, stepping left then right in fairly quick succession.
3. The million transition technique. Gaining further dominance points by taking control of the feet and asking for several different transitions. Back up, halt, forwards, back up, forwards, halt etc just for a couple of steps untill they were soft yet snappy.
Okay, now lets try, asked him to walk on using the same squeeze as before only now my phases were a lot more effective and he happily yeilded to the pressure and walked on nicely..... i love this whole horse psychology stuff... it works!
Back to the session at hand. We went on to play with some circling and he blew me away. He offered a canter and they were probably the best circles he has ever done. We achieved Pat Parelli's meaning of impulsion; mental, emotional and physical collection. Piggles was so relaxed, his strides where long and rythmical, his body was soft, his inside eye and ear fixed on me and all that slack in the rope. It made me go all goey inside. I could barely believe he was the same horse, i remember the times where finding relaxation in the canter was incredibley difficult for him, his nose was always tipped to the outside, short, rushed and unbalanced strides and he would hold tension in his body the whole time. To see it now such a peacful, relaxed and enjoyable thing to do, so much so he wants to and offers to do it is truely heart warming.
Allowing him to have a breather i came out of nuetral and asked for a transiotion down and his trot was just as gorgeous. He carried himself beautifuly, rounded back, neck arched but still relaxed, strides were high, he just floated across the ground.
His flying lead changed were effortless. He has a tendency to rush when changing direction so he looses his rythem and the lead changes can be a little squiffy but today he maintain rhythem and relaxation the entire time.
Seeing as he was so incredibly relaxed and was enjoying stretching his legs i thought 'lets go somewhere' and so we did some traveling circles up and down the field. He continued to canter round with heaps of slack in the rope and then he did something that was completely unexpected yet mind blowing at the same time, he launched himself into the air and jumped the huge tractor tyre he have in the field!!! He cleared it by miles.
Game over!
I disengaged him and rewarded BIG with lots of scratches and gentle head rubs. I think one of the hardest things about haveing a horse thats so low key is when they do something amazing you want to jump around in celebration, throw your arms around them smother them in big rubs, unknown to you that for your horse, one that likes relaxed calm energy, thats far from a reward. He bured his muzzel in my arms like usual and closed his eyes, cradling his head i stroked his cheeks, his forhead and over his eyes and time stopped. That kind of reward beats a pat on the neck anyday!
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