Sayonara Comfort Zone! Trying. Learning. Progressing.

   It dawned on my today that despite the improvement's Piggles has made in being ridden, in regards to his canter it will be a while, i think, before we have completely and totaly cracked this bucking issue he has. Simply because we have done so little Freestyle sessions and there is a great deal we need to cover in this particular Savvy. 2009 was probably the last time i was was riding Piggles regularly and by that i mean probably only once a week maximum. We managed to get some really lovely things going and eventualy worked our way up to a few bridleless rides but even then we played around very little with the canter. Its only been over the past 3 or 4 weeks that i have began riding Piggles regularly again, 1, 2 or 3 times a week. I know that when we go for a canter out on the trial rides there is a chance that he will buck because we haven't reached that level in our freestyle work where we can begin working on canter transitions, however im confident that now im riding more frequently that time will soon come.
   After thinking it over im happy to continue trying the canter out on hacks and am confident that it wont hinder our progress because he is still able to maintain relaxation. I am incredibley pleased to see that all the time, thought, effort and play that went into helping Piggles to stay relaxed and not get emotional in the canter online has payed off and that really did shine through in our play session today which i will talk more about in a moment.

   For some reason, probably because under it all Piggles is a prey animal, Piggles hit a threshold just outside the gate of his field. How interesting! Instead of taking this to heart and being offended "He thinks that little of me as a leader he is nervous just leaving the field!" I was intruiged and happy to go along with it so we played here for about 15 minuets, after which he became more confident and looking to me for leadership. Got to the field and i decided to pop him on the 45ft line. We haven't done a great deal of work with the 45ft line. We've used it to play all the 7 games and patterns like figure of 8's, weave, falling leaf and S patters, as well as sideways on the circle etc
   I guess you could say that we have "ticked the Level 3 boxs" with it but my comfort zone lies with the 22 ft line but i was determined to give something else a try because my horsemanship has become so.. just.. stale... and has been for a long long long time. I haven't watched a Parelli DVD for probably over a year, iv remained working in the same Savvies, doing the same stuff. Things have progressed with the horses but its kind of a natural progression, what could be expected when every session is based around natural horsemanship principles, its slight and often been down to the horses offering new things. Doing the same things, in the same savvies with the same tools is where my comfort zone is at, and comfort to me is everything going right and feeling compitent! If things dont go right, which is what usualy happens when you learn and teach new things, i feel so useless as a horsewoman. I feel like a failure and that i dont know anything. If things aren't going to plan, going right, going smoothly, if things start to go a little wrong then i beat my self up so much.
   By staying in the same place iv forgotten how much fun horsemanship is, how much fun learning is, how much fun working through problems is, and how great you feel about yourself when things start off wrong, and awkward, and unsightly and your able to pull yourself and your horse through that and turn it into something amazing. So that is why iv decided to give my horsemanship a huge kick start! Watching educational DVD's, Internet Video Clips, trying new things and commiting to it. Trying. Learning. Progressing. So thats why i decided to begin our session on the 45ft line!
 
   (Now i feel compelled to say, as a side not, to anyone with misconceptions about the Parelli Programme, it isn't the programs fault for my lack of progress. In fact, the Parelli Programme is the most progressive Natural Horsemanship Programme out there (in my opinion) you only have to look at my peers to see it! Its unreal the amount of support and educational material that is available. The lack of progress is down to me as an individual and me alone. Being a Right Brain Introvert myself it's difficult to leave your comfort zone, its safe in here! And due to circumstances in my personal life, my horsemanship has had to take a back seat (as explained in my first post for 2012)

   I didnt have much of an idea of what we were going to do, i had wanted to do some freestyle with him today so i was concious of helping shape him mind and body into a ridable horse but other than that i guess i was just going to go with the flow. To begin with he was still slightly tense but i knew how to address this, lots of drift (45ft line is looking like a good choice now!) repetition, allowing him lots of time to think, but also allowing one or two obstacles to interupt his pattern so as he had to engage the left side of is brain and actually think rather than just mindlessly trotting and cantering around. Soon enough his body and his face softened and he was reaching down low with neck and long and relaxed with his strides, instead of diengaging him i waited to see, because he was now relaxed, would he think and make a desicion? Which he did and he came running over to me.
   We played around with backing up on the 45ft line, when he got so far out he'd slow down, switch off and try to eat, your typical LBI "Ha, you cant reach me anymore so im just gunna do as i please" it did improve and our send was SO snappy, it was great. Phase one and PING! Off shoots the section C whilst still maintaining confidence and relaxation.
   When working on our back up i could feel all my insecurities come flooding back and i wanted to retreat back to my comfort zone, back to doing something we can do so well so as i look like and feel compitent, but no, i was determined to push through. It was important that i kept going, things were'nt getting worse and im improving on a new area of our horsemanship. I owe this to my horses, only by sticking to it can we progress and that is exactly what happened. Now i can retreat and relax and allow us both the time to think about what we had just learnt.
   We played around on the 45ft line for a while. Piggles had misunderstood my energy with the stick in zone 5 for SPEED UP! Not disengage and he lost some confidence here, we played around with a few different games and patterns helping him get it back;
   -We did friendly on the circle, throwing the stick and string over him whilst he maintain gait, asking for nothing but just to relax. This was easy
   -We worked on putting energy infront and behind him to ask for a transition up or down. To transition upwards i rarely had to support with the stick, pointing was enough.
   -We worked on the Falling Leaf Pattern and S Pattern, bringing in a third, similar command, asking him to disenage the hind.
  We played for about 5, 10 minuets mixing them all up. It was never an excersise to teach him the difference, we do this alot and he knows and can recognise the subtle differences in my posture and energy and response accordingly, this was more about helping him to gain back his confidence so as he could think about what i was asking him to do.
   I lost count of all the times i got caught up in the line and so did my stick, but it will never improve if we dont practice! There were a few times when playing with the S Patters and Falling Leaf than i didnt real in  the slack in the line quick enough when Piggles changed direction which led to the rope being on the outside of his body, i was very impressed with Piggles feel though becuase his immediate reaction was to follow the feel of the rope and do a rather impressive spin, this happened a few times and i rewarded by allowing him to come in to me, A- because he was trying and responding to even the subtlest of commands that he thought i was asking and B- he was still mainting his confidence even though he thought i was asking for a resend- following the usual structure of the pattern when all of a sudden there was a command he didnt expect. Sometime variety can cause him to loose confidence especialy when he isnt expceting it! We ended play with the 45ft line here. Finishing on a good note

   I took piggles down to the tackroom, tacked him up and placed him on the 22ft line, firstly because i could later tie these up as my reins for when i ride and secondly because the next part of the session would be based on precision not on learning, so i needed the tools that would best help me support Piggles, i was going to have to be "holding his hand" a little more in this part of the session.

   Went out in the field and he was already in a Left Brain confident frame of mind, perfect for learning! I wanted to help work towards improving his cantering when undersaddle. We began testing our yoyo game, how well could he shift his weight from front to back in order to come to me after backing up- pretty well it seemed, so we knocked it up a gear and moved on to walk to canter transitions on the circle. We've dont this before plenty of times when his pay drive has come up and so he's naturaly already abit springy and hot on his tootsies but it isnt something we do regularly and he was actually finding it quite difficult. Aaa ha! He was on the forehand quite a bit instead of bringing his weight over his hind and being light on the front end, this most definately needs to be addressed before he can canter undersaddle.

   I was really really REALLY proud of Piggles. When working on more intense precise things he looses confidence very easily and becomes more and more introverted, sometimes going completely Right Brain Introvert but he didn't today! He was really intune to my energy, sometimes a little too intune and would transition up from walk to trot if i wasnt completely still. I had to keep bringing him back down to the walk so as i could then ask for the canter and he remained confident even when i had to bring my energy way up and use big phases. What was most interesting was on a few occasions when he transitioned up his weight actualy came forwards and his back end came up but it wasn't like a buck at all. When they buck their feet come out, well this was more like a hop, his whole back end just came up, by about a foot, no flicking out with the hind feet like you would expect with a buck. Hmm how interesting, however he did have a LBI look about his body, tail swished ever so slightly and distateful look on his face. He bent his ribs towards me slightly which i was told by one Natural Horsemanship Instructor is a dominace thing, it's their way of 'pocking their out at you' kind of deal but after watching some of my Parelli Liberty and Horse Behaviour DVD's Linda said it's actually more a Right Brain thing, they're bracing against you and tensing so im confused as to how to read into this.
   I think the most benificial thing would be to video it and send it to a Natural Horsemanship Instructor, and Parelli Professional.
   Anyway, we repeated and slowly his weight began to come back more over the hind. We quite here and enjoyed some time togther in the center of the circle, he had stopped diving for grass now and just stood with me, peacefully, untill i gave him the cue that allowed him to eat.

   He had done so well and we had probably been play for a little over an hour so i thought i would hop and on we'll just do some very basic, easy, freestlye stuff. We havnt done freestlye for so long, and we have NEVER done a freestyle session in a saddle, this would be our first so we stuck to stuff i knew he knew but it was going to be rusty. Keeping the idea of bringing the weight over his hind in mind we did some indirect reins follwed by directed reins and walking on from them, these improved loads and were going really nicely, he was really bringing the weight back when doing the indirect reins. Then we began working on the circle with an obstacle on both sides, each marking the point where i was going to ask for a transition. We only worked with walk and trot but got it where i didnt have to use my rein, just my energy. Bareback this is something we can do so easily, its like second nature, i just hop on him in the field and off we go but its different, i feel, when in a saddle, still he got it fairly quickly so we repeated a few times, including the halt and back up which was really lovely. Some very very basic things but done well so we stopped, gave him a cuddle and still he didnt lower his head to eat untill i said it was okay. He grazed for a while then i slid off and that was us done for the day.

   Lots to think about, lots to improve on, and lots more fun to be had. What made it such a lovely play session was we managed to pull through the confusion, awkwardness, big correcting phases and come out of it doing some really lovely stuff, really soft, subtle and flowing and establishing a really strong connection. Was really really wonderful.