Lisa Trowse said Fast Track - Week 3 - day 15 - good learning morning again today, particularly with our freestyle and transitions. I have been really struggling with Jack as always to maintain his responsibility on the rail. Now he is following the rail most of the time, but our transitions downwards are struggling. No problem upwards as he is impulsive, but trying to halt is so difficult. I have been playing with all four phases, life down, lift the rein, hold and bend into lateral flexion, but even then he moves in little circles until finally coming to a halt and he isn't getting the idea that he needs to stop. Enter Carmen and Raz!
Carmen got me to follow her on the rail and then halt into back up. Raz backed into Jack to get him to stop. My phases were to go life down, sit deep and look up and think south, lift the savvy string, pull on it if necessary, and use legs for back up. Well jack decided to dive left instead. At which point I was told to do a hard indirect rein, get him back straight on the rail and then repeat. It wasn't easy but we got it. We were then going for several steps back and then trot to back up. It was difficult to keep him straight but there was definite and obvious improvement. Another savvy arrow for my quiver in the battle against jacks wilfulness!
Liberty was good again today, with lively jack playing stick tome. Played with some other stuff in the playground too. Had a demo on soft feel as a prep for finesse, excellent learning occurred and put into into my coaching plan for next week. So many BFO moments have occurred recently, including one subtle moment at the water trough when jack went to go through the gap between me and the trough. With all my recent savvy I realised I went to step back and let him through, when I stopped and said no, I am the leader and I don't move my feet, you want out, go round me! Later on he indicated to do the same thing and stopped and thought better of it :o))))
In all the six years I have had Jack I have never really seen him relax properly.....and in the last few days I have a horse with a droopy lower lip and he is also relaxed in his male counterparts!!!! Actually an occurrence that has happened only probably twice in all that time, but is regularly occurring here. He is also whinnying to me lots. The bond is definitely stronger and he is starting to be a chilled horse. Wow!
This afternoon we had our coaching sessions and got some nice feedback and some good strategies for the last week. Need to make some serious decisions about what I want to do about becoming an instructor. Tough stuff. Finished the day with us all going out for a meal and a drink. Let our hair down and really the only opportunity for us to go out now before the end of course.....only one week left :0(
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