Lisa Trowse said Fast Track week 3 - day 13 - brain is actually going a bit fuzzy! Trying hard to remember what we did today....mmmmm! Oh yes, I started with doing some circling. Stood on the pedestal to keep my feet still and jack was very good at maintaining his responsibilities. In fact he didn't argue at all! We then played with the porcupine making it more provocative getting him to move one feet forward or back, then two feet, and so on using his chin, face, chest. He is getting light now finally. I actually tend to lead him by the chin as we go around now when he is bridled, as a technique so no pressure is put on him when bitted. We then did some timed events playing seven games at liberty in the round pens. Did quite well at this but took it slow. Only seemed to manage six games though before time ran out.....what happened there?
Today I was very pleased with my saddling. For the first time Jack stood still and didn't even attempt to eat grass through the whole process. Yay, he was my partner!!!!!!! Then we managed to bridle from my knees! Double partner bonus :0)
The morning riding was based on fluidity. We also had to keep all our horses on the pattern either trotting or cantering. Preferably for up to 20-30 minutes with no stopping to get relaxation. I felt very proud of Jack as there were horses everywhere going in different directions and gaits and although his ears were like radars at times, he didn't react. This time last week he took off with me because one horse came up fast nearby...huge improvement.
After ten to fifteen minutes jack was pooped! Bless him he has never been worked so hard and the daily regime is wearing him. Luckily for him we came into the centre to do some work on my position. I then asked for some more trot and gave me a lovely collected canter with him sitting right back and lots of impulsion.....but Jack I wanted trot (sigh!) at which point he decided he had done enough of that for one day, refused to follow the rail and all I could was smile as he was really objecting and after all the lovely things he had given this morning I found him really funny. He is such a character and he is so expressive. If he had a nasty bone in his body he would have really bucked me off and dumped me, but he was passively persistent in the improper position, so I could be passively persistent in the proper position and we did a lovely zig zag new version of follow the rail!
We had a lovely liberty demo to end the morning which was fantastic and inspiring. Then back to the classroom after lunch to have a question and answer session. Liberty was the flavour of the afternoon and we formed human circles and let loose our horses and played stick to me making their human the sweet spot and all the other humans the sour place. It was really interesting to see the dynamics of the people with their horses and the way the horses reacted. And of course to see how you and your horse did. Jack was good up to a point and then wandered off to eat grass. I found I was probably not as provocative as I can be, and I found he walked through me quite a bit, which comes back to respect and leadership. But he is getting his lessons regularly and we are steadily improving. It was a lovely afternoon finished with some grazing in the evening sunshine.
Got an email tonight with the info on the GOC course with Linda in a couple of weeks. Got all excited about that too......Greedy I know!
No comments:
Post a Comment