Day 2

The day officially started at 9 with a few more savvy spotlights with multiple participants in each one.

Then, Pat played with the rescue horse. I realized to a higher degree that Extroverts need to run and play first before they can focus. It's like recess before you teach anything.  Pat said that Walter had said a very good quote the other day: "A lot of people want to control something, but they don't want to control themselves." Very self-explanatory, and I highly agree. Also, I re-learned that Rhythm + Relaxation + Retreat = Confidence. And I learned how to teach a horse to draw their HQ to me. You  have them face a fence, then reach over their bubble to their other hip and go through your phases. This cleared up things for me, because I saw Linda teach a Hanoverian named Beau -in a Savvy Club DVD- to draw his HQ to her by holding his halter. I tried that, and it didn't work well. I never thought to use the fence! :) Also, a good way to test your horse's gas pedal and brakes is to play the Yo-yo game in Z3. In the rescue horse's case, everything meant GO to her, even pressure in front of her. Pat dropped another phrase that I liked: "In order to reach our dreams with horses, we have to reach their dreams."

During a break, someone from Parelli (don't know her title or name) held a mini-seminar about the courses. She said one of the things they teach you at a course is to have an attitude of abundance, which basically means that you believe there is enough glory and fame and happiness out there for everyone. It's the opposite of having an attitude of scarcity. This lady also mentioned that attitude ties things together, and you can choose your attitude when you wake up in the morning. Interesting. I had been frustrated for a few months there, and I could've changed that by just choosing not to be frustrated? Wish I would've known that earlier!

Then, Linda talked about Success at Liberty with Introverts and Extroverts, with. . . drum roll please. . . Allure and Remmer! This was a pretty cool session. It was interesting to see the differences between the two. For Allure, Linda has to move his feet to get to his brain, but for Remmer she had to stimulate his brain to get to his feet.

Also, Linda mentioned that we need to re-think how much we say NO to Extroverts, even when we feel like we're not saying it that much. Extroverts need lots of "Yes, great idea! Run over there. Jump this. Run more. Oh, and backing is lovely, too." They need you to encourage their ideas. And encouraging was actually different than I thought. It was merely adding a toss of the Carrot Stick whenever Allure had his own ideas. I thought encouraging was slapping the Carrot Stick, whereas it is actually more passive. It's quieter, like "oh that's a good idea," but not jumping up and down with enthusiasm.

The opposite is true for Introverts. They need more NOs. To motivate Remmer, Linda was very particular. She did the opposite of what he expected, and then was particular about the result. For example, Linda backed Remmer to the fence. Instead of sending him on a circle- like Remmer thought she would ask- Linda decided to ask him to put his Z3 next to the fence, and she was very particular about where his feet should be. It got his mind very engaged!

So, now here's some more little tidbits I picked up from this session. When Remmer changed gait on Linda, slap the spot, and then face yourself towards it. That way he'll be less likely to change gait again. To start the figure-eight at Liberty, put the barrels close to the fence. Then, to create motivation for LBI's, slap the ground right after they go through the middle of the figure-eight.

Also, for LBI's you have to do more in the beginning, and less in the end. With LBE's you do less in the beginning, and more at the end. But for both horsenalities, you have to begin with the end in mind, or in other words, you have to start playing with a clear picture of how you want your horse to look like at the end. Today, Linda had Remmer super-motivated, but she mentioned that she doesn't get Remmer to look like this everyday. She usually only gets him so "up" at events like these.

More random tidbits: Obedience + Exhuberance = Dignity. Concerning sweat with the horsenalities, LB sweat is smooth, and RB is sticky. Didn't know that! When you mount a horse, you can tell what he thinks of the saddle by what he does. If he hollows his back when you step up, that means he doesn't like the saddle. But when he likes the saddle, he'll usually relax and lower his head.

Then, Pat played with the Patterns with West Point who is Lauren Barwick's new horse. He was such a GOOORGEOUS mover! I forget exactly how tall he was, but I think he was around 17 hh? Correct me if I'm wrong. And Pat said he costed Lauren $75,000! Wow. But he looked liked the spitting image of Vision, so if you've seen her, that's exactly what West Point looked like except bigger. But once I was done ooing and ahhhing over West Point, it was time to pay atention to the patterns.

What stuck out most to me in this session is how much horsenality affects the way we should teach horses, and how direct-line I can be. West Point was definitely extroverted, but I don't remember if he was LB or RB extroverted. Anyways, Pat used that extrovertedness to teach him the figure-eight by starting out with circles. He played circling game, and then would add variety by driving him around one of the barrels. So, the circles were the consistency and going around the barrel was variety. Pat kept at it until he thought West Point was doing well enough, and then he asked him to do a regular figure-eight. Then, when that was good, he took him over to where 4 cow-flavored barrels were, and did the same process as with the figure-eight, just a big quicker. It was interesting to see how Pat sets things up for success: I never would've thought to play circling game first! Also, it is interesting to see how direct-line I can be without meaning to. If I wanted to do a figure-eight, I would just go and start doing it. It never occurs to me to break it down even further.