Karen Rholf clinic

[caption id="attachment_303" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Noelle Weiss with Coco and Kris Fulwhiler with her gooorgeous Friesian Wouter"][/caption]

Just got back from 7.5 hours of intense intstruction! That's enough to fill my brain, though, that's for sure! It sure was interesting!

Well, Karen started off doing an interesting simulation about Finesse, while entertaining us with the concept that Freestyle lives within Finesse.  The example she showed us was about Finesse being similar to dancing. Let's say I'm a bad dancer, and my dancer partner also isn't that great. Well, casually we can both dance together and not look so bad. But if we tried ballroom dancing it'd be a complete disaster! Now, if I was dancing with a good dance partner, ballroom dancing would be a breeze. My only job would be to keep out of his way! Well, these 2 types of dance are meant to be Freestyle and Finesse. In Freestyle, you're not really connected to each other, and it can be more laid-back and still look alright. But ballroom dancing is the real test of your partnership.

The simulation she demonstrated elaborated on this. Kris was the 'horse' and Karen the 'rider', so they held onto a pair of reins accordingly. She showed what it was like if Kris pulled back, and Karen braced in response. It pulled them both off balance, so they balanced on each other to make up for it. Then, she showed the right way to do things: stay in balance, and if the horse pulls back 'think forward' (sorry for the bad explanation). Also, another interesting note: when you use your hands in fists to hold the reins, don't make a fist. Make a box intead! When you make a fist, you use muscles in your forearm, and it causes your arm to get tight. If you instead think of making a box with your hand and wrapping (rather than grabbing) your hand around the reins, it uses muscles only in your palm. This makes it so that your arms aren't braced to begin with!

Well, from there, the riders got their horses ready. Karen told everyone to pick a yield to work on and get it going pretty well - Phase 1 or 2. The yield could be anything - going backwards, HQ yield, FQ yield, whatever you

[caption id="attachment_308" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="From left to right: Sherri Kuss on Breeze, Dave Anderson,  and Janet. "][/caption]

wanted!! Well, Dave was having trouble getting his horse to do a HQ yield. So, Karen hopped on! She got things going really well on him: the horse had a lot of try, and Karen said he just needed to learn that it was okay to think. He was used to people doing things for him! Well, after a little while Dave' s horse was doing the yield fantastically! So, once Karen worked out the communication, the rest was easy. By the time she was done, we got to break for lunch.

After lunch the private sessions began (oooh. . . ahhhh). During Dave's session, Karen had him try to back up at frequent intervals, because his horse leaned on the forehand. Also, the biggest thing they addressed was that his horse had a tendency to lean on the reins. So, she had him switching between Finesse and Freestyle a lot to get the horse to stop leaning. But they didn't do too much of it: Karen said that if his horse has been leaning on the reins for a long time, going around a circle even one time holding his own neck up would be hard for him.

Sheri Kuss and Breeze played with sideways. Sheri was extremely advanced in steering, for Breeze followed her focus REALLY well. I don't think Sheri ever needed her reins! Well, in order to get her horse to go sideways Sheri would do a L2 sideways, so her intention was really obvious, but she kept getting left behind the movement. Karen told her to try to make it less obvious (exaggerate to teach, refine as you go along: she needed refining now). Once Karen found out Sheri was really stiff/tight, Karen rode Breeze to see if she could help. Due to the high level of harmony between Sheri and Breeze (a blessing and a curse), when Sheri was tight, then her horse became stiff, also. So, Karen had the pony do a bit of sideways (remembering it was hard for her), and then let her trot off. Though, as soon as she'd get tight in the trot, she did more sideways. Basically, she conveyed the message that if you relax, sideways is easy!

During Noelle's session, they played with keeping Coco's head up. Coco was previously a Western Pleasure horse, and was trained to keep his head down very low and lean on the forehand. So, again Coco needed a lot of backing up. But in this session Karen had Noelle on a circle and pretend it was a clock. So, on her 'clock', at 3, 6, 9, and 12 she would back Coco up. Then, she would immediately go into a canter departure. At first this exercise was all about the backing up, but as they went, Coco started getting much lazier in her canter departures. Karen said Noelle had to get the timing right: it's "get ready, I'm cantering, you should've gone!" So, for a few strides they did that until Noelle got a really good departure and they quit.

Overall, the main theme of Saturday in my mind was "Make yourself comfortable." That seemed to be the thing that Karen really pounded into the horses brains was to be comfortable. For instance, if she pulled on the reins to get the horse to raise his head her attitude wouldn't be "Put your head over here!" it would  be "find a way to relieve the pressure." So, I learned a nice new attitude to take when applying pressure!

Well, I learned a whole assortment of new things. So, if Karen comes next year, I would love to go!! The variety of riders was interesting, because they each were having different problems. So, I'd say it was a pretty good clinic!!

NOTE: the Quote of the Day today was one Karen used in the clinic. I'll leave it up for a few days.

[caption id="attachment_316" align="aligncenter" width="499" caption="Couldn't resist another pic!"][/caption]