Parelli Principles On the Big Screen

I've had two interesting occasions I want to talk about. One is watching the movie Nanny McPhee. The other will come in another post.

I want to talk about Nanny McPhee first.  Click on the link above to read more about the movie, but here's a quick video that sums up the plot:



I saw it the other night, and I really liked McPhee. But of course, I'm thinking in horse terms: she taught me a lot about encouraging the ideas of LBEs. Here's a good example: In one scene, Nanny McPhee told the kids that they had a half hour to get out of bed. Of course, the kids were rebellious, and decided to try to trick the Nanny. So, they painted their faces white with red dots. After the half hour was up, Nanny McPhee returned and found the kids had somehow got the 'measles.' Of course, she can see that they don't have it, but she encourages their idea. Here's her exact words:

"How can it be anything other? The chalky-white faces, the livid spots, the temperatures of 120 degrees. I've seen it time and again. Measles. Definitely."

And then she makes it uncomfortable. The kids just wanted to stay in bed all day, so she makes them stay in bed until they get sick of it. And this cauzes them to realize that their idea isn't so fun after all. The price of staying in bed means eating nasty 'medicines', so their idea backfires.

So, hey. I guess Parelli really does apply to other areas of our life. Horsemanship lessons can be found almost anywhere, if you look hard enough.

A SHOCKING Experience

Joy of joys, we got hay today. Around 300 bales total. It wasn't fun, but it was for the horses, so I have no right to complain. It only took us 2 hours, so that's close to record timing for us!

Well, my mom had swept most of the chaff from the trailer on the ground in front of our lean-to. My job was to rake it into the pasture.

We have 5 lines going around this part of our pasture: 3 barbed wire, and 2 electric that alternate (we're working on taking out the barbed wire, don't worry). The bottom line is barbed wire, and it's pretty low to the ground, so when I swept the hay I had to move it out of the way. Well, while I was sweeping. . .

OH MY GOD: I got shocked! First time that's ever happened. I jumped backwards a couple feet and screamed. That's some strong fence. . . holy cow!

And Moose was near me BTS (Before The Shock), eating the chaff I'd just swept. Well, he jumped back a ways, too, and couldn't take his eyes off me afterwards. I felt bad, because then he would'nt eat the hay anymore.

Switching topic: We have all the poles in the ground for the round pen. Probably will paint it tomorrow, and I'm hoping to get the whole thing finished within the week.

Learn, Learn, Learn

Haven't updated about how things are going in almost FOREVER, because those darned Celebration reviews took me forever to write. But now that they're done, I can try and fill you in on the things I've been doing.

Firstly, we've started our round pen: half of the posts are in the ground already. We're making it out of wood, like the Parelli's have theirs. But we're going to paint ours blue! :)

I've had lightbulb moments almost every other day I've played with the ponies lately. From about a week ago, I went outside just to say hi to everyone. And Moose was grazing close by, so I decided to open up the pen that Bella was in when she was sick so he could eat the grass. I pulled out a handful and showed it to him, so he could come here and eat it. He looked at me very intensely, but no movement. I stayed where I was, because the alpha doesn't move his feet very much. Then, I leaned outside further to try and entice him. Again, no movement. I had a huge "How interesting!" moment. He doesn't trust me for some reason. So, I just fed him grass through the fence. But I have been thinking about this for a while, and have come to the conclusion that I need to focus on gaining trust in general.

And that conclusion was furthered when I tried to teach Moose do move his HQ towards me. Since he's so tall, I thought it might be easier to teach if I was above him for starters. So, I climbed our fence and sat on it. And he changed horsenality! He was LB before, but then he got RBI as soon as I got above him. Interesting! My horse has mounting fears, lol.  So, I just had him do half-circles for a while until he calmed down a little. Then, I brought him in and tried to teach him. He moved his HQ as far away from me as he could (from fear), so after 3 unsuccessful tries, I decided I should just keep doing the half-circles some more. It's useless to practice the problem, after all.

Oh, and my birthday was on the 13th, so I am now another year older!

And I played around with giving Moose a bath today since it was SOOO muggy out. And it still hasn't rained, even though it's been threatening to all day! Stupid weather . . .  I wanted it to rain because then I didn't have to sit around all day going "Is it going to rain?" Of course, like I just said I played around with  the horses anyway, but I wanted to work on the round pen some more. Oh, well. We had a good time. I got soaked and so did Moose, and the other horses got cooled off a bit, too.

Bella hasn't had her normal attitude lately around me. She's not as curious and doesn't like me as much. I lost some of her rapport somehow, so not I've got to try and get it back. And Dancer is her normal self. She is quite a mud puppy, so she had a good time today.

Added Video

If you haven't looked at the Videos page in a while, check it out. I'm adding some new ones as I speak!

Day 3

To start the morning, we had more Savvy Spotlights. Then, Pat played with the rescue horse again.  I didn't really write down much from this session, so on to Linda's lesson with Walter.

Granted I don't know very much about dressage, so most of this lesson was over my head, but it was still cool to watch. Here's some things I picked up:

• Shoulders-in to remove tension from the horse


• Performance = Potential - Interference


• Go to the limit, but not over it


• "We look because we're nosy. The horse looks because he wants to survive."


• The walk should maintain the same rhythm  in freestyle as it does in finesse. If it doesn't then the horse doesn't trust the rider's hands.


• Horses can't learn when they're tense


• The walk should be forward, lively, immediate and not hesitant


• Canter "up in heaven" (If I understood correctly that  means that the horse is up above you, and your focus is where you're going, not looking at his ears)


• Horses don't make mistakes on purpose


• When the horse gets tight/afraid/tense, you're pushing the limit


• Dressage means the highest level of animal training


• Whatitative (what you do) + Qualitative (how well you do it)  = Quantitative (how often/much you do it)

During a break right before the Linda's lesson, Linda did a Q&A. There was also a saddle-fitting demo going on, so we watched the saddle-fitting one. But I caught the end of the Q&A, and Linda mentioned that to ride Remmer engaged she changes her body. She explained super-quickly, but she said she flexes her thigh muscles, pulls her belly button into her spine - so her spine stretches, and pulls her armpits down. Linda was taught this by Jane Dulak.

And lastly, Lauren Barwick came in on Maile (prononced May-lee) and showed us her Freestyle routine she performed at the Olympics. Then, she told us her story about what happened to her and how she's made it so far. She is paralyzed from the belly-button down from a hay bale -100 pound hay bale, I think- that fell on her from 10 feet up. And she talked about how at first her attitude was "Why me?", but eventually she changed it to "Why not me?" Lauren was very inspirational, and showed that anything is possible.

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.

Ce-le-brate Par-elli. . . Come on!

Remove Parelli from title, and then insert good times. It's from that song, but I don't know the name.

So, the Celebration!! Well, it was brilliant! Having only gone to one Tour Stop (last year's), I don't have a lot of background to compare this one too, but it was incredible to me. I would recommend it to any committed Parelli student.

And I apologize for no pictures. I didn't bring a camera, and even if I did it would have only been a throw-away one. Oh, and I forgot my notebook the 1st day, too, so it's mostly from memory, and is going to be really out-of-order.

Day 1:

The Savvy Spotlights took up almost all this day. I arrived at 10:30, so missed the first hour, but arrived in time to see a lady doing L4 Z5 driving with two reins. She was pretty good. I was impressed, but even more so when Pat helped her get more drive. I was surprised to see him getting so firm with a L4 horse, but hey I think he knows what he's doing. :) Anyways, Pat said that to turn your horse to the left (still Z5 driving) instead of pulling on the left rein, put slack into the right rein. Also, he told her how to prepare her ropes to start driving, but I don't think I could explain that without a picture. But I'll find one if anyone is dying to know.

Another thing I learned is that you can start counting laps at the circling game when the horse is connected to you. You know he's connected when his ear is on you. So, when he runs into the end of the rope, that means he lost connection. Also, if you're circling with the 22', it's not a 22' rope unless you use all of it! So, try and hold onto the very end of it.

There was another lady who Pat helped learn to post her diagonals correctly. Basically, it boiled down to when you need to post, post to the direction you're going in time to that hind leg. For example, if I go left, then I post in time with the left hind leg. To remember this, Pat suggested that when riding Freestyle, hold on to the reins with the hand that is which direction you're going. So to put it all together: if I'm going left, then I post with my horse's left hind leg, and I put my left hand on the reins. So, every time you switch hands, you have to switch diagonals, too.

One of the common messages of this day - besides use all of the 22' - was tracks. Pat kept talking about tracks, which were grooves in the arena from it being groomed. The 1st track was the one closest to the wall - in Freestyle, you should be as close to the wall as possible, but not touching it: that's how you know you're on it. Pat emphasized that you need to pay attention to which track you are on. When you play Follow the Rail, that's how close you should be! Also, he said in Finesse you especially need to pay attention to tracks, because it is important to use the arena well, especially because this one was smaller than normal.

I also learned a way to use all 7 games in one 'stunt' (for lack of a better word). It's hard to describe, but I'll do my best. At liberty, Pat said if you can do this 'stunt', he'd give you your L4. So, say we start off going sideways to the right in front of a fence. Drive the HQ 180 degrees until the horse faces you. Then, drive the FH away so the horse is now facing the fence again. Here, you need to switch sides, so now you're going sideways to the left. Video would work better to explain.

The last event was Pat playing with the rescue horse. She was a gorgeous QH. My first impression of her was RBI, because of how she spooked, but I then classified her as a RBE. An interesting tidbit: playing on the ground builds back muscles that the saddle kills. Hmm. Pat said that if you do the Circling game, and your horse has his body curved the wrong way, that means he lost confidence in something. Your job is to figure out what.

Now, for Day 2!