Okay, So Before I Forget . . .

I JUST HAD AN AMAZING DAY! There I said it. Okay, so I just had a super horse-filled day today. We'll go in chronological order, since that's going to make it easier for you to follow my musings and theories.

Firstly, (I wonder if that's a word. . . hmm) I had a lesson with Shirley today. She had me play with a RBI named Ollie. He was a chestnut Morgan, a bit large, although that seems to match his heart. He seems like such a sweetheart. He tries so hard to please. He's a pretty cool guy, and I like him.

Well, I didn't care if this was a riding or ground lesson, so Shirley picked riding, because she said Ollie could use it. We got him all tacked up, then I want to cinch him up 3x, like normal. Did some circles, and squeezes and various things. Shirley has me go through the car wash with him. He had some trouble with it. It took him a while to go through it, but he did eventually. I learned I have to pump up the leadership skills a little bit.

Here's what I wrote to Shirley about my riding part of the lesson:

And I thought I should mention, too, that riding Ollie was very cool. I believe that is the first time in about a year that I've been able to ride a horse without feeling nervous. I think it was just because I wasn't over-thinking it, but still it's a very cool feeling. When I used to take lessons from another trainer, I'd always get nervous getting on the horse, so it was never any fun. I tried sitting on Moose bareback tonight, to see if I felt safe up on him, and I didn't, but our play on the ground more than made up for that. I'm sure once I start riding him in a saddle I'll feel much better, since I think bareback is just intimidating to me right now.

Kind of getting ahead of myself, but yes that's how it felt. I was not scared of being up on him. I didn't feel nervous. Just happy, and wishing I felt confident on lots of horses, so I could ride more often. :) But as I said "our play on the ground more than made up for that."

So, fast forward to later tonight. I went outside by Moosey, went and said hello. Quite ironically, he didn't want to be caught. He does this a lot, where whenever I put the halter over his neck, he throws his head up. So, it wasn't like he left or anything, just being a silly. But once I got the halter on, I took him outside for a while. Well, SUPERB my dear, is how it went. The kind of session where you don't care if that's the closest you ever get to excellence, because that was just incredible. A brief overview:

I played with Moose once I got home, and he did FANTASTIC. Sometimes when I ask Moose to back up or stop, he thinks I want him to turn and face. Well, tonight he didn't, so we were able to play with Zone 3 Driving Game, and when I stopped, he stopped. When I backed, he backed. We even did it from Zone 4! Huge improvement from what he used to do. And it's incredible how little things make such a big difference. Changing my focus from him to where I want him to go made such a big difference. Our yo-yo game is incredible now. He backed to the end of the 22' without me changing my rhythm in Phase 1. And he drew to me from the end of the 22' without me lifting the rope off the ground. Just priceless

He had me jumping up and down a couple of times, and I probably could've given him a bucket full of treats for his performance. Just fantastic. And I didn't mention it in there, but our communication was absolutely incredible, too. I had him doing things from 22' away and he was responding like I was right next to him asking. It was SUCH a cool feeling. And he had slack in the line the entire time he circled me. God, I love him. He's so cool. So, I think we're moving on up, ladies and gents. Passing Level 2, here we come!

But, wait, that's not all, in this incredible offer you also receive the NEC Celebration DVD. I know, to top off a perfect day, the DVD came today, and it is really cool. I'm not far enough into it to talk about what it's about and give a mini-review, but there's a quick 5 minute clip with Linda showing video footage of all 4 horsenalities that is really revealing, and I think should've been put into the Horsenality DVD in the Success Series (SS).

Well, if tomorrow is an extension of today's awesomeness (or not), I'll try to let you know. But until then, g'nite!

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.

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!