Saturday wrapup and Looking toward May

Still a bit overwhelmed from April's events and looking to a calmer May with lotsa horse time.

Saturday it was great to see the hugely commited big group of eastern NC parelli students at Mary's. I felt intimidated at first but then relaxed--as we are all in this together, right? Try started out super relaxed. Then I followed something Dan did with Sparkles to get her attention on Try and she went RB for some time. Then I was studying her RB and trying to fix and got wishy washy in my focus and Try got more RB (for her anyway). Asked the question and Dan said she needed more leadership--so I upped the ante and played games we knew and sure enough she came back to me.

The point of the first 1/2 of the session was patterns--not just the conscious ones we practice such as Parelli patterns but even more important the unconscious habits that can either fit our goals or not. So the goal for some time, not just Saturday, is to discover patterns, study them to see if they are keepers or not, and if not to replace them with another habit. Remember: takes 30 ish days to form a habit.

Interesting the first habit I found was a big one: giving Try a couple poor tries at a task before expecting her to connect with me instead of setting it up to be ready and asking for excellence right off the bat. WOW

We also did zone 5 porcupine/not driving as we did Thur--today Try got it right away--not a surprize--she is soooooooo smart. But I love this as a better method with a RB to start the driving--hand holding/confidence building by having contact (reins mean go forward) instead of tapping her derriere to get her going. Much more polite.

Riding: we did patterns--weave around barrels on a circle etc for snakey bends/shaping and I forgot but should have been also leading rein start. Anyway, mounted up and felt so happy to be with Try--safe, like coming home. Also she looked LB and happy according to Marianne. I even had moments of squealing with joy and laughing--having fun. Interesting--no coaching from Dan during this segment.