Licensed Parelli Professional 2* Junior Instructor

My official Parelli Professional website can be found at;

http://instructor.parelli.com/lillanroquet

Saturday 24 November 2012

Thoughts on Teaching

Since being back out in the field a lot of people have been asking me what I chose to leave Linda's and not return to Florida this Fall. Their are obviously a lot of reasons, but the one that resonates the most for me is that I simply LOVE teaching! And I wanted to do more of it, the more knowledge that I gained from Linda, the more passionate I was to get out there and start teaching it!

Teaching has always been one of my passions, in fact it is really what got me my first opportunity to apprentice with Pat back in 2008. For those of you who don't know, my Parelli journey started on San Juan Island in Washington State at a beautiful barn called Plumb Pond. A whole group of girls and I ages ranging from about 4-25 began practicing Parelli diligently... and in that sort of environment, the progress was pretty phenomenal. With all of us helping each other and progressing, a video we made soon got Linda's attention and we were asked to perform at the Redmond, OR tour stop in 2008, after that Pat asked if I wanted to come spend some time working for him.

Because of this, I think I take the growth, satisfaction, struggles, and successes of my students incredibly personally... haha, as do most Parelli Professionals. I want people to grow and succeed as human beings as well as horseman through this incredible program.

I love watching people... trying to almost tune out their horses... until I see something that I would do differently, or I have seen Pat or Linda do differently. Then 9 times out of 10, I can check the horses response, and see some sort of brace that is telling me, "YUP, that's making me uncomfortable " In this way, I really feel like I am simply the vehicle for helping people truly see and understand Principle #7 "Horses teach humans, and humans teach horses." Helping people to see and analyze their own body language, and begin to see the way in which it effects their horses.



It is always so amazing to me to see how the Parelli program truly gives people what they need, not necessarily what they want :) This is something that I personally still struggle with, but am constantly pushing myself to believe in the process, and it hasn't steered me wrong yet! I constantly think of so many principles, tag lines, concepts, and theories that PNH has taught me about horses, and see where I can apply them as an instructor, and I just LOVE IT!

I struggle to provide people with 80% consistency, and 20% variety, just like we aim to with our horses, I continue to try to isolate the problem, separate it out, and then show people how to recombine the steps to create the original picture. Trust me! Everything connects :)!

Anyway... that is just a tad about my journey as an instructor in Parelli.


Thursday 15 November 2012

Triumph and Tears

The mastery program that Parelli has developed is really an incredibly life changing thing. The time that I have spent there I have treasured, and although it is hard work, trying, and an immense amount of personal growth, it is also SO enjoyable. Picking each other up from the airport, joining instructors to teach, stopovers with horses and humans, etc etc etc truly shows the camaraderie of the students of this program.

The bond really does go deeper than just the physical time and space of the ranch. People bond, and life long relationships are always formed. When everyone is on a journey to become not only a better horseman, but also a better person; you can't help but become friends as well!

The picture below is of Lyndsey, Amy, Emily, Jenna and I during my FIRST stint in the "mastery program"... haha which was of course before there was one! The five of us girls had the challenge and privlige of riding with and care-taking all of Pat's super horses; WOWZA. It was intense, but definitely one of the most memorable three months of my life! And we were all as thick as thieves :) Becuase WE were it, WE had to rely on eachother through triumph and hardship, smiles and tears, frustrations and successes... and trying to get through 35 horses a day !



This picture was taken at the Prescott, AZ tour stop in 2008. It was after a VERY long weekend involving Pat breaking down in downtown Flagstaff, AZ with the gold bus, a chevy breaking down on the way there, and a million and one other little hiccups in the road. The five of us were the barn team, the savvy team, and helped out everywhere else we could, again, AS you do in Parelli. And even after three days of 5AM horse washings, and 10PM bed checks we were all still smiling. Cuase that's what Parelli means.

Im so excited to be out in the field teaching now, and am constantly remembering amazing times I had being part of the mastery program.  BUT always remembering to live every moment (4 in a second).

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Highlights from the Biggest Small Town

I had an amazing experience this past weekend with the TSW Parelli Play group in Reno, NV. TSW, in case you, like me, haven't caught on yet, stands for This S*** Works! What a fantastic name.

Anyway, over the weekend I became good friends with a fantastic group of women. Marie, the organizer of the weekend, was especially gracious and helpful as well as experienced having organized countless clinics over her years with the Parelli program. Her quote of the weekend had to be when she turned to me and said, "there just isn't much else I want to do in my spare time besides play with horses." Well said I thought! And as a person Marie completely embodies Parellis mission to make the world a better place for horses and humans. Plus she took amazing care of me!

The facility, and the woman who owns it, are beyond words. Absolutely stunning, and her generosity in opening her home, stables, arena and playground are in my experience un-parelleled. Thank you Candy!

The whole weekend provided so many highlights for me as a teacher, student and human being its hard to know where to start! I had a few cool BFOs of my own as well as watched many occur for horses and humans. For myself I found a clearer sequence for teaching relaxation freestyle to horses, and of course had the importance of how much our groundskills transition to our horses back, hammered home again.

I further honed my skills in creating a beginning, middle and end in the weekend for everyone present. And learned a bit on how to vary this appropriately for humanality and horsenality to hopefully leave everyone with that over arching feeling of being "pleased with their horsemanship, but never satisfied."

My own personal highlight was being given the opportunity to ride Marie's beautiful gaited mare, Bella. Wow! As you can see in the photo, it was awesome, I can see why people fall in love with gaited horses! Thank you Marie, So much, for allowing me to ride her and feel that!

It was Also incredible to have one of my best friends Amber come join me for the weekend ;)! So fantastic to see her, and hear about her third year in Vet School at UC Davis. She is going to be an amazing equine vet in just a short year and a half, and I'm sure an incredible asset to the Parelli AND Veterinary community.

Sitting on the plane flying back to Durango I can't help but be thrilled at my first weekend teaching since leaving Linda Land, and so excited for more. Every moment I'm grateful that I get the amazing opportunity to do what I love, and share this program with the world.... And this weekend, with the amazing women of TSW in Reno, NV! I can't thank you enough!