Warm up Strong to Ride Soft

While I was in Australia I got the chance to play with a beautiful LBE Hanoverian named Fin. Today I went through some of my notes and found some cool gems I thought I’d share with you all! Hope you enjoy!

Whenever I play with young horses I think so much of what I have learned from Kalley, over the time I have been lucky enough to spend with her.  Kalley has given me so many tools, and so often when I’m playing or teaching I hear something she has said to me. It is simply awesome how having "arrows" as we call tools in Parelli helps you to be more confident. The more tools and knowledge you have, the higher your confidence is... which is what makes this such an incredible journey of learning. In contrast, however, we all also go through those moments in Parelli, where the more you know, the more you realize you DON’T know. Makes me think of one of my favorite quotes "The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shore of mystery."  For me this was so incredibly true in my learning from Kalley- As a little side note, one day in a mastery Program meeting we were all going over highlights from the week, One person's highlight was learning that they didn't actually know how to play the 7 games! haha! Or even how to put a halter on! This can just show you the level of depth of understanding there is to EACH little task that we complete with our horses.

So- As I was feeling through and testing various games with Fin, I was really thankful for the time I’ve spent with Kalley... as well as all of the second hand gold I got from Kerryn and Dr. Jessie while working at Atwood Ranch for 10 months. It was amazing for me to realize the tools that I DID have in terms of being able to feel through where I felt Finn's successes and challenges were. I began by walking away from him, Belly-button off of him, and swinging my stick and string in a friendly motion, check! He understood the basics of Friendly game. Then we moved on to porcupine game which was also light and polite, not perfect, but he had a solid understanding of moving away from steady pressure, and it was GREAT for a two year old without that many sessions. The first challenge I felt was as we moved into driving game in his right eye... his first instinct as I asked him to yield his front end was to lift his head and nose into pressure, not strongly, but this was a little opposition reflex. How interesting? I continued to play with him softly changing eyes, and doing some backwards s's to increase his confidence with this. Fin was exceptionally soft and willing, and for the most part a LBE, although as a learner he had moments of RBI.

In the second session, I also played with him again on the ground, but this time I had a goal! The first time I played with him and saddled him for Kerryn, she had to spend quite a bit more time with him on the ground in order to feel confident getting on him... "warm up strong to ride soft." Basically... I had once again, tended to "not bother him" as I played with him, but because he was young this didn't set him OR Kerryn up for sucess in their ride; hence why she pushed him a bit and played with him more on the ground. Any guesses what my goal was for our second session? I decided I wanted to warm Finn up strong enough, that Kerryn felt he was confident and ready to ride.

Knowing that he had a bit of right side brace, and a tendency to be sensitive, almost bordering on reactive at times, I thought a great game to teach him would be friendly game in motion. So I began by getting nice confident circles at the walk and trot to the left before beginning to throw the stick and string softly over his back. He was slightly skeptical, but soon enough softened, and began to understand that the difference between neutral and energy up applies no matter which gait he is in, as well as that his job continues to be maintain gait, maintain direction, look where your going, and act like a partner. AHA! So now for the right side... I tried to maintain the same neutral in my body as he went out at the walk, I softly lifted the stick and string... and sure enough... EXPLOSION! Not too scared, just thinking his job was to run forward, and then being a bit LBE, that was kinda fun... So I had to then pick up my intensity to match him. And we were off... lol... running and buckin, and throwing the string over his back, until finally he flicked an ear to me and I stopped, so he stopped and looked at me. We repeated this excitement a few more times until he finally softened, and began to trot round me in beautiful flexion and relaxation as I threw the string over his back. We stopped and rested as he blew out a few times. I was then able to saddle him and get some of his nicest changes of direction yet. I handed him over to Kerryn and crossed my fingers lol :)

And she took him to the middle and mounted up... ;) Yay! I love setting goals for myself and meeting them!