Coincidence.... And Creativity.

3:30 this morning was eeeeeeearLY! And isn't life always interesting with what it presents you....

A few fun things happened this morning. First off I got to go to the airport with a great friend, Bekah, who was the one who ha to be at the airport at 4am. So after seeing her off on her flight I was scrolling around on Facebook And an elderly gentleman came up to me asking if he could borrow a pen. He was probably 75.... And as kindly as I can say it, an old 75. I of course said yes, and he said he would return it in a moment minus a few drops of ink. I returned to my scrolling and soon he asked me if I was a Veterinarian as I was wearing my Parelli Logo'd jacket. I laughed and said no.... I couldn't hack it as pre-vet in college so I chose psychology. Well that caused him to promptly sit down and begin to talk to me in earnest!

He began by saying its not your fault, it's our colleges. He said our brains are designed to take in information that we can currently, quickly and successfully apply to real world situations. Not to sit and listen to a lecture. He said that our colleges are designed all wrong... And instead of attempting to teach people ThINGS.... We should instead be attempting to teach them HOW to think differently, independently, and creatively, how to stand out and be seen for our ideas and our unique perspective on the world.

"Wow!" I said... I completely agree, and what an amazing perspective you have! I appreciate you for sharing it with me!

He then launched into another story.... He casually mentioned his 13 different mechanical and electrical engineering patents and his honorary doctorate from Clemson, not in an effort to drop names or impress me, but truly in a genuine way.... Sharing his life and his story.

He began to tell me about his most recent endeavor in electrical engineering. He had been approached by the US Navy with a conundrum. Apparently the navy had granted a team of people in Oregon 11 million dollars to find a project. 7 million dollars later they returned to the Navy saying that the technology didn't exist. So the Navy called the elderly man I met because of his patents and expertise in the area. This gentleman related to me how he put together a team of three people.... Himself and two others, and for two weeks they sat together for a period of time every day... Throwing out every idea that they could think of surrounding the challenge. BUT they made completely sure that they in no way were trying to SOLVE the problem, simply throwing out concepts that relate to it, and being completely willing to listen to one another, not judge each others ideas, and be completely creative!

After two weeks they presented a plan to the US Navy that outlined how with just 3 million dollars they could create everything they wanted, including all the technology and equipment and have the whole system up and running, and they could have their last million back :)!

I was so a captivated by his story I just about missed my flight! Didn't catch his name.... But feel truly blessed for the universe allowing me to be in a space where I was ready to listen to the wisdom this man had to share.... At 5AM at the Greenville airport. I ran off to board, didn't catch his name and he didn't ask mine... But I'll remember his words, and have a new lease on embracing creativity and problem solving and of course allow for that life is perfect.... And nothing is a coincidence :)!

Equitaina Australia 2011: WHY Parelli?

Ok, so this blog has been brewing a wile ...

Actually since Equitaina in Australia in 2011 ;).

While I was there, it was so enjoyable to see the more natural leaning of a lot of the horsemanship there. But it also got me to thinking about WHY my loyalties lie so strongly with Parelli, and WHY not being a question Right Brain Extroverts ask very often I thought I would delve! Although there are a thousand reasons, I thought I would go through a few of them ;).

One of the first videos I saw of Parelli was the old VHS tape called "The Secrets to Success." Those of you who have seen it will remember how incredible and powerful it is ... Pat plays with Casper at the beginning and end, and also with Casper off of Magic. BUT, the thing that got me was all of the students that played! There are at least 10-12 different students playing in Level 4, 5 and 6, and the horsemanship is just beautiful. THAT was what got me into Parelli ... the fact that there are SO many students ... many of them instructors, whose horsemanship makes me go ... WOW.

There is also "Horsenality" ... this concept in itself sets Parelli apart from all other horsemanship, because it is NOT about techniques ... its about a different approach to EVERY different horse ... like Pat always says, they are like snowflakes.

This of course leads into the fact that the program is driven by Principles ... not by anything else. Pat's 8 principles are the driving force behind Parelli and allow for it to be both imaginative and inventive, as well as consistent and strong.

People who are successful at Parelli ... who strive to be the best horseman they can be then don't (or should be striving not to) have an ego. In my own instructing this prevents me from taking students horses (to show that I CAN do it ...even if they can't) ... and helps me every day to try and empower my students to be the best they can. The more horseman in the world the better!

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.

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).

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!

WHY Game of Contact

THOUGHTS ON GAME OF CONTACT: Why? ;)

Since spending the last year studying with Linda Parelli, I wanted to go back with a little more clarity and revisit Game of Contact. Over the last year, I learned so much, both through physically studying, listening to her speak, watching the DVD’s and then getting through the notes you can really see how Linda has taken the understanding of Contact to the next level. I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you HOW and WHY I feel this is going to transform the world for horses ... yet again ... and how WE can help ;)!

The 4 stages make it easy to progress your horse, and help him truly understand what his responsibilities are with the bit. Obviously your freestyle riding, and your relationship with your horse should be excellent first, because Finesse is a level 4 Savvy. But once you get there it is easy to follow ... to get your horse thinking forward and to the bit ... nose, neck, and the feet. So many horses fight contact in some way... or do not come through and over their backs, Nose, Neck AND Feet. Its appalling to see flash nosebands CRANKED shut to keep horses tongue’s in, and dressage horses getting fancier and fancier in the front end but hollow in the back.

I have heard Linda say that it's easiest for Parelli to get the attention of the top and the bottom of the horse market... People that have competed ultra successfully and are now in horses FOR the horses, are quickly seeing the benefits of Game of Contact and Linda has been asked to assist at barns all over the world. Then there are the low-level horse owners like myself... and many students, who want unity and enjoyment from their horse. We are in Parelli because we won't, stand for strapping heads down and mouths shut. So as a community, it’s OUR job to get excellent at contact to help the middle ;) ... The middle is all those people who still have ego in their horsemanship... simple as that.

I said it the first time I assisted Linda with a Game of Contact course in Australia ... but now I KNOW it rings true. SO many people find Parelli to solve a problem .... Or because they see someone do something inspirational. Like trailer loading, liberty, backing your horse out of your space... etc. If we as a Parelli community engage in finding a way to get EXCELLENT at contact ... and Linda has shown us that way... step by step, Then we will have one more way to inspire people to become excellent with their horses. TO build a relationship, and to remember that "the most important quality of your horse is your belief and understanding of him."

Lillan Roquet

Parelli 2* Junior Instructor

Level 5 Student

Lessons from Linda Land: My Journey with Zen (Part 1)

Hey Everyone! Thought it was about time I posted a little update about the new addition to Linda's barn... a beautiful Warmblood named Zen. He belongs to a lovely friend of Linda's from Wellington who sent him to her when Westy passed. He has been trained to Grand Prix in dressage so he REALLY knows his stuff... and of course is missing a lot of pieces of connection and foundation. Linda still considers Zen on loan from Johnny; BUT thought Zen would be a great opportunity to really play with Principle #7 ... help teach him some things, and see what we could learn from him as well!!

A few weeks after I arrived Linda started asking me to play with him on a regular basis. Zen and I really connected and I began to enjoy my sessions with him SO much; plus he was starting to make some changes as well. After that Linda asked if I wanted to take him on pretty much as my second horse... wow, what an opportunity!

Zen is great for me because innately he is a Left Brain Extravert; however, he has quite a few Right Brain Extravert behaviors... especially as a learner, in new environments and to do with anxiety with the herd. Those of you that have been reading my blogs know that LBE's are my toughest horsenality, and RBE's are my easiest... so its perfect because Zen takes me into and out of my comfort zone on a regular basis!

As I began to develop Zen, the first thing I noticed is that he really didn't have any knowledge about how to be a puzzle solver. Backing into his pen for his grain in the morning was SUCH a mission the first time. He had HUGE draw to his grain, and most horses will sort of figure it out once you help them line up, but as soon as I prevented Zen from going forward through the door you could see his whole face go vacant, and he just shut down. So from there I knew that was going to be my biggest focus. How could I get this horse to find the answer to the puzzle EVERY TIME, and start to learn the power in that. Kalley always says its about making it "1 + 1 = 2 ... EVERY TIME so your horse feels like a super learner." Zen had had most of the learning knocked out of him, and it was my job to bring it back!

One of the best and simplest puzzle that I started with with Zen was in friendly game. I started real soft and tried to appraoch and retreat his thresholds, but if I messed up and went over a threshold and he went  Right Brain, then I went MORE right brain until his feet stopped moving, as soon as they stopped I'd stop. The puzzle is "what do I have to do to stop this person from going crazy with that stick?!?" Pretty soon he got super engaged in how to keep me low energy and relaxed.

The other puzzle I played with him was to help him physically start to carry himself better on the ground. He has a tendency to be really tight through his neck and back and not stretch. So rather then bugging him about yielding his ribs, or micromanaging him, I sent him out on the circle in the round pen, and whenever he offered to put his head down, I sat down in the middle. Now for Zen, the person in the middle of the round pen still felt like pressure (even if I was in neutral), so this was a bit of a release for him, and he started thinking... "how did I get her to do that?" After about 4 sessions he was traveling up to half of a circle stretching his neck towards the ground ;). Pretty neat!

The last big puzzle solving game that I've helped him lots with is Touch It. This was a totally foriegn concept to him as you can imagine how many dressage horses are ever asked to put their nose on anything! So again I really tried to set it up so it was a puzzle. I played the warmer/colder game like how Pat often does with Touch it at a tour stop. Every time he got farther away I increased the pressure and commotion and when he got closer I stopped, or slowed way down. After his first day of figuring this out, I sat in the round pen with him for about 15 minutes while he yawned and yawned and yawned!

Ok- as per usual, this got a little longer than I planned.... So I will leave you with that. Still lots more to share on how Zen has helped teach me about flying changes and the other fancy stuff he knows when someone's on his back!

Thanks for reading!
Lillan Roquet
Linda's Protege
Parelli Level 4 Student
Licensed 2* Parelli Professional