We had our last day at the Parelli Center today. It was a very emotional, inspiring day. We were privileged to witness a lesson with Linda Parelli and Walter Zettl. It was amazing to see Remmer so motivated and soft and expressive! We were all in tears by the end of the morning presentation. Pat had some great news for Carol Coppinger. I'm sure it will be the buzz on the Savvy Forum. I won't spill the beans here, because it really isn't my place to do so!
I'm not sure when I'll post next. It might not be until we get home. We will trailer the horses back to our rental home tonight, and then take off for home early tomorrow morning.
So if I don't get on again until we get back, I hope you have all enjoyed following our journey! I will still try to keep the blog up once we get home so I can continue to update you on our progress. (though I probably won't be posting daily......)
Thanks for following!
Molly and Josie
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Wednesday
Here we are at the end of the day. We had another pretty introverted day today. I did eventually ride in the big field. We got some nice matador moves (indirect to direct rein). Then we did a bunch of undemanding time before we moseyed back through the enchanted forest. There were ups and downs today, but that is okay. I'll learn and reflect on them later...
Tuesday
The post that I had written last night for today ended up getting deleted, so I'll write a truncated version this morning. We had another good day yesterday. We finally got to use the seat builders, which was interesting. It was interesting how easy it was to see what parts of people had tension (ankles, knees, etc.) We will be doing more with the seat builder today.
Our afternoon session was on the patterns. Josie was pretty introverted today, so we had to take our time getting up to the hill honeycomb. I'm glad that I took the time that she needed though. Otherwise I would have ended up with a right brained extrovert horse on the top of that scary hill! I can definitely tell that my leadership quotient has increased in the time that we are hre, and that is SO COOL! We played on line for a while (everyone else was riding) until she was ready to ride. At that very moment, Linda Parelli rode up on Remmer! They were on their way to a lesson up in Pat's world. It was fun to see them.
The honeycomb was thick with riders, so there was some controlled chaos, but for the most part we were all able to stay out of each other's way. Josie was definitely helped by doing some patterns (follow the rail and figure eights). After a while she was able to relax and keep her mind more on me than the scary cows lurking behind the fence and the long scary lines of trailers! There is a lot to think about up on the top of the hill! It is my job to be more interesting than all of the distractions up there...
All in all, it was a good day. We ended on a good note. The picture posted today was at the end our ride. A happy, relaxed pony!
Talk to you later--
Molly and Josie
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Riding Begins!
Monday
Today was the first day of our riding course. Our filter for the week is bridle-less riding. How fun is that! Of course, I don’t have any plans that we will be riding bridle-less by the end of the week, but I will at least have the information and knowledge to prepare for it once we get home.
Our morning was spent in the classroom, and it was probably the best day that we have had thus far. Our morning demo was incredibly informative and inspirational. I can’t even begin to describe the impact that it had on me. Kristi and her horse showed us how good things can be, and she broke it down into easy steps that we all can follow. She basically went through everything from catching your horse, to warming them up, to saddling, bridling, and mounting, and then preparing for bridle-less riding. She outlined and demonstrated all of the pre-flight checks that you do before and after mounting. Some of it was a review, but there were nuances there that I had not picked up before. The most important thing is to really be aware of all the small opposition reflexes that your horse gives you. Everything means something! I realized how many things I ignore or push aside, and how many short cuts I take when preparing my horse for a ride. There is a reason to have a pattern and a system for everything. At this level of horsemanship, excellence is what we want, and we shouldn’t settle for anything less—for ourselves or our horses.
I won’t go into any more details of the actual demo. We can have that conversation some other time...Needless to say, we went off to lunch completely inspired and ready to take on the rest of the day.
Josie and I took part in the bridling focus session. She did really great! I am so used to riding her in her halter or hackamore, and I have not been using a bridle very much. She hasn’t been the biggest fan of the bridle or bit. I think our relationship has grown to a point that it isn’t such a big deal any more. I took it as a good gauge of the trust that I have earned from her that she was so accepting of it today. We ended the day by having a short ride in the 100 foot round pen. We didn’t do anything too demanding, but I’ll have to say it felt pretty darn good to be up on her back after doing a week of ground work!
I look forward to the rest of the week. We have some really interesting focus sessions planned for this week. I’m sure I’ll keep you updated!
Savvy on,
Molly and Josie
Today was the first day of our riding course. Our filter for the week is bridle-less riding. How fun is that! Of course, I don’t have any plans that we will be riding bridle-less by the end of the week, but I will at least have the information and knowledge to prepare for it once we get home.
Our morning was spent in the classroom, and it was probably the best day that we have had thus far. Our morning demo was incredibly informative and inspirational. I can’t even begin to describe the impact that it had on me. Kristi and her horse showed us how good things can be, and she broke it down into easy steps that we all can follow. She basically went through everything from catching your horse, to warming them up, to saddling, bridling, and mounting, and then preparing for bridle-less riding. She outlined and demonstrated all of the pre-flight checks that you do before and after mounting. Some of it was a review, but there were nuances there that I had not picked up before. The most important thing is to really be aware of all the small opposition reflexes that your horse gives you. Everything means something! I realized how many things I ignore or push aside, and how many short cuts I take when preparing my horse for a ride. There is a reason to have a pattern and a system for everything. At this level of horsemanship, excellence is what we want, and we shouldn’t settle for anything less—for ourselves or our horses.
I won’t go into any more details of the actual demo. We can have that conversation some other time...Needless to say, we went off to lunch completely inspired and ready to take on the rest of the day.
Josie and I took part in the bridling focus session. She did really great! I am so used to riding her in her halter or hackamore, and I have not been using a bridle very much. She hasn’t been the biggest fan of the bridle or bit. I think our relationship has grown to a point that it isn’t such a big deal any more. I took it as a good gauge of the trust that I have earned from her that she was so accepting of it today. We ended the day by having a short ride in the 100 foot round pen. We didn’t do anything too demanding, but I’ll have to say it felt pretty darn good to be up on her back after doing a week of ground work!
I look forward to the rest of the week. We have some really interesting focus sessions planned for this week. I’m sure I’ll keep you updated!
Savvy on,
Molly and Josie
Monday, February 23, 2009
Visit from Grandma!
Lunch with Cele, Grandma, and Sid!
The cutest cowboy and cowgirl (Sid asked to try my hat on)
It is hard to find hard liquor in this town!
But we finally had sweet success!!!!!
Vegas isn't ready to play nicely yet....
Talkin' to Grandma over the fence
Sideways at liberty
Josie's home away from home...
My attempt at a self portrait (I need to keep taking
lessons from Kari)
My new boots!
Josie cleaning up her peanut hay...
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Pond party!
The famous stream (see the post below)
Note the muddy face! And the satisfied look!
Party in the pond!!!! Josie's got some
really fancy dance moves!
Lazy weekend
We are having a nice relaxing weekend. Kari and I got up and went to the Parelli Center early this morning. (Well, a little later than our usual time, but before most people got there...) We gave the horses their breakfast and then went and spent some time on the computers (hence the picture heavy post from below!). We went out to play in the Enchanted Forest play ground this morning. We decided to work on stream crossings this morning. Josie isn't a huge fan. She will go if you make her, but I wanted to try to make it her idea today. I spent a lot of time letting her think about it (as introverts need LOTS of time to think). When she kept hitting the same threshold, I started to ask for more of a try. All of a sudden, she was ready to try and ended up in the middle of the stream pawing away like a madwoman! It was a great left brained moment for her. She was sending muddy water flying in every which direction. I'm sure Kari got some funny pictures of me trying to back away from the monster that I had created! Instead of blowing herself through/over the stream she just stayed there and played for several minutes. We were all in stitches watching her!
Once we got over to the other side, we moseyed our way over to the pond, and repeated the performance there. She goes into the pond much more willingly, and has even more fun splashing! I hope to have her swimming by the end of the week! It was a great session for the morning, and so nice to have a left brained horse to play with. We copied Kari and Vegas and played with sideways game over a log--both towards me and away from me. She caught on to the sideways towards me pretty quickly, which was nice.
Kari and I then went into town for a little shopping (Tractor Supply!) and lunch. We called Carole on the way. I think of her every day, and so wish that she had been able to join us down here. Our whole Wisconsin horse group, for that matter. It truly is a trip of a lifetime. (one that I would like to repeat every two years or so ; ) sorry, Dave!!!!)
Now we are just hangin' under a tree, letting the horses graze.
Molly and Josie
Once we got over to the other side, we moseyed our way over to the pond, and repeated the performance there. She goes into the pond much more willingly, and has even more fun splashing! I hope to have her swimming by the end of the week! It was a great session for the morning, and so nice to have a left brained horse to play with. We copied Kari and Vegas and played with sideways game over a log--both towards me and away from me. She caught on to the sideways towards me pretty quickly, which was nice.
Kari and I then went into town for a little shopping (Tractor Supply!) and lunch. We called Carole on the way. I think of her every day, and so wish that she had been able to join us down here. Our whole Wisconsin horse group, for that matter. It truly is a trip of a lifetime. (one that I would like to repeat every two years or so ; ) sorry, Dave!!!!)
Now we are just hangin' under a tree, letting the horses graze.
Molly and Josie
Pictures from Friday!
Instead of a long post today, I will just give you a
glimpse into our day through pictures. This was a group
photo at the end of our day.
Bonding time!
Happy, relaxed girl on the land bridge!
Front view....
Back view
Rock and rolling around the bank!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Pictures from the past few days
Vegas jumping the log beautifully, Kari crashing
into the log (no she wasn't trying to get out of the
way of the beautiful picture)
Vegas jumping up the bank
Vegas cantering on line in the big field on top
of the hill
Josie cantering in the Enchanted Forest Playground
Disengage!
Discovering the pond was loads of fun!
It's all about the relationship...
Thursday
I honored the relationship with my horse today. It felt really good to finally make things right for Josie. It made me sorry for the way that I have handled things the past few days, but they always say that you learn the best lessons from the mistakes that you make. So in that regard, I am grateful for the journey that I have experienced thus far.
When we got to the pens this morning, Mia and Kristen took off towards the Enchanted Forest. Josie and I followed, but we played the “it’s really uncomfortable to be near Mia” game. Basically, if we were going towards Mia, then she had to do all sorts of stuff. Sideways, backwards, falling leaf, traveling circle. You get the idea! If we walked away from Mia, we just walked in a straight line. Straight lines are way easier than all of that other rigmarole! After a while, I think that Josie started to get the game. The only rest came when we were moving away from her object of desire. Then Mia went over the bridge, which Josie hasn’t felt comfortable going over yet.
We stayed on the other side of the bridge and hung out and grazed for a while. Josie was slightly tense, since Mia was getting farther away. Eventually, Josie offered to go across the stream, so we went over to the other side. Of course she wanted to go towards Mia and Vegas, who were playing in the honeycomb. So we did a traveling circling game at the canter towards the honeycomb. She got very emotional, but I did not. That is HUGE for me. I have somehow made a very important mental and emotional switch this week. I am able to keep a calm focused energy in the face of her mental breakdowns, and not get all emotional about it. We played with approach and retreat again, and then we had to go back to the pens to get to class. It was definitely a provocative, emotional session for her, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a good breakthrough for her, or if I was just feeding the fire that had been smoldering all week.
When we went back to play later that day, she was happy to meet me at the gate of her pen. That is always a good feeling! I had a nice grooming session (since she had rolled after her sweaty emotional morning…). When I went to leave the pen, I decided that everything was going to be on her terms. If we made it out to our afternoon focus session, that was great. If not, then that was great too. I had NO agenda. Surprisingly, even though she was happy to be haltered, and relaxed in her pen, she did not want to leave the pen. I was determined to wait her out until she was ready. She ventured out at one point, but then went right back in her pen. She kept yawning and licking her lips, which is usually a sign of adrenaline. How interesting. Eventually she was ready to come out (partially influenced by Mia leaving her pen, but hey—I’ll take it!) We did not follow Mia to the playground because I did not want to blow Josie through her thresholds, which she will do if she is following another horse. So we took our SLOW time to get out to the playground. It probably took half an hour. And it was GREAT! I had a calm, confident horse that was okay with things. I didn’t ask for rocket science when we got out to the playground. We just did little things, but I was so happy to have a happy horse! You take the time that it takes, and it is SO worth it. We practiced our Savvy Spotlights in the honeycomb. I did one on line, and one at liberty. We won’t be applying to do one at Madison. As much as I would love to, I realize that the horsenality and relationship that I have at the moment is not conducive to success in that particular venue! Which is okay!
We ended the day by crossing the bridge! Amazing what a calm, learning horse will do for you! There is always a reason for everything. I needed to finally take the time that she needed to be okay with things. We have been talking about putting the relationship first all week, and I finally got it right.
BTW, our morning classroom session had two special visitors—Linda and then Pat Parelli! It was great to hear the stories they had to tell, and hear about all of the fantastic new things coming down the pike. I am so grateful to be alive during this time of amazing horsemanship!
Savvy on—
Molly and Josie
I honored the relationship with my horse today. It felt really good to finally make things right for Josie. It made me sorry for the way that I have handled things the past few days, but they always say that you learn the best lessons from the mistakes that you make. So in that regard, I am grateful for the journey that I have experienced thus far.
When we got to the pens this morning, Mia and Kristen took off towards the Enchanted Forest. Josie and I followed, but we played the “it’s really uncomfortable to be near Mia” game. Basically, if we were going towards Mia, then she had to do all sorts of stuff. Sideways, backwards, falling leaf, traveling circle. You get the idea! If we walked away from Mia, we just walked in a straight line. Straight lines are way easier than all of that other rigmarole! After a while, I think that Josie started to get the game. The only rest came when we were moving away from her object of desire. Then Mia went over the bridge, which Josie hasn’t felt comfortable going over yet.
We stayed on the other side of the bridge and hung out and grazed for a while. Josie was slightly tense, since Mia was getting farther away. Eventually, Josie offered to go across the stream, so we went over to the other side. Of course she wanted to go towards Mia and Vegas, who were playing in the honeycomb. So we did a traveling circling game at the canter towards the honeycomb. She got very emotional, but I did not. That is HUGE for me. I have somehow made a very important mental and emotional switch this week. I am able to keep a calm focused energy in the face of her mental breakdowns, and not get all emotional about it. We played with approach and retreat again, and then we had to go back to the pens to get to class. It was definitely a provocative, emotional session for her, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a good breakthrough for her, or if I was just feeding the fire that had been smoldering all week.
When we went back to play later that day, she was happy to meet me at the gate of her pen. That is always a good feeling! I had a nice grooming session (since she had rolled after her sweaty emotional morning…). When I went to leave the pen, I decided that everything was going to be on her terms. If we made it out to our afternoon focus session, that was great. If not, then that was great too. I had NO agenda. Surprisingly, even though she was happy to be haltered, and relaxed in her pen, she did not want to leave the pen. I was determined to wait her out until she was ready. She ventured out at one point, but then went right back in her pen. She kept yawning and licking her lips, which is usually a sign of adrenaline. How interesting. Eventually she was ready to come out (partially influenced by Mia leaving her pen, but hey—I’ll take it!) We did not follow Mia to the playground because I did not want to blow Josie through her thresholds, which she will do if she is following another horse. So we took our SLOW time to get out to the playground. It probably took half an hour. And it was GREAT! I had a calm, confident horse that was okay with things. I didn’t ask for rocket science when we got out to the playground. We just did little things, but I was so happy to have a happy horse! You take the time that it takes, and it is SO worth it. We practiced our Savvy Spotlights in the honeycomb. I did one on line, and one at liberty. We won’t be applying to do one at Madison. As much as I would love to, I realize that the horsenality and relationship that I have at the moment is not conducive to success in that particular venue! Which is okay!
We ended the day by crossing the bridge! Amazing what a calm, learning horse will do for you! There is always a reason for everything. I needed to finally take the time that she needed to be okay with things. We have been talking about putting the relationship first all week, and I finally got it right.
BTW, our morning classroom session had two special visitors—Linda and then Pat Parelli! It was great to hear the stories they had to tell, and hear about all of the fantastic new things coming down the pike. I am so grateful to be alive during this time of amazing horsemanship!
Savvy on—
Molly and Josie
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday
Wednesday
It was another fine day in paradise. Sunny and warm, which is exactly what you Wisconsin-ites probably don’t want to hear!
Sorry to give you the whole sordid account of my day, but this is the only journal that I am keeping, and I would like to have a log of events to look back on…
Josie met me with a little more appreciation this morning. I was expecting that since we had a pretty emotional day yesterday. I fed her breakfast, and then went and fed myself breakfast. The food here is great! Anyhow, when I went back to the pens, Kristen had gotten Mia out for a stroll. Mia is Josie’s next door pen-mate. This was a tragic occurrence in Josie’s life, and she was basically a whirling dervish in her pen. Since I wasn’t there when it started, I was basically unable to really bring her back to planet earth. Herd bound-ness really sucks. So I waited and watched. Eventually Mia returned to the next door pen. Of course, Josie immediately went over to her for safety and comfort. At that point I asked Kristen to defend her herd of two (her and Mia) and keep Josie away from her. This was a very interesting exercise because Josie went very deeply right brain introvert coming off of her adrenaline rush from before. Basically her feet were rooted to one spot, she was not blinking for MINUTES at a time, and her breaths were shallow and quick. There were a few breakthroughs. Once she paid attention to me (I was standing at the entrance to the pen). There was some licking and chewing and yawning, and then she went back into her trance. The other was when another horse and person walked by. They got almost by, and then she pulled herself out of her trance to move to look at them. More licking and chewing and lots of yawning. All in all, we stayed with her for more than half an hour. She probably blinked 5 times during that period (which to all of you non-horsey people, that means she was really stuck in a trance and NOT thinking). Right brain introverts can suck so far inside themselves that they are unaware of everything around them. I have not seen that level of introversion from her since I first got her. She definitely is a horse that lacks confidence in new environments. I think she is innately very right brain introverted, and when she becomes unconfident in her environment she becomes pretty extreme. Over the past two years I have gotten her to become more left brained about life, but this experience has shown me what shows up under stress. The bottom line is that I need to become more important to her as a leader to help her through these sticky situations. That will be my biggest goal this year—to become a better leader for her.
So we went off to morning classroom sessions. I wore my Vibram Fivefingers today (see a previous post in January if you don’t know what I am talking about…) They are the most amazing shoes ever! All of the aches in my ankles and knees went away when I wore them, and my posture became so much better! I didn’t even believe all the hype about that, but it really is true! It is such an organic, lovely experience to feel the different substrates that you walk on in a day! When you wear regular shoes, your footfall is dictated by the soles that you are wearing. In these shoes, you are basically barefoot, but with a protective sole. Your foot rolls and contacts the ground naturally, which really feels great! Enough on that. They are amazing and you should all google them to find out more about them! Vibram Fivefingers!
So we split up into personality remudas today. I went to the right brain introvert one. I think I am a pretty even split between right brain and left brain introvert. Basically right brainers do more with their emotions, and are more artistic. Left brainers are more logical thinkers. I have learned to become extroverted through my job, but it is not my innate characteristic. It was interesting to think about the different human personalities and how we relate to one another. All in all, I am really a pretty good match for Josie…
The afternoon play session was awesome! I took Josie out and she was in a really playful frame of mind to start out with. It was definitely time to get out of the pen! I followed Vegas and Mia towards the Enchanted Forest playground. There is a bridge that we have not been able to cross yet. We got all four feet on it yesterday, but she hasn’t had the confidence to cross it yet. (Basically you cross over to an island of really cool play equipment!). Instead of trying the bridge this morning, I asked her to cross the stream instead. She went over with little effort, which was good. We played around with some falling leaf on the other side, then we went to play in the pond. Josie is not so sure about water, but Vegas (the fish!) went right in and inspired her to give it a try. She loved it when she got in there! She splashed and kept sticking her whole muzzle under water. It was pretty funny. We then went and played over some logs (Kari got a great picture of her jumping—which is a great feat because the girl is just not into jumping!). Soon enough, it was time to go up to our afternoon focus sessions.
I went to the change of direction today. It was a really good session. The take home message is to follow your horse’s tail around in a spiral to help suck them in, and then drive them back out the other direction. The key to success is to circle them until they are ready to have a conversation/come in. Don’t ask until they are ready!!!!! That is the key to settting them (and you) up for success. And it WORKS! By golly, it works! We got some really lovely draws and change of direction. Then Josie went totally right brained on me again and laid down AGAIN on the circling game. Definite feedback that there was too much pressure (probably mostly from the environment, some from me). I talked with an instructor about it, and she said that I probably need to be even more careful of her threshold and asking too much since she is so introverted right now. We were in the same scary field as yesterday, so that probably contributed. I definitely have food for thought. I need to go easy on my right brained introvert and not ask too much. It can be so hard in this environment because there are so many cool things to go and do! I just need to honor her need to take things slow and not push her to do too many things out of her comfort zone. So we will be playing with that the rest of the week! I’ve rambled on enough for today!
Savvy on!
Molly and Josie
It was another fine day in paradise. Sunny and warm, which is exactly what you Wisconsin-ites probably don’t want to hear!
Sorry to give you the whole sordid account of my day, but this is the only journal that I am keeping, and I would like to have a log of events to look back on…
Josie met me with a little more appreciation this morning. I was expecting that since we had a pretty emotional day yesterday. I fed her breakfast, and then went and fed myself breakfast. The food here is great! Anyhow, when I went back to the pens, Kristen had gotten Mia out for a stroll. Mia is Josie’s next door pen-mate. This was a tragic occurrence in Josie’s life, and she was basically a whirling dervish in her pen. Since I wasn’t there when it started, I was basically unable to really bring her back to planet earth. Herd bound-ness really sucks. So I waited and watched. Eventually Mia returned to the next door pen. Of course, Josie immediately went over to her for safety and comfort. At that point I asked Kristen to defend her herd of two (her and Mia) and keep Josie away from her. This was a very interesting exercise because Josie went very deeply right brain introvert coming off of her adrenaline rush from before. Basically her feet were rooted to one spot, she was not blinking for MINUTES at a time, and her breaths were shallow and quick. There were a few breakthroughs. Once she paid attention to me (I was standing at the entrance to the pen). There was some licking and chewing and yawning, and then she went back into her trance. The other was when another horse and person walked by. They got almost by, and then she pulled herself out of her trance to move to look at them. More licking and chewing and lots of yawning. All in all, we stayed with her for more than half an hour. She probably blinked 5 times during that period (which to all of you non-horsey people, that means she was really stuck in a trance and NOT thinking). Right brain introverts can suck so far inside themselves that they are unaware of everything around them. I have not seen that level of introversion from her since I first got her. She definitely is a horse that lacks confidence in new environments. I think she is innately very right brain introverted, and when she becomes unconfident in her environment she becomes pretty extreme. Over the past two years I have gotten her to become more left brained about life, but this experience has shown me what shows up under stress. The bottom line is that I need to become more important to her as a leader to help her through these sticky situations. That will be my biggest goal this year—to become a better leader for her.
So we went off to morning classroom sessions. I wore my Vibram Fivefingers today (see a previous post in January if you don’t know what I am talking about…) They are the most amazing shoes ever! All of the aches in my ankles and knees went away when I wore them, and my posture became so much better! I didn’t even believe all the hype about that, but it really is true! It is such an organic, lovely experience to feel the different substrates that you walk on in a day! When you wear regular shoes, your footfall is dictated by the soles that you are wearing. In these shoes, you are basically barefoot, but with a protective sole. Your foot rolls and contacts the ground naturally, which really feels great! Enough on that. They are amazing and you should all google them to find out more about them! Vibram Fivefingers!
So we split up into personality remudas today. I went to the right brain introvert one. I think I am a pretty even split between right brain and left brain introvert. Basically right brainers do more with their emotions, and are more artistic. Left brainers are more logical thinkers. I have learned to become extroverted through my job, but it is not my innate characteristic. It was interesting to think about the different human personalities and how we relate to one another. All in all, I am really a pretty good match for Josie…
The afternoon play session was awesome! I took Josie out and she was in a really playful frame of mind to start out with. It was definitely time to get out of the pen! I followed Vegas and Mia towards the Enchanted Forest playground. There is a bridge that we have not been able to cross yet. We got all four feet on it yesterday, but she hasn’t had the confidence to cross it yet. (Basically you cross over to an island of really cool play equipment!). Instead of trying the bridge this morning, I asked her to cross the stream instead. She went over with little effort, which was good. We played around with some falling leaf on the other side, then we went to play in the pond. Josie is not so sure about water, but Vegas (the fish!) went right in and inspired her to give it a try. She loved it when she got in there! She splashed and kept sticking her whole muzzle under water. It was pretty funny. We then went and played over some logs (Kari got a great picture of her jumping—which is a great feat because the girl is just not into jumping!). Soon enough, it was time to go up to our afternoon focus sessions.
I went to the change of direction today. It was a really good session. The take home message is to follow your horse’s tail around in a spiral to help suck them in, and then drive them back out the other direction. The key to success is to circle them until they are ready to have a conversation/come in. Don’t ask until they are ready!!!!! That is the key to settting them (and you) up for success. And it WORKS! By golly, it works! We got some really lovely draws and change of direction. Then Josie went totally right brained on me again and laid down AGAIN on the circling game. Definite feedback that there was too much pressure (probably mostly from the environment, some from me). I talked with an instructor about it, and she said that I probably need to be even more careful of her threshold and asking too much since she is so introverted right now. We were in the same scary field as yesterday, so that probably contributed. I definitely have food for thought. I need to go easy on my right brained introvert and not ask too much. It can be so hard in this environment because there are so many cool things to go and do! I just need to honor her need to take things slow and not push her to do too many things out of her comfort zone. So we will be playing with that the rest of the week! I’ve rambled on enough for today!
Savvy on!
Molly and Josie
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Viewing Pictures
If you want to see the full size pictures, then just click on the posted pictures and they will come up in another screen. Also, if you would like to actually see pictures of me, then go to Kari's blog! www.parelliprep4ocala.blogspot.com
More pictures!
Will you save me? Buzz escaped from Julia
and came running over to Mia and Kristen
Mia's morning stroll
Jumper Vegas
Jumper Buzz!
Josie, the bathing beauty!
Pictures from Tuesday
Proud Josie
The lodge and enchanted forest in the morning
Mia and Kristen
Kari and Vegas
Right Brain Extrovert!
Tuesday
Everything is about the relationship! If you don’t do anything to compromise the relationship, then you will stay on track and be fine. This is where I went wrong today. It is funny, because I have a lot of knowledge coming into this course, and I have learned a lot so far in this course. But I am still destined to make mistakes that I know that I shouldn’t make! How interesting is that? And the funny thing is, I am totally okay with that! I have given myself license to learn and make mistakes while I am here. They always say that you sometimes learn the most/best by doing things wrong, right??!?!
With that said, I’ll give you the filter of my day…
We started out with discussions on Horsenality this morning. No matter how many times I hear this information, I always glean some new tidbit of information from it. One perspective that I gained was that LBIs need you to go slow to get them interested, whereas RBIs need you to slow down so that you can get their confidence. I had never thought about it quite like that before. LBIs need to be seduced to play with you, where RBIs just need to feel comfortable first.
The other part that I enjoyed revisiting was the 5 areas of confidence. Horses can have confidence in you as their leader, in themselves, in their herd, in their environment, and as a learner. They may be supremely confident in some areas, and not so much in others. The goal is to help them even out and gain confidence in all areas over time. I would say that Josie is most unconfident in changes in environment. This makes a trip like this challenging because it very well may take her two weeks to really become confident to the point that she is at home. I can see how staying for longer periods would really change that experience. HOWEVER, I am having many different horses show up, which is an AMAZING learning opportunity for me! I have to learn to deal with the horse that shows up, so I will gain many more savvy arrows over the next two weeks.
We had a really great session early this afternoon—I kept her pretty left brain and interested in learning. Then we went to our afternoon focus session and things went to pot! We were circling at the top of the hill. I must have passed her through some thresholds without noticing. All of a sudden she got RBE. We were in a new part of the playground which probably contributed. The goal of my focus group was to work on increasing laps on your circle game. Well, we started circling, and she was trotting along looking perturbed. All of a sudden—BOOM—she threw herself to the ground FROM THE TROT and started rolling. How interesting is that! She was clearly coming off of adrenaline. When we started circling again, she wasn’t paying attention to me at all. The instructor said to start rewarding her (stop the game for her) at the slightest try for when she would check in with me. I worked with that for a while with some good results.
By this point, I had a very HOT and tired horse. I decided to take her back to the pens for a bath. This is where everything went to pot. I had been asked by someone to lend out my clippers. They were up in the horse trailer, which is where we were at in the field. So I decided to get them while I was up there and walk back to the pens. So I took Josie over by the trailers. While I was digging around in the trailer, she was at the end of her 22 foot line going—what the hell are you having me look at all of these f***ing trailers for??!?!? Too much PRESSURE!!!!! And don’t even THINK about having me go near one of those damn things ever again! So this is where I went wrong. Please don’t judge me for it! I knew that I should probably stop and deal with the issue. But I didn’t. I was hot, tired, and just wanted to get back to the pens. So I started walking down to the pens with my clipper box and aerosol can under one arm, and 22 foot line and stick in the other. My horse was willing until we got to the part of the path that we hadn’t been on. Major spooking occurred, and she spiraled down to a RBE mess pretty quickly. I certainly didn’t help her avoid it, and I’m sorry for that. We eventually made it back to the pens and I got her brain back (with some supreme effort…). She enjoyed her bath, and then we went for a stroll back up to the trailers with Julia and Buzz. Things went better the second time. We ended the day on a good note.
That’s about all for now. This is an exhausting and exhilarating experience. We come home bone tired every day, but it is good to be in such a provocative zone. Every day will bring more challenges and experiences that will keep filling up my savvy cup.
Savvy on,
Molly and Josie
Everything is about the relationship! If you don’t do anything to compromise the relationship, then you will stay on track and be fine. This is where I went wrong today. It is funny, because I have a lot of knowledge coming into this course, and I have learned a lot so far in this course. But I am still destined to make mistakes that I know that I shouldn’t make! How interesting is that? And the funny thing is, I am totally okay with that! I have given myself license to learn and make mistakes while I am here. They always say that you sometimes learn the most/best by doing things wrong, right??!?!
With that said, I’ll give you the filter of my day…
We started out with discussions on Horsenality this morning. No matter how many times I hear this information, I always glean some new tidbit of information from it. One perspective that I gained was that LBIs need you to go slow to get them interested, whereas RBIs need you to slow down so that you can get their confidence. I had never thought about it quite like that before. LBIs need to be seduced to play with you, where RBIs just need to feel comfortable first.
The other part that I enjoyed revisiting was the 5 areas of confidence. Horses can have confidence in you as their leader, in themselves, in their herd, in their environment, and as a learner. They may be supremely confident in some areas, and not so much in others. The goal is to help them even out and gain confidence in all areas over time. I would say that Josie is most unconfident in changes in environment. This makes a trip like this challenging because it very well may take her two weeks to really become confident to the point that she is at home. I can see how staying for longer periods would really change that experience. HOWEVER, I am having many different horses show up, which is an AMAZING learning opportunity for me! I have to learn to deal with the horse that shows up, so I will gain many more savvy arrows over the next two weeks.
We had a really great session early this afternoon—I kept her pretty left brain and interested in learning. Then we went to our afternoon focus session and things went to pot! We were circling at the top of the hill. I must have passed her through some thresholds without noticing. All of a sudden she got RBE. We were in a new part of the playground which probably contributed. The goal of my focus group was to work on increasing laps on your circle game. Well, we started circling, and she was trotting along looking perturbed. All of a sudden—BOOM—she threw herself to the ground FROM THE TROT and started rolling. How interesting is that! She was clearly coming off of adrenaline. When we started circling again, she wasn’t paying attention to me at all. The instructor said to start rewarding her (stop the game for her) at the slightest try for when she would check in with me. I worked with that for a while with some good results.
By this point, I had a very HOT and tired horse. I decided to take her back to the pens for a bath. This is where everything went to pot. I had been asked by someone to lend out my clippers. They were up in the horse trailer, which is where we were at in the field. So I decided to get them while I was up there and walk back to the pens. So I took Josie over by the trailers. While I was digging around in the trailer, she was at the end of her 22 foot line going—what the hell are you having me look at all of these f***ing trailers for??!?!? Too much PRESSURE!!!!! And don’t even THINK about having me go near one of those damn things ever again! So this is where I went wrong. Please don’t judge me for it! I knew that I should probably stop and deal with the issue. But I didn’t. I was hot, tired, and just wanted to get back to the pens. So I started walking down to the pens with my clipper box and aerosol can under one arm, and 22 foot line and stick in the other. My horse was willing until we got to the part of the path that we hadn’t been on. Major spooking occurred, and she spiraled down to a RBE mess pretty quickly. I certainly didn’t help her avoid it, and I’m sorry for that. We eventually made it back to the pens and I got her brain back (with some supreme effort…). She enjoyed her bath, and then we went for a stroll back up to the trailers with Julia and Buzz. Things went better the second time. We ended the day on a good note.
That’s about all for now. This is an exhausting and exhilarating experience. We come home bone tired every day, but it is good to be in such a provocative zone. Every day will bring more challenges and experiences that will keep filling up my savvy cup.
Savvy on,
Molly and Josie
Monday, February 16, 2009
Prepare to be enchanted...
Mia and Kristen in the round pen
Kari and Vegas in the Enchanted Forest
Josie surveying the hill playground
The Enchanted Forest
Beautiful Day in Paradise
We had a great day here today, in all ways! The weather was beautiful, my horse was back to being my horse, we learned and played with a lot of great things. I promise to post pictures as soon as I can--my cord is not with me at the moment...
So brief update from the cliffhanger post from this morning...Yesterday's session was a total flunk on my part. The only good thing is that I wasn't horribly frustrated, I was just ineffective and unaware of where I was going wrong. Of course, reflection after the fact made things a whole lot clearer! Isn't that how it always works. We were supposed to play "be my shadow" yesterday, with the idea that your horse has 51% of the leadership, and you have 49%. You take over if you need to, but the idea is to shadow your horse and see the world through their eyes. You let them go where they want and observe their thresholds, etc. Josie started off pretty good, wanting to go places. She particularly wanted to follow Vegas and Kari. Where we got into trouble is that she was following them but blowing through many thresholds in the process. Remember this is a whole new world to her here! I eventually realized what was happening. This is where I dropped the ball. I should have taken some leadership back and dealt with the right brained horse that showed up. I could have given her something to do, retreated, etc. But I didn't and things just spiraled downward until neither she nor I were in a good state. How interesting. On top of it, it was raining pretty hard at this point. So I eventually put her back in her pen, fed her dinner, and we went back to our house.
Kari and I reflected on our experience later that night and realized where we had gone wrong and what we could have done differently. It was really the best way to have started the clinic, since we learned more things by having things self-destruct. A hard lesson, but an important one!
So that's enough on yesterday (Sunday). Today was the first official day of the course. I thankfully arrived to a horse that was ready to talk to me again. It helps that I am her sole purveyor of food and water!
We had great classroom sessions this morning, then a demo on prepping for liberty. This afternoon I chose to go to the falling leaf focus session. We have done a lot of falling leaf, but there is always more to learn. I learned that becoming more particular about the small things will allow us to advance pretty much everything. Isolate, separate, recombine. I became much more particular about her disengagements, with great results. Then we just explored the playground. This is such a fascinating and magical place. They pictures won't even begin to do it justice, but I will hopefully post some either tonight or tomorrow!
Savvy on!
Molly and Josie
So brief update from the cliffhanger post from this morning...Yesterday's session was a total flunk on my part. The only good thing is that I wasn't horribly frustrated, I was just ineffective and unaware of where I was going wrong. Of course, reflection after the fact made things a whole lot clearer! Isn't that how it always works. We were supposed to play "be my shadow" yesterday, with the idea that your horse has 51% of the leadership, and you have 49%. You take over if you need to, but the idea is to shadow your horse and see the world through their eyes. You let them go where they want and observe their thresholds, etc. Josie started off pretty good, wanting to go places. She particularly wanted to follow Vegas and Kari. Where we got into trouble is that she was following them but blowing through many thresholds in the process. Remember this is a whole new world to her here! I eventually realized what was happening. This is where I dropped the ball. I should have taken some leadership back and dealt with the right brained horse that showed up. I could have given her something to do, retreated, etc. But I didn't and things just spiraled downward until neither she nor I were in a good state. How interesting. On top of it, it was raining pretty hard at this point. So I eventually put her back in her pen, fed her dinner, and we went back to our house.
Kari and I reflected on our experience later that night and realized where we had gone wrong and what we could have done differently. It was really the best way to have started the clinic, since we learned more things by having things self-destruct. A hard lesson, but an important one!
So that's enough on yesterday (Sunday). Today was the first official day of the course. I thankfully arrived to a horse that was ready to talk to me again. It helps that I am her sole purveyor of food and water!
We had great classroom sessions this morning, then a demo on prepping for liberty. This afternoon I chose to go to the falling leaf focus session. We have done a lot of falling leaf, but there is always more to learn. I learned that becoming more particular about the small things will allow us to advance pretty much everything. Isolate, separate, recombine. I became much more particular about her disengagements, with great results. Then we just explored the playground. This is such a fascinating and magical place. They pictures won't even begin to do it justice, but I will hopefully post some either tonight or tomorrow!
Savvy on!
Molly and Josie
Day One (posted on Day Two!)
I'll try to speed you up on the past few days. Kari has been better about blogging so far about the journey down: We've decided that it is easiest to compose at night, and then paste our entries into the blogs when we have access to internet.
Here is the first real entry since our arrival! We had a good journey down from Wisconsin. It was more arduous than I imagined it might be, but we had a relatively uneventful trip overall. We made it down to Murfreesborough the first night. We stayed at a really awful Ho-Jo. You definitely get what you pay for… The horses stayed in relative comfort at a farm out in the country. They had HUGE stalls (12x24 ft). We took a little time in the morning to get them outside before we loaded up. Loading took relatively little time compared to the first morning (Buzz didn’t want to load the first morning, so our best laid plans to leave by 5 am turned into 7:30 instead…) The trip through the mountains was pretty smooth, though we hit some very scary fog on the way down through the mountain pass. I’ll post some pictures of our road trip in a separate post.
We reached Florida late Saturday night. We slid through the Florida Ag Station without event. They scanned our paperwork and driver’s licenses, but did not actually come out and look at the horses. We could have had pigs in our trailer for all they knew! We had a little trouble finding our place of residence in the dark. The GPS brought us right to it, but the mailbox numbers were a little confusing. We ended up going down a long driveway that served multiple residences, none of which were ours. By the time we realized our mistake, we were ¼ mile down the driveway with few places to turn two massive trucks and trailers around. We eventually managed, and got turned around to find our actual rental house.
Our house is AWESOME. It is a three bedroom, two bath home on about 10 acres. The horses were able to stay with us overnight on Saturday, which was nice. Sunday morning we got loaded up and headed over to the Parelli Center by about 10:30. It was pretty cool to pull into the driveway and see Remmer and Allure in the front pasture. They are horse celebrities to us! Then around the next bend, we saw Casper and Zeus (the Friesian). Too cool!
We got checked in and got our horses settled in their pens. Josie and Vegas were not in adjacent pens. “Gasp!”—their reaction, not ours: ) They pretty much thought that they were going to die, and spent the rest of the day trying to convince us to kill them. They just about succeeded : )—more on that later!
BTW, I will post pictures later!
We had orientation at one o’clock. John and Cathy Barr (two of the instructors) told us about course logistics, etc. We then had a demo on “Me and My Shadow”. The whole idea is to be your horse’s shadow and mosey around with them wherever they want to go. It is a powerful exercise because you allow your horse to have some leadership. By mirroring them you become more aware of their thresholds, reactions to things, etc. Once the demo was done, we were free to go play with our horses and become their shadows. It was about 3 o’clock at that point, and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast time, so we ran into town to grab something to eat, and then went back to the center to shadow our horses. By this time, there was a fine mist coming down, so we trundled off to our pens to gather our horses. Let me tell you, Josie didn’t even want to acknowledge my presence. MY horse, that always comes to the gate with pricked ears, didn’t want to even flick me an ear. She was standing in the corner going “la la la la la la la” looking at everything BUT me. How interesting. She did eventually come check me out and we haltered up. Per the instructions, I had left the gate to her pen open, and we didn’t leave until she wanted to. It pretty much went downhill from there. I'll have to post more later. Sorry to leave you hanging, but I've got to go clean my horse's pen!
Here is the first real entry since our arrival! We had a good journey down from Wisconsin. It was more arduous than I imagined it might be, but we had a relatively uneventful trip overall. We made it down to Murfreesborough the first night. We stayed at a really awful Ho-Jo. You definitely get what you pay for… The horses stayed in relative comfort at a farm out in the country. They had HUGE stalls (12x24 ft). We took a little time in the morning to get them outside before we loaded up. Loading took relatively little time compared to the first morning (Buzz didn’t want to load the first morning, so our best laid plans to leave by 5 am turned into 7:30 instead…) The trip through the mountains was pretty smooth, though we hit some very scary fog on the way down through the mountain pass. I’ll post some pictures of our road trip in a separate post.
We reached Florida late Saturday night. We slid through the Florida Ag Station without event. They scanned our paperwork and driver’s licenses, but did not actually come out and look at the horses. We could have had pigs in our trailer for all they knew! We had a little trouble finding our place of residence in the dark. The GPS brought us right to it, but the mailbox numbers were a little confusing. We ended up going down a long driveway that served multiple residences, none of which were ours. By the time we realized our mistake, we were ¼ mile down the driveway with few places to turn two massive trucks and trailers around. We eventually managed, and got turned around to find our actual rental house.
Our house is AWESOME. It is a three bedroom, two bath home on about 10 acres. The horses were able to stay with us overnight on Saturday, which was nice. Sunday morning we got loaded up and headed over to the Parelli Center by about 10:30. It was pretty cool to pull into the driveway and see Remmer and Allure in the front pasture. They are horse celebrities to us! Then around the next bend, we saw Casper and Zeus (the Friesian). Too cool!
We got checked in and got our horses settled in their pens. Josie and Vegas were not in adjacent pens. “Gasp!”—their reaction, not ours: ) They pretty much thought that they were going to die, and spent the rest of the day trying to convince us to kill them. They just about succeeded : )—more on that later!
BTW, I will post pictures later!
We had orientation at one o’clock. John and Cathy Barr (two of the instructors) told us about course logistics, etc. We then had a demo on “Me and My Shadow”. The whole idea is to be your horse’s shadow and mosey around with them wherever they want to go. It is a powerful exercise because you allow your horse to have some leadership. By mirroring them you become more aware of their thresholds, reactions to things, etc. Once the demo was done, we were free to go play with our horses and become their shadows. It was about 3 o’clock at that point, and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast time, so we ran into town to grab something to eat, and then went back to the center to shadow our horses. By this time, there was a fine mist coming down, so we trundled off to our pens to gather our horses. Let me tell you, Josie didn’t even want to acknowledge my presence. MY horse, that always comes to the gate with pricked ears, didn’t want to even flick me an ear. She was standing in the corner going “la la la la la la la” looking at everything BUT me. How interesting. She did eventually come check me out and we haltered up. Per the instructions, I had left the gate to her pen open, and we didn’t leave until she wanted to. It pretty much went downhill from there. I'll have to post more later. Sorry to leave you hanging, but I've got to go clean my horse's pen!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
We arrived!
Well, we made it to Florida last night! We didn't have wi-fi until we got checked into the Parelli Center. This will be a short post, because we have our orientation in a few minutes. I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WE ARE FINALLY HERE! I'll post more on our journery later when I have time to upload our pictures and write some more. If you want Kari's account of our trip down, then check out her blog! (Go to blogs I follow, and find her icon--Kari)
More later peeps--
More later peeps--
Friday, February 13, 2009
Murfreesborough, Tennessee
Well, we made it to Tennessee today. It was a really long day on the road, but we had good weather and good roads. Traffic coming through Nashville was pretty snarly, but other than that the trip was pretty uneventful. We are pretty pooped, so that's all I'll write for now. We plan to push through to Ocala tomorrow. Our horses are staying at Lotsa Spots farm about 10 miles from our hotel. Their stalls are nicer than our hotel room. They are very spacious (12x20!), so at least the ponies can stretch their legs a little tonight. Here are some pics from yesterday and today:
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