Focus.

As I sit on my bed staring across the room at my bookshelf full of Parelli educational materials and a photo of Rydel, I cannot help but feel happy. That little horse inside the picture frame has taught me more than I could ever ask for, and I owe a lot to her.

Today we had another lesson with Juli which I have been looking forward to all week because I swear Juli is the key to major breakthroughs! :) Seriously though, in our lessons our highs are major highs and Rydel always ends up doing something totally uncharacteristic to her nature (in a good way). And I've learned to come to our lessons without an agenda, Rydel does a pretty good job of coming up with one for me! Today, the name of the game was "focus". I needed to get Rydel to focus on me and whatever task I had given her. We worked with the stick to me game/zone 3 driving- Rydel's job was to move with me, keeping me in zone 3 no matter what. We worked on forequarter yields, emphasizing me not moving out of my intended path (ie: not moving my feet when she moved the wrong way). Instead, when she would try to move forward I would gently ask her to take an equal amount of steps back and redirect her nose until she made the turn one foot at a time. The same went for stopping and backing up. If she moved forward, I stayed put and asked her back. If she went crooked on the back up, I would bring the opposite end that moved away from me back until she was straight again. After a while, Rydel was focused on what I wanted and was asking a lot of questions! She even let out the most animated combination of yawning and licking I have ever seen! It was awesome to watch!!! This was a great exercise for us because it keeps in mind that both the horse and human have responsibilities. Next we moved on to saddling, something we have been struggling with lately due to Rydel's psychological issues associated with her arthritis pain. The pain is gone now but the emotions about it are not. Slowly we got tacked up and Juli and Emily reassured me that it is definitely improving- which I am beyond happy about! Instead of mounting up to ride, which would have been overkill for Rydel, we worked on our sideways game. At this point they started feeding the other horses, so when Rydel got emotional about it, we went back to the idea of "focus me." and gave her the task of going sideways all around the sides of the arena...on her bad side! It was great! within a few minutes I had a much more centered horse.

(Sideways all around the arena)

(After playing "tit for tat")

At the end, while we were all reflecting on our lessons and journeys with our horses, Rydel started pawing the ground and decided then would be a good time to roll- In my saddle, with me attached to the other end of the 22 foot rope! I was shocked at first, barely believing that she even felt comfortable enough in the saddle to roll in it! (Believe me, it's a big deal- we have struggled with saddling and getting over the emotional issues surrounding it these last few months). Juli quickly urged me to ask her to get up so she wouldn't ruin my saddle, and as she got up we laughed about it. The really amazing thing is my little Right Brained Introvert horse would have never felt comfortable enough to roll with me attached to her rope before. She really is changing right before my eyes as she gains confidence and our bond gets stronger!

Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of exactly how far we have come. I'm so thankful that this program deals with putting the relationship first. It is a humbling experience once you have a horse that really does want to be with you and wants to exceed your expectations because it makes them happy to please you! Yay! What a great day! :D

"Look into the depths of another's soul and listen,

not only with our ears,

but with our hearts and imagination,

and our silent love."

- Joyce Kanelakos