Putting Principles to Purpose- Online

I know it's been a while, but such is the life of a college student about to enter finals. I wanted to post a quick update about what we've been working on lately, though. I've been really excited to get moving on our level 2 freestyle especially since I have been watching a ton of videos about it for inspiration. However, Rydel has been having issues with the mounting block and being relaxed as I get on and off and I decided that I have been ignoring it long enough.

Pat talks about putting principles to purpose and giving your horse a task or reason to be playing the games. At a smaller level, the games are used to center and relax your horse and build her confidence. There comes a point though, when you need to start getting more creative- and I believe this is the point many people start to see breakthroughs. Pat uses the example of working with horses from on top of his mare, Magic. At that point she understood that she had to work with Pat as a partner in order to teach the horse on the ground. It was no longer just playing the driving or the circling game, the games had a purpose!

With that in mind, I began revising the dreaded sideways toward the fence (or in my case, the mounting block) using our sideways game as a tool to move toward the block and position herself for mounting. I used my phases and as soon as she stepped toward the block I quit, if she tried to step away, I would make the wrong thing difficult. It took about five minutes for her to really start understanding what I wanted. When she stood still by the block I rewarded her for a long period of time, quit, and moved on to something else. After the next couple of days it didn't take long before she was quickly moving toward the block and standing there while I rubbed her back and neck and mimicked laying on her back. :)

It's not perfect, but eventually I would like to build up her confidence with just having me lay on her or just sit on her. I think friendly game is the key- If I can build her confidence here I think the rest of our riding issues will fall into place!