Soaring With Eagles (Part 3)

(Click to go back to Part 1 and Part 2)

Part 3: Outside My Comfort Zone

Some "wait" time for my RBI

Now, I know I was just saying how much the Level 3/4 clinic was a major boost to my confidence, and in just a few sentences it may sound like I'm about to retract that statement, but bear with me! The final day of the the clinic we focused on two of my biggest personal challenges, liberty and freestyle in an open, unfenced area.*gulp* Here's the story....

The day started out well enough, we began by troubleshooting issues from the previous day and recapping what we all learned, as we talked we enjoyed sitting outside in the cool(ish) morning breeze and it set the mood for a great day. Next we took our horses into the field on the 45 foot line. I didn't have one of my own so Jesse graciously let me borrow one of his. This was the first time we had ever played on the 45 and I was quite nervous about looking foolish. I certainly did not know how to coil the rope back up as I reeled it in, and found out pretty quickly that our phase 1 and 2 were pretty ineffective starting at about 23 feet! :/ After a quick warm up, Jesse asked everyone to work on flying lead changes either online or at liberty. Well, we had never done them but I figured, "why not!" and began watching Jesse instruct a fellow participant on how to use the fence to aid in the change of direction. Standing so the horse creates an arc or half circle as them move using the fence to block their path, Jesse would tell us to "drive, drive, drive" the horse to the fence, then "draw, draw, draw" them back in at a canter and then ask for the lead change by "drive, drive, drive-ing" them the other way. We were essentially using the figure 8 pattern in a very long range and using the fence to help aid the turn. At first Jesse pointed out that I wasn't bringing my energy up enough to encourage her to canter in to me, I literally had to run backwards and then send her out again. After some laps of counter-cantering, we finally got some really good lead changes in both directions! I was ecstatic and exhausted as the sun had risen overhead to about 95 degrees. After just 3 flying changes we moved on to a new task altogether (short, sweet, and successful!)

Rydel after doing a perfect flying change!

Not surprised to see our "draw" was broken, we have this problem at shorter ranges too. It took a lot of effort to get her to come into me at the right speed.

The next task was liberty, which required starting in individual round pens with the idea of slowly moving into bigger and bigger spaces. Let me preface this by saying, yes, we have done some liberty practice before, but I dont normally demand much during our sessions and definitely do not try to work through RB behavior without putting on my safety net (rope). Of course, being in a new setting with many other horses was not conducive for helping her stay focused on me while at liberty. Again, our hide your hinny was broken and we played with this as the key to perfecting our stick to me game. Whenever she would break free from me, it was hide your hinny until you connect with me with both eyes, and game over. That's the game- can you stay connected? For almost two hours we played with this in various capacities.

Stick To Me.

The most challenging was when we had to put all our horses together in the same open space, surrounded by a big fence (the largest part of the honeycomb), the idea was to have your horse stay with you and protect "your" space by making it very uncomfortable for a horse who has broken free from its human to do anything but go back to its proper human. Well, this was definitely a fun game for the left brain horses, but for the right brain ones, as soon as a little pressure was put on them, they couldn't think at all to try to get back to their humans. Not only was this a challenge for my horse, but it was challenging for me to stay calm and focus on keeping my horse connected to me while worrying about fending off other horses and not brining my energy up in a way that my horse felt it was being directed at her! Ack! Eventually I was able to keep her relaxed enough to stick with me but we were never able to achieve some of the higher level tasks such as having your horse maintain a circle around you. By the end, I was hot and miserable and feeling slightly defeated. 

Partial view of the Honeycomb.

The final task was freestyle in a wooded area without a fence. This was definitely outside my comfort zone and I was not feeing good about it. I knew it would be difficult to keep myself and my horse focused on a pattern with no rail to follow and no straight lines to use. I tried doing the figure 8 around some trees but it was difficult to maintain consistency and things fell apart at higher gaits. Next, Jesse had everyone work on steady rein and practicing stretching into the bit, something I couldnt do because I wasn't in a bridle, just a natural hackamore. As the session went on I rode around aimlessly feeling really depressed. Jesse seemed to ignore this though, I believe now he was waiting for me to find the courage to ask questions, something I'm not very good at. Finally he started giving us more directive tasks, sideways from point to point, back around a tree (which we were actually REALLY good at!) These simple tasks helped me regain confidence and after the backing I was feeling a lot better. Finally, Jesse had us pair up and do a trail ride through the woods two at a time. Rydel and I were paired with Sjoujke Janssen and her arab, Dyna. The arabs loved running through the wooded trail! Rydel was really excited and extroverted and was putting a lot of effort into going forward. She even jumped some logs and cantered willingly! I it was a lot of fun and she stayed pretty LB all things considered. On that good note we did a few more things and then ended our ride and consequently our clinic.

Really happy with her flexion here!

Trying hard!

How interesting, I weight my right stirrup more than my left.

We wrapped up with some final words sharing what we all learned. For me, it was a total mix of emotions. Happy because of all we had accomplished and grateful for the glimpse of our potential. A little frustrated at how good everyone was compared to us, but determined at the same time to go home and get to work. And finally, empowered thanks to having the tools and savvy necessary to make our dreams happen! :D 

Two hearts, one soul <3