Pattern Positivity!

With the way things have been going with work recently, my weekday horse time has been more abbreviated than i would normally prefer. Tonight we had an appointment with the farrier for both Rydel and Lilah and I was determined to maximize my time. Rydel got her pedicure first, and while Lilah was getting her tootsies worked on, I decided to take Rydel into the arena to have some fun.

I hadn't planned on riding, but Rydel was quite calm and connected so I decided to hop on bareback and instantly, I had a plan- we were going to play with responsiveness using the corners game. Now, before you start piling on the praise for my ability to quickly assess the situation and make a plan for how to fix it, I must admit that the idea was not mine. A few months ago I submitted my level 2 freestyle audition (viewable here) and when I received my results (level 2++ pass!), the assessor suggested using the corners game to work up to cantering consistent laps.

Anyhow, with this plan in mind, I intentionally did not tie my rope into reins. With only one rein for emergencies, I was forced to focus on how I was using my body to cue my horse. Once I was able to ride the rail at the walk without having to use many corrections, I introduced the corners game. To reinforce the pattern, we started at the walk and stopped at every corner. Each time, I tried to be very conscious of my energy and body language, and overly exaggerated my stops by exhaling deeply and trying to release all the energy from my body. As I did this, Parelli Professional, Don Jessop's words were ringing in my head...  Your energy should be like a light switch, either on or off, there should be no in-between. Alternatively, when I would ask her to go again, I tried to increase my energy and bring my life up in my body so that Rydel could clearly feel the difference. I kept stopping at every corner for three or four laps until she really understood the pattern, making sure that the corners provided a lot of reward in the form of rest and scratches. Next, rather than changing the pattern up (ie: alternating the corner at which we stop to keep my horse interested an guessing) I decided to keep the pattern consistent for my right brain horse, but alternate the gait instead.

Using the consistency of the pattern for reinforcement- every corner means stop - I asked Rydel to pick up a trot on the short sides of the arena and maintain a walk on the long sides. Pretty soon, she was putting more and more effort into getting to each corner and she was offering to trot on the long sides as well. Hmmm, how interesting! What was even cooler, was that I was able to use her putting effort into staying on the pattern (her responsibility) to focus on my responsibility of keeping my focus and managing my energy to affect her responsiveness. By the end of our session, all I had to do was exhale to get her to stop which was reinforced by the pattern of stopping in the corner, and bring my energy up in my body to get her to go again!

Many lights went off in my head tonight, and I am really seeing the value in patterns. Previously, I had been so preoccupied with perfecting the patterns that I missed their true potential. Now I see that I can use patterns to reinforce something that I am teaching, such as increased responsiveness off my body language and energy alone! I can't wait to start using the patterns to teach and reinforce even more concepts!

Gaining Wait

"This is the only horsemanship program in the world where we ask our students to gain more weight"... Huh? Did 3* Parelli Professional, Don Jessop just tell me I need to gain weight? I mean, I know I'm a little on the skinny side, but...

"Not weight, but wait, w-a-i-t! We don't do this enough with our horses and definitely not in a clinic setting"

...

(Lightbulb!) 

     A few weeks ago, Evan and I took the day off work, packed up the horses, and spent a full eight hours devoted to bettering our horsemanship at liberty. 3* Parelli Professional, Don Jessop was in the area for a canter clinic he was to be teaching that weekend in Harrisburg, and while I had never met Don before, I jumped at the chance to brush up on the one Savvy I knew the least about, Liberty.

     In the morning, Don told us his story and asked us our goals for the day. He informed us that while we would try a lot of new things in this clinic and gain many strategies for bettering our Liberty Savvy and connection with our horses, he also wanted us to perfect one thing at Liberty that we could later show off to the class. I was intrigued by this approach of setting us up for both long and short-term success. We started off with some horseless simulations and then settled in to lunch where we learned more about Don and his teaching style. Don told us that there are no rules, just principles, the 8 Parelli Principles to be exact, and his goal is to help us use these principles to find what is right for us and our horses. 

     When we brought our horses into the arena, Don had us work on the yo-yo game to immediately establish respect in a new area. We needed to assert ourselves as leaders, and Don challenged us to have straight, snappy back-ups without using our ropes. Next, we did something that just about blew my mind. Don asked us to spread out around the arena and focus on finding our horse's itchy spots and really dig deep to find the one thing that they truly love! For about five minutes, the class rubbed and loved on their horses and a calm began to fall over everyone. After ten minutes, Rydel was blowing out and yawning like I have never seen before! (Is is now a big savvy arrow in my quiver and I use it often to get her to become calmer quicker!) And just when I thought, we surly should be moving on to something else now, Don asked us to keep loving on our horses. As Parelli students, we need to learn to gain more wait time with our horses. Time to establish rapport and connection with our horse. To create a reason for them to want to be with us, and to want to try for us. After all, the Seven Games are only fun when both horse and human are engaged and trying, not when they become the seven jobs or the seven makes. 

     After about twenty minutes of doing nothing but loving on our horses and scratching their itchy spots, Don told us that the calm that we just witnessed is the level at which he likes to keep all his clinics and that we can achieve a lot while staying at that level of calm with our horse. As we went through the day, we all noticed there was a clear sequence that Don was trying to help us learn and it goes like this:

1) Establish respect (yo-yo game is an easy way to test this)

2) Establish rapport (this is a friendly game most people forget about. It can also be used as a reward or release for staying connected or coming back "home" at Liberty)

3) Grow your horse's confidence (find something your horse does not like and play with that- the more commonly used friendly game)

4) (I honestly cant remember the exact word here but I think it was Impulsion or Refinement- someone help me out!)

After going through this sequence, we were all set up for success with a calm, connected, and responsive horse! All in all, it was pretty amazing as we practiced being Online as if we were at Liberty and then practiced being at Liberty as if we were Online. By the end of the day, all eight horses were at Liberty and with their human. It was humbling and beautiful! 

A partial panorama from the clinic

Here are a few other tips we learned: 

• Repeat something until your horse "GETS IT" and know what this looks like. 
• The speed at which you do your corrections matters.
• When a horse leaves you, his mind leaves first. Look for when the mind leaves and correct that, before the feet ever have a chance to leave. (Speed here matters, and we played a game called "come home" where we would watch for their eyes to disconnect and then ask them to come home by bringing them into the other eye- the one that left first. I can try to post a video for anyone interested). 
• Practice being at Liberty by putting the halter around your horses neck rather than his or her head. 
• Be aware of your energy, it should either be on or off. 
• When playing the circling game, you must know exactly how many circles you want from the beginning, or else it is a game your horse cannot win. 
• If the horse leaves you, repeat the exercise that caused him to leave, use a halter if you must, if a horse leaves three times you are training him to do it.