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.