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!