Questions for Dan 9/18/10
1. Catch me—draw issue: On the circle Try is no longer turning away from me and when I back up she stops and alternates looking at me and looking straight on the circle and does not come to me. I think the good deal she has found for herself is stopping on the circle.
2. Energy, intention and focus. I have given this a lot of thought. Inner furnace from acting class. Now issue I am considering is teaching this or maybe better said is making this a new pattern for us to replace “my doing more.” So far as I experiment I am finding some success with huge internal energy and a mean face to get a backup and to get a HQ yield. With the yoyo backup I am not getting the idea across when I relax my energy that she should stop. I picked these games to use as ones where she would see/feel me the best and the movement is simple not requiring a complex combination of steps.
3. Girthiness. Too funny. She has really changed as far as nice ears when I pull the girth. BUT now I am getting more pinned ears on the prior steps. What a clever girl!
4. Swinging the saddle: I got the idea of buckle under the arm pit and holding on the diagonal and I am swinging it on her and better swinging it onto the fence that is lower. But next time I would like help to refine this.
5. Lateral flexion and indirect rein: This is improved for lateral flexion and indirect rein to the left. To the right she is still largely leaning on the rein. At first she would change so quickly from leaning to slack to leaning to slack that I was having difficulty applying phases. Recently she has been clearer and taking more time to either lean or have slack making it easier for me. I think as I continue to do this every time she is going to find the good deal is to maintain the slack.
6. Snappy go, stop, back and wait with the reins down: Snappy go and stop is better but I haven’t kept snappy in mind consistently. However, having her relax and not move off after cantering has been great most of the time—even with bowties.
7. 7 step soft feel—I believe I am getting the idea of this. Try seems pretty happy—infrequent reaction and I am varying what we do once I get the feel—walk, back, turn, sidepass.
Other stuff:
• I am borrowing another horse from a friend for the variety and am looking at the possibility of purchasing a second horse in the upcoming year and would like advice on a good match up. Bethanna, my riding instructor, would like us to talk about this as well. We are thinking better conformation for riding, more willing but perhaps lower on the impulsion scale?? I rode a TB at the barn this summer who was probably a 4 on impulsion scale and found getting him going easier for me than the kids who were riding him and that I loved his way of going.
• Try seems to be a 4 on the ground and I would like a 6-7. Riding--Try is a 6-7 which can be an issue when she is pounding on the forehand—as I am putting effort into helping her find a good rhythm (circles/cloverleaf) rather than focusing on improving my riding. I do want to encourage her to express her LBE side and would like advice on this.
• Energy: I would like to be able to truly light a fire under Try on line and liberty—when I videotape us I see a sluggishness that was nice and safe when we were learning L1/2 but I would like to see both of us dancing together now. I don’t know how to get the energy without ticking her off and guess this lack of energy is a dominance/leadership issue between us. I see a better energy at clinics but don’t know but what it is really in her nature to be so slow and laid back and uncomfortable for her to be otherwise.
• Specific issues where Try gets emotional or “up” when relaxation would be nice. i.e.
o Leaving the ring with a rider
o The gate (wanting the session to be over and hold over from trail classes??)
o Jumps—not emotional just over exuberant?? Have reinstated on line and riding walking over small jumps, turn and face and backup variations.
• Game of contact—I like what Linda is teaching about muscularity/alignment for the human. This is similar to what I did with 30+ years of ballet/pilates etc and I would like to incorporate it into my riding in an intentional manner. Obviously it doesn’t work for freestyle. Hunt seat equitation when there is a challenge my body automatically goes into that alignment/muscular mode. It seems for my physical conditioning it would be great to ride with this more of the time. When I take the 7 step soft feel should I add this or remain using the very relaxed freestyle use of myself? FYI: I have signed up to audit Linda’s Game of Contact 3 day course in Ocala in November—as part of trip to visit my Dad in Tampa.
• Lead changes: Try will do them for me but it takes a couple strides before she catches up behind so they are not really “flying”. We rarely do them, I likely need to know more about it, and flying changes are something that can get Try up and unhappily extraverted.
• I have been watching Pat’s mastery lessons and use of “tenshun”, lifting rein as a signal to the horse that coming is coming—how do I do that with bridleless riding—bringing up life in my body is that sufficient? Try does seem to know when I want to canter from the second I think it in my brain?!
• Circling game On Line: pinned ears and leaning on the rope. Pinned ears—my program is to quit when I get the best attitude—note: she pins ears in front of me and relaxes them behind my back. Leaning: I have been giving the rope a tug—she has at least learned that doesn’t mean stop but it isn’t effective, I haven’t seen any sign that she is motivated to not just go right back to leaning in a few strides.
• Learning: I am trying to figure out how to learn more effectively. Any suggestions would be really welcome. Presently I watch dvds and take notes--??2-3 hours per week and go out to the barn and play with concepts—some of it sinks in and some gets forgotten. Clinics: I take really good notes, play with it for several weeks and blog—some of it becomes a part of what we do and some gets forgotten as we move on to the next fun thing. Also this is not like intellectual learning where you are only challenged mentally. This is such a wholistic combination of mental, emotional and physical and thus more complicated to learn—and its two of us doing the learning not just one. This challenge may be why PNH is so exciting to learn but also frustrating not to learn as well as I would like.
No comments:
Post a Comment