Phone call 9/23/2011

Phone call to clear up confusion about intensity: how long, frequency, etc. based on experiences of the last few days.

Monday after Friday’s session with Dan: Lovely turn on haunches from Z5 and push the ball to me. Extreme friendly to wake her up. Did not know how to play with her like Dan did. Circling on the rail/dominance game ok but didn’t see anything exciting in the way of a change in Try. Shaping Try’s body at a trot and canter and bowtie were great.

Wednesday: Emotional day for me and not good. Try immediately walked away from me so game on circling/dominace. Went for a long time with Try stopping in the corners and I had needed to enlarge my circle but didn’t think about it to later. Sideways over caveletti poles with intensity—really cleaned up the sideways and Try was taking responsibility for doing it bridleless BUT was that just obedience rather than partnership?

Thursday: Flies were horrible. She trotted to me to get out of the pasture. Riding did not go well either for the same reason. We did get one sideways each way—which Try clearly did to get it over with. Then got 4 laps of no stirrups out of the way and quit. Back in the barn, Try offered to walk down the hall without me and get into the wash stall and position herself for a shower.

Discussion with Dan:

1.      Balance between gaining respect, building Try’s ability to ask questions versus harming her confidence.

2.      The object isn’t obedience so much as getting Try to say it’s a good idea to be a partner and assume responsibility
3.      Dominant horse would bit kick ignore—range
4.      Try getting sidepass over with—knew what to do and got a release and got away from the flies.
5.      Try giving less each day after getting it: don’t get stuck in a rut. Don’t play with the same level of energy all the time within a session or day to day. Play hard for 15 minutes then something else.
6.      Important is for me to ask myself WHY am I doing it in that moment. Is it to change an attitude or build an attitude of questioning etc. Try wants toknow the PURPOSE for the intensity
7.      If I get LBE energy don’t ignore it—use it i.e. cutting, canter, lead changes
8.      Don’t overuse the LBE energy or she will be discouraged from offering it again.
9.      She will get to like the intensity if its not overdone or pointless.
10.   Goal like ballet class: don’t want the session to be over.
11.   Riding and safety: listen to my voice and ask the question—is this a safety issue or an unrealistic fear? The match the energy so Try can work thru it.
12.   Challenge myself to expand my comfort zone. Good place to start is in the field or the trail start with jog or easy trot.

Intensity is our Friend

2011 9 notes Intensity is our friend.

Try is afraid of intensity and it makes her emotional from a RBI lack of confidence to full scale RBE. If I stop and calm her down when she is emotional I am rewarding it and increasing the chances of reoccurrence rather than decreasing it. My task will be to help Try see that intensity on my part isn’t so bad and help her to be less and less emotional about it.

Round pen

1.      First we did circling from me in zone 5, turn on the haunches—asking for front end to spin without me moving my feet until she gives me her other eye then draw zone1. The latter part Dan said she learned the fastest of any horse he has seen.

2.      Then I played at liberty stick to me a bit including going to the ball and Try pushed it a little and then pushed it to me a bit. It may be ok to occasionally give a treat for this. When I asked Dan said Try did it because I asked to please me but she thought it was stupid and pointless.

3.      Dan suggested I needed to wake Try up a bit so I played really hard myself upping energy and phases and moving a lot and Try gave me maybe 35% instead of 10% energy.

4.      So Dan played with Try a bit to give me images to understand. It took a couple minutes for Dan to get Try with him. He did it with internal energy and intention, a few flicks of the stick when necessary BUT never moved his feet much and when he did he did so slowly.

5.      Then Dan had me send Try out to the rail to circle. Try took it as a dominance game right off! The test for me: intensity, move less, win the game—not allow her to change direction but not rush to do so. By the 3^rd or 4^th time I could stand in the center to change her back to the desired direction and each time she would finally decide to stop and I would draw her with big intensity on my part instead of taking the pressure off with relaxing. The 4^th time she stopped dead on the circle and came right to me—deciding to yield to my leadership was not such a bad deal. Note: don’t pet her immediately after dominance game. Wimpy.

6.      So Dan says horses are looking for good leaders. Try as extreme in dominance not so much but if I can figure this out she will come around. A benefit of this will also be an increase in impulsion.

Saddle shimming and cradle bridle. Hmm. Ride in the western saddle for canter/work on intensity and emotion to allow space for my thoughts. Cradle bridle ok for one hand riding. Try doesn’t mind it and it gives her more tongue release. Casual rein for freestyle.

In the ring

1.      Trot and shape Try’s body on the circle using dip shoulder and eyes phase 1, inside leg phase 2, taptaptap with stick at the leg phase 3. This can be a way to keep Try straight in point to point to use in conjunction with pushing with the other leg to avoid overusing and nagging with that cue.

2.      Then take circle into a canter, shaping on the circle

3.      Circle large and then small staying on the same lead

4.      Circle and go off on a straight away (not stopping if she gets emotional) then shape the other side for a lead change.

5.      Also use with bowtie and cloverleaf

6.      Flying change: Pat uses move the hind end, Linda front end shaping—Dan says both can work and experiement.

7.      Try needs me to have her be emotional and keep going and work through it so she can learn to relax with the intensity.

8.      Dan compared Try to Casper in terms of difficulty from dominance stand point not looking for leader. Try also has the added component studied today of getting emotional when the intensity increases.