Light Bulb

At Equine Affaire on Thursday I had a few major "ah ha!" moments. They went something like this:

(One of my favorite movies!)

They came to me in Linda's first demonstration on horsenalities. Of course I focused on the LBI, Christine's mare, Z. I have always felt like I understand LBIs because I can be one, too. But after Thursday, I feel like I have a whole new outlook towards them.

One of Linda's ways to show the different horsenalitlies was through the circling game. When she got to the LBI, I knew she would slow her down in order to have to speed up. She did, in fact, do that, but she did a few other things that really caught me off guard. She started with the yo-yo game. Z was looking pretty out of it, so when Linda asked her to back she didn't respond (a real shocker). So after going through her phases, Linda popped her on the nose with the end of the 12 foot line. That woke her up and got her attention! I was fairly familiar with the act, tagging an LBI isn't uncommon. I have heard Linda say many times to tag an LBI around the flank. Even though it was great to see it in person, the way she did it was what made me have my "light bulb" moment.

When I play with Sonny, I always try to match his energy. Being an LBI, I go really slow. But that's not all there is to it! Linda explained that not only do you have to match them physically, you need to match a horse mentally as well. "Light Bulb!" Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! It made so much sense to me I wanted to run down to the area and give her a hug right then. When you mirror a horse, you aren't only mirroring the outside of them, you have to mirror the inside. Although Sonny is really slow on the outside, his brain is constantly moving full speed. When I go play with him, I go so slow mentally that I am just boring him to death! As Linda put it, I need to be physically slow, but mentally intense.

You can see how mentally intense she is! 

I was so excited I had to go play with him right away. I made it out Friday night and it went so well! When ever I used my phases, I tried to imitate how Linda projected her energy. She moved so slow, but had this smirky/half-evil/I'm-gonna-getcha look on her face. You could tell, even from the stands, how she projected her energy to make her phases a game.

One of her milder faces ;).

Sonny caught on immediately. I just did simple things like moving his forehand, but I played around with my energy and my intensity. I started off with my old and boring/mindless way, then increased my intensity without increasing my speed. It is more difficult than it sounds, but man did it work!

I wanted to keep things short and sweet. Another thing I took away from her demonstrations is that I need to be more aware of what makes him happy. Being in an arena is not one of those things. So I just played the basic games and tested them with my intensity. After only a few minutes he perked up, become responsive and interested! After moving his forehand around with almost only my intensity, he licked and chewed like made then let out at least 5 or 6 yawns. I took that as a "Oh thank god you finally understand me!" and ended on that :). 

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Linda for opening up my eyes!