Level 1 With Excellence

I have often heard people say level 4 is just level 1 with excellence. So every time I play with Sonny I try to run a checklist through my head of the seven games and what type of quality they are. Less is more with Sonny, so I have been trying to focus on one idea per play session to really improve our overall horsemanship. Rather than focusing on everything at once, picking a piece to focus on makes a really great picture when you put it all back together. Isolate, separate, and recombine!

I could tell he was very, very sleepy so I wanted to make it short, sweet, and successful. I took his halter off and used my bareback pad for the first time in a while (I forgot how much I adore it!). I had two poles on the ground laying in a straight line with a gap between them. I made the gap my 'question box' and we did figure 8's around them. Here is how it went:

Emily Rodgers with Sonny, (Freestyle, 45 mins) Rode Sonny bridlelessand bareback today for the first time in a long while. He was so sleepy, but absolutely wonderful! I focused on "phases within phases", influencing him to respond to the "heat" of my leg, rather than actual pressure from my leg. My aim was to get him to focus on my focus, so to have him respond to phase one for direction. He did awesome! Before I knew it we were trotting figure 8s without having to use almost any leg at all. Definitely made me happy. The best part: he was flexed perfectly! For some reason flexion has been a difficult thing for us, but today he was flexed perfectly on the figure 8! Best he has ever done. He is such a superstar!

Fri 12 Oct 2012 at 08:52PM

I was absolutely thrilled with our ride last night. Just last month I posted about our freestyle figure 8s needing work because he just waits for me to use my leg. It blew my mind that last night he was so great about it! But more than anything, I definitely couldn't have been happier with his flexing. Bending around my leg is something he has never offered to do. I am not sure what clicked last night, but it was definitely something because he was flexed perfectly! I would have died to have that with my dressage horses with a bridle, let alone without. How interested! I can't wait to try it again!