Lessons in Liberty

I love liberty and so does Sonny. But lately we have been a little....stuck. Since I moved to the new barn I haven't done much liberty. We didn't have fencing for a while, the outdoor is ginormous, and the indoor usually has someone else in it. I don't want to risk Sonny running away while sometime is trying to ride so I normally stick to online or freestyle.

The past week or so I have been really trying to get back into the swing of things. That is when this happened. He got away from me which isn't a big deal, but he was doing it so much I got frustrated. I put him back online and started over and the next time we played he got away from me again, and again, and again. 

So finally two nights ago I was playing online and thought that maybe I would just take the rope off and see what happened. He was fabulous! We played a little stick to me, sideways, driving, and ran through the games. Circling game at liberty has been our archnemesis. That's usually when things go haywire. So that night I tried to break down the problem. I have been circling him close to the wall (about 10/15ish feet away) so that I could use that to help me keep him on a circle rather making it more difficult on myself and circling him in the middle. Last night I really focused on what he was telling me. When I started the circle, just at the walk he was fine, but when he got to the wall he turned and burned. DUH. Lightbulb. How is my squeeze game? I am not sure why it just occurred to me to check that before my circling game but better late than never. Rather than chasing after him trying to play the catching game, like I usually do, I just stood where I was and waited. He walked right back to me. Huh, how interesting! The game wasn't so fun when I didn't feed into it.

So I moved on to squeeze game. He didn't have the confidence to go through where I was when I asked for the circle. I backed up again and he went right through. I did it a few more times and tightened the gap and his squeezes were beautiful. So then I asked for the circle again. Voila! Perfect walk circle at liberty :). I was so happy I ended there. After a few weeks of trying with no success all it took was for me to listen to what my horse was telling me.

So last night I played at liberty again, just for the fun of it. Which I think is a really important concept for me to grasp. A lot of times I go out to play at liberty with an intention of accomplishing something, or anything. But, he feeds off that mind set and it does that the fun out of it for him. So tonight I just took the halter off and played around. We started with some zone 3 driving which was going so well I played with zone 4 and 5. I know, I know I barely have any experience with Z4&5 driving online, so I shouldn't be doing it at liberty but what the heck. It went so well and I think we both actually really enjoyed it. He followed the rail with me in zone 4 and 5 which I think was interested because we have never played follow the rail online just freestyle.

He was showing great interest in putting effort into things and acting like he was really enjoying it. So I asked for another walk circle and it was perfect! So I asked for a trot circle and it was really great, too! He got a little bigger than I expected, but he a) was so focused on me he didn't care that all of the other horses were getting grain except him b) maintained gait c) maintained direction and d) had a beautiful bend in his body. It was excellent! I am definitely one to quit while I am ahead, but because if my play frame of mind I just started walking to see what would happen. He did a traveling trot circle at liberty to where he was circling me perfectly in the middle of the arena. Wow! That blew my mind! I stopped there and played some more games, but I wanted to end on a really good circling game. I asked for the trot circle again and when he got in front of me he started to come in, but I senesced a direction change in his mind so in order to encourage his own ideas I asked for the direction change. My first one at liberty on a circle in the middle of the arena and it was perfect! The best part was after he changed direction, he maintained a perfect close range trot circle around me. He is so fabulous! He definitely knows how to put a huge smile on my face!

I tried to get a picture, but the indoor arena lights, plus night time, plus close range trot circles do not equal good pictures. You can't even see him in half of them. Maybe I will have someone get a video soon?