Just What We Needed

Juli Piovesan came out yesterday for the first time since she got back from Colorado! I am sure she had an awesome time, but I definitely missed her a lot! So did Sonny ;).

I knew I wanted an online lesson because, for one, I wanted to play with zone 5 driving and for two, Sonny and I have hated it lately. We were stuck and neither of us ever wanted to play online. I knew that meant something was wrong so I asked for help.

We started out in our slow warm up, playing the touch it game to try to cause him to ask questions. He was touching everything I wanted, even with the leg I was aiming for. Then he touched the jump standards with zone 5 without any problem at all. I was pretty impressed; he is usually so scared to touch things with zone 5.

Zone 5 touching the jump standards! 

From there we moved onto figure 8s. Not to focus on the pattern but to see what it would take for him to ask me a question. He would perk up an ear as he came around the outside of the barrels but then go right back to his LBI face. We experimented with a few ideas, but none of them really  influenced him to connect with me and ask me a question. We tried keeping his feet moving until he perked up an ear. It was a long, slow process of backwards, sideways, forwards, and again, and again, and again, without even a hint of a question! Then, he wasn't being responsive sideways so I made it snappy and tagged him and he gave me two ears and a big question :). So it seems like snappy might be the key to unlocking the questions and happy faces.

Such a happy face ;).

From there we went to play with zone 5 driving. We did a LOT of really awesome preparations. After watching the levels, I was left really confused and unconfident about Z5D. Juli isolated and separated the whole process so we could recombine smoothly into Z5D. I felt really left out in the dark after the levels and Juli really, really, really made sense of everything.

Better expression!

Sonny was an absolute superstar. He was even cantering beautiful circles around me in zone 3 with my featherlines on. He would even trot off with just my leading hand :). He was being so responsive I couldn't believe it! Even his expression improved! :) So we didn't actually get to Z5D but she put about a million arrows in my quiver and gave Sonny and I something really fun to play with! :)

Somewhere along the line in our lesson we were discussing playing online. She told me that we play online to 1. teach the human something new 2. teach the horse something new 3. for preparation (like trailer or farrier). Okay, I have herd those a bunch before and it makes sense. Then she made it clear that those are the only reasons we play on line. I have been playing online just to practice, but unless you are trying to develop a skill or prep for something, you shouldn't just be playing online. Lightbulb! That is why we hate it! It completely blew my mind and made sense of everything that has been happening lately. I think that was a huge breakthrough for me and I think it will really change a lot in our relationship!

Finally, Juli helped me with feeding. As you all know, now that Sonny is at the barn I manage I get the pleasure of feeding him almost every day. When I first started he was pushy and such a challange. All summer I have played the driving game to get him to back up and wait for me to dump his grain, then wait for him to ask if he can eat before I allow him to. He does okay with it but he is always a nervous wreck and super anxious. So I asked Juli if she could help me have him relax at feeding time. She asked me to put his halter on, dump his grain, and back him a consistent amount of steps. Then, once the butterflies settle and he asks a question, I can guide him to his feed bucket. So I did just that. Backing him wasn't too back but it took him a little while to let the butterflies settle (I love that analogy!). Once he seemed relaxed I guided him to the bucket, but he came to me instead :). That was a super, huge warm and fuzzy moment for me! He knew the grain was in the bucket and he came to me instead :). He came to me with this super sweet, soft face and it melted my heart. Definitely the perfect way to end our lesson!

Needless to say, I am so thrilled and excited to continue to play with the ideas that Juli gave me! I am so happy that she is back and so lucky to have her around :)

Snappy

Today was lesson six with Parelli Professional Juli Piovesan. She is leaving soon for the externship, so I am really glad we got to squeeze in one last lesson before she goes. I bet she will have a wonderful time, but we sure will miss her!

We started out on the 45' today; my first time playing with it in front of someone. She said we were off to a good start, but pointed out a few areas that would be good to work on. One was bringing him in to me; we have been trying to focus on it lately but he is still having trouble following the feel. She noted that I am not able to run up to him in any zone to play the friend'y game; in order to have him be more confident trotting towards me, I should practice the running friendly game. Makes sense!

Another point she brought up is that if I can't get responsiveness on a 12' line or 22', then it won't come on the 45'. Duh. Just like how we test everything online before we ride, I should test responsiveness at a shorter distance before trying it on the 45'. Lightbulb! We played with the 'snappy game' that she showed me a few lessons ago. Although this time it wasn't so much about the back as it was about the response. Again, I need to make things a game! Although Sonny was backing from phase 1, he wasn't putting very much effort in at all. So I did a really subtle phase 1, 2, 3, don't make me move my feet, phase 4! After a few of those, he stood at attention and gave me a really great face. Huh, how interesting!

Along with that, she encouraged me to start playing more with his faces. Again with backing, back him up until he asks a question or has a better face, then reward. I need to make backing seem like something other than a punishment, which I feel like might be how he interperates it.

Finally we played with some sideways. After the snappy game, he was really focused on me. We went sideways his bad direction and it was beautiful! He went so far and barely went forward. Definitely out best sideways that way. So exciting!

After that I got on and we played with all of the same concepts. Being snappy and responsive. He was totally focused on eating, zero attention on me as we followed the rail. We transitioned to sideways game along the rail. Juli wanted me to focus on seeing how he responded to each of my phases. In the beginning he was just "nom nom nom" grass!! After a few minutes, we had him thinking sideways after I only shifted my weight, and he stopped eating. Huh, how interesting!

From there we played with a figure 8 to help improve his transitions. It really helped me figure out our strengths and our weaknesses. Perfect timing to be able to address those weaknesses before our clinic this weekend!

Now I am itching to go ride and play with all the things we covered today!

Arrows in My Quiver

We had a great lesson with Parelli Professional Laura Beaver yesterday! Laura is on her way to become a 2* instructor and I feel very lucky to be a part of her journey!

As we warmed up, she made a really good comment to not use horsenalities as an excuse. When thinking about canter circles and such, I don't play the "He is an LBI, he can't do it" card, but I did find myself using that as an excuse to go slow. I know its okay to warm up slow and match his energy, but she made me realize that if he knows something and has had enough time to wake up, there isn't any reason why he can't do it as a normal pace. Our sideways game has always been inch by inch; responsive, but very slow. He has been doing the sideways game for over 2 years now, time to step it up a notch!

Slow going. I love that we are resting the same leg! 

Once I got on, she really brought 'focus' to my attention. From my previous dressage lessons, I am pretty good with the concept, but Laura did help me clarify a lot of things! We played with circling around a cone. WAY harder than it sounds! I kept losing my focus and either looking down at him when I used my carrot stick or looking sideways at the wall if he fell to the inside. Rather than change my focus to the wall, I need to keep my focus on the circle while asking him to move back to the correct track. Interesting!!

Blurry, but a great picture of our focus on the circle!

I know this probably sounds silly since I am LBE/LBI, but freestyle lessons are always such big confidence boosters for me. Freestyle is definitely my most challenging savvy and sometimes I am too intimidated to get out there and try things for fear of failure (which relates back to this post). Every freestyle lesson I have had (4 now) puts more and more arrows in my quiver and the more comfortable I am starting to feel with it. With summer just around the corner, I hope to continue to add to my quiver and thank everyone (especially Juli and Laura) for helping me get all those arrows!

Thanks, Laura!

Thanks to Evan for taking the pictures :).

Lesson with Juli

We had our fifth lesson with Juli yesterday. As always, it was a huge success! All I really wanted to focus on was the bit and improving our freestyle. 

We made some good progress with the bit! I actually put the headstall on him. He chewed and chewed and chewed but there wasn’t any freak out! And I was able to take it off once he left it alone. I can’t wait to play with some bit isolation stuff. My only concern is which bit to use. I wish it was possible to let him sample a ton and pick out the one he likes best…

Playing with one of Juli's bits. 

He had a surprisingly great attitude today. I was really, really, really happy with his faces. He cantered four laps then when I stopped him, he gave me two eyes and two ears until I asked him to come in. Awesome. Then we did play with some figure 8s. I have been way to direct-line about them. Instead of just figure 8 after figure 8 Juli told me to switch it up more to keep him asking questions. Duh, I should have known that. Within a few minute his faces were looking much better and best of all when I went to bring him in to me, he started to turn back towards the cones so he definitely had the pattern on his mind! Can’t wait to play more with that!

Look at that ear on me! 

Once I got on Juli showed me how to disengage his hind end while riding. I am not really sure why but this blew my mind. I don’t think it is a hard concept to understand, but feel like I might be a little more confident/comfortable with it if I saw someone do it. I might look up some savvy club DVDs to see what I can find. I may need to just play with it more…maybe it will just click?

She gave me some great tools for when he pulls his snotty, LBI tricks to get out of things. She also pointed out that I go right to phase 4 with my carrot stick and keep it there when riding. As much as I would like to think I don’t do this, I know it is true. I don’t think he realizes what phase 4 means. I need to make phase 4 mean something to him in order to get a response from phase 1. Maybe this brings me back to my ‘snappy’ lesson? I think so!

So my things to keep in mind: Make cantering circles a game, don't be a direct line thinker when playing with figure 8s (or anything else!), practice partial disengagement from a walk and trot, and make my carrot stick phase 4 mean something! Being LBE, I want to go play with all of that right now! But, I think we might just enjoy the sunshine today :).

A special thanks to my boyfriend, Stephen, for spending the day at the barn with me and taking so many wonderful photos! 

Busted

Sonny and I had another fantastic lesson with Juli yesterday (that makes lesson #4 with her). She had me list a few of our strengths and weaknesses and then we focused on how to better the weaknesses. Of course, our weak pattern was the weave. She really helped me break it down into pieces that were easier for me to understand. How am I supposed to communicate to Sonny what I want him to do if I am not really sure myself? So now, for once, I am actually excited to play with the weave!

Weaving around tall cones: challenging and humorous ;)

The freestyle portion of the lesson was just what I needed. After a 'non-ideal' ride Saturday, it was very reassuring to have such a brilliant ride last night! One of the problems we focused on was the follow the rail pattern. Lately (but only at the trot), Sonny has been taking off or diving into the middle of the arena. I thought he was playing the game 'you can't make me stay on the rail'. But, when I started telling Juli that he also takes off if he doesn't want to turn back to the question box, the real game was more obvious. He was playing the 'If I speed up, Emily will stop me then I can just stand there' game. BUSTED! Sonny may be clever, but he can't out smart Juli!

Asking to back (which explains my position).

As funny as it sounds, it seemed like he didn't even want to play the game anymore after we talked about it. At one point he decided to dash to the question box in order to get the rest, so we increased our pace and just like magic, and all of a sudden that game was not any fun anymore! Now that I have more arrows in my quiver, I am excited to ride again! What a great lesson!

A very 'thought provoking' lesson! :)

Making It A Game

Our lesson yesterday with Juli Piovesan was so wonderful (as always!). Going into the lesson I was pretty disappointed with myself because I hadn't played with freestyle as much as I should have. I have been very LBI about it and thought I wouldn't have any improvements to show Juli. From the time of our last lesson, I knew our relationship has improved drastically. Although that is of course my biggest goal, I was worried that I wouldn't have anything to physically show her.

We started with playing online. She asked if there was anything I wanted to focus on and I knew I wanted to ask her about backing. Sonny backs so slow and puts little effort into it. Although that 'little effort' is a lot more than what it was before our lesson with Jesse, he is no where near where I would like him to be. This task turned into an idea for our whole lesson: making it snappy! In order to make our yo-yo snappy, we made it into a game. Very, very subtle phase 1... almost as subtle phase two... more apparent phase three... then QUICK PHASE FOUR! I have already heard long phase one, quick two, three, four. But Juli gave me a whole new perspective on this. I need to turn it into a game. I want to get to phase four, but if Sonny doesn't he needs to move before then! I have always had the thought that I don't want to get to phase four, but having the intentions of going there makes it a game for Sonny not to let me go there! I would have never thought of that on my own, but it makes perfect sense!

We applied the same theory to our circling game. Almost invisible phase one... a little bit more phase two... almost visible phase three... QUICK PHASE FOUR! Within two or three times Sonny was doing upward transitions with the very slightest effort on my part!

We played with a few more things, like how to get on a barrel (:P) and I showed Juli how much better Sonny is about going over the ball! Then she let me try her cradle bridle. I knew Sonny has never liked the bit, which is why I haven't rode him in one in the two years I have owned him. I have been trying to use my bridle more lately to do things like walking him out the the field, so he doesn't associate the bit with riding and whatever horrible things he has experienced. When we put the cradle bridle on him he got really stressed out. He was tossing his head, wouldn't let us touch his nose, and when we took it off he yawned so much. I hope to get a cradle bridle for Christmas, then lots of friendly game with it!

Then I got on and started with some direct/indirect rein. Apparently our turning has improved! Yay! Then we applied the same 'make it a game' concept to riding. Sonny caught on so quick, and before I knew it we were doing phase 1 transitions! Awesome! I feel felt a change in the way he was responding to me, and that gives me so much motivation to start riding more!

Then Juli introduced me to the question box. Of course Sonny loved it! After a few transitions he put effort into getting there. How cool! That also gives me something to look forward to playing with :). She also mentioned that I should do more carrot stick riding. I have always felt that I wasn't 'good enough' for it yet, so it was reassuring to hear that I can start playing with it!

We had such a great lesson! So much accomplished and so much to play with! She has 'rekindled' my desire to ride; maybe the next lesson we will really have great progress to show her!

I am so looking forward to the future!