Leadership

Leadership

Back in the saddle again. Again.

Posted on March 11, 2014 by horsegirlonajourney

Confidence has made all the difference in my riding. With confidence comes leadership, and with leadership comes higher expectations, and with higher expectations comes noticeable improvements in performance. I can feel the change in our energy as I ask Rocky for higher quality and hold him to the standard and appreciate him when he achieves it. This is the “be particular without being critical” Parellism.

That I can envision a performance standard and recognize when we’re getting closer to it or achieving it…that’s perhaps the biggest improvement in my horsemanship since I last blogged.

Fixing the steering

Today I had an “intervention lesson” at my request — a quick shout-out to Erin with “my steering is broken, help!” resulted in half an hour of focused instruction and many, many 180s and 360s as River and I figured out where my hands legs weight eyes stick reins need to be and where her flexion and impulsion needed to be when I ask her to turn. And I got it. Now it’s simply a matter of practice to train my muscle memory.

Keeping to the pattern

When Rocky plays “what are you going to do if I think about spooking at that tarp? at the pigs? at the shrubbery? at the man fixing the roof?” I just keep asking him to do what I’m asking him to do. “Yes, there’s a man on the roof, let’s keep this figure 8 around the trees going,” and Lo! Rocky figured out it’s less effort for him to look where he’s going and do the thing than it is to keep pretending to spook at things and then having his weight, feet, and balance in the wrong places during the pattern.

I’ve also experienced some breakthroughs in keeping to the pattern until Rocky actually relaxes. Not just until he gets it and starts offering the pattern on his own, but until he does so with relaxation. Creating patterns around the ranch using the natural features of terrain and structures makes the change more obvious, as the arena is both small and safe, so the line between relaxed and bored gets blurry.

Just this once, just for today

I noticed that I was stopping myself from going out to “do horse stuff” with the dangerous thought “You aren’t going to make this a regular, consistent, recurring activity because reasons, so it’s pointless to attempt to do it now.” So I made a New Year’s Resolution to try a new mantra of “just this once, just for today” and see what dreadful things happened to my horses from not having a regular, consistent, recurring activity.

As you probably have already guessed, nothing dreadful has happened, but our partnerships have grown and the relationships are solid. We’ve had less time together than usual in the past four months but what time we’ve had has been positive, provocative, and progressive.

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Being particular and trusting

Posted on August 2, 2013 by horsegirlonajourney

The principles I am working on lately are “be particular without being critical” and “trust that he’ll respond but be ready to correct, not more one than the other.” I’ve had one of those “ooohhhhh!” moments, where I suddenly perceive the depth of yet another glib Parellism.

Riding with both hands on the reins and my hands up and “ready” is not trusting that he’ll respond. It’s not even being ready to correct — it’s standing there with the red pen poised over the paper, waiting for the other to dare to write a word so that I can cross it out. It’s projecting a beam of energy that says “no!” and then wondering why my partner isn’t doing something.

There is time to respond. There is time, if a correction is necessary, if my leg cue or my breath or my belly button isn’t enough to communicate the correction, to raise my hand from its relaxed position on the mane or pommel or horn and add a rein cue. “There are four moments in a second,” says Pat, describing how quickly a horse can change, how the tiniest gesture on our part can mean so much to them so quickly. And it’s okay to use more than one of those moments to get my hands in place if it becomes necessary. Someday I will be fast and smooth; for now, I am practicing smooth and slow, because my fast right now is buzzy and spastic, just hovering there to swoop down at the slightest provocation.

I have not been particularly particular with Rocky. My habit has been to blame myself for not being aware of his phase 1 of a behavior, so that by the time I become aware, it’s “too late” to address it. (Not that I still blame, exactly, but it’s a useful shorthand.) If Rocky’s rubbing his head too hard on me, in a way he wouldn’t dare with a higher ranking horse, I blame (or credit) myself for not noticing his approach sooner, not anticipating his actions sooner. Thus, by the time the Behavior happened, it’s “too late,” because I’ve already allowed the horse’s phase 1 or phase 2 of approach.

What it comes down to is that I have not been giving Rocky enough responsibility. In my attempts not to micro-manage, I swung too far the other way.

My heart is in the right place, in that I want to be a fair leader who doesn’t overreact. But my habit has undermined the fairness, as Rocky never knows from one day to the next whether he’ll be corrected or not, which puts in him a position of constantly having to test the boundaries and find out.

My new behavior is to respond to whatever it is, whenever I see it. To allow Rocky the responsibility to be respectful, to remove his burden of seeking the boundaries every day, and to uncritically, unemotionally remind him of his side of the partnership, when necessary. In this way, he knows I’m doing my best to hold up my side as well.

And I’m recognizing that I don’t have to respond in 1/4 of a second. I have time for an intense, measured movement that is not so swift that it blurs at 30 frames per second.