Lessons

Lessons

On the trail again, just can’t wait to get on the trail again, the life I love is ridin’ trails with my friends, I just can’t wait to get on the trail again

Posted on April 20, 2013 by horsegirlonajourney

Your assignment today is only to steer, not to stop or slow Rocky. I don’t want you to hold him back. Keep him lined up behind Bautisto and if he gets too close, have Maddy swing her string to back him up. ~ Erin Murphy to me at the start of our instructional trail ride

While my sharpest memory of the view is of the black dorsal stripe down Bautisto’s beautiful Andalusian haunches, I happily report that this advice from Erin has been powerful, resulting in more confidence and better partnership on all of the rides I’ve taken around the ranch since.

On Wednesday, Jan and I took an instructional trail ride with Erin Murphy at Empire Mine State Park. Jan rode River, mostly as a passenger but sometimes as a leader, and was ponied by Erin or her intern Maddy. I mostly rode Rocky on my own, but also got down and walked about a mile. I didn’t want Rocky to experience any tightness or anxiety from me in the saddle and when he slipped a few times on the pine needles, and when we reached steep downhills, I hopped down and walked. It’s easy enough to get back on when we come to a rock or fallen log I can use as a mounting block.

Erin’s instructional trail rides start when you get your horse from his pasture and end when you put him back — in our case, about three hours. Of the four humans and four horses, I was the only one who had anxiety about the trailer. I was able to articulate to Erin that I’ve had so little trailering experience that I didn’t know what was normal and what was an emergency. (“Is River kicking the stud divider?” “No, she’s just shifting her weight.” “Oh.”) We talked about the day’s plans while the horses munched their hay in the trailer. Allowing the horses time to relax after loading removes any kind of get in and GO! energy, and pretty soon after that we pulled out smoothly for our adventure.

I am so much better in the saddle now than I was last year. I still lean forward and also have my feet too far forward and therefore my balance is still off which in turn affects Rocky, but I’m much closer to the sweet spot, and I can stay in the sweet spot longer — and I notice sooner when I’ve gotten out of alignment. I can tell the difference in Rocky’s walking and trotting, and get my body back in position so that I’m not interfering with his movement or causing him discomfort, which in turn gives me more practice developing my independent seat.

But I am good enough in the saddle these days to stay with Rocky when he spooks to the side and not to even have a surge of adrenaline when it happens. I’m good enough not to worry about surges forward, which happened on the trail when a gust of wind spooked all four horses forward. My response was to put my hands forward and push myself into the saddle; I didn’t pull back or lean forward or restrict him in any way, and he stopped after a few strides. He was much more relaxed than Erin had expected him to be, and she congratulated us both on our progress.

This confidence in the saddle has let to me riding all over the ranch, including on the narrow paths between the cottage and the shop, and across the seasonal creek. The slopes that used to worry me no longer do. I’ve changed my thinking from “Rocky stumbles a lot” to “Rocky is so athletic and skilled at staying upright,” which is also true.

We played a lot of games on our trail lesson. The whole excursion was a friendly game for us all, getting us all accustomed to things like bicycles, runners, dogs, babies in front packs, and strollers. Also rocky creeks and slippery pine needles and horse-eating boulders and the occasional plastic grocery bag wafting across our path. Also other horses and riders going past, which is a challenge for River, who stares intently with her best Sweetie Face on, causing others to croon “oh what a pretty girl, such a cute horse!” while we all keep our faces blank. What on another horse is indeed a sweet face is actually River’s “I want to get close to you and then squeal, wheel, and double-barrel your chest” signal. River also stares at dogs, thinking dark thoughts.

Erin had Maddy and I play a yo-yo game in which Maddy backed Bautisto in a straight line and I was to keep Rocky straight behind him. I wasn’t to back Rocky, only to steer him, and to let Bautisto and Maddy take care of the driving in reverse. This was challenging to all four of us for different reasons: Maddy, backing her own horse while also driving mine (and having to coordinate her reins, body, legs, hands, and savvy string); Bautisto, in having to back even though Rocky was right there; Rocky, in having to go in a straight line instead of swinging to the side; and me, in resisting the reflex to lift the reins and back Rocky myself.

Erin had Rocky and me follow her for a bit and when he crowded Hermoso like he’d been doing to Bautisto, she used driving game with her savvy string. She used a more energetic phase than Maddy had been using, and Rocky ran into the string with his nose hard enough to sting. And after that, he gave them about a yard of space.

We played follow the leader and traded places here and there and discovered that all four horses were most comfortable in this order: Rocky Hermoso River Bautisto. Rocky was a little too alert for me in the front, so I directed his (and my) attention by asking for sideways game left and right as we rode forward on the fire road. He was more comfortable walking next to Hermoso and leading by a head rather than single file. After an unexpected “slide stop” on pine needles on the downhill, I dismounted and walked in front, and Rocky liked that most of all. (“He likes to be in front but behind his lead mare,” said Erin.)

Figure 8 patterns helped in the beginning when Rocky didn’t want to stand still after I mounted and while I was tightening my girth. We played squeeze game with the creek, with each other, and with the gate at the start of the trail.

On the drive home, I had a multitude of emotions churning inside me. Anxiety, excitement, despair, joy, love — all the feelings I saw coming up during the ride and set aside to process later, as it wasn’t fair to ask Rocky to be left-brained and focused if I couldn’t do so myself.

The main thing now is to keep arranging my work schedule so that I have a weekday morning free every week or two for lessons, so that I can build on my learning and keep progressing toward solid level 2 freestyle riding skills.

Categories: Freestyle, Lessons | Tags: horseback riding, parelli natural horsemanship, penn valley | Leave a comment

Clinician Highlights: Lynn Palm at Horse Expo 2012

Posted on June 14, 2012 by horsegirlonajourney

Lynn Palm’s session was called “Be Positive: Your Horse Knows Every Word You’re Thinking.” She focused on showing the results of keeping our thoughts on a positive path.

“Positive” in this context doesn’t mean unfounded optimism. It means phrasing our thoughts around the outcome we want (“we will trot evenly around this circle”) instead of what we don’t want (“oh god what is my horse going to do next, she’s so spooky, ack, she might shy at that, ack!”).

In Parelli lingo, this is “the natural power of focus,” and it goes much deeper than just “what we want.” Whatever has our complete focus is what will happen. There is no other outcome. It will happen, because it is the only thing than can happen.

If you can focus 100 percent on “we will trot evenly around this circle, with rhythm and relaxation and contact,” that is what will happen. Your horse can then share your bedrock certainty. Ah! yes! we will trot evenly around this circle! those billowing tarps and flapping flags and whipping branches and swirling dust devils are not the droids I’m looking for!

If you focus 10 percent on that and 90 percent on possible spooks, distractions, and disasters, you are going to get spooks and distractions, and possibly a disaster.

In fact, just now, it hit me how rare the disasters actually are, relatively speaking; it tells you something about the horse-human bond that horses manage to stay disaster-free most of the time, even in our fear and lack of focus.

When you look down, his mind is in front of your mind. Keep your eyes ahead of the horse. ~ Lynn Palm

Lynn said that when we catch ourselves looking at our horse, or thinking “why is he doing this, what will he do next,” that’s a sign that we need to relax, slow down, think about something else, be casual, breathe, and ride through it.

She didn’t mean ride through an explosion. What she described sounds awfully close to Linda’s teachings on handling thresholds.

The more the horse wants to look, the more we need to let them. Stop on a loose rein. The more they look, the more chance they have to settle. ~ Lynn Palm

Like Chris Cox in his session about rider confidence, Lynn coached her student on physical balance. Breathing — “in sets, inhale and exhale” — and relaxing were key. Even just that made a change in the horse.

At first, the student had her hands wide, below the crest of the neck. Her arms were stiff — her whole body looked rigid — and any time the horse even hinted at shying, raising her head, moving sideways, or some other “unexpected” move, the rider clenched tighter and jerked on the reins.

The horse expressed her own discomfort through tense, jerky motions, and by flicking her tongue all around. Even when she kept her feet relatively still, her tongue was in motion, sticking out of the side of her mouth, rolling the bit, flapping up and down.

I watched the horse and rider escalate in a cycle of nervousness and thought ah, yes, I remember that. Many of my normal lessons went just that way.

The first change Lynn suggested was for the rider to raise her hands and move them forward. With the rider’s hands in front of the horn and above the mane, she could not lean on the reins to balance. She also coached the rider through looking ahead, not down, and had her tie the reins in a knot without looking at them and drop them over the horn.

While an assistant managed the horse on a longe line, the rider practiced raising her arms, then making a T, then resting her hands on her thighs, then picking up the reins without looking at them, then setting the reins down again. All while looking where she wanted to go.

When the rider let go of the reins and began to do other things with her arms, finding her balance point, the mare reduced the tongue action considerably. The longer the rider stayed off the reins, the more relaxed the mare’s entire body became, and the less we saw the tongue.

Parelli reminds us that the more we use the reins, the less they use their brains. I can’t help but think that many people prefer that their horses not use their brains, because the people do not trust their horses. They feel safer on horses that give up trying to use their brains and go dully where the reins drag them instead. These riders feel safer or smug with the illusion of control because they don’t realize it is an illusion.

In Lynn’s session, the looser the reins, the more relaxed the horse, which calmed the rider, which calmed the horse.

I ride Rocky now with the understanding that he will communicate with me in phases, not “suddenly for no reason at all” transmogrify into a bronco. It took me a lot of ground time to develop that trust.

Our horses are our mirrors. They are quick to feel a change in us, to provide release for us, and to reward our slightest try. We just have to learn to do the same for them.