Aspen came up with this all on her own after the wind blew down my barrels! Sorry about the shaky video - trying to manage my 45' line, carrot stick, and the camera! :)
Licensed 2-Star Parelli Professional based in the Pacific Northwest | SamanthaThorning.com
Showing posts with label 45' line. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 45' line. Show all posts
Friday, April 11, 2014
Aspen's new jump!
Aspen came up with this all on her own after the wind blew down my barrels! Sorry about the shaky video - trying to manage my 45' line, carrot stick, and the camera! :)
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Ride your neutral!
Progress Entry: Wed 27 Feb 2013
Online Level 4
45 minutes
45 minutes
FreeStyle Level 3
25 minutes
25 minutes
Notes:
Did our warm up of backing on a circle today keeping in mind that backing is a GAIT and therefore the horse should maintain it on their own (thanks to the reminder from 3* PP Jenny Trainor). I have started to realize that I must have some life in my body when I ask my horse to move his feet and maintain it in order to eliminate the need for a stick and rope in the future. Now this doesn't mean nagging or coming out of neutral - I can be neutral without being a sack of potatoes. It's like riding - you ask your horse to canter and while you don't keep spanking and kicking him to go you do RIDE the canter not just SIT the canter. So in effect I must "ride" the gait I want from my horse while on the ground... I hope this makes sense! So for me I wanted to work on being more conscious of my body language, energy, and intent and for Aspen I wanted her to up her level of responsibility. I moved away from the fence a little farther this time and asked for her to back up - I really only needed to use my stick once or twice to reinforce that she should maintain backing on her own (while I kept my life up in my neutral body) and twice to protect my space a little as she wants to get really close to me while backing around. I think she's trying to offer sideways toward me here - and I fully recognize and appreciate her offer and effort but this is where I need to be more clear about what body language means back around me and what means come to me. I was really pleased with the circle today and pretty proud of both of us for being able to do the majority of it without the rope or stick!
We also did a little sideways toward me as we have been for part of our warmup... I think that this is better done after playing a little bit to get her interest up and having established a little draw. She's getting the steps down but they aren't as fluid as I'd like and I think we've stalled out on being progressive with it. So next time I'm going to do this toward the mid-end of our session and be more particular about not drifting forward and getting a full side step rather than FQ and HQ coming over.
Had some great changes of direction and transitions on a circle today (45' line). She even offered to start backing on the circle at one point after I'd asked her to halt. It's cool she's putting things together and she's giving me lots of positive ears and green lights to keep teaching her things. It's been very rewarding to have her confidence up as much as it has been lately. I really had to work hard to learn what to do with a RBE when I first bought her and now it's nice that I've learned so much from her but we're getting more centered so she's more often Left Brained and easier to teach.
The figure-8 is going well. I think now what I need to focus on is straightness in our back up to start the pattern and a better send. The quality of the circle or pattern will not exceed the quality of the send so next time I'm going to have a stronger focus on this and I think the continuous nature of the figure-8 will be more apparent once we have established a better send off. She is getting her lead changes effortlessly and it's so fun to watch her display her natural athleticism in this way. She's also been a super star about jumping the single down barrels - she's getting two in a row now (in a line) so may have to see about what we can do to be more provocative and progressive here as well!
And the last thing I did today was to start teaching Aspen is to back up between two barrels so I can mount. To begin this I made sure we could back between the barrels on the ground. Then I stood on one barrel and had her yo-yo a few steps back and forth between the barrels. Next I got her to go pretty much all the way out so just her tail was at the edge of the barrels and got her to back up between them to an appropriate position for me to mount if I had one foot on each barrel. At one point she got too far out and couldn't figure how to get herself back in. She got worried and tried a lot of things besides going backward. I finally got her to stand perpendicular to me and then with the moves we've been developing with backing on a circle and sideways toward we had enough tools and techniques to get her to step her front end around so she was now parallel to me (we're both facing the same way, me standing on the barrel and her tail pointed between the two barrels) and got her to back up to position. It was very challenging for both of us and it's safe to say we both did a lot of licking and chewing after that. Aspen also did lots of head shaking, yawning and blinking too. A big moment for her!
With all that we played with on the ground I wanted to keep our ride pretty simple. I just asked for some backing, HQ and FQ yields all with the neck string or stick, and then a little FTR at the trot and a circle at the canter (yes! bareback!). She was great, albeit a little distracted by some rogue antelope running around, and I have high hopes for continued progress on our next ride.
Have I mentioned I love my horse yet? Because she's such a super star with a big heart! Love this girl!!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Let Me Drift Away and I'll Drift Back
I'd like you to think back to your pre-Parelli days and envision your old equipment. I'm willing to bet your lead rope was only 6' long, maybe 9' if it was an "extra long" rope. I know mine was only about 6' and made of heavy cotton with a bulky bull snap on the end (it actually hangs on my wall now with my old leather halter as decoration, haha!). Anything longer than that seemed excessive and cumbersome. Lead ropes were strictly for taking a horse from point A to B, then because your lead was only 6' long if you needed to tie your horse up you used cross ties or a bungee straight tie. That was it, end of story.
When my friend first introduced me to Parelli she offered to show me some basic things with my horse but wanted to use her own halter and rope. I got the logic behind the rope halter but her lunge line was SO short, you couldn't really do a lot or lunge a horse very fast on 12' of rope and she always had slack in it, sometimes the tail end would even drag on the ground. What a waste of rope! It looked like one 12' long piece of inconvenience if you asked me. She gave me the key to her tack locker so I could access her halter and "lead" anytime I wanted. She assigned me to practice the first three of the seven games with my horse over the week until we'd meet again and I'd get to learn the next four games. Oh how I hated using a 12' "lead rope" in the beginning, combine that with an awkward orange carrot stick and 6' of savvy string and I was a mess! If I didn't have the rope tangled around my feet (since I was instructed to let all the extra drag and not to bunch it all up in my hands!) then I had the string tangled around my neck or the stick tripping up between my legs. I was one big walking catastrophe and upon reflection one great example of an extreme friendly game for my horse. I was constantly tripping, stumbling, tangled, slapping myself or my horse with the wrong end of who knows what as I flailed about trying to suavely replicate what I'd seen my friend doing earlier in the week with my horse. Using my stick to rub my horse and the string to toss around his body as a friendly game proved to be my most challenging endeavor, my horse hated the porcupine game - he gave me snarly faces, swished his tail at me, and just leaned in harder when I applied pressure. I remember her quoting Pat saying that it shouldn't take longer than two days to get my horse to yield to pressure and I almost gave up on Parelli right then! Oh the driving game - I just couldn't bring out my inner fox for that one. She told me - just stare at his hip like a fox to a chicken, get intense, put energy into it, then add rhythmic pressure with your stick until he moves. My inner fox had been strangled, tripped, and snarled at by this point in the games and was more like a meek little mouse looking at one big pissed off eagle... And when it was all said and done I still had to lead my horse back out to pasture with that dang 12' lunge line!
As time passed my inner fox developed along with my coordination and skill using the 12 line. I could see it's value and understood it's place in effective communication with my horse. I finally had it under control, I could toss my stick and string, lower my horse's head, drive his hip away from me, wiggle my finger at him, send him out on a circle without chasing him around, put him sideways down the arena wall, and even send him over a jump without so much as a misstep on my part. Oh yeah, I was good! That was until she gave me her 22' line to use. Okay, no biggie, I'd used lunge lines before...but what the heck was I supposed to do with all that rope when I wanted my horse to play the other 6 games besides circling? The 22' line introduced me to a whole new level of humiliation. You might as well have handcuffed me and thrown me in a hammock and spun me around a few times, I could have gotten out of that bind easier than in some of the messes I created for myself with the 22'. Again, here I was, one big chaotic friendly game of tangles. This time, more often then not, it didn't just involve my feet but my horse's legs, head, neck, ears and anything else that I could possibly hang my rope up on.
Eventually I came to love the 22' line. I could have my horse go faster, jump higher, play more, and show more enthusiasm. The 12' line simply became utilitarian, good for going from one place to another or for doing the very basics. I'm embarrassed to admit that up until today, 5 years after holding my first 12' rope, I had still not moved up to the next length of line, the 45'. I'm not going to lie the idea of 45 feet of rope was daunting, I remembered being so uncoordinated and at times dangerous with the 12' and 22' before I became more fluid with them. I couldn't imagine having a Right Brained Extrovert on 45' of line zipping around me or having a Left Brain Introvert drag me slowly, purposefully until I had sufficiently sandpapered my skin off in the arena had I accidentally got a foot caught in a coil. Ugh, 45'!
Today I thought that I'd better stop just looking at my 45' and actually try it out, even if I just played with throwing it out and coiling it up in the arena without Aspen on the other end. Well, after bringing her into the arena I looked at my 12' on her, then to my 22' and 45' hanging on the fence and couldn't resist... Maybe I'd just put the 45' on and let her go for one circle and just see how it felt... Clip - it's on! Toss - the coils are out and away from my feet... Wiggle - wow, feeling the life of this light rope, watching Aspen go back, and back, and back, all the way out, all 45 feet... Wait - think, feel, observe. She looked a little surprised I could still reach her from so far away. Send - she's out, she's moving, she's feeling out the length of the rope and offering slack. We're doing it! We're circling! It feels so nice in my hands, she loves the lightness, the drift! Then.. snag! The rope slides so easily under my toys and catches under a wood ground pole and ziiiiipppppp! Aspen startles at the noise but yields to the pressure and comes back around and then over to me. Lots of licking and chewing - for both of us...
We continued for the rest of my time this afternoon on the 45' line, playing with the feel of the rope, the lightness of it, the feeling of liberty yet still connected subtly. Aspen loved the extra drift and I really felt her mentally connecting to me as I could talk to her from greater distances and her always offering to come back in to put slack in the line herself.
Aside from some minor coordination errors on my part I feel like I never want to use any other line. Just thinking about my 22' line I feel like it's now strictly for utilitarian tasks - what could I possibly want to do on 22' feet of rope now that I have 45'?? :)
Pat says, "if you always do what you've always done, then you'll continue to get what you've always got." Well here's to that! To trying new things, to being progressive, to stop thinking about doing things or using new tools and to start DOING it. :)
When my friend first introduced me to Parelli she offered to show me some basic things with my horse but wanted to use her own halter and rope. I got the logic behind the rope halter but her lunge line was SO short, you couldn't really do a lot or lunge a horse very fast on 12' of rope and she always had slack in it, sometimes the tail end would even drag on the ground. What a waste of rope! It looked like one 12' long piece of inconvenience if you asked me. She gave me the key to her tack locker so I could access her halter and "lead" anytime I wanted. She assigned me to practice the first three of the seven games with my horse over the week until we'd meet again and I'd get to learn the next four games. Oh how I hated using a 12' "lead rope" in the beginning, combine that with an awkward orange carrot stick and 6' of savvy string and I was a mess! If I didn't have the rope tangled around my feet (since I was instructed to let all the extra drag and not to bunch it all up in my hands!) then I had the string tangled around my neck or the stick tripping up between my legs. I was one big walking catastrophe and upon reflection one great example of an extreme friendly game for my horse. I was constantly tripping, stumbling, tangled, slapping myself or my horse with the wrong end of who knows what as I flailed about trying to suavely replicate what I'd seen my friend doing earlier in the week with my horse. Using my stick to rub my horse and the string to toss around his body as a friendly game proved to be my most challenging endeavor, my horse hated the porcupine game - he gave me snarly faces, swished his tail at me, and just leaned in harder when I applied pressure. I remember her quoting Pat saying that it shouldn't take longer than two days to get my horse to yield to pressure and I almost gave up on Parelli right then! Oh the driving game - I just couldn't bring out my inner fox for that one. She told me - just stare at his hip like a fox to a chicken, get intense, put energy into it, then add rhythmic pressure with your stick until he moves. My inner fox had been strangled, tripped, and snarled at by this point in the games and was more like a meek little mouse looking at one big pissed off eagle... And when it was all said and done I still had to lead my horse back out to pasture with that dang 12' lunge line!
As time passed my inner fox developed along with my coordination and skill using the 12 line. I could see it's value and understood it's place in effective communication with my horse. I finally had it under control, I could toss my stick and string, lower my horse's head, drive his hip away from me, wiggle my finger at him, send him out on a circle without chasing him around, put him sideways down the arena wall, and even send him over a jump without so much as a misstep on my part. Oh yeah, I was good! That was until she gave me her 22' line to use. Okay, no biggie, I'd used lunge lines before...but what the heck was I supposed to do with all that rope when I wanted my horse to play the other 6 games besides circling? The 22' line introduced me to a whole new level of humiliation. You might as well have handcuffed me and thrown me in a hammock and spun me around a few times, I could have gotten out of that bind easier than in some of the messes I created for myself with the 22'. Again, here I was, one big chaotic friendly game of tangles. This time, more often then not, it didn't just involve my feet but my horse's legs, head, neck, ears and anything else that I could possibly hang my rope up on.
Eventually I came to love the 22' line. I could have my horse go faster, jump higher, play more, and show more enthusiasm. The 12' line simply became utilitarian, good for going from one place to another or for doing the very basics. I'm embarrassed to admit that up until today, 5 years after holding my first 12' rope, I had still not moved up to the next length of line, the 45'. I'm not going to lie the idea of 45 feet of rope was daunting, I remembered being so uncoordinated and at times dangerous with the 12' and 22' before I became more fluid with them. I couldn't imagine having a Right Brained Extrovert on 45' of line zipping around me or having a Left Brain Introvert drag me slowly, purposefully until I had sufficiently sandpapered my skin off in the arena had I accidentally got a foot caught in a coil. Ugh, 45'!
Today I thought that I'd better stop just looking at my 45' and actually try it out, even if I just played with throwing it out and coiling it up in the arena without Aspen on the other end. Well, after bringing her into the arena I looked at my 12' on her, then to my 22' and 45' hanging on the fence and couldn't resist... Maybe I'd just put the 45' on and let her go for one circle and just see how it felt... Clip - it's on! Toss - the coils are out and away from my feet... Wiggle - wow, feeling the life of this light rope, watching Aspen go back, and back, and back, all the way out, all 45 feet... Wait - think, feel, observe. She looked a little surprised I could still reach her from so far away. Send - she's out, she's moving, she's feeling out the length of the rope and offering slack. We're doing it! We're circling! It feels so nice in my hands, she loves the lightness, the drift! Then.. snag! The rope slides so easily under my toys and catches under a wood ground pole and ziiiiipppppp! Aspen startles at the noise but yields to the pressure and comes back around and then over to me. Lots of licking and chewing - for both of us...
We continued for the rest of my time this afternoon on the 45' line, playing with the feel of the rope, the lightness of it, the feeling of liberty yet still connected subtly. Aspen loved the extra drift and I really felt her mentally connecting to me as I could talk to her from greater distances and her always offering to come back in to put slack in the line herself.
Aside from some minor coordination errors on my part I feel like I never want to use any other line. Just thinking about my 22' line I feel like it's now strictly for utilitarian tasks - what could I possibly want to do on 22' feet of rope now that I have 45'?? :)
Pat says, "if you always do what you've always done, then you'll continue to get what you've always got." Well here's to that! To trying new things, to being progressive, to stop thinking about doing things or using new tools and to start DOING it. :)
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| At first the wheelbarrow was surely something to be frightened of...but within about 30 seconds Aspen decided it was actually something that needed to be investigated, then dominated. |
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| As you can see from the different positions of the wheelbarrow in the pictures she kept rolling it around on different sides and spinning the tires with her nose! |
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| She pulled all of my stuff out of the wheelbarow, stepped on it, flipped it back over the other way, then looked at me like "what, is there a problem??" |
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| Aspen on the 45' line! |
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