Hurry Up and Wait

I woke up today to three inches of snow magically gone, sunshine, and 55 degree weather! Early Spring miracle? I think so ;) Now that the ground is more solid, I decided to throw the round pen back up. 

Cheyenne has been on "winter break" for a few months, and so we started with some easy stuff today. Figure 8 on the 22' line and STM at the walk, trot, and... canter! What?! Yes! You heard me!

I've discovered I've been an avoid-a-holic when it comes to cantering with Chey, both in the saddle and apparently online as well. When I was starting her under saddle she had a very difficult time finding balance at the canter, so after a while I just stopped asking for it. Apparently that transferred to our ground work as well, and now that I've realized this, it's time to change it up! She is so great at mirroring me while playing STM, so we warmed up with walk, stop, back up, walk, trot transitions. Tracking left I asked for the canter with her between myself and the round pen. I cantered in my own stride, and tapped her with the carrot stick until we got a stride of canter, and then we stopped for a reward. About the third time she started to really get it down! Going to the right was a bit more sticky. It took longer for her to pick up the canter, and we had a lot more sour faces, but once she gave me a few good strides she got lots of lovins', and it was onto something she knew :)

Chey soaking it all up :)

I've learned with Chey I really need to pause more often between tasks, or even during them. When I say "game over", she needs to chill for more than five seconds. She is normally an RBE, and when I play with her my LBE side comes out, and I thought before that changing it up and constant go-go-go is what she needed. However I've noticed that gets her pretty amped up, doesn't give her a chance to think about what just happened, and she begins assuming more and more. I've gotten better about noticing when she needs to take a break and think, and when to keep moving, and it has made a huge difference in her confidence, and my personal attention to detail. 

Another thing I've been avoiding is carrot stick riding. Or anything to do with my carrot stick, really. Between the stick and the rope, I find there is too much in my hands and I'm more distracted with organizing myself and less effective with whatever my horse and I are doing. But it's something that is way over due, and so we worked on carrot stick riding combined with "don't make me pick up my reins". It went okay.. I was bareback, and the wind is pretty strong today. Combine those factors with my sloppyness with the reins and stick, and a hyper mare that likes to counter bend and randomly take off trotting because she's feeling her spring-time-spunkies, and you're gonna have a bad time ;) I ditched the carrot stick and we worked on transitions and quality of the back-up to cool her down, and to give her a chance to end on something familiar and on a good note. She was such a gem!

Checking in with me on our ride :)

What I learned today: I need to stop avoiding cantering, as well as carrot stick riding. Cheyenne's STM is worse tracking right, and I need to learn to be more efficient at juggling my tools. 

On a completely unrelated note, this is Lena, my mom's mare, looking too darn cute

On the Straight and Narrow

Marijke de Jong is a horsewoman from the Netherlands that teaches "straightness training", and I absolutely love watching her work with horses. She had a horse who favored his right side and found bending/tracking to the left for any maneuver to be quite challenging, which made him difficult to ride or work in hand. Marijke began reading training books from some of the old masters and found that a horse's natural imbalance had been recognized for hundreds of years. Through reading these old books she found a polite way of communicating straightness and balance to her "problem" horse, and developed a training method she now teaches today. 

Inspirational photo from Marijke's FB page

There is something to learn from everyone, to limit your masters is to limit your learning. I personally look for horseman and women who have a light hand and a psychological and emotional understanding of the horse, and soak up any and all information I can that in my opinion is a polite and effective method. It can be scary to branch out from a training method you've been following for over a decade, afraid to trust yourself and not a proven master of horsemanship. However I believe once you have a good foundation and understanding of quality techniques, finding mentors is much like reading food labels. You find a product (or trainer) and look at the ingredients. Are they all natural, or are there more preservatives and chemicals than food in there? Trust your judgement, and broaden your horizons. No one person has all the answers. Plus, for me at least, it can get a bit boring, no matter how amazing the information. My LBE side kicks in, and I need a change of pace. I'm still learning and advancing, and I'm adding more maneuvers to my mental card file, more arrows to my quiver ;)

Below is a video of Marijke demonstrating her straightness training in a Parelli halter. I love watching all her cues, and how soft she is with the horse, and the horse's willingness to perform, to play. I think this would be really fun to try out, and would do wonders for my girls, especially Cheyenne, who naturally carries herself in a "bad banana" posture.


Marijke de Jong - Straightness Training