Monday Fluidity I Day One

Course 2, otherwise known as Fluidity I, started today with Kathy and Kristy leading our Remuda. We played 'Name Volleyball' so everyone learned everyone else's name and then had an overview of knots. Kristy told a very scary story of how she tied a claustrophobic horse using a hard knot and that the horse panicked and nearly strangled itself. Luckily she was carrying a knife and could cut it free, but it was a close one! Moral of this story, well two actually - always tie an unknown horse with soft loops and always carry a knife (need to go buy one asap).

Class was led by Jon and began by discussing individual's course goals. Mine included releasing old habits and replacing them with new reflexes, understanding what the horse is feeling and therefore what it needs from the rider, and the obligatory bareback and bridless riding experience!

Riding With Success was the theme for today's class finding out how to set ourselves up for success. Attributes such as attitude, perseverance, visualisation, effort and taking one small step at a time are key to achieving your goals. Things that might hold us back included time, fear, lack of knowledge, money and mental attitude. Bearing these positive and negative attributes in mind, one should be capable of staying on track to Riding With Success.....

The 3Cs - Control, Competance and Confidence (both horse and rider) are essentials for setting yourself up for riding with success. It is also worth remembering that dreams and excuses can be very powerful also (one positively, the other negatively).

Once the 3Cs are achieved you are ready for Freestyle riding, which could include, trail riding, pushing passenger, carrot stick riding and savvy string around the neck. Freestyle is all about unwinding the spring - relaxation and turning loose.

We then experienced our first Seat Builder or Bucking Bronc ride! This was great fun, although getting on was a little daunting, but went fine! We simply needed to feel the motion and move with it to see if we had any stiff areas in our body. I felt my shoulders tighten and needed to move and rotate them to release the tension.

After lunch we had a very interesting demonstration of the 3Cs and Saddling by Jon with a right brain introvert. Although the horse was not safe to ride or should I say ready to be ridden by the end of the session, Jon had made huge leaps with the 3Cs. The horse had begun literally fearing for it's life, but by the time it was saddled, it was jumping fences, getting up on the pedestal and driving through a slalom. It was interesting to notice that the horse tolerated the friendly game and the saddling and did not accept either. Until the acceptance comes, then it is not ready to be ridden.

When playing on the ground Jon simulated riding by trying to do things from zone 3 and treating the rope as it were the rein; for example, asking for lateral flexion then a disengage (one rein stop) or leading using a direct rein. He also detailed the requirements that should be achieved before mounting:

1. Play games going up and down the gaits in a relaxed fashion.
2. Saddling should occur without movement of the feet and with acceptance.
3. Number 1 should be repeated with the saddle on.
4. Pop a log or jump in a relaxed fashion.

Now you may consider mounting......

I played Me and My Shadow with Roget this afternoon - this went very well, he took me for a grand tour of every feed bucket on the ranch! If you don't learn lots about your horse's horsenality playing this, you will learn a lot of patience! He-he! We then tried playing in a round pen again - Roget's least favourite place and consequently I avoid like the plague! It went surprisingly well, we had some barrel rolling around the circumference, a reasonable circling game in all 3 gaits and good yo-yo and driving games. So I left it on a good note and gave him an early dinner!

Interesting aside - Beth has a friend who leased Roget and apparently for the first 3 weeks she thought he was trying to kill her! This gives me lots of hope that we are on the right track and that his immense capacity for playfulness, which could be very dominant, is under some level of control!

Oh no! Driving home this evening there was a gritty noise coming from one of the front wheels of our hire car, well this got worse when we cornered and it became a screech when we breaked! So we limped home and are now waiting for a response from the rescue assistance team. Hopefully we can get it fixed tonight, or a replacement, as we need to leave at 6:30 tomorrow morning - it could be a long night.........................