Monday Fluidity II Finesse Day One

Course 3 began today after an awful night's sleep - the most enormous storm I have ever heard rolled down off the Rockies, with lightening lighting up the sky and thunder so loud the house shook! So as you can imagine, everyone was a little subdued and quiet for the first day!

We started off the day with Remuda taken by Cathy in the small coverall (hiding from the torrential down pours the storm left behind it). It proved to be great fun, with energetic exercises like Carrot Stick Dueling keeping us all warm. It was then back to the classroom for the day's lecture on Finesse and Brace, however this was delayed due to an impromptu visit from Pat Parelli.

After Pat left it was straight down to business, starting with the definition of brace - a devise that clamps; to press against to stay balanced; to fix, tense, tighten and steel. A brace in a horse is identified by a stiff, tight or tense look, tail swishing, pinned ears or bucking. The most important thing to remember about brace is that, although it has a physical manifestation, it started in the mind and emotions! There can be no finesse with brace; therefore to obtain finesse we must start with the horse's mind and emotions.

Finesse is not simply riding with concentrated reins. Think of achieving finesse as soon as you approach your horse; if you horse turns it's head away from the halter, then there is brace (or mental and emotional issues) to deal with that is stopping finesse in your relationship. Always task yourself with removing all brace and thus strive for finesse in everything you do.

Finesse is intimacy without brace. And intimacy is defined as familiarity, closeness, understanding, relationship and confidence. The question is "how do we remove brace?" The first steps are:

1. Go slow (slow and right beats fast and tight)
2. Use friendly game and retreat at first sign
3. Lots of undemanding time, pique their curiosity and then change the attitude once rapport is established

The dictionary defined finesse as; intricate and refined delicacy, artful subtlety, skillfulness, flare, panache, artistry, tact, sensitivity and perceptiveness.

Finesse can be viewed as a dance - like Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers - the leader is nearly invisible, the partnership works as one.

With the weather horrid all day I played some Me and My Shadow with Roget and then played a little at liberty under the coverall. We played 'beat you to the cone' which Roget thought was really exciting and 'I'll give you a carrot if you...' which is always a favourite of his! So I think we practiced step 3 of removing brace in our relationship - which can't be bad! Hopefully we'll have better weather tomorrow..........