Monday, December 20, 2010

Coming to terms

     This is going to be short but sweet, it is very late and I am very very tired!!! First of all let me say how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family of friends surrounding me!! This past weekend was wonderful!!!

     Onward! Okay, so I am coming to terms with someone that has been REALLY hard for me and I think for everyone else who practices natural horsemanship. Everyone has their own style: the way they ride, lead, load, drive, or even love on their horses. Everyone always thinks THEIR approach to horses is right. I know of beginner riders who mimic people they think ride well, when in reality, they are mimicking disaster. Now I am an honest person, and I know my limitations, I know when I see something that is wrong, and I know it needs to be fixed, but teaching someone how to fix it, eh, I am not there yet. ANYWAY my point is, I want so badly to always offer my help, my advice, my two cents, what ever you want to call it. I know people can do better!! I know their horses can be happier and the relationship between the two could be built and worked and made stronger! I know this with EVERYTHING I am! BUT BUT BUT BUT, it is not my place, it is not my horse, not my human.

     I talked to Mirka about this yesterday, and all she said was 7 words: "All you can be is an example". Okay, sooo not really want I wanted to hear. I would have loved her to tell me to run up to them, jabber about everything they are doing wrong and how they need to start doing NHS. Really, I would have loved that, because I can do that!!! But for me to stand back, and let people do there thing.... ugh, thats so hard!!

     So,  I have come to terms. I am going to keep my big mouth shut. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" (that one is from my Mandana). No longer am I going to throw lessons onto people, offer to help them, or give "free" advice. When they are ready, I will be here, doing what I know is right and best for my horses and my people.

     -E

Thursday, December 9, 2010

PHYSICAL BALANCE!!!

     Yay for part 3!!!

     I rode Aurora today!!!!!! Just kidding! Actually, I stood on a rock and laid across her back, only putting about 50% on my weight on her. She is such a sweet girl, she just looked at me, and lipped my fingers. She is going to be such a good girl!!! What a perfect way to start this blog! PHYSICAL! We talked about mental and emotional which to me seem harder to visualize because they are not right in front of you. You can see PHYSICAL balance, its obvious. For example, obviously Aurora is not balanced enough for me to ride, she is only a yearling! BUT, we can do other fun things to help build her balance, and then one day when she is ready, we will ride!!
    Balance is not just about age, or size, its just... physical balance. In every sort of riding, jumping, reining, endurance, or racing each horse is conditioned and worked to improve his physical balance. Just because a racing bred thoroughbred colt is of age to race does not mean a trainer is going to take him to the next derby and jump on him, that would be disastrous.  It takes time to build the strength and stamina to run a race. That cold has to be exercise, worked and finished before he can be put on the track. Same with a reining horse. I have worked with Mirka Pitts and watched her work her show reiners. She does not jump on a young quarter horse and spin the hell out of them. It is a meticulous process with so much thought and detail put into it, each one of her horses are first balanced at the walk, trot, lope, lead change, direction change ect, its not same day stuff.
     This is not just for show, for example, when I was working with Aurora to jump a barrel, I knew she was not ready,  her body was not balanced to do that when I asked her. So, we started out small, we walked over ground polls, then a small X. Then at a trot then a lope. At the X she jumped with confidence and balance, so we moved on to the barrel, after I set her up to succeed, we tried it and TA-DA!! Our first jump over a blue barrel with confidence and balance (mental, emotional, and physical).
     This goes for people too!!!!! If you have never jumped a horse are you going to go jump a 4ft wall? NO! If you have never been on a horse longer than 10 minutes, are you going to go on a 3 hour trail ride? Uhh yeah, you can, but I promise your body will be feeling it the next day!! People need to be physically balanced and in shape just as much as horses do!! I know I am not in perfect shape by far, it is something I am working on big time! There are things that I cant do, that I am working on, but its going to take some time!!! A few weeks ago, Jolee did a yoga class at Mirka's with us. I went in knowing I was not in shape and it was going to be tough! BUT HOLY COW!!!! She worked my butt off!! She was able to do things that you see in yoga books AND with a broken wrist! I was sweating like a dog and was pretty sure I was going to pass out a few times!!! BUT, 3 days later, Mirka and I practiced what we learned, it is was not nearly as hard (Dont get me wrong, it still hurt like hell!). Its a lot of work to be physically balanced to do some of the things we want to do, both with horses and without, but with enough "perfect practice" (Pat Parelli) and persistence, we are capable of doing anything!!!!

Stay warm!
Emily

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

EMOTIONAL BALANCE

     Happy Wednesday! Hope everyone is enjoy the cold! I know the horses are!!

    Lots of thinking about this blog the last few days. At first I thought about how easy this part is for me because of how emotional of a person I am. BUT after further delving I decided this could be the hardest part for me, because its not just the EMOTIONAL part, its the BALANCE, and the "art" of being able to control or suppress emotion both inward and outward.

    I am sure EVERYONE has had a time with there horse where they were so frustrated, mad, exhilarated, thrilled or just plain bored.... think back to one of those times. How did your horse react? I have noticed that the more frustrated or upset I get with a horse, the worse our relationship gets during that time. Last week I was doing some eye contact games with Indy, I was getting so frustrated because she would not give me her eyes or her ears and I just couldn't understand why not! I had treats, I had technique, I had the mental picture, but she just wouldn't do it!! So, out of frustration I started to play taking territory, every time  she did not give me her eyes, I forced her to move away from me. HUGE MISTAKE! Indy had no idea what I was asking of her, it was almost as if giving me her eyes and ears was just too simple and there had to be something more. I walked away from her and tried to chill out, I let her much hay and I sat on a barrel and thought about what I was doing. I thought about my emotions, what I was feeling... then it hit me. How selfish of me!! I was not considering my horse! Indy is a high level 3 lower level 4 horse, but this was all new to her, she was confused and I am sure just as frustrated with me as I was with her. So, I decided to break it down. I broke down the game into smaller games, and BINGO! Each win was a step up, and finally, we had reached the top!!! The start of the day I could not keep Indy's attention, and by the end of the hour I had her doing 360's and companion walking around the round pen with me!!!

     I am the type of person who blows up... it doesn't happen a lot but if my emotions become so out of control, I tend to freak. That happens with horses too doesn't it? Some people would call that a right brain  quality. To me, its just unbalanced emotion, something I always have and always will struggle with. The past few years I have met some amazing women who have such control over their emotions that to be, it looks like an art. I am getting better, horses have helped me, people have helped me, and believe it or not, I am beginning to help myself. Emotional balance is something that does not come easy, and when it happens, the results are amazing. Don't hide behind a mask (horses don't), keep your emotions on your sleeve (horses do) but make sure they are appropriate (be a mirror to your horse), realize why you are feeling the way you do and what you can do to change it.

    Remember, your horse is a mirror of you, they reflect you... who are you? Who do you want to be? What kind of relationship do you want with your horse? Become a person YOU can look up to and your horse can follow.

-e
  

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Mental Balance

     Raise your hand if you were cold today!!!! Both of my hands are up, I was FREEZING all day!!!

     I did a lot of thinking again on my drive home, about MENTAL balance and the difference between it and EMOTIONAL balance. I was getting really frustrated and started confusing myself, but I think I figured it out.

     First of all there is a HUGE difference between EMOTIONAL and MENTAL, and I feel kind of silly that I had not figured this out sooner. Lets take for example horses and their trainer: I work with horses of all ages, youngest being  a 6 month old filly, and some older mares, 4 and 9. The 9 year old mare "Indy" is a higher level horse, around 3/4, she has the mental capacity to handle new and more advanced scenarios in our training. Now, Catori, the filly, is immature and cant handle much more than a few of the Parelli games.  I would never go out to the pasture, get Catori, put a halter on her and ask her to sideways away from me 40 feet and then back. She would have absolutely no idea what I was asking her to do. Indy on the other hand, she would be all about it, she LOVES to play the sideways game and she is MENTALLY BALANCED enough to handle it. Will Catori be able to do that? Of course! And I am sure with her little dominate attitude we will be doing it a lot! But right now Catori cannot handle it, its going to take lots of working together, building confidence and becoming BALANCED in all three areas!
CATORI

INDY

     Now, lets take the trainer. In a few days I am going to have a girl come work with me who has never done NHS and has very little experience with horses. Sure she has ridden, groomed and probably even tacked up a horse, but not much more. She is not where near MENTALLY BALANCED enough to do some of the things that my more advanced horses are able to do. For example, our 4 year old mare "Salita" is very much left brain, which mean she is dominate, pushy, rude, and sometimes a little scary. It would be a pretty stupide idea for me to but this girl and horse together. First of all, Salita would think (MENTAL) that she is in control, she is the leader, and would take advantage of the poor girl. And oohh gosh that poor girl, she would probably be scared of horses after working with Salita having no experience at all. The girl is too immature mentally as a horseman to work with that horse, she would probably regress both MENTALLY and EMOTIONALLY and maybe even get hurt PHYSICALLY.
SALITA

    So, in conclusion, when working with a horse, make sure YOU as a person are BALANCED MENTALLY to work with that horse. Do you have the necessary maturity and knowledge to help the horse and be its leader? Is the horse BALANCED enough MENTALLY to understand what you are asking of it, and able to do it?

I hope everyone stays warm! Tomorrow is EMOTIONAL BALANCE! This is going to be a fun one!!!!!

Stay True!
-E

Saturday, December 4, 2010

BALANCE- an overview

   I was taught to that with horse training you need balance; Emotional, Mental, and Physical. All of these apply to both horse, and human. After working with the girls yesterday I did a lot of thinking about this on my drive home ( I was stuck in traffic for a good hour, I had lots of thinking time!). I decide this would be a perfect topic to write about, not only because I have not fully grasped it, but because of my own emotional and mental and physical fitness in life and horse training.

   I did a little experiment, I googled all of those words separately to see what "society" or google, thought those words meant. I took the first picture it brought up.

Mental

Emotional

Physical 



  definitions: 

mental |ˈmentl|adjective of or relating to the mind mental faculties mental phenomena.

emotional |iˈmō sh ənəl|adjective of or relating to a person's emotions children with emotional difficulties.
    physical
 |ˈfizikəl|
  adjective   of or relating to the body as opposed to the mind a whole range of physical and mental challenges.

     Ok, all of these are adjective, which is? A word or phrase naming an attribute. (and for those who do not know, or those was want to get DEEPER, an attribute is: A VERB regard something as being caused by (someone or something) ) 
   What does all of this mean? Why is this so important? Well, it all circles back to one thing- BALANCE (an even distribute). And why is balance important? Thats the question!! WHY do we need this? So, I could go on and on and on about this, but I am going to break it down for myself... and maybe the half a person who actually reads this silly thing. I am going to give myself a day or two and think this over. and my next blog is going to be based on just Mental Balance, the next Emotional, then physical, then maybe by then I will have figured out how they all work together and how in both horse and human they help! 
This is already making my head hurt!!
-E

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Day 1, the first step!

    Okay, today was FREEZING! How can the weather go from nice and warm with a cool breeze to 30 degrees??!! I HATE BEING COLD! But, as cold as it was, I played with three of the horses today, and I have to admit, I was not motivated to do it, but it turned out great!
   I worked with Indy, Aurora and Salita today, in that order. Indy BEGGED to play, she has been wanting to play for awhile now, so she got to go first. I am starting everyone on the Carolyn Resnick Water Hole Rituals, no matter what level they are. This was Indy's first time and she was awesome!!! Indy is a LBI who LOVES to be right, so all I had to do was show her what to do, and she RAN with it! At first she tried to make it harder than it was, but once she figured out all she had to do was give me two eyes and two ears, life was good! We made huge progress in just 20 minutes! After we were done I let her chill with me and eat some hay then I let her out of the roundpen. BUT, she did not budge! She stood right by the gate the whole time I played with the other girls! I LOVE LOVE LOVE motivated horses with desire! What could be better?!
    After Indy I brought in Aurora, who was done the WHR many times while we were in Florida working with Mirka Pitts. She is in no way a pro, but she does know what to do and she is always asking questions. Aurora has no problem giving you two eyes and two ears, she is a LBE and very curious! She is the most "cuddly" horse I have ever met, she loves to be around people. We are working on draw, and so far she is doing GREAT, I ever got  stick to me walk about 15 feet, I was very proud! She is a smart baby!!
    Salita, Salita, Salita!!!!! Salita is a 4 year old LB- EXTROVERT to the 10th power!! I have never met a more dominate and left brain horse!! She is so much fun to work with, but she is a challenge, which i think is good for me, and a few months ago I would have been REALLY frustrated working with her, but today, I looked at as a challenge, a game, and I needed to win the game! Well, I did not win, but I moved forward a few spaces!! I had a bit of an issue, every time I tried to draw her to me, she would turn her head or move away. Even when I was just playing the friendly game she would literally turn around to get away from me. Well, as dominate and left brain as this horse is, I should have guessed that it was NOT a confidence issue, but thats what I thought it was. Sooooo, I chilled out, I relaxed and I gave her lots of time. WRONG! This was a HUGE dominance issue! When she was turning away from me, she was actually lining me up to kick me!! Little brat! She knew exactly what she was doing!! SOOO!!! I matched her energy and we worked hard!!! I did not have a huge breath through but I managed to keep zone 1 at me as much as possible and even had her attention when I asked!! It was a good session, and I even forgot about the cold!!
    Amanda watched the whole time, she had never seen the WHR done, and I think she enjoyed it, she loves watching her girls make breakthroughs!
Aurora

Indy and Salita
  

Its a good thing I have horses in my life.... everything else is pretty screwy, I am truly thankful for the supportive and loving people who have embraced me and helped me through my difficult times!! I have such high aspirations and dreams, its going to be a rough road, hell its been pretty bumpy so far, but I am ready to take it on!!!

STAY TRUE!!!!!
-e

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

So, I caved.

     Okay, I did it, its not the prettiest thing in the world, but hey, I did it. I have SOOO much going on in my head, it would be a huge mess to try and write it all out. I will try to be as organized and literate as possible, please hang in here with me!!

    I am going to write about my days, my dreams, my horses and my life. I am sure I will bore most, but maybe someone will find it a tad bit interesting!!

-E