I had another chance to play with Filly yesterday. We started with the usual circling game, still trying to make them round. She is getting much better at this but still comes in a little bit behind me. In general, however, there has been a huge improvement since I was able bodied. Interesting eh !? I have spent nearly a year trying to get round circles whilst standing, and failing. Sit me in a chair, really having to work at my body language, and most importantly having a really good neutral pose and she improves in a few weeks.
I think this is due to several seperate components. 1) my neutral is much much better (I just slump in my chair) and thus it is clearer to Filly when she is doing the right thing so she learns more rapidly what the right thing is. 2) I have really worked hard on directing my energy at particular zones. For example to drive her out onto the circle I am getting much more accurate at directing the energy at zone 2 or 3. (Occasionally zone 1 if she has come a long way in). Thus my directional corrections have become much clearer to her.
This has actually increased the rapport between us as she finds my leadership less scattered and confusing, thus she has become a more willing interested partner.
To help even further with this I added in another exercise. A pole was placed with its' end pointing towards me and about 6 feet away. We then played at going sideways away from me using the pole as a guide. From the seated position this took some practice on my part getting the energy focussed alternately in zone 1 and zone 4 to yield the front away then the back. After a frustrating 5 minutes we finally got it sorted out and had several nice sideways passes along the pole. In fact I turned it into a modified figure 8 pattern to give it purpose. Starting at the near end of the pole go sideways to the far end, then circle in front of me to face in the opposite direction at the near end of the pole, sideways again to the far end and repeat. A real challenge and good fun.
As a side note to this it demonstrates that the seven games and the various patterns are only classes of games and patterns. There are hundreds of variations on sideways and likewise hundreds of figure 8 patterns that can be used. The trick is to use your imagination to make up new patterns and games within a class and combine them to get the training objective achieved.
Towards the end of the session I decided to take a small chance and try Filly at liberty from the chair, something I had not tried before with her. Removing the rope she ran towards the school gate but Ritchie was there to send her away. Thus comfort was not to be found at the gate ! After this one attempt she focussed on me and we had some really good fun with circling at trot and canter, with some exuberant changes of direction at canter. We even managed figure 8 pattern around some cones at trot. At the end she came and stood next to me nuzzling my hair. I have to say it went way better than I expected and the look on her face and her shear exuberance was a joy to watch. But even during the exuberance she was concentrating on me and did not miss a signal, reacting faster than she does online.
Whilst the injury is a pain in many ways, I still feel that in the end it has probably helped jump my horsemanship up another notch. I hope I have the discipline to keep it going when I can walk properly again, but then there is nothing stopping me sitting down in a chair to recapture the same feeling. I suspect that a garden chair my become an essential part of my horsemanship equipment.
Ritchie and I are going to James Roberts for a course with Bonitao for 2 weeks starting tomorrow. Me to watch and Ritchie to ride. I'll blog what I can whilst there, but I am not sure what the internet connection will be like. Normal service will resume around the 3rd July.
Wish I could take Filly, I think I'll miss my little friend !
I think this is due to several seperate components. 1) my neutral is much much better (I just slump in my chair) and thus it is clearer to Filly when she is doing the right thing so she learns more rapidly what the right thing is. 2) I have really worked hard on directing my energy at particular zones. For example to drive her out onto the circle I am getting much more accurate at directing the energy at zone 2 or 3. (Occasionally zone 1 if she has come a long way in). Thus my directional corrections have become much clearer to her.
This has actually increased the rapport between us as she finds my leadership less scattered and confusing, thus she has become a more willing interested partner.
To help even further with this I added in another exercise. A pole was placed with its' end pointing towards me and about 6 feet away. We then played at going sideways away from me using the pole as a guide. From the seated position this took some practice on my part getting the energy focussed alternately in zone 1 and zone 4 to yield the front away then the back. After a frustrating 5 minutes we finally got it sorted out and had several nice sideways passes along the pole. In fact I turned it into a modified figure 8 pattern to give it purpose. Starting at the near end of the pole go sideways to the far end, then circle in front of me to face in the opposite direction at the near end of the pole, sideways again to the far end and repeat. A real challenge and good fun.
As a side note to this it demonstrates that the seven games and the various patterns are only classes of games and patterns. There are hundreds of variations on sideways and likewise hundreds of figure 8 patterns that can be used. The trick is to use your imagination to make up new patterns and games within a class and combine them to get the training objective achieved.
Towards the end of the session I decided to take a small chance and try Filly at liberty from the chair, something I had not tried before with her. Removing the rope she ran towards the school gate but Ritchie was there to send her away. Thus comfort was not to be found at the gate ! After this one attempt she focussed on me and we had some really good fun with circling at trot and canter, with some exuberant changes of direction at canter. We even managed figure 8 pattern around some cones at trot. At the end she came and stood next to me nuzzling my hair. I have to say it went way better than I expected and the look on her face and her shear exuberance was a joy to watch. But even during the exuberance she was concentrating on me and did not miss a signal, reacting faster than she does online.
Whilst the injury is a pain in many ways, I still feel that in the end it has probably helped jump my horsemanship up another notch. I hope I have the discipline to keep it going when I can walk properly again, but then there is nothing stopping me sitting down in a chair to recapture the same feeling. I suspect that a garden chair my become an essential part of my horsemanship equipment.
Ritchie and I are going to James Roberts for a course with Bonitao for 2 weeks starting tomorrow. Me to watch and Ritchie to ride. I'll blog what I can whilst there, but I am not sure what the internet connection will be like. Normal service will resume around the 3rd July.
Wish I could take Filly, I think I'll miss my little friend !
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