I have only had time to play with Filly once in the last few days. Doctors appointments, weddings and the arrival of my new glider has kept us very busy.
As usual we played in the indoor school. Ritchie played first doing all the usual circling, sideways and YoYo, plus letting have the all important roll. Ritchie asserted some dominance over her by making her work first and then rewarding her with the roll. She was clearly not happy with this turn of events, but it did demonstrate that Ritchie had 51% of the partnership and Filly 49%. In practical terms this meant that she acknowledged Filly's desire to roll but it would be done on Ritchie's timeline not at Filly's immediate demand.
After the roll it was time for me to play, again sat in my chair. I am still have trouble with the backup part of YoYo and again had to go to phase 4 to get respect. That said phase 1 or 2 was all that was required thereafter. We worked on sideways over cones again at a distance of about 15 feet. Eventually I want to work up to sideways circles, but for now the cones give a purpose and focus to the exercise both for me and Filly. At present we are successfully passing over one cone so the next step is to place more cones on the arc of the circle and pass over all of them.
We then moved onto more circling game with gait transitions, mostly trot to halt. I know this may seem a rather simple exercise for a horse and human with an 18 month relationship, but to some degree we are having to revisit the basics given my confinement to a chair. The cones came into play again as I was after precision stops with her front legs next to a cone. Should she be late on the stop she got firmly backed up to the cone and then given a long rest to think about it. Improvement was slow but measurable.
One note of importance is that if you are playing sat in a chair do not let the excess rope fall on the floor as one would normally do when standing. It can wrap around the chair resulting in a right mess or worse if the horse panicked and pulled back hard.
I have noticed that playing sat down has much improved my ability to allow the rope to slide through my hand and slowly increase the pressure should she be pulling on it. This in turn has lead to much better circles as she is being gently corrected on the exact size and direction of the circle rather than being rather rudely snatched at as my hand closes too fast. Another upside to my current condition, I only hope I remember all these lessons when I can stand again. I will try to make a point of training whilst sitting occasionally in the future. Come to think of it standing on one leg would be an even more extreme test of the ability to stay still, add pressure slowly and release quickly. I'll leave that for my readers to try for the next month or so until I am fitter !!
As usual we played in the indoor school. Ritchie played first doing all the usual circling, sideways and YoYo, plus letting have the all important roll. Ritchie asserted some dominance over her by making her work first and then rewarding her with the roll. She was clearly not happy with this turn of events, but it did demonstrate that Ritchie had 51% of the partnership and Filly 49%. In practical terms this meant that she acknowledged Filly's desire to roll but it would be done on Ritchie's timeline not at Filly's immediate demand.
After the roll it was time for me to play, again sat in my chair. I am still have trouble with the backup part of YoYo and again had to go to phase 4 to get respect. That said phase 1 or 2 was all that was required thereafter. We worked on sideways over cones again at a distance of about 15 feet. Eventually I want to work up to sideways circles, but for now the cones give a purpose and focus to the exercise both for me and Filly. At present we are successfully passing over one cone so the next step is to place more cones on the arc of the circle and pass over all of them.
We then moved onto more circling game with gait transitions, mostly trot to halt. I know this may seem a rather simple exercise for a horse and human with an 18 month relationship, but to some degree we are having to revisit the basics given my confinement to a chair. The cones came into play again as I was after precision stops with her front legs next to a cone. Should she be late on the stop she got firmly backed up to the cone and then given a long rest to think about it. Improvement was slow but measurable.
One note of importance is that if you are playing sat in a chair do not let the excess rope fall on the floor as one would normally do when standing. It can wrap around the chair resulting in a right mess or worse if the horse panicked and pulled back hard.
I have noticed that playing sat down has much improved my ability to allow the rope to slide through my hand and slowly increase the pressure should she be pulling on it. This in turn has lead to much better circles as she is being gently corrected on the exact size and direction of the circle rather than being rather rudely snatched at as my hand closes too fast. Another upside to my current condition, I only hope I remember all these lessons when I can stand again. I will try to make a point of training whilst sitting occasionally in the future. Come to think of it standing on one leg would be an even more extreme test of the ability to stay still, add pressure slowly and release quickly. I'll leave that for my readers to try for the next month or so until I am fitter !!
No comments:
Post a Comment