Filly's turn yestreday and she served up an interesting challenge. Ritchie watched this session to give me feedback and it was just as well she did.
Filly was extremely unmotivated. I had planned on working on figure of 8 at trot with the ultimate aim of figure 8 at canter. At canter she will need to do a flying lead change between each cone of course and this will in turn help her find balance at the canter. But trot is needed first. Snag was she did not want to trot around the cones. More pressure to maintain gait just resulted in a really sour ears back look from her, not good for the rapport.
At this point Ritchie aksed "What's missing ?". Impulsion obviously. "What horsenality is she showing ?" Left brain introvert. "How do you fix impulsion in a LBI ?". Ah.... go slower. Then it also occurred to me that I needed to apply the Parelli formula of Rapport, Respect, Impulsion, Flexion. Well I was certainly not getting Flexion around the cones, Impulsion was only possible on a straight line, Respect was not to bad, Rapport was suffering from the pressure I was putting on her. Slowing down was thus going to help the Rapport and she was then more likely accept my leadership thus increasing Respect. I threw away the idea of figure 8 at trot and concentrated on seeing how slowly she could walk the pattern.
This really grabbed her attention and the inquisitive look returned to her face. We played with this for some time, whilst trying to discourage her from picking up and moving the cones as she crawled past them. I then played with all sorts of other games at a very very slow pace. Sending her backwards on the YoYo one leg at a time got her full attention with a lovely expression on her face. Sideways over a cone slowly meant she had to accept the cone under her belly for an extended period of time. Circling slowly was a real challenge, she kept wanting to walk faster !!
This showed the value of someone on the outside looking in. Ritchie could spot what I had missed and then leave me to figure out the solution. It also showed the value of knowing Pat's various lists in his framework. Their use as a diagnostic tool is invaluable. There is a link to my web page describing them on the right hand side of the blog.
Filly was extremely unmotivated. I had planned on working on figure of 8 at trot with the ultimate aim of figure 8 at canter. At canter she will need to do a flying lead change between each cone of course and this will in turn help her find balance at the canter. But trot is needed first. Snag was she did not want to trot around the cones. More pressure to maintain gait just resulted in a really sour ears back look from her, not good for the rapport.
At this point Ritchie aksed "What's missing ?". Impulsion obviously. "What horsenality is she showing ?" Left brain introvert. "How do you fix impulsion in a LBI ?". Ah.... go slower. Then it also occurred to me that I needed to apply the Parelli formula of Rapport, Respect, Impulsion, Flexion. Well I was certainly not getting Flexion around the cones, Impulsion was only possible on a straight line, Respect was not to bad, Rapport was suffering from the pressure I was putting on her. Slowing down was thus going to help the Rapport and she was then more likely accept my leadership thus increasing Respect. I threw away the idea of figure 8 at trot and concentrated on seeing how slowly she could walk the pattern.
This really grabbed her attention and the inquisitive look returned to her face. We played with this for some time, whilst trying to discourage her from picking up and moving the cones as she crawled past them. I then played with all sorts of other games at a very very slow pace. Sending her backwards on the YoYo one leg at a time got her full attention with a lovely expression on her face. Sideways over a cone slowly meant she had to accept the cone under her belly for an extended period of time. Circling slowly was a real challenge, she kept wanting to walk faster !!
This showed the value of someone on the outside looking in. Ritchie could spot what I had missed and then leave me to figure out the solution. It also showed the value of knowing Pat's various lists in his framework. Their use as a diagnostic tool is invaluable. There is a link to my web page describing them on the right hand side of the blog.
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