Last weekend we had a fantastic Liberty clinic at Larisa Tasker's ranch with Michael. We had the privilege of having him stay at our house as well. What a nice guy.
As the title suggests the aim of the clinic was to improve our Liberty, but it turned out to be so much more than that.
What I really learned was to "play like horse". In the few years I have been practising Parelli I had never seen anyone put this ideal into action like Michael. He had real energy in his play and the horses responded. Mostly with disbelief at the start, "does he really want to play properly with us?", but then with more and more enthusiasm. I should add at this point that I could see how this could get out off hand without care and training, so don't blame me if you get hurt trying :) !!
Day one was all online work, getting the horses to be really responsive to our cues. Lots of work on really good, snappy hind quarter yields. As Pat says in his videos "hind quarter yields increase the draw to you". At Liberty you need lots of draw. We also added in lots of porcupine games, especially on the circle. I was playing with Mini. He tends to circle looking to the outside and a way of escape. My task was to play the porcupine game on his head with the rope. If he leant on the halter whilst circling I walked backwards, away from him, until released even fractionally or even with just his mind (look at the eye to gauge this). Then give him release. After a very little time he was circling nicely.
The hind quarter yields were also done on the circle, but real play was put in them. Whilst circling the first cue was to bend and look at hind quarters, followed by raising the stick (so far so what?) then running towards the hind quarters with a strong look in the eye which had a "playful" make my day attitude. This was what I had never seen before. The phase four was mad "playfully", not aggressively. When demonstrating Michael would even be tossing his head like a stallion as he ran in and really tagged the horse on zone 4 if needed. The horses really became engaged with the game, their life came up and their faces pictures of curiosity.
This was not a static game in one place either. Once the hind quarter yield was achieved he would then run with the horse to somewhere else in the field and play a different game, maybe forequarter driving. These bursts of movement he explained were important. Horses like to go somewhere when playing, not just stay in one 22 foot circle. Watch them in the field on their own and they use the whole of a 10 acre field to play in. There were also many moments of calm within the play session, again just as horses graze for a few seconds before setting off for another brief game.
Even Michaels porcupine game was more playful. If he needed to get to phase 4 he actually pinched the horse repeatedly, mimicking them biting each other. He says that Pat suggests growing long nails ! The horses seemed to take less offence to this than steady hard pressure. He also suggests that a blunt hoof pick can be used. This I have seen Pat do on videos.
After the demo we all played with our own horses/ponies. It took a while to get the energy and feel needed for the game, but once there, boy we had fun. Mini, who is a 16 year old "been there done it" type of pony really got animated. The response to all the games I had been trying to get for so long just started to happen. Backup was great as where hind quarter yields. Most impressive was his expression. After 16 years here was a guy who really wanted to play.
Over the lunch break we talked about personal space bubbles. No I am a guy who was brought up as a scientist, and all this talk about auras and personal energy bubbles is just bovine faecal matter to me, until I tried it. We partnered up with another course participant and stood facing each other. One would walk towards the other until they felt the personal bubble of the other and then stop and check they had got it right. After a little practise it was actually quite easy to find the limits of the personal space. We then practised altering the size of our bubbles and see if the other person could spot the change, again surprisingly easy. To test that I was not just reading minute body language changes on the subject I walked backwards into a bubble and stopped at it's edge. I must admit to being surprised that I still got it right.
The point of all this ? To be able to influence our horses by altering the size of our bubbles, and also to feel the size and shape of our horses bubbles. The horse bubble is not at an equal distance from the horse. If they are protective of their flanks for example, there will be an outward spike in the size of the bubble at this point. By being aware of these spikes and troughs it is easier to influence the horses movements by only pushing on the edge of the bubble when driving them for instance. Without this knowledge it would be easy to accidentally push too hard into the bubble and cause them to feel offended or threatened. The result at Liberty is they would then leave.
We then tried these new skills out on our horses after lunch. They were remarkably effective. By projecting my energy out I could get Mini to back away, likewise by sucking my energy in I could draw him back. What is more he seemed more engaged in the simple game of YoYo than I have seen him before.
Day 2
More practise at playing like a horse. The emphasis today was improving the forequarter driving game to get the horse bouncing sideways back and forth following our movements, as you might see them do when cow cutting. Now this is not for the faint hearted. Once engaged they could get very animated by this game, with rearing snorting etc. But the game did get them focussed on the human and responding to the suggestion of movement. I am not saying it looked great, with snappy changes, but the beginnings were there and it was great fun.
In the afternoon we did play at Liberty for a while, which resulted in the odd runaway to add to the fun. As a fitness class it left little to be desired :). For me with Mini the stick to me game was very good, but I had to work on getting Mini to be comfortable a little further from me. He tends to want to actually touch me most of the time. I tried a bit of more distant work in the arena, but he tended to just leave, so I moved to the round pen. Now Mini knows he can duck under the round pen tape and leave anytime he wants, but doesn't. This suggests to me that the fact he happily stays on the circle in the pen, and has a great draw back to me, there is not much further to go on our journey before he will stay on the circle in the field.
All in all a fantastic weekend which has really changed my understanding of how to play with a horse and make it more fun for both of us. I can't wait to try me new knowledge out with Filly, but given her inbuilt playfulness it will be done with care !!
Just for a laugh here is a video of me and Mini at the clinic
As the title suggests the aim of the clinic was to improve our Liberty, but it turned out to be so much more than that.
What I really learned was to "play like horse". In the few years I have been practising Parelli I had never seen anyone put this ideal into action like Michael. He had real energy in his play and the horses responded. Mostly with disbelief at the start, "does he really want to play properly with us?", but then with more and more enthusiasm. I should add at this point that I could see how this could get out off hand without care and training, so don't blame me if you get hurt trying :) !!
Day one was all online work, getting the horses to be really responsive to our cues. Lots of work on really good, snappy hind quarter yields. As Pat says in his videos "hind quarter yields increase the draw to you". At Liberty you need lots of draw. We also added in lots of porcupine games, especially on the circle. I was playing with Mini. He tends to circle looking to the outside and a way of escape. My task was to play the porcupine game on his head with the rope. If he leant on the halter whilst circling I walked backwards, away from him, until released even fractionally or even with just his mind (look at the eye to gauge this). Then give him release. After a very little time he was circling nicely.
The hind quarter yields were also done on the circle, but real play was put in them. Whilst circling the first cue was to bend and look at hind quarters, followed by raising the stick (so far so what?) then running towards the hind quarters with a strong look in the eye which had a "playful" make my day attitude. This was what I had never seen before. The phase four was mad "playfully", not aggressively. When demonstrating Michael would even be tossing his head like a stallion as he ran in and really tagged the horse on zone 4 if needed. The horses really became engaged with the game, their life came up and their faces pictures of curiosity.
This was not a static game in one place either. Once the hind quarter yield was achieved he would then run with the horse to somewhere else in the field and play a different game, maybe forequarter driving. These bursts of movement he explained were important. Horses like to go somewhere when playing, not just stay in one 22 foot circle. Watch them in the field on their own and they use the whole of a 10 acre field to play in. There were also many moments of calm within the play session, again just as horses graze for a few seconds before setting off for another brief game.
Even Michaels porcupine game was more playful. If he needed to get to phase 4 he actually pinched the horse repeatedly, mimicking them biting each other. He says that Pat suggests growing long nails ! The horses seemed to take less offence to this than steady hard pressure. He also suggests that a blunt hoof pick can be used. This I have seen Pat do on videos.
After the demo we all played with our own horses/ponies. It took a while to get the energy and feel needed for the game, but once there, boy we had fun. Mini, who is a 16 year old "been there done it" type of pony really got animated. The response to all the games I had been trying to get for so long just started to happen. Backup was great as where hind quarter yields. Most impressive was his expression. After 16 years here was a guy who really wanted to play.
Over the lunch break we talked about personal space bubbles. No I am a guy who was brought up as a scientist, and all this talk about auras and personal energy bubbles is just bovine faecal matter to me, until I tried it. We partnered up with another course participant and stood facing each other. One would walk towards the other until they felt the personal bubble of the other and then stop and check they had got it right. After a little practise it was actually quite easy to find the limits of the personal space. We then practised altering the size of our bubbles and see if the other person could spot the change, again surprisingly easy. To test that I was not just reading minute body language changes on the subject I walked backwards into a bubble and stopped at it's edge. I must admit to being surprised that I still got it right.
The point of all this ? To be able to influence our horses by altering the size of our bubbles, and also to feel the size and shape of our horses bubbles. The horse bubble is not at an equal distance from the horse. If they are protective of their flanks for example, there will be an outward spike in the size of the bubble at this point. By being aware of these spikes and troughs it is easier to influence the horses movements by only pushing on the edge of the bubble when driving them for instance. Without this knowledge it would be easy to accidentally push too hard into the bubble and cause them to feel offended or threatened. The result at Liberty is they would then leave.
We then tried these new skills out on our horses after lunch. They were remarkably effective. By projecting my energy out I could get Mini to back away, likewise by sucking my energy in I could draw him back. What is more he seemed more engaged in the simple game of YoYo than I have seen him before.
Day 2
More practise at playing like a horse. The emphasis today was improving the forequarter driving game to get the horse bouncing sideways back and forth following our movements, as you might see them do when cow cutting. Now this is not for the faint hearted. Once engaged they could get very animated by this game, with rearing snorting etc. But the game did get them focussed on the human and responding to the suggestion of movement. I am not saying it looked great, with snappy changes, but the beginnings were there and it was great fun.
In the afternoon we did play at Liberty for a while, which resulted in the odd runaway to add to the fun. As a fitness class it left little to be desired :). For me with Mini the stick to me game was very good, but I had to work on getting Mini to be comfortable a little further from me. He tends to want to actually touch me most of the time. I tried a bit of more distant work in the arena, but he tended to just leave, so I moved to the round pen. Now Mini knows he can duck under the round pen tape and leave anytime he wants, but doesn't. This suggests to me that the fact he happily stays on the circle in the pen, and has a great draw back to me, there is not much further to go on our journey before he will stay on the circle in the field.
All in all a fantastic weekend which has really changed my understanding of how to play with a horse and make it more fun for both of us. I can't wait to try me new knowledge out with Filly, but given her inbuilt playfulness it will be done with care !!
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