Aikido at JRFS

As many of you will know I am interested in aikido as a way to improve my horsemanship. At least that is how it started, but then I got hooked on aikido to add to my list of hobbies  :roll:

It was Mark Rashid who introduced me to the idea, first through his book then during a clinic I watched where I had a chance to chat with him personally. After that I joined a local DoJo and got really really lucky. Both of the main instructors at the DoJo were interested in my reason for joining and did some research of their own to help me.
It then turned out that I had joined the only club in the UK which really concentrates on the internal form of aikido where the focus and intention are emphasised rather than just the mechanical movement of the technique. There are other clubs which do this but apparently none with emphasis of the one I attend.

After a year at the club I really began to see the benefits to my horsemanship, especially with soft feel, focus and intention. So the last time I was at JRFS I suggested that I invite my instructors down there for a "trial" day. Today it happened.

We started with Josh giving a great demo on his Mocho whilst he commented on the meaning of "follow a feel" to horsemen. He played in all four savvies including bridleless which really emphasised the power of focus. The instructors, Tony and David, seemed pretty impressed by all this and there was much nodding of heads in understanding and agreement at what Josh was showing and explaining. This was pretty remarkable in itself as neither Tony nor David have much experience with horses, limited to the odd ride on holiday I believe. For them to understand what many would describe as
advanced topics in horsemanship so readily showed how close the ideas in each discipline actually are.

Once Josh was finished it was their turn to have a little play with Mocho. We stuck to the real basics of hind quarter yield using intention, lower the head with porcupine and back up using porcupine off the halter. They then found that actually it was quite difficult !

The difference between a horse and human is that horses never lie. If they did not ask quite right they did not get the response. I know for a fact that when I am training in aikido at my low level my opponent will react correctly even if I don't get it quite right. This lets me practise and improve as they ask for more and more perfection before the react. But a horse is always a 5th dan black belt horse and will always act like one irrespective of your level of horsemanship.
They did both get the tasks completed and in the process gained an insight into the horsemanship world. David in particular really enjoyed it. He send it made him feel all tingly when he got it right.

After lunch it was their turn to show aikido to Vicky and Josh. They started with a demo of bokken (wooden sword) work to demonstrate contact in a very amplified way. In aikido we use the bokken in forms similar to the non-weapon work to be able to really see the movement.
From that they moved onto non-weapon work with the three of us. I could see that Vicky was a little sceptical at first as I suspect she thought it all looked very choreographed. Then she had some very gentle techniques applied to her :) Very soon both her and Josh began to see the parallels as the subtlest movement by Tony or David effected their balance, or made them follow a feel in a certain direction. The 45 minute session turned into 90 minutes as more and more ideas flowed and everyone became more engaged.

So passed a fascinating day. It was great to see what happens when  expert proponents of two seemingly very different activities come together and find common ground from which both sides could take lessons. By the time we left Vicky was talking about having them down to JRFS again in the future to do a session at a weekend clinic with visiting riders. I really hope this can be made to happen sometime when the weather has warmed up a bit. It would be great to see how far we can take this marriage of aikido and horsemanship in the future.
 

An unfortunate incident and an important lesson

A few days ago I was preparing Filly to be ridden in the outdoor school. I do a prepare to ride every time. It was going pretty well but she was a bit spooked by a guy who was loading stuff in a van next to the school. I just took note of this and worked with rather than around the problem.
We had got to the point of saddling up and the saddle was on her back the man lifted a long step ladder off the roof of the van. He was stood the other side of the van where she could not see him and from her point of view this ladder just floated up into the air. Big spook. But the saddle was not done up so as she spooked she felt it move and bucked. This made it move more so she bucked until it came off, then stood there snorting.
Great. She has now learned to buck something off her back, not something I ever wanted her to learn.
So back to the colt start plan "accept the saddle" section. Having got the saddle on her I went about getting her confident with it again. I sent her out on a circle and she did a fair few little bucks. When I moved her up into canter she was doing an odd gait where the front legs cantered, but the hind legs stayed next to each other so that every stride was a little buck. Fortunately there was a little jump (and I mean little) set up in the school already. As the jump is the same gait as the buck I sent her over the jump to put her bucks to use. This made her think about her gait a little more.
After a while I could see the gait getting more regular and her ears stopped flicking back to the saddle and showed more interest in "looking forwards. The jump helped with the forward thinking as well of course.
Once she was forward thinking then she had a short rest before testing it out again on the other rein. It took very little time to get her forward thinking and so we just continued with a normal prepare to ride session. My current emphasis is sideways with impulsion at trot.
The following ride was quite normal and good fun. No bucks, just a normal ride.

Thank-you James for teaching me to always prepare to ride, what to look for when preparing to ride, how to get a horse confident with a saddle and recognising that confidence.
The anniversary of James death has just passed but he still lives with me everyday and he is still teaching me to be a better horseman. Surely that is the mark of a great teacher.
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JRFS October 2013

Our holiday is over :( . But, boy, did we learn a lot at JRFS this time. I think everyone is familiar with JRFS on this forum by now, but in case you haven't heard of it here is a quick description
JRFS was run by James Roberts, who was one of Pat Parellis' proteges, until his untimely death in a car accident last year. It was a colt start station and also ran courses, called experience weeks, for anyone who wanted to attend. Parelli or not.
Since his death his staff and fiancée, Vicky, have worked very hard to keep the place going. There was a transitional period which was difficult, but I am pleased to report that it is really running well now.
Josh, James apprentice, has been to Australia twice to train with Rob McCauliffe and is now a certified colt starter and 2 star PP. Becca is mainly instructing there. Vicky is recently qualified as a certified Coleen Kelly Rider biomechanics instructor.
So the range of training opportunities has, if anything, increased since James died and his legacy lives on.
I'll concentrate on my experience there last week to give a flavour of what it is like.
We arrived Sunday night. It was the first time we had trailered Filly and Bonitao together. We have a camera in the trailer so could watch Filly dancing for the first hour until she settled. We found rough winding roads where she had to think to her feet made her calmer. Traffic jams were not so good :( . Bonitao was tolerant of her antics to start, but then started to give her hard looks when she acted up.
First mistake was to turn them out together. We had never tried this before and were keen to do it where we had savvy folks around to help if it went wrong. Well they were very very happy together overnight it turned out. If Bonitao is not firing blanks (he is gelded) I am suing my wife for paternity ;) . So we separated them. Bonitao spent 2 days calling for Filly.  Filly spent around an hour calling for Bonitao and then forgot him. That's women for you ;) .

I had sent a list of what I wanted to work on to JRFS before we arrived. At the top of that list was "Vaquero horsemanship". As soon as the staff saw this they decided that the only instructor for me was Josh as that is what he is studying as well. The upshot was that I got to ride and train with Josh for 2 1/2 to 3 hours every morning. It was great to have Josh ride alongside me as he explained and demonstrated the intricacies of this style from the back of his horse, Mocho.

Day 1
We did the normal prepare to ride and I rode in my usual rope halter. Josh was explaining how to get each individual foot in my hands and how to time the pressure and release on the reins to move each foot in turn. As he said most folks he sees gets the timing of the release wrong. For example, on the direct rein they release the inside rein as the outside foot crosses over rather than as the inside foot stretches out. When he put it that way it was obvious as to when to release, then it was just practise.

Day2
We tried the 5/8 bosal on Filly. After a few minutes of uncertainty she became really happy in it and so much more responsive. The only thing worrying her after that was the tickle from the horsehair reins on her neck. We worked on more direct rein, backup (timing my hands with her front feet) and also getting little nose tucks as we walked forwards. It took me a while to get the mechanics of not holding a steady rein for very long, but providing little bumps if she failed to yield. The hardest was timing the release of the bumps with her yield. It's easy to feel the yield with steady pressure, but harder with a trembling hand.
The real improvement that day was her backup. Getting the timing of my hands to coincide with her feet really made her backup deep and powerful.
Josh also had me calling out footfall of the hind legs as I walked around. We started with just calling when a hind foot was in the swing phase and moved onto calling when the hind lifted and placed again. I was really pleased to have studied Mark Rashids Footfall DVD !

Day 3.
We now started to concentrate more on the ground work. Josh had me walking with Filly in tight circles in zone 4/5 asking the inside hind leg to really swing under her body to get a deep stretch. She had some trouble with this so we went to the patience pole.

The patience pole is a great bit of kit. It is a pole around 7 feet tall sunk 10 feet into the ground and secured with concrete. It cannot move ! On top is a car wheel hub which can rotate freely. On the hub is a carabiner. A 45 foot line is passed through the carabiner. One end clipped to the halter, the other end and coils in the trainers hand. The inbound and outbound rope are wrapped around each other a few times to create friction. The horse can now be circled on a diameter of your choosing and it will be a precise circle. The system is great for softening up zone 1 as the horse cannot gain so much as an inch and quickly realises it is only pulling on itself. It also allow the trainer to circle with the horse and come out a little on the circle. Then using a pan fish pole you can ask the horse to yield out whatever zone is not on the circle. This really helps to get precise straightness on the circle.
I had seen James use the pole many times before. Josh thought I was good enough now to use it myself. The first 10 minutes were chaos until I got the hang of the system. The trick was to pull out on the rope to keep the line taught on the carabiner so that the hub turned. Failure to do this resulted in the rope wrapping around the pole.
Filly got pretty emotional about this. She was having to give up her ability to subtly push on my with various zones as I could now get out there and push back with the flag. For an LB horse this was hard to take. However we got there in the end.
The result of the patience pole work was amazing. She became even lighter off my leg than before. She actually seemed happier as well which surprised me, but I guess I had just become even more of a leader for her.
We worked  more on the little vertical flexion responses in the bosal at walk and trot. Then we did a long canter session to get her more rhythmical.

Day 4
Another session on the patience pole where she was much happier. Today we worked on trot rhythm. The pole is purposely placed on a reasonable slope to give up and down sections on the circle. The game for her was to figure out that she got a rest when she maintained a rhythmic trot all around the circle.
More of the zone 4/5 leg stretching work in the school revealed that she was still pushing on my energy bubble. At this point Josh took her for a while and they had a protracted and fiery exchange of views on the subject of yielding softly. I had done much of this in the past, but a) I am not yet a trained colt starter and b) even James used to say there are some things better done by others to your horse as you have to much emotional attachment to them.
I am now way more aware when she is making tiny tiny pushes on my bubble and take steps when she does. Again this actually seems to be improving our rapport.
Riding was basically more of the same. Lots of clover leaf pattern asking for little vertical flexions at walk and trot. Rewarding good ones with a loose rein.

Day 5
She was a different Filly today. Much softer and less attitude. Coming back out of season after her night out with Bonitao probably helped.
Basically more of the same but becoming more particular. We found she could hold the flexion for a stride or two which she has never done before. Her canter had also become much more rhythmical and relaxed.
What this day really demonstrated was the difference a week of riding under the instruction of the likes of Josh can make. It helps that this style of riding is Joshs' passion and I believe the I am his only student in this. As he pointed out I am now very limited in the number of instructors who can teach me. We reckoned maybe 3 in the UK including Dave Stewart who is only here 3 months a year. The only problem with Josh is understanding him sometimes as we spent so much time laughing together we could barely speak. The others in the indoor school could hear us having fun.

This is just a summary of my riding with Josh. Of course the day is 10 hours long and this only took up about 3 hours. The rest of the time was spent watching Josh colt starting and listening to his explanations of what he was doing (again through the laughter !).
We also watched Vicky developing more advanced horses.  She rode our horse Bonitao most days to advance him for us (Ritchie cannot ride at the moment due to a hip injury). On Friday I rode Bonitao with Vicky giving me a lesson in rider biomechanics and also showing me what I have to continue working on with him.

I am almost reluctant to praise the place too much as I want to be able to go there myself regularly and don't want it booked out. However I would strongly recommend my friends on this forum who can get there to visit the place and see what it has to offer for themselves. After all for £300 for a week of intense instruction what have you got to loose ?

First long hack out on Filly

After all the walking it was time to hack Filly out properly. My wife Ritchie came with me with her horse Bonitao online.

I did all the normal "prepare to ride" in the outdoor school. "Zone 3 driving" to get her confidence being out in front and establish good transitions, "falling leaf" pattern to establish hind quarter yields and follow a feel and, of course, "rope around".
A quick ride in the school to check all the above whilst ridden and we were ready to go.

Filly has never liked the first few steps of the yard, which was a good thing today. It allowed my to establish my leadership and practise the strong focus I would need on the ride.

The walk up through the village was "challenging". As luck would have it we met with a lawn mower that started as we rode past, immediately followed by a mini-digger putting in a new driveway. You get the picture. Compared to that crossing the main road and walking along it for a while was easy.
Once over the road it was up a long lane to the woods for our usual route we had done online. In general it went very well. I kept her mind busy by doing leg yields across the road and the occasional sideways. She crossed the railway level crossing with hardly a glance. We had one interesting moment in the woods where she backed up with more impulsion than I have ever seen her use before for around 20 yards. A strong focus and gently asking for forwards and order was restored.
She felt a little lame going down hill, but I have learned that some of that is emotional stress, not physical. However when it came to going down some steps, and as she had been relaxed for a while I decided to get off and walk home with her. Partly to reward the relaxed behaviour and partly as I was worried about her carrying me down steps.
Not one to miss an opportunity we played YoYo down the steps. Basically this meant that she had to stop on each step and not just run down them.
I learnt how much training can be fitted in on "simple" hack and had really good fun to boot.
As for Ritchie and Bonitao. Filly made it very plain that she wanted to be in front so they had to keep up with a thoroughbred race horse on a mission. Even at walk she is quite fast. It will be interesting to see if our LBI/RBI Bonitao is as keen to go out on our next excursion  :twisted:

A long walk with Filly

Came off a night flight yesterday. I know better than to ride after a night flight, I'm just not alert enough and emotional control is harder. Therefore I decided to blow the cobwebs out with a long walk. Total distance turned out to be around 10km in the end.
I wanted a long walk to give Filly a chance to really settle and relax. To start she was very excitable and difficult to control, which wasn't great alongside the road. But we got through it and survived.
She still wouldn't settle. She seemed to think everything was out to get her and for a while I couldn't figure out how to help her. The most annoying habit was to walk on ahead of me despite me continually asking her to come back to my shoulder. So I upped my phases a lot. In the school the highest phase of pressure I use these days is spanking the ground with the string, I hardly ever have to touch her. But the trail is a different environment and that has different rules of engagement.
So I went from my usual phases to much higher ones. Rope wriggling to get her to back up to me was stronger and when that failed the next phase was a very sharp slap with the end of the lead rope on her chest.
That did it. She immediately backed up into a nice position and walked alongside me for a while before forgetting herself and pushing ahead again. Going up the phases she again got a slap with the rope. And again she relaxed and walked alongside me.
It then finally dawned on my sleep deprived brain that what she had been looking for all along was a strong leader to keep her safe. While I wasn't providing that she took on the role of being a very nervous leader herself. My mistake had been in not wishing to add energy to a highly energised Filly, but in fact that is what she needed to bring her energy down and to be able to relax.
We continued the walk doing a million transitions. Walk, stop, backup, changes of pace within the walk. This was the only game I could think of to play on a narrow path where circling, falling leaf etc would not have worked.
We returned to the yard with a much calmer and very tired Filly. Lessons learnt and stored away for use when riding her. Be assertive, show I am the leader and don't be afraid to add energy to a situation in order to reduce energy.

Day two with Chiggy

Day two with Chiggy.

A quick play session yesterday as I had to go to work in the evening.

I decided to work on various squeeze games and use them to advance some of the other games.
To start with I played with YoYo over a pole. This added the squeeze element of having a pole under his belly. To advance the YoYo I was asking for one foot at a time to go over the pole with a rest in between. So this might mean that he had just one front foot in front of the pole and one behind. I find this a very useful exercise for getting the subtlety and in the communication. Asking just one leg over and then stop takes good timing from me and good timing of the response from Chiggy.
We also played the classic squeeze game between me and the school wall. Good for advancing the response to porcupine during the send, neutral during the allow and driving game with the hind quarter yield. Chiggy had a little trouble "giving me" his hind quarters again today, but after about 5 minutes we were getting the turn and face element pretty good with him barley passing the line through me and parallel to the wall.

We also did a fair bit of work on leading. He tended to want to stay behind me the whole time with his nose just behind my shoulder. This position does not feel like we are walking with a partnership to me and I prefer the horse to be on my shoulder with his eye or poll. To help correct this I played the "where are you game". When he lagged behind I just turn away from him and use the stick and string to ask him forwards to the right place. But it is done in a playful way. "I can't see you on my shoulder so I look around behind to see where are you" and ask you forwards. This game caused him a few "moments" but after a very short time we were travelling as a team and he was transitioning nicely with me.

We finished by backing into his stable, and exercise I love to do. It gives purpose to the backup, and various yields to get the horse roughly lined up with the door. It also helps them maintain the responsibility of "look where you are going" even when going backwards ! In addition backwards actually causes engagement of the hind quarters. James liked this as it meant the horses last impression of you was one of engagement whereas going in forwards and turning around gives a last impression of disengagement.

I am still pretty sure that he has be involved in NH training before, but also very convinced that he is a willing and very able student. I hope the owner likes what she finds when she gets back from holiday :)

Meet Chiggy

This is a copy of a forum post I made today about Chiggy

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There is a new horse at the yard. An appendix quarter horse. 9 years old and very friendly. Real name Chicago but known to his friends as Chiggy. The owner bought him a few years ago and has been riding him in english style but when she what Ritchie and I do with our horses expressed an interest in learning more.
Over the last month or so we have had many chats about the style and this culminated in a little lesson/demonstration with her and Chiggy a few nights ago.

It took 2 hours which set me wondering why traditional lessons last 45 minutes and NH ones 2 hours. It was obvious when I thought about it. NH works at the pace of the horse whereas traditional works at the pace of a busy human. NH allows much more dwell time than traditional and if it going to be a ridden lesson there is prepare to ride to be completed first. It saddens me how many folks drag the horse out of the stable, throw a saddle on and mount up. Suddenly 50kg to 100kg of weight is taken by muscles and tendons that have been given no chance to get circulation in them. You wouldn't ask a human athlete to do this and to do it to a horse in my mind it downright cruel.

We covered the first 6 games in that session but with emphasis on how the games relate to ridden work. I feel that this is important when introducing a newcomer to the style. I've heard on forums so many ask what the 7 games are about and not get a good answer. I wrote a post on another forum about the 7 games which got positive response, maybe I should put it on here. It would be great to develop a definitive article on them between us all and put it in the sticky section to point newcomers at. I digress !

After that first session the owner was delighted with the way Chiggy stood close to her without invading her space. He had been in the habit of rubbing his head on her and had caught her face with his on a few occasions. I wasn't even aware this was an issue until after the session. This just shows the power of NH to cure all sorts of problems as a side product of the usual training. I also started to suspect that Chiggy knew most of this stuff already. Either that or I have turned into Pat overnight ;) I had never made such rapid progress with a horse before. I mentioned how smart he was to the owner who said "really, everyone at the last yard said what a stupid dim horse he was". Not a bit of it.

The owner has now gone on holiday for two weeks and said I can play with him in the meantime. What a privilege.

First session was last night. We rapidly went through the what I had done in the first session. I now felt I was playing with a level 2 horse and expected and got that sort of attitude and response. We tried him over the tarp and after a 2 second sniff he walked calmly over it. We had a little battle over hind quarter disengagement using the driving game, but as it would have been a few years since he was last asked to do this I think he thought the hind quarters were his property again. Once they were in place we worked on "follow a feel" using the indirect to direct rein falling leaf pattern. A few tantrums but after 10 minutes he was doing the quietly and calmly at walk with both hind legs and front legs crossing over well.

We then tried "place the feet". Very very few horses I have tried this with have been this good ! The feet were soft and compliant in my hand and stayed nicely on the toe for a few seconds after I let go before being gently replaced where he wanted them. I know the owner had done a little work on this but she said it hadn't been a problem from the outset. I was by now so suspicious that this horse had been trained in NH before that I rang Josh to ask him if they had ever trained Chiggy. He has all the hallmarks of a product of JRFS. Still awaiting his reply.

This is not a stupid horse. This could be a superstar horse given a little time. Unfortunately I am too heavy to ride him I think. But given the chance for a quick ride I would jump at it.

Second day of bridleless riding

This is a copy of a forum post I made. It describes last nights ride nicely 

Short video of ride 

Second bridleless ride last night. This time with my wife, Ritchie, watching. I did not set out to ride bridleless, in fact I had been practising riding with spurs again. But after a while I felt she was ready so took my spurs off, I'm not brave enough to ride with spurs bridleless yet, and after a couple of reasonable follow the rails I again felt the urge to take the halter off.
Basically a repeat of the last ride. Some follow the rail, some clover leaf and a few circles with a single carrot stick to help.
Transitions were much better this time, just relaxation in my seat having the desired effect. We did have a few druthers towards the gate but rather than really fight them I just maintained zero brace, allowed her to turn towards the gate but then kept the circle going back to where I wanted to be... on the rail.
What was really interesting was the observations form Ritchie. She noticed how much more relaxed Filly was with the halter off. She really let her head drop down and blew out. She never drops her head when ridden with a halter, even if the reins have not been touched.
This ties in with past observations as to how worried she is by anything on her head. During her colt start at James he took the Parelli hackemore off for her second ride and replced it with a simple halter and clip on rope reins. He said then that anything on her head inhibits her forwards thinking even the knot that ties the meccate reins to the halter. When we got her back from James we had all that trouble with head tossing at trot which was extreme. This was overcome by avoiding touching the reins and give her lots of reassurance.
The cause of all this is not hard to work out. Before I owned her, but whilst I was allowed to play with her the woman who ran the yard insisted that she was turned out in a chiffney. Snag was that the yard staff were not well trained in its' use and more than once I heard of one of them yanking on it. Even when not using a chiffney she was kept on a tight lead rope and her head yanked around if she did not walk properly for them. Of course this just lead to more extreme behaviour on her part and more swearing and yanking. I can hardly blame her for being worried about anything on her head.
She was then backed, in the race horse meaning of the term, with a bit in her mouth. Shame they did not remove the two wolf teeth and five baby teeth that needed to come out first but that would have cost money and why spend money until you know if she can run ? It must have hurt to be ridden in a bit like this.
We have come a long way since then of course but obviously have some way to go to get relaxation whilst being ridden with anything on her head. It's been a year of proper riding so far to get as far as we have and I wonder how to get her feeling relaxed with something on her head. Just time and patience maybe ? But in the meantime I feel bad that she is uncomfortable when I ride her. Bridleless riding is not the whole answer as she has to be ridden with a bridle of some sort most of the time.
Does anyone have experience with this sort of problem and have any good suggestions as to how to make her happy ? Or maybe just encouragement that time will heal the problem if I ride carefully and considerately in the halter.
I find that I am less and less motivated to achieve any goal other than a true partnership with Filly, in the bridle horse tradition, based on respect and above all mutual fun. This issue is currently the one really holding me back

Filly and Spurs

After the very nice ride bridleless the other day I was hoping for more of the same.

However when I rode two days ago it was obvious that we weren't going to be taking the halter off. She was really testing my leadership and wanting to go to the gate. She was also not responding to my leg when it came to hind quarter yields and I had to reach down and use my finger nails to back up the steady pressure from my heel. It may have been that she was tired or just in the mood to test my leadership but if she is ever to become my bridle horse for colt starting and horse development we need to have a better understanding of our jobs.
Having mulled over the problem I decided that maybe riding her with spurs again would help. Last time I don't think she was mentally ready for that step and it got a little "interesting" :) .
So yesterday I went to the yard with the intention of just doing whatever was needed to prepare her to be ridden with spurs.
Ground work consisted of lots of friendly game with the spurs. I used them to scratch all those itchy spots. Rolled them over her belly and flanks until she relaxed and then used them with porcupine pressure to ask for little hind quarter yields. All went very well.
So I mounted very carefully with the spurs on. Her attitude was immediately different. She was willing, relaxed and only a little defensive if I actually touched her with the spurs. Her sensitivity to my leg aids was amazing. Just tensing my calf muscles was enough to get a response. She obviously knew I had and effective phase 4 now and didn't want to provoke me into using it. As they say "to get a light phase one you need an effective phase four". I guess I touched her less than half a dozen times with the spurs, their mere presence was enough.
We only did walk and I only rode for 15 minutes or so. In that time I achieved what I wanted to and saw no need to prolong the ride to where it might get sour.
So why was she so much better?
I have often noticed with Filly that if I play firmly with a real leadership and playful attitude in my body language she quickly becomes not only more compliant but also calmer. I guess she is a horse that craves strong leadership and feels safer and more relaxed when that is what I offer. Being firm with her and very clear about what I want actually increases the bond rather than driving her away.
Try that with Ritchies horse Bonitao and watch the rapport vanish rapidly. Thank heavens I am in a program that emphasises the difference in the horsenality of different horse and teaches you how to cope with each type.

Bridleless on Filly

Yesterday it finally happened. I knew it was coming, but wanted to be absolutely sure of success.
After my normal prepare to ride, where I am currently working on more 3 track on the circle at trot and also getting her to accept more pressure without reacting badly to it, I got on.
The main topic was real refinement of follow the rail. I am really after at least two laps of the school with no rein intervention from me. Afterall to get on Pats Mastery course you need to demonstrate 14 laps with your arms folded !
To achieve this I did use one carrot stick to reinforce my leg before using the rein. This went really well, and whilst I was using the carrot stick occasionally I found that after ten minutes I had not used the reins once. This was 30 minutes into the session so I had used the reins earlier.
James always emphasised acting on any green lights the horse gave you. In my mind this was a strong consistent green for taking the halter off. So off it came. She gave a nice lateral flexion to help me and immediately it was off shook her head as if to say "AT LAST". We then went back to follow the rail with some nice walk trot transitions. Trot to walk did require the gentlest use of the carrot stick the first few times to bend her to the fence just a little. After that all transitions came off my energy. We had ten minutes of really good fun. I got the confidence in her to leave the fence and do the clover leaf pattern, Very nice except to expected to stop everytime we back to the fence. Too much point to point pattern I guess, but at least it gave me confidence that even left alone she would stop.

What is odd is that I felt more comfortable and at one with her without the halter than I did with the halter. Similalarly I feel more at one with her at liberty rather than online. She really comes into her own when there is nothing on her head at all.
Down to the pub afterwards for a beer or two where I met the girl who had done Fillys' early riding before she was mine. She was really amazed and excited. She said she thought no one would ever be able to do that with her as she had been so difficult in the old days. But then they weren't using NH methods ;) . She now wants to try this on Filly herself. Spreading the ideas one person at a time seems to be working at our place.

I am so excited about this. It was one of my dreams to do it and it only took about 8 months of proper riding on her. A long time by some standards I know, but I needed to feel confident in my own abilities to carry it through. Although this is the first baby step with Filly into bridleless I think it is probably a defining moment in our friendship.