Many Firsts!

Yesterday was absolutely awesome! For starters it was the first sunny day in a while with little wind so that was very motivating to play with horses all day. Aspire was great, such a fast learner! It's been a couple days since I've really done much with her and I could tell when we first starter playing - she was much more hyper-alert and RB than normal. I took an extra couple minutes to just stand with her, lead her around and having her follow me while I rhythmically slapped the ground with my stick and string, just allowing her to feel things and adjust herself emotionally. Finally she sighed and put her head down so we went forward.

We played with a lot of things yesterday and she noticeably improved on her Stick To Me game and was much more relaxed than she has been with this in the past. I played the Squeeze game between me and a raised area of the pen that she has to walk up on and over and then down (total raise and lower of about 6 inches maybe). She normally walks going the direction where it's more uphill and then trots and tries to canter/leave on the downhill. Yesterday she really got the idea of send, allow, turn/face/wait on her own. It was great. So I decided to up the ante a bit and send her to a barrel. I always allow her the option to stop, knock them apart and walk through, jump, whatever she wants because it isn't about the jump it's about her confidence. She normally will take one send/allow to go up nose the barrels, step one leg over, take it off (think the Hokey Pokey) then I'll yo-yo her back and resend and she'll walk up and jump, generally land in a trot (I'd prefer the walk) and turn face, and really shows effort in her draw back to me. It's wonderful. This particular exercise causes her to ask me lots of questions and want to come and check in with me.

So our big first yesterday was in the sideways game. I know this is far beyond the level we're working in, but she's so sensitive and perceptive I just wanted to try and see what would happen if I asked her to sidepass toward me. Since I've never done this before, nor seen the teaching process of it (I've seen Pat do it in many demos and on his L4 DVDs) I tried to logically break down the teaching steps and what problems I'd run into if I asked for it and it didn't work. I first decided to ask her to step her hindquarters toward me while I was standing perpendicular to her (as you would in most sideways games), with me on her left side. I had a 12' line on her and had it on her right side and draped over her back so I could hold the tail of the rope and gently guide her nose away from me and to the right to help encourage her hind end to step away from her nose and toward me if she got stuck. I raised my stick in the air and gently started pushing on her personal space over her hips, then gently began tapping her right hip, I could see her thinking and trying to figure out what to do. She tried to take a step forward, I allowed her to make the effort/mistake before gently guiding her nose around by putting feel on my rope. Her nose bent in and she stepped her hips over and then all the way around so she could face me! Now, I don't want to teach her to make full circles when I ask her to bring her hips toward me but that was a great first step! After a good release/friendly I set us up the same way to ask for it again. She took a step, I didn't need to do nearly as much this time to get the step, then started rubbing her and following her until she stopped trying to face me before stopping everything and becoming quiet. The third time I asked her all I did was influence her personal space and she took two steps toward me with her hind end. I was SO excited! I couldn't believe how quickly she picked it up. I was absentmindedly playing with her tail while I was basking in our moment and she must have thought I was cuing her to back up and she took a full, nice, solid, three steps back toward me, then looked over her shoulder at me like "ya, I know I'm smart". I was just elated! I've never gotten such solid steps backward as those before either. To finish out the little sideways toward me session I asked her shoulders to come to me - same process as above, but with the rope on my side so I could help tip her nose toward me and take that step if she got stuck. About the same as with the hips, a little enthusiastic about moving her feet in the beginning but after two tries or so just took a nice, solid, step and stopped when I stopped pushing on her bubble. WAY COOL! :)

We even got 4 laps at a walk on the circle. Sometimes she needs a lot of drift and sometimes she needs a shorter length of rope because she'll get too RB on a longer length and start running around like mad. She really fluctuates on the circle as to what length helps her on any given day depending on her emotional state. It doesn't really help we only have a square pen with irregular footing and that weird raise/dip I talked about earlier that I used for our squeeze game. I like having obstacles and varied terrain for teaching, but it really isn't what we need right now when I could use a nice round pen to help our circles. I'm working with what we have and it's alright but I need a better place to help her learn to circle calmly and have a safe area for her to be RB and running around in than the pen we have now. That little raise is cement and I worry about her slipping or hurting herself some other way. Regardless, the circle yesterday was great! She was calm, collected, and really ready for the bring back with a great attitude and draw toward me.

I just help but me so impressed with her! She's really teaching me a lot about myself when it comes to patience and lightness. I just don't want to dull her or be too clumsy for how elegant she can be. I see a great future for this horse - she's so athletic and bright!

Hopefully I'll have some more photos up soon - she's shedding out like crazy and I think she'll look phenomenal this summer!