Day Three, L&HB

This was the best day yet. The morning Remuda was very good and I enjoy hearing other people's stories of their events with their horse. I had some things I wanted to mention, but others seemed to have a more burning desire to share so I held mine in. I partnered with Charity and we simulated horse and human and were given 3 things for the human to get the horse to do. That was very, very interesting - especially when I was the horse. She was great to reassuring me that I was ok and to keep trying. I never felt "wrong". Charity was an easy horse, she did whatever I asked and we got our 3 things done fairly quickly.

We talked more about the 4 horseanalities and about how to handle each one. I'm still not sure what I have in Z.

LBE: PLAY! dominance, exhuberance, provocative, creative, do something, GO! Need OBEDIENCE
LBI: INCENTIVE! food, scratches, somewhere to go, reverse psychology. Need MOTIVATION.
RBI: COMFORT! discomfort, cause your idea to become their idea, but understand first, pressure motivates, release teaches, WAIT! Need MORE TRUST!
RBE: SAFETY! leadership, confidence, patterns, particular but not critical, rhythm, relaxation and retreat, matching and mirroring, followed by a plan. Need MORE CALMNESS

Z still has not stepped on a pedestal. Today I finally recognized that it's OK! She was pretty willing about going into the water, that was cool. She went about belly deep.

Talked about a future with Parelli with Kristie for a while. That was great. I'll write on that later.

I tried to ask Trevor a question about Z not being willing to jump the larger jumps, but willing to jump the smaller jumps. It was a dumb question - I already knew the answer. I have to build her up to confidently jump the larger jump. About an hour later I asked her and she did. I'm learning a lot about myself as well as horsemanship.

We crossed the bridge with no issues. I started asking her to stand her front hooves on other things. That is much harder for her. We'll keep building on it.

In the end, I took her into the 75' round pen and played with her at liberty. Her back up by the tail has gotten very soft!! Nice. I realize I've been sending her too firmly at times. I played with sending her softer. I know her enough to know that if I send her softly today, she won't send at all tomorrow. It's a balance I have to keep walking.

Another observation - there are more L3 students here than I originally thought. Also, there are many, many brand new to Parelli and flying kite horses everyday. That's very interesting to watch (both the advanced and the brand new). I stood by one student who couldn't get her horse to walk on the bridge. I had to work very hard to not coach her. We are not allowed to coach and the faculty make that very clear. I bit my tongue well.

Kristie thinks I'd make a great instructor - that I have all the right "stuff". Very happy to hear it.