4 Hours with Kime

A long lesson, a lot of talking and catching up...

Zarah - backed her out of barn through her thresholds backing her w/o my body - using my tools too much. We started to play stick to me where I ask her to go my speed in a circle. I realized I need to break it into smaller chunks - drive from z3, my speed, soft and clear transitions up and down, then add the circle. A BFO and then some.

Note to self: she got tense as we did ground work and got closer to the 2 horse trailer (from the loading practice we've done). We obviously have to get confidence about the 2 horse trailer.

Then we worked on my bridleless riding. This was probably the high-point of the lesson for me. She helped me with developing much better turn on the haunches and the fore using my seat and my stick. We also worked on bridleless back-up and I really made some important connections between what I'm asking Z and what it means to her. We did a pattern of 1 step back, 1 step of the fore, 1 back, 1 fore... We will practice that with the turn on on the fore (moving the hind) as well. Z will do whatever I ask if I'm clear.

At one point, we talked about the difference between Z and Cowboy. Z is looking for a leader, Cowboy is NOT. Do I find one of them easier? Nope, they are both unique and teach me different things.

Cowboy - studying his displacement behavior and helping me understand how to handle it. I have to be careful about circle game so I don't remind him of lunging. I have to keep things very interesting as he's LBI and easily bored. We played with the figure 8 pattern and Kime helped me figure out where he leaves the game and how to keep him engaged. He has good draw but when I push him away on the figure 8 pattern, he doesn't easily come back. Very interesting!

We practiced a lot of me using more body language and less tools. That was probably the theme of the day.