Change

Do you fear change? I have in the past. I remember being very very worried about my father dying for a whole year before he died. I knew he was going to die, but I just wanted things to stay the same. I worried about what I would wear to his memorial and how I would feel without him in my life (you can never have too many people who love you). Of course things do not stay the same, and during that last year of my Dad’s life things changed a lot for him, and not always in a good way.

Sometimes I felt as if I spent more time worrying about him leaving than making time to enjoy and help him. I am NOT wearing the ugly shirt here; I called, I visited, I came up with projects to do together, I was there the week he died, and I hold in my heart the two best things he ever told me that last Summer. But I did spend a lot of energy worrying about the future. And maybe I have feared change because I am 55 years old, and on the downhill side of a time-span that looks finite and might lead to something that is not a next thing.

But today I am embracing change. This change started in February at the tour stop when I saw how good Pat and Linda and all of the instructors looked riding their horses, and I promised my friends Carol L and Laura Davis that I would practice Pilates for 15 minutes a day every day after I got home. I purchased a Pilates tape. I did not honor my promise, but I didn’t give it up either.  Within a few weeks I started walking every morning, and the catalyst for that particular decision was Tina Y’s Facebook post saying “next month you will wish you had started today” and I fantasized what it would feel like to have walked every day for a month. And now I have walked almost every day for 3 months.

Saturday I went out at 1:30 in the afternoon to play with my horses, and the usual ugly shirt excuses did not stop me.  “It’s 84 degrees, I might not have the energy, I can’t find my riding tights, the horseflies are really bad, our dog is too arthritic to join us, Augie might be lame, Bullet might run around and die before he finds calmness on the circle…

And Sunday I rode Augie and Bullet, and today I rode Augie and Bullet and I am starting to embrace the change.

 

Time to Up My Leadership

I spent 2 days at Broadview Ranch where 3* instructor Kelly Sigler was giving lessons; and what I learned there reinforced the information I got from 2* Meggie Allen and from a budding 1* instructor, Sarah D, whom I have never met but who rose to the challenge and provided email feedback on my savvy spotlight, and from Carol Atwood, a fellow Parelli student who’s the part owner and farm manager at Broadview.

It’s time to up my leadership.

With Augie – I learned that I am not asking Augie to do enough and I let him be wrong too long. (Do more sooner and less later), like when I am steering I need to correct him sooner before he gets way off track, and that I need to pay attention to the little things where Augie gives me some of what I ask, but not as much as he could if I was expecting more or insisting on more. This behavior is disrespect, and is a reflection of my lack of leadership. Kelly called him an opportunist . Carol Atwood had been to a Chris Cox clinic, and she said watching me ride Augie reminded her of this comment he made – “If you ride a 6yo like he is a 2yo he will act like a 2yo”.

So what do I need to do to be a better leader for my horses?

I need to develop my energy and focus. Sarah D’s comment on my spotlight video was that my energy was low and stayed the same throughout. “You need to be able to raise and lower your energy with precision and do it consciously.” She also suggested that I need to develop better focus – a sort of determination that what I want from my horse is important and valuable. Determination and precision will help my horses understand what I want and bringing positive energy to the mix will let them know that I can and will follow through to get what I want. A related article came to my email today, LOL http://www.parellinaturalhorsetraining.com/horse-training-tips-bringing-up-your-life/? I have identified some of my impediments to appropriate energy, and I plan to work on moderating and elimination these impediments:

1. When my energy comes up I feel outside my comfort zone – maybe angry, sad, or emotionally out of control.
2. I run out of energy, conservation is easier.
3. Fear. I fear being wrong, and when my horse’s energy is up I can feel afraid.

I need to become more fit. To that end for about 8 weeks I have been walking every day, and just today upped the distance from 1.3 miles to 2 miles.  I have increased the amount of organic fresh vegetables and whole grains in my diet, and I have started making our own sourdough bread. We are planting a much bigger garden this year so more of our diet will be healthy. I also got some bodywork done by the woman who’s been working on Augie, and identified some major stiffness that hinders me freely moving, so I have been stretching as well as walking.

I need to have a regular program/schedule of playing with my horses and riding. At 4pm I could skip facebook and spend quality horse time, but often sedentary facebook or a glass of wine and a cheap novel win out. I suspect there material for an entire blog post in this exploration, so I’ll save this for another time.

My Own Savvy Spotlight

If you critique my spotlight , please be kind

Awesome Lesson Weekend

I always ride with a helmet, EXCEPT when I forget. This was the tail end of an hour and a half lesson, and I didn’t even realize I had no helmet until we were done. And yeah, I night be on the wrong diagonal, but so much was going right.

Meggie Andrews helped me and Augie with all sorts of things from ground driving, impulsion on the circle and getting a correct backup to some much better steering while riding.

She had just taken classes with Amy and Nate Bowers, and I got the benefit of her study. So much to say, I am speechless.

Bullet Picture from Last December’s Playdate

Eliminating Excuses

50 tons of washed limestone sand. The fines are washed out so it won’t hardpack. After it was delivered on Thursday Bob spread it out with the tractor and then made a drag out of a wooden pallet. Stay tuned for a picture of the excellent decoration he dragged into it!

Get Together with Jan and Carol

Jan invited me up to her place Sunday afternoon. It was 60 degrees and sunny. Absolutely beautiful weather. Carol L. joined us. Jan suggested we each demo some stuff and get feedback from the others. Brilliant suggestion.

I played with Augie, ground driving and then liberty. He did really well and I saw that I need to have a better plan for my body position so he can follow me better without me using the reins so much. At liberty Jan coached me in turning a potential negative into a positive. For example when Augie left me she had me turn it into a spin. “Oh yeah, I meant to do that!”

Then with Bullet online – he also was calm and responsive. When I first go to “get him”, he has to be dominant and say no even though he really likes to play. I simply ignore his snottiness, and play the catching game and then for the rest of the session he is awfully willing. Later on when I rode Augie, Bullet asked to come into the arena, and hung out where Carol and Jan were sitting.

Both Carol and Jan were big helps with freestyle. Part of what they brought to my attention was Augie’s bad-banana posture, in which he bobs his head up instead of down (using his under neck muscles rather than his topline and abdominals). So we tried a few things to change this and when he started moving better I quit riding to reward him.

A very interesting observation was how different Jan’s body language was when she had Gus online as opposed to Liberty. Now I see why Pat talks about pretending you are at Liberty when you are online. After she showed off their awesome liberty, she played a little with Ginger. She had to abandon the feather line because Ginger pulls hard. She also is a space invader, and not in a nice way. Lots of good opportunities for Jan.