Risk Management

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose your feelings is to
risk revealing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd, is
to risk rejection. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk
dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be
taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing at all. People who
will risk nothing --- do nothing, have nothing, and become nothing. They may
avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love or
live. Chained by their certitudes, they are slaves.

They have forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is truly free.

Denis Waitley

So true!

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence.
Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear.
Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow.
But any action is better than no action at all.


Norman Vincent Peale

That was the week that was

Quick round up of this week's activities.

Monday started playing with Harley again after his month off. Is his play drive up or what! It's like flying a high powered stunt kite. Great fun! Went round the tracks in the reservoir. His energy was up but still responsive.

Tuesday, need to be more subtle with my movements. He's so responsive but that playdrive is still up there. He's started doing Allure's trick of eating the tassles on my chaps. Went around the x-country and found a deer antler. We also popped some jumps, quite nicely, no rushing. I want to be in a position when we go to Dave Stuart's clinic at Sam's that we can both be comfortable jumping. We also came across The Devil's Sheep, at least that's what Harley told me they were. He was happier once we had proved that they could be driven like ordinary sheep.

Wednesday, Went down to Ingleby Toft. A proper hack-out with puddles, scary ponds and everything. Harley handled most stuff with barely a second look. He's decided he likes rosebaywillow herb even if it's in a scary place. First time we used his boots for over a month.

Thursday, played in the school. Did FTR which didn't take too long to drop in nicely. Then we did circles. Not bad at all.

Friday, tracks in the reservoir. Lots of canter transitions and playing leapfrog. He really is one cool horse. Went paddling in the reservoir. A little hesitant but soon was up to almost his belly.

Saturday went round the tracks again doing transitions & leapfrog. Met some kids having a BBQ and playing loud dance musin. They switched it off quick to avoid spooking the boys, so we thanked them and told them to put it back on 'cos the boys like Drum'n'Bass. Got offered some BBQ. Cool! Not the stereotypical image of modern youth..

Gotogo to bed now 'cos we're doing a pleasure ride around Sutton Park tomorrow.

Description of a Quarter Horse

"He's half a ton of poised and controlled energy, held on an easy rein and a hair trigger. He's a workin' man who can earn his keep on the range all week - and be a handsome dandy at the track on Sunday afternoon. He's proud when he stands, looks lazy when he walks, but when he runs he can whip the tears from the corners of your eyes and plaster your hat brim against the crown. He's big in the haunches, supple in the withers, stout in the neck and wide across the chest... to hold his great heart. He's cow-smart and brave... though sometimes a clown, to the man with the sky in his eye and mud on his boots the Quarter Horse is a faithful hand... and a friend. "

That's my boy!

He's Back ..

A very quick blog 'cos if I don't do it now I won't get around to it.

I have just given Harley a month off because we'd done an awful lot since xmas and it was about time he had a break. I don't want to overcook him, so I stopped whilst it was all going well. I rode him tonight for the first time in a month and quite enjoyed it.

We went into the reservoir and went around the track with Max & Archie. He was a bit excited to start with but settled down fairly quickly. At one point Arch trotted ahead an Harley got impulsive, so I turned my hips and we did a beautiful trot sideways up the track. Wow so cool. We did have a little bracey-ness but some time doing lateral flexion seemed to sort that. We also had to wait for Arch for a bit during the leapfrogging, so whilst we did I had Harley do 3 steps forward 3 steps back. When he did that just on my seat with enthusiasm he got to eat hedgerows for a while until Arch caught up. On the last bit on the way home he stretched his neck down & arched his back as he walked. At first I thought he was pooing, but no! He was just stretching & relaxing. Sooo cool!

All in all, a good ride.

I'm going to bed happy.

Drawing of Harley by my Sister

Motorcycles & Horses

Over the years there have been some negative comments made about motorcycles, even by Pat & Linda, and I think it’s about time to redress the balance by pointing out the similarities.

Horses for courses
If you want to plod around on a hack (or trail ride) with no challenges and not trying to achieve any level of performance, then buy a nice quite LBI with more whoa than go and don’t ask it to do anything more than that. On the whole you’ll be fine, just like thousands of other people have, with the occasional potential for a crash. If you want to cruise around leisurely on a motorbike, then buy a bike designed for that and don’t try to race it. On the whole you’ll be fine, just like thousands of other people have, with the occasional potential for a crash. If you try to achieve performance on it without the appropriate level of skill, you will crash. It is when you ask things of the bike or horse that the problems start to surface. When you expect performance from your mount, you have to have expertise.

Survival Reactions
We are often told that our instinctive reactions as a predator will cause problems when dealing with horses. Well, guess what, the same is true of bikes.
Those hands that close quickly when you panic will cause the bike to buck you off (I’ll explain the physics to anyone that is interested).
If you tense up and brace the bike will become unresponsive & difficult to steer.
If you relax and flow with the bike it feels like harmony & unity; like telepathy.
You improve with practice, but only perfect practice. (see the Expertise post which will follow)
Bad habits lead to dangerous rides.
Where you look is where you go, so don’t look at where you don’t want to go (the natural power of focus).
It is so important for dirt riders to have an independent seat that they stand up most of the time to allow the bike to move beneath them. Likewise road racers sort of hover above the seat.

Feel, Balance & Timing
Even on the simplest level these are crucial in every aspect of riding a motorcycle regardless of the level of performance. The higher the performance asked, the more important it becomes. I could write so much on this that I would be in danger of writing a text book.

Spirituality/Living in the Moment
The level of concentration and focus required to ride a performance bike at its limit transcends the day-to-day experience and compresses it in to the absolute, cold, hard, centre of the moment. An extreme meditation. Watch the MotoGP the next time it’s on and see how many riders meditate before the start of the race. When was the last time you had to meditate before you approached your horse?

In summary, if you want to do anything at a performance level you need expertise and don’t get a superiority complex about your own area of expertise. Most bikers think horse riding is easy & boring. We should all respect other fields of endeavour and take whatever lessons we can from them to enhance our horsemanship.

After all - Riding a horse is the mere act of not falling off.

Hmm

War does not determine who is right,

War determines who is left.

Waahoo!

We're going to help at the UK Savvy Celebration in November!

Trail riding rocks

Thursday evening Max, Arch, Harley and I went out for a quick hack. H is now solid enough to tack up with about 5 seconds playing. I stil like to move himaround to settle the saddle down, but so far his behaviour has been great (but I ain't makin' no assumptions).

Right from the start (or "Get go" as our American friends say) he was chilled with his head low. Level, as Chris Irwin would put it. Even the scarey pond wasn't scarey. Talk about becoming Calm, Brave, Athletic and Smart. We seem to be making progress on the Calm & Brave. The nasty preditory concrete block held little trepidation for the intrepid Harley. He didn't even hesitate the stand on the first one. The second caused a little resistance but considering we spent nearly an hour discussing it the first time, I'm well impressed. He's already got a head start with Athletic and Smart.

Tonight I mainly did undemanding time whilst Max coached Carol. Got to charge up that Draw Battery.

Over dinner tonight Max & I tried to remember some of the simulations we've done in the past so we can use them in Monday's play day.

Note to self: Don't just write down the theory. Write down the simulations as well!

Miller Metaphor Magic

Thanks to Steve for this:

"Develop a good relationship so that you can DRAW on that relationship!"

My L4 Pony

I was going to open by apologising for not blogging much lately, but then I thought "Stuff it!
The reason why I haven't is 'cos I've been busy doing really cool things with my really cool pony".

One cool thing was a 12 mile endurance ride in Staffordshire. It included a ford which Harley was sceptical about to start with, but pretty quickly decided that it not only felt good to stand in but also tasted good to drink. It's getting so much easier for him to find his way through thresholds.

A good half of the ride (if not more) was around the edges of fields where the surface was pretty good, so we cantered a lot. Harley has decided that he likes cantering and I must admit that I like it too 'cos he is so smooth. He's also quite quick. Apparently Archie was galloping in order to keep up. Waahoo!

Tonight the absolute coolest thing ever happened. Max & I were playing with Archie & Harley and it was going pretty good with H, so Max suggested circling him at liberty. It was an open space, not a round pen, so I was a bit reluctant 'cos I thought he'd leave. Anyway I took the line off and he stuck to me, so I gently asked him to circle. In fact I had to send him quite firmly (at least for Harley) 'cos he didn't want to move away from me. He moved out a little way (maybe 10') and circled me at trot. He was really relaxed, with his head down and came straight back in when I gave him the slightest look. Soooooo Coool!!
I gave him loads of clicks & treats & scratches & rest. I was soooo chuffed!
We did that couple more times and even did changes of direction.
I then got a bit over ambitious and tried a Figure Eight. He just about did it twice, but looking back I could feel the Draw running out and third time he left. He came back (cool) but I put him back on line and tried to recharge my Draw. We just sat on a barrel & chilled.

I remember James telling me about him getting a telling off from Pat for chilling with his horse when he was supposed to be doing something and James used the excuse that he was " working on his Draw".

After Honza's course I've come to the conclusion that Draw is like electricity. You store it up until you ask your horse to do something that uses it up (by driving away). When you've used it all up your horse doesn't want to draw anymore - you've got a flat draw battery. So you have to recharge it.

So charge your battery.

Be careful what you think.

Sow a Thought and reap an Action

Sow an Action and reap a Habit

Sow some Habits and reap a Character

Sow a Charater and reap a Destiny

Destiny

You can't control the wind ... but you can control your sails

Anthony Robbins

Horse Surfin'

Surfin' Circlin'

Act Natural

"If you see what is small as it sees itself

and accept what is weak for what strength it has,

and use what is dim for the light it gives

then all will go well.

This is called Acting Naturally."

Lao-Tsu, Tao Te Ching

Medical Horse sense

A quote from the notable vet, Professor Daniel Mills BVSc, PhD, ILTM, CBiol, MIBiol, CCAB MRCVS:

‘Common Practice is not necessarily Good Practice.’

How interesting!

kishudo

I was talking to my rugby playing collegue the other day about martial arts and he said that a friend of his said to him:
"The difference between you and me is
You play Sport
I study Tai Chi"

Now I know Tai Chi isn't a martial art as such, even though it does have its roots there and have certain similarities, but it got me thinking.

Normal riders Do dressage or Do show jumping or Do Trec (or whatever pastime or sport). It's a hobby.
PNH people Study Natural Horsemanship and all the other factors in life to make them a better
horseman.

Martial arts, when more than just keep fit, is a way of being.
Natural Horsemanship is a way of being.



kishu -horseman (japanese)
do - the way of the (japanese)
kishudo - (a word I just made up that might mean) "The way of the horseman"

The Beach Boys!

We had a brilliant day yesterday!

Max & I did the Formby Beach 8 mile pleasure rise with sport endurance on Archie & Harley and it was wicked!

Harley was a star. It was his first serious trail ride and we had to drive 150 minutes to get there as well.

Harley was quite excited when we got there, but then so was Arch. I was going to put his boots on him, but a kind lady spotted me putting them on and warned me that the sand was really deep, so it wouldn't be a good idea. Thank you to that lady 'cos it was very good advice.
After a bit of road & tracks we got to the beach and the sand was seriously deep. We had to ride up on over some high dunes to get on to the beach, which was interesting, but Harley soon decided that he'd got it sussed.
We had some extreme friendly game going past some wind turbines and we paddled in an inlet on the beach. Plenty of thresholds, so plenty of opportunities to show good leadership.
I won't go on about the whole ride but it included a long canter during which Harley got it all together (both leads) and we had a lovely side-by-side canter. I couldn't stop grinning.
By the time we got back he was long, low and relaxed. Two hours sharing lunch and chilling before driving back also helped.

His feet are a bit worn from yesterday, so I had to get the rasp out. Thinking about getting an equine podiatrist to look at them.

Today we went for a short ride to go find some grass to eat. Harley was sooo chilled. Usually he's a little high headed setting off but this morning he pootled like it weren't no big thing. We did encounter some puddle thresholds on route which I am sure are mostly dominance. "Don't want to!". By the time we'd done he was looking for puddles to walk through. Still need to keep playing with that though.

Got a nice message from James as well, which made me smile.

Catch up

Ok I've been a bit slack so I need to catch up.

Harley & I have now done 8 trail rides and he is rapidly turning in to Mr trail horse. It tends to follow a pattern: He starts off a bit jumpy & looking at everything but by the time we get back his head is low and he's in energy saving mode. I think he's getting the idea that when we trail ride it's a good idea not to use all your energy at the start.
We've also had a couple of leadership questions, usually around things like big puddles. He starts unconfident, switches to dominant then flip-flops between the two. I think we've had a couple of break throughs with these as they are getting less frequent & of lower magnitude. The key patience with pesistance in the proper position. He would love to be the dominant horse.

We've also done a lot of leapfrog game with Max & Archie and H seems to be far less impulsive about it than Arch but they are both getting much better at it.

Tomorrow is liable to blow his mind 'cos we're going to Formby, to the beach, to do his first endurance ride. It's only 8 miles and if he gets too tired I can get off and walk him home, but new environment, lots of horses but he's got to conserve energy. Should be interesting.

When playing he tends to swish his tail and get snotty. Sometimes it's definitely 'cos I was a impolite (a bit sudden, too much energy, didn't quit soon enough, etc), so I working on reducing that, but sometime he's snotty. I need to observe, compare, work out the difference and see if I can improve it.

He seems to have reacted to the shots he had on monday so I need to let the vet know.

One last thought before unconsciousness:

When he gets unconfident we rub him on the neck/shoulder/withers. This is a physical trigger for an anchor to calm & relax him. Anchors work on having a point in experience to anchor to and then associating a trigger to it.

So if the only time you ever rub him is when he's scared then you are anchoring the fear to the rub not the calm relax. Before you ever use the rub you need your horse to be calm, relaxed and have the endorphins flowing so that is what you anchor to the rub.

I wonder when I first rubbed Harley's neck? Hmmm!

Leader

One of the guys I work with plays rugby with a local amateur club. Their coach was luck enough to win a training session for the club with a big professional coach, who turned out to be Shaun Edwards the Wasps & Wales coach. This was a major event for my mate as he is Welsh, so he was very excited. I saw him the day after limping along the corridor and asked him how it went. “AMAZING!” was the reply, so I asked why it was so good. The answer was interesting.

Leadership!

Shaun Edwards leadership style was the key.
He broke down things in to their component parts.
Taught each part at a time.
Put them back together again.
He was strong, but polite, approachable & humble. Admitted his mistakes.
Drew from other sports and fields of endeavour to inform and improve his chosen sport.
He was consistent.
He was persistent.
He was patient but progressive.
He didn’t make anyone feel they were wrong but made sure they were right.

How are Wales doing at the moment, oh yeah, they’re winning.

Hmm! How interesting!

Celtic Chieftan

"Gypsy Gold does not clink and glitter, it gleams in the sun, and neighs in the dark"

Look Ma! ... No Hands!

I've got to write this down now, 'cos it was sooooooo cool.

Last night we did 2 laps of trot the rail with my arms folded!

So Cool!

Harley also put four feet on the bridge and left his hind feet on it when he stepped off. Level 4 pony.

... and relax

Ears below the withers to relax. ...

Another equine NLP anchor.

Tonight, tonight.

Tonight I got out of work a little early, so I actually saw some sunshine!

We did FTR to the right with absolutely no problem whatsoever, so last night must have worked to some degree. Once he got it right for 3 laps (and Mandy/Fred & Em/Lilly came in) we rode out of the yard & down the drive, opening & shutting gates as we went. He was a bit on his toes so I had to concentrate quite hard to keep him focussed. Once on the cross-country I re-went through the on-board flight checks before setting off again. When he laterally flexes he does seem to relax, unlike Arch who sometimes pretends to relax.
He was a bit impulsive and at one point I had to bend him to a stop. At the bottom of the big hill I got off 'cos it was as slippy as the road to hades and I don't want him falling over with me on board. The rest of the ride was a mixture of walk & trot with some squarking pheasants thrown in to help de-spook Harley. By the time we got back he was fairly chilled, even though it was going dark.
He's soooo cool! And I'm impressed with my seat. Still only riding bareback and no moments at all.

Last night Harley and I played in the school under the flood lights. He was curious about the weird crackly ice layer on the sand but quickly got bored with it. I had the usual ready-to-ride-check play and hopped on.

We're still doing the FTR foundation pattern, but I need to be a bit more progressive with it. We did a straight FTR to the left and he was great so we did some FTR with stop at the barrels. He was great at that too although his stops started getting a little sloppy so I got more particular. We did some turns on the haunches, which generated lots of licking & chewing.

"Ok" thinks I, "time to even it up", so we do FTR to the right. Suddenly he can't go in the corners, FTR gone all squiffy. So we play the corners game with lots of rest in the corners and lots of disengaging the HQ until he could go in to the corner. After quite a while of making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult, we got FTR on the right back again.

Damn that cellular cognition malarky!

Remuda

Last night I dug out my notes from the courses we did at Stoneleigh in the summer. It was interesting to basically read them for the first time since I wrote them.

Most of the stuff in there I explicitly remembered but every so often there would be a little detail that I'd go "Wow! I'd forgotten that". A specific example which is now stuck in my mind came from the Natural Collection. In the section on Flexion and Contra-lateral motion was a comment in a box in capitals.

DON'T USE LOWER LEG!
TURN TOES IN.

Hmm! I'd forgotten about that one.

stretch!

Got out of work late (Damn how having to earn money gets in the way), so I decided to try and keep it short and sweet with Harley tonight.

Did a very quick warm up to make sure that he was paying attention to me, then jumped on. He was really trying at the FTR but kept doing this weird back arching. Max assured me that he was just reached down and stretching his back. This is really cool 'cos it's the start of relaxation and longitudinal flexion. I'm using the hackamore so I can't kid myself that I can skip doing fluid rein, but very cool none the less. I tried to encourage this with strokes and rest whilst trying to follow the rail as well. He'd get distracted and wander when he stretched down, but if I kept my focus he'd correct again. After a while he actually started to blow and relax, which he's never done before. Wow!
So how come the sudden change? Well, I noticed that previously I've had a tendency to lean back a bit while trying to get my weight in my pockets (cowboy style), but since our little trail ride on Sunday I've kept my body more central and curved my back to put the weight in the right place (like a pushing passenger). I realised tonight that each time I leaned back, Harley's head came up. Each time I stayed central and pushed back, his head went way down.
Hmm! How interesting!
Talk about feedback.

By the end I felt like I could FTR with my arms crossed. If it goes well a few more times then maybe we can move on to the next foundation pattern as well.

Snow Cool!

Decided that I was fed up with not playing with Harley and that the school wasn't that bad really, so this afternoon we played.

Did the usual "ready to ride?" checks. He's so cool even the snow's warm compared to him. So I jumped on bareback, as usual, and did FTR. He did it first time, so after a bit of rewarding rest time, I upped the ante and after four laps both ways I thought "That'll do nicely, Stop whilst we're ahead".

Max & Archie and Me & Harley wandered down the drive, over the road and went to find some grass. This is the first time I've ridden him out since the summer and the first time I've trail ridden bare-back, so I was looking forward to it, but not sure how good my seat was. (Last weekend he spooked in the school during out obstacle course demo and I didn't have a problem, so I should have been confident, but I wasn't).
First big puddle we came to Harley went all sceptical, but I kept my focus and he went through it. When we got to the big puddle on the corner, where we've had fun and games before , he was sceptical again, but Arch went straight through, so after a little hesitation Harley did too. I got off a little further on and we grazed until it started to snow. Coming back through the big puddle Harley went "Nope, not doing it". There was some uncertainty and some dominance , but I kept pointing his nose at it. If he tried, I'd stop asking and rub him. If he didn't try, I kept asking. In the end he just traipsed through it like it was his idea, which it was by then.

A few more passes through and we were actively seeking puddles on the way home. All in all an enjoyable restart to trail riding.

Perception Haze

I'm sat here in a telecon meeting listening to various debates and something strikes me about it all.

People don't necessarily hear what you say or read what you write. They hear what gets filtered through their experience & expectations.

It can be very difficult to be patient enough to communicate (emotional fitness strikes again!).

Business world parallels the Horse world?

Watch your thoughts, they become your words,
Watch your words, they become your actions,
Watch your actions, they become your attitude,
Watch your attitude, it becomes your character,
And you and I are both characters in the world,
So watch your thoughts!




... and you are not your behaviours.

Feel, timing & leadership

Whilst at the Honza clinic Steve and I played with the 51/49 mirroring game only this time with somewhat more feel and subtlety than when we did it at Stoneleigh.

For those of you that don't know what the 51/49 mirroring game is all about. When you are providing a feel for your horse and giving leadership (ridden or on-line) it should be like a dance where you move together with your partner as one. The control should be shared 51% to you as the leader and 49% to the horse. One way of simulating this and experiencing it for yourself is to partner up with another human. Both hold your hands up and place one of your hands, palm to palm, with one of theirs. Now one of you has 51% and start to move their hand around. The other with 49% just follows and mirrors the others movements as accurately as possible. After mirroring for a while slowly start to guide, gently taking that 2% until the roles have swapped.

As Steve and I played with this we were both trying to be as gentle and perceptive as possible (considering we were freezing our fingers off!). When the roles did swap it was almost like telepathy, because although Steve said he'd deliberately steered, I had also deliberately moved that way independently, or so I believed. It was fascinating! The more feel we tried to use, the harder is became to work out the actual point at which the roles swapped. Hmmm!

Quick Thought ...

As I was sliding across the car park this morning I thought to myself

"This is an ideal opportunity to walk on my balance point"

So watch out for the Pat Parelli impersonations!


Come to think of it Dave Stewart always looks like he's carefully walking on ice.

A New Direction - Continued

Ok, back to the Honza clinic.

It was very certainly a thought provoking clinic with many things to lick and chew over. In fact we were only going to go on the Saturday and maybe leave early to see to the horses. We actually stayed the whole time Saturday and Sunday (and froze our bits off!).

Being ex-Parelli he was essentially very similar in a lot of ways but he had several concepts that were different (or not as similar). The easiest way to cover these is to list them first then try and explain them. Not easy as I'm sure there were far more subtleties to it than I picked up. So, in no particular order:

1. Draw first not drive
2. Sit, stay, disconnect, reconnect
3. Intent not "Life"
4. Flexion, Impulsion, Respect in that order
5. Don't rope wiggle
6. Scoring who wins the game.
7. Unconfidence vs dominance (ears forward, ears back)

1. Honza made a big thing about not driving the horse away at the start of the relationship. He didn't like "Join Up" or The Catching Game or The Circling Game. His premise was that if you start off driving the horse away it'll not want to come back to you, so by the time you get to Liberty if you put any pressure on it, it'll leave. If you start by establishing draw, when you get around to sending the horse away, it'll want to come back to you. The horse will want to be close to you. So instead of standing as far away as it can looking at you, it will spend the whole time saying "Can I come to you, please?". This is certainly a very attractive proposition and matches up with some of the experiences that Max and I have had with both Harley & Archie. The way he achieves it is by not driving Z1/2 away - no circling. He draws Z1 to his belly button. He plays stick to me but he backs away drawing the horse to him and keeping its nose on his belly button. The horse must not move its nose more than one degree away from your BB. If it does just re direct it back again. When you stop it must keep its nose there and relax. Safety and comfort is found in your BB. Pretty soon they seek your BB and even when their life is up, if you can get them to put their nose in your BB they will relax. This is the point at which you can introduce flexion (see point 4). Now start pushing Z2 away as you back up, but keep Z1 on your BB. When this is firmly established you can start to move backwards in circles pushing Z2 away whilst Z1 stays on your BB. Then you can move back to alongside the horse. Now you're looking towards close range circling with their nose on your BB. If you want them to circle further out you have to push them out and when you stop pushing they fall back in towards you. Basically they really, really, really want to be with you. Isn't that The Dream?

2. Ok,this is an interesting extension of Pat's Sit-Stay model. Park your horse somewhere (preferably not in too big an arena) and walk away with purpose (it should be obvious to the horse that it's not supposed to follow you, by your body language & intent) then turn around and look at Z4 with that "Turn and look at me" look. If your horse doesn't turn and look at you with both eyes and say "Yes?", start to approach its Z4 with an "I'm going to bite you" look. If you get close enough to flick it with your Carrot Stick (CS) then do so. It should then spin round to look at you. If it approaches you, back it up to where you left it, go in and start again. Start close and gradually increase the distance. If you horse leaves then intercept its Z1, stop it, disengage Z4, back it up. The horse should understand that it hasn't gained anything by moving and it's better off standing still. Usually horses will head for corners, if there are any. At liberty you don't want them to gain comfort by running off or standing in a corner, so you need to stop them, disengage them and back them up. You need to repeat this Sit/Stay exercise all over the area (including corners) and move to bigger areas, when you can do it in small areas. You should be the centre of your horse's attention all the time, but he should also know when he should wait for you. Honza says that this is his "bread", he does it everyday and uses it all the time with all his horses, even Gaston.

3. When we're learning how to do Parelli and are teaching our horses that we can use our body language, we tend over-do the life-up/life-down thing. In some ways we have to do that so we become aware of our own life energy (or Chi, to borrow from Eastern philosophy & Martial Arts). We have to teach ourselves to control our energy, thoughts, emotions and intent. Likewise we are also explaining to the horse that we are controlling these things (unlike most humans) and that it means something. "Everything means something and nothing means nothing". What Honza had his students doing was refining it, so that instead of using gross exaggerations they could just use intent. So here's how it goes: Back the horse up using the CS (see point 5). The horse should move instantly without the CS, just on your intent. If not use the CS. When you stop and drop your intent the horse should instantly stop. When you're (I initially put "they're" but it's actually both of you) doing that well then step towards the horse with the intention of rubbing its chest with your CS. If it moves back, follow it until it stops and rub it. Repeat until it doesn't move. Now use point 6 until you and your horse have totally sussed it. Expand this out in to everything else you do with your horse. No more gross Life-up/Life-down, just intent until it seems to an outsider that your horse is telepathic and you dance together.

4. Honza seemed to suggest that the Parelli system of Respect - Impulsion - Flexion doesn't make sense in the context of classical dressage and to horsemen (gender non-specific) who already have feel and timing. He seemed to suggest that once you have sufficient respect not to get killed that it makes more sense to work backwards. Achieve some flexion before you ask for impulsion. If you're working on points 1,2 & 3 then the respect will come, the enthusiasm will also be there to provide the impulsion. For impulsion go back to the Nose in the BB game and as your intention to step back starts to rise the horse should start to step forward so that you both move together. He quoted Ray Hunt "Don't Leave without the horse and don't let the horse leave without you". To teach it play it as a game where if, having given them ample opportunity to read your intent (long phase 1) they don't step with you, you flick them on Z4 with your CS&SS (quick phase 2,3,4). Pretty soon they'll be very keen to follow you. You can also do it starting a little further out and pretty soon they'll canter to you (This can be a bit scary). It's interesting to note that in Parelli one of the basic things we do once we can actually approach our horse, is to halter them and as we do it we ask for a little flexion (turn their nose toward us). Likewise when we take the halter off we ask for a little flexion. If we don't get that flexion when we put the halter on, we get brace. Mental, emotional and physical brace. Which isn't a good starting point for the rest of whatever we do that day.

5. This is a quick one. If you wiggle the rope to back a horse up, it invariably raises its head up and away from the pressure. If you tap a horse on the chest it tends to drop its head to move backwards. We are looking for our horses to relax and stretch out and down. They can't do this if their heads are up in the air. We need to teach our horse to drop their heads and stretch out & down.

6. This one is a little harder to explain succinctly. When playing the backing up or rubbing game in point 3 count how many times you have to touch the horse when backing compared to how many times the horse moves so you don't need to touch it. i.e. your score against the horses score. Again when you're intending to rub the horse how many times does it stand still compared to moving away. i.e. Horse's score compared to your score. If you then look at these two scores you have an objective measure of how much Drive & how much Draw you have. It also indicates how well you both are doing and what you need to focus on more .

7. If a horse is unconfident they are less likely to come to you and more likely to run away. If a horse is confident to the point of dominance then it is more likely to come in to you (or at you), albeit in a driving manner. Honza described an analogue scale, in the form of a meter, from Unconfident to Dominant where balanced was in the middle. He said that when playing at Liberty (or in Honza's case, doing shows) you want more Dominance because the last thing you want is the horse to leave. He also suggested that you could build up a store of confidence by pushing the meter further toward dominance and then use it up by doing things that use it, such as sending the horse away or spins etc. He asserted that the horse's ear position was a measure of this. If they are back they are driving, therefore confident. If they are forward they are questioning therefore uncertain, therefore on the unconfident side. I struggle with the second part as we've all seen scared horses put their ears back and leave. I feel that it is probably a deliberate over simplification to get the point over and that the truth is almost certainly a complex, context sensitive, moment by moment interpretation. Either way, he doesn't tend to do the "Take that look off your face".

Please bear in mind that these are the concepts as I understand them and so are subject to my interpretation. They may not be accurate (we all perceive the world through the filter of our experience) and I am still not sure with how much I agree, but Honza is a phenomenal horseman and it sure makes you think. Which has got to be good.

After Thought

Max suggested using the treeless saddle without the stirrups as a sort of extra padded bareback pad. Think I might try that tomorrow, if I remember.

And today's show was brought to you by ...

... Principle #2 and Human Responsibility #4.

We were playing with some obstacles tonight in preparation for Sunday's Charity Treasure Hunt & Obstacle Course in aid of the Brook Hospital.

Harley and I had a couple of misunderstandings, the first of which was that every time I lifted the rein he backed up. Great Back-up! you say, but it wasn't what I thought I was asking for and when you're trying to do fine, little movements, like negotiating the S-Bend,that's not what you want. The key to it was Principle #2 - Make and Teach No Assumptions. I had inadvertently taught him that and he assumed that was what I wanted. I had also assumed that because he'd backed up just from my seat before that he had learned it and so would this time. Once I'd isolated backing up from my seat and played friendly game with the rein, we were back on track. Or should I say back-up on track.

The second misunderstanding involved some bending poles. Once again he'd done it fine before, so I assumed he'd be fine this time. He wasn't. I ended up assuming that I needed to steer him around each of the bending poles with eyes-bellybutton-legs-rein. Max pointed out to me that firstly I was unbalancing him (Human Responsibility #3 - Develop an Independent Seat) and secondly I wasn't focussing on the barrel at the end of the bending poles. So applying Human Responsibility #4 - Use the Natural Power of Focus, I focussed on the barrel and suddenly it became easy and I could use really small movements.

It's fun having a purpose, but you don't get anywhere if you don't keep to your principles.

BTW - Harley's FTR was brilliant tonight, even with all those distractions.

A new direction

As this is my first ever posting I suppose I'd better start with a little background.



After James started Harley in April 2008, he gave me a series of Foundation patterns to perform.

For the first 20 rides:

1. Prepare to saddle (ground games, mainly backup, sideways and some circle)


2. Saddle (like it's the 1st time and like it's the 1,000th time)


3. Prepare to ride (ground games again & bring the energy up to make sure it'll come down again)


4. Mount (as it says in the homestudy packs - to the letter)


5. Trail ride for up to 40 mins.

Then turn him away for 2 months.

For the next 40 rides do likewise but mix in Follow the Rail (FTR) with the trail riding and play some more interesting games (teach him new stuff).

Well, we completed the first 20 just great and we were both loving the trail riding in the summer, so I was looking forward to bringing him back in to play for the next 40 rides.

BTW - the picture at the top is me & Harley spending some undemanding together during his first 2 months off.

The first few rides were ok but not brilliant and we were having real problems keeping a saddle on him. It would end up sliding around him or halfway up his neck, regardless of what saddle or pads we used (including the Parelli ones). We came to the conclusions that his total lack of withers was the problem. This was pretty much confirmed after a conversation with Letitia Glen, who took the photos to Linda (including the one at the top :-) ). We decided to do a course of Hill Therapy with Harley to help him improve him musculature and hopefully build his withers.

Wobbley video fade indicating passage of time back to the present day

At Christmas his withers seemed to have developed a little and I started riding him bareback to do the FTR pattern. I'm having great fun riding him bareback and he's sussed the FTR pattern sooo quick, even though he does experiment a bit :-)

We went to watch a Honza Blaha clinic at the weekend and I'm now reconsidering how I play with him on the ground.