One of the few AMAZING things I learnt at Rachel Morland's course!!! WOW did i have a brilliant time!?!
I'll try to keep it brief, and put in a picture or two but they aren't very good photos as they are quite far away :( NEVER MIND!!
So on Saterday morning, we just played for a little and Rachel watched us. And me being me, of course froze! I think I become veerrry introverted in a new situation around new people, and i especially don't tend to like people watching me!!! So it didn't start off too well, but everyone was so lovely and Rachel was so encouraging it didn't take too long for me (and Olivia) to settle down!
So we played a bit with driving from zone 3 (and then dropping back to 4 & 5) which was interesting, and definately something I'm going to work on! We also played with focusing on what part of the horses body we want to move, and did this THING (?!?!), and I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, but it taught me THE POWER OF FOCUS
Fantastic! Then in the afternoon we did some riding, and I did a lot of follow the rail at the trot, and learnt about the power of neutral, and that I did a lot of nagging, and thats why Olivia began to ignore me! We did plenty of other things on the first day as well, and I came home buzzing as a bee (but tierd as a....well...tierd..!!)
Then TODAY! WOW! Well, the morning groundwork was brilliant!! Rachel reminded me the importance of making the GAMES FUN! (duhhhhhh). So Olivia has a tendancy to get bored with the circle and buck into the canter, so Rachel played with letting her stop and rest at a block, and this made her soo interested, and she responded to the lightest possible phases and in general looked like she was having fun!
Then in the afternoon Rachel let me play with carrot stick riding (note to self, buy another carrot stick!). This was FUN! we did the cloverleaf pattern at trot, and olivia wasn't too bad! It was fun to watch her nose as she tried to poke it at the stick when i asked her to back up ! Then Rachel has us each do something individually, and she asked me to canter the rail with the carrot sticks (WHAATATTTT!!!) I'm not going to lie, it took me about three laps before Olivia finally cantered, i seriously underestimated how much you have to think about when riding with 2 carrot sticks! Eventually (and after a nice big buck) we got to the cantering! and it was loveerrllyyy
Then we played with the bow tie pattern, and did some backing up and sideways. One thing that was great, was Rachel explaining the patterns. I bought them but I never really had much idea what to do with them, but now I know how to use them and I'll definately by using them from now in!
I'm too tierd to write much else, and that is just a fraction of what I learnt!!! AND on top of the all the amazing tips, I met some amazing people :D:D whooosssshh what a weekend!
Sorry, these aren't great because we were indoors and it was horrible and dark :P
Rachel making the circling game fun!
backing up with carrot sticks
very proud!
sorry about the crap quality!!!
Jo xx
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