Wow...What a day!!

I know that one of the problems I have is that I LOVE finished products, but I HATE middles which often means that I don't get the proper finished product... And I know thats what I did today BUT....

First bridleless ride?? YES!! It was totally spontaneous, but Olivia did fantastically! We only walked and had a few steps of trot - but woooow! Luckily my friend had come along to take loads of photos, and she would tell you how ecstatic I was!! WOW WOW WOW !!! Bridleless ride aside, it was a good session! Lots of play and energy (at the right times). Enjoy the photos:















Jo x

Springs here :)

What beautiful weather we've had since I got back from freezing Iceland! Which, by the way, was incredible! The country is unbelievably baren and yet it's still beautiful. We weren't blessed with good weather though - the 2nd day we had snowstorms and couldn't leave the hotel and the 3rd day it was horrible and cold and sleety. However - I did spot herds and herds of super cute Icelandic horses!! I didn't take any pictures of them because I only saw them from the coach and I hate taking photos through windows, but trust me they are ever so cute - especially when they are up to their knees in snow!!! I was with school so obviously couldn't deviate from the plan they'd made but if I ever go back to Iceland again I definately want to see all the sights from horseback. I bought back some leaflets of horse treking as well :)

Anyway, Olivia seems to have forgiven me for not being around on her birthday (phewww!!). My emotional fitness is really improving - what used to really frustrate me is now just making me smile and laugh, and I can see Olivia's expression looks a lot more like shes having fun. I also feel like I've got loads of arrows in my quiver - I'm winning the 7 games :D !!! I'm still having trouble with sideways because she always goes forwards but when I break it down its better...ish...!! I'd also noticed that our change of direction was getting really rushed and it had begun to turn into a fight so I've taken that right back to basics as well. Today I wasn't in the mood to ride, so we had a lovely slow session. In the field we did a little liberty and she was AMAZING!!!!!!!!! I was blown away by how she just stuck to me and followed me, and I drove her from zone 3/4/5 for the first time ever and she was just brilliant!! walk, trot, stop, back up. Bizarely, when I tried to do a little liberty at the school she wasn't as good...!! Even though in the field she had grass and other horses and 10000000s of things to distract her!

I think I may practise a little liberty in the field now, then I guess I ought to try the patterns at liberty..big step!! Anyway, all is good :) !!!

happy spring every one - I don't know what it's like where you are but I think I may have caught a bit of a tan today !!!
Jo x

Playfullness

I opened my eyes for the first time today to Olivia's playfullness! We were doing figure of 8, and as I sent her off she just offered the trot, and her whole expression seemed to say 'whaayyyyy, lets have fun!!' I never really picked up on it before - but for the whole time I was with her today I was just laughing and smiling. I played with stopping at the barrel on the circle, and Olivia was watching me with such interest and enthusiasm in her eyes for when I would tell her to go again. It was so so so cool! I don't know how else to describe it!!

After a break, I'm finally working on our carrot stick riding again but this time I'm not going to miss 1000000 steps, so I'm working on our walk/trot/backup/stop transitions. A problem that I'm constantly running into, though, is that whenever I'm on her back Olivia never wants to just stand and chill. She always needs to wonder, and I'm really trying to be emotionally fit, and just keep asking her to stop but I catch myself loosing my temper and just pulling her head into lateral flexion. It's something I'm going to need to figure out, but I guess it takes time and patience. I'm also trying to work on my energy a lot - I never truly understood what Pat meant by saying, before you stop your horse, stop yourself. When I'm trying to stop Olivia, I sometimes still have a focus on a point. Today I was consciously trying to stop and stop EVERYTHING. I just stared at her neck and slumped down, and there was a difference. Fairly small, but still :)

Anyway, I'm glad to have finished on a good note because tomorrow I fly off to freezing Iceland with school for 5 days, so I hope she'll miss me !! Worst part is I'm missing her birthday :( So please do send birthday wishes to Olivia on April 1st, shes turning the big 5... !!

Smell ya later :P x

Careers

I finally feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders - I've always vaguely known what I want to do: 'train horses', but not much more. After many career interviews (something my school offers), looking over various courses and the like I decided that I would study psychology at uni, after which I would go to the parelli university (providing they accepted me) and train to be a parelli professional.

Well, I recently found a Psychology and Zoology course, and it was writen FOR ME! It's perfect: I wanted to study psychology because I've become really interested in they ways in which people learn (parelli packs & Stephanie Burns may have had something to do with this), the way they react to things (why some people insist on being so negative about parelli) and how they think. HOWEVER, animals have always been my favourite thing EVER, so zoology would teach me all about their anatomy (I love learning about evolution and how all animals are related), as well as their behavioural patterns etc etc. What better start could I hope for?? This would all help me to understand even more about the person/animal when I'll be teaching humans and horses.

This isn't directly linking with Olivia - but knowing that have a plan and a reachable goal really puts things into perspective. Before I always thought of attending the university as a dream that probably wouldn't happen, but now I have a structure I feel like I actually have somewhere to go. And to make a good thing better, tomorrow is the last half day of school before Easter so I can go and progress with Olivia :D

Yay for me !! x

Auditions

I'm really quite keen to get my level 2 string, thats not to say I'm really ready for my level 2 string!! My last attempt to film went horribly wrong and I lost all emotional fitness and just sat in a huff for the rest of the day, so I decided to put it off. So I thought, hey it's a beautiful day, mum's free, why don't we just film for 10 minutes? It's not really the standard I would have liked, I wouldn't get a level 2 pass, but it's all practise at making us a little bit less camera shy!!

Anyway, it starts off all right (friendly) but the trot to back up Olivia just goes off where she wants!! Then figure of 8 is ok, a few hicups, but I loose my emotional fitness a bit when sideways goes pear shaped. And then a squeeze turns into a yoyo but HEY! It's all a giant learning curve!!

Anyway, I wrote this and I was going to attach the 10min long video I made, but THEN I thought, NAHHHH!! My mum also made a few other videos of me and Olivia, so I've put them all together into a montage, and there are a few bits from the audition video in there, but I think this is much more interesting and its shorter :)

Work work work

I'm so busy at the moment, it SUCKS!! It means that I've got no time to do any reading/watching of parelli during the week to pick up tips before I go out to play at the weekend. :(

I HATE school, can not wait for next summer when I'll have 3 months of absolotly no work no nothing to do except play with Olivia ! Yippeee!

Anyway, this weekend wasn't too bad. Saterday we did a lot - figure of 8 really advanced to the point I could see Olivia really think about going out and around the barrels. And she even offered to trot. We also practised straightening up the backup, since as soon as we speed up she goes super wonky. We just did a sloooow yo yo between some barrels which she seemed to reaallly get, so its just preparation for speeding up.

I'm still having way too much trouble understanding her horseanality, shes so exuberant and wants to move around, but then she gets really calm when she do slow things. I'm thinking quad polar, because a few times I've caught her going blank (and thank god I watched LHB because I know how to snap her out of it). But yeah, looking forward to my course in July. We are going away for a week so hopefully she'll become a lot more like herself, so either Lyla Cansfield or Rachel Morland (both will be there) will be able to give me some advice !

Sunday it was awful weather, began to rain as soon as I got to the arena, so I didn't do much at all :(

Now its just trying to find time to balance my studies and my parelli - and we all know which is more important ;) !!

Poo Picking

Probably the best way to bring horsey people together :P

Basically, none of the liveries had really been poo picking the fields, and as a result they were FULL of it, so the yard owner decided to get everyone together so we could all poo pick, and then have a good old barbaque on the first Sunday of the month :) What a lovely day! (minus the hard work and the fact we were shovelling...yano...)

So I got down early to play with Olivia, and I toned down my actions and I laughed and thought OH BOY rather than criticise. And I had a different horse! She 'tried it on' a little, chucked in a rear and a load of head tossing, but I stayed calm, positive and progressive and she just thought ah brilliant, now I will do what you ask WILLINGLY! So the first time EVER I got Olivia doing a figure of 8 at the trot without me flapping about! RESULT!

Pats Principles:
6. BODY LANGUAGE IS UNIVERSAL

Especially positive body language !

And what was really nice, the women who also have horses in my field and me went out in the evening to bring them in, and I told them how in Poland all we did was whistle and clap our hands and the horses would come running. So they said, 'go on then Jo, give it a go' and I did, and HEY PRESTO, three beautiful horses came galloping towards us ! Woopdidooo!!!!