Quite frankly, the last two days have been rubbish. Olivia's become really bolshy and disrespectful. She doesn't look very happy and I'm definately not. I'm so glad that tomorrow I've got a 1h30 lesson with Terri Martinus, maybe she can help me deal with Olivia when she's in that mood. Or maybe its me! Its been horribly rainy weather, I have a horrible burst blister on my foot that rubs against my boot, and I've just got an injection which has made my arm achey and weak. I'm supposed to be enjoying a week free from school, but I have to spend every minute I'm at home revising for the exams I've got next week. It sucks.
Anyway, I've been watching a lot more of the new levels, and to be honest I find that they have so little structure or instruction. When I'm reading back over the old level 3 booklets, they have so much infomation and detail that's easier to learn from. So I'm going to ignore the new levels for now and work my way through the stages. Stage 1 seems so simple - I've been absent-mindedly playing with the concepts for a while, and I have Olivia trotting sideways and backing up (slightly)quicker. I thought I had canter on 22 ft line down to pat, but now when I ask for it Olivia can barely do one circle at the canter. Freestyle is a different picture. Although our isolations are nothing to be proud of, the simple lead changes are just beautiful, and flying lead changes are really coming on. Yay!
I never explained my title, I was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself and heard the lyric from Rufus Wainwrights (however its spelt) song, hallelujah, And it got me thinking that no journey is full of highs. Recently, the highs have seemed too good to be true. I don't think the last few sessions have been rubbish; they've just not been the standard of our previous sessions.
I like to think I'm emotionally fit, and when I'm happy I am VERY emotionally fit. But, just like my horse, I'm a super emotional person and if one thing goes wrong I can see the wrong in everything. Something for me to work on. It's my attitude thats bought on this dip in our progress.
Savvy wishes !!
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Long time, no see!
It's been a while since I posted because I've been so busy, good or bad, I don't know. (Actually, more likely bad because I'm not so much busy because of Olivia, more because the scary A-levels are looming!!).
Anyway, major breakthroughs recently. Since I've been driving and able to get down everyday, I've been able to spend a lot more undemanding time. The weather easing also helped with that. Our liberty went from being non existent to just beautiful! The smallest area I can work in is the 60x20m school. If I wasn't so lazy, I could fence off a section with some jumps but unfortunately I'm not very strong, and would be puffed out after such strenuous work :P Anyway, all of a sudden everythings come together and Olivia's been doing circles around me, like SMALL circles! As I watch her I can see her consider pissing off, but I've had to exert MASSIVE control, and 'trust her to respond, but be ready to correct'. I think getting handy with the 45ft line has helped a lot in that respect, because now I can coil and through pretty quickly, Olivia is thinking 'daaym. Now she can get me from 45ft away? RESPECT!!' So thats my theory on why its come together anyway.
I also had fun running around with her cantering after me, doing sudden stops and changes of direction, and started a bit of the cutting. The expression on her face is just like, 'wow, who knew Jo could be so much fun!?'. It's awesome.
My fore-mentioned laziness also means that taking Olivia (and her field mate - we aren't allowed to leave a horse in a field on its own) up to the yard, saddling her up, taking her back down to the school, doing my thing, taking her back up to the yard to unsaddle and bring her horsemate back down to the field is just too much! Instead, I've used it as an opportunity to improve my bareback riding, and there have been massive changes. From being bounced all over the place, I can now sit to her canter (woopee!!!). It's not as great as my seat in the saddle (I don't want to brag, but my independant seat in the saddle is pretty solid) but it's getting there. I find that so many things are revealed when I ride bareback, such as my right leg tends to tense up and shorten a lot. I think this is why people always talk about my stirrups being so uneven. A couple of years ago I was hit by a car on my right side, and I never went through the physio to get the muscle working again, so that leg just got weaker and weaker while my left leg got stronger. Unfortunately, this isn't helped by Olivia also having uneven muscle; with her left side being much stronger. So we really have to work together to bring our right sides up to the same level as our left sides.
Loong post today, sorry about that! There's just so much to say!! Anyway, tomorrow I have a lesson with a classical dressage trainer as part of a clinic my yard is organising. I am so excited - I've designated my mum as photo taker and video maker. So hopefully loads of pictures to come. Until then - here's a couple recent ones of Olivia.
Anyway, major breakthroughs recently. Since I've been driving and able to get down everyday, I've been able to spend a lot more undemanding time. The weather easing also helped with that. Our liberty went from being non existent to just beautiful! The smallest area I can work in is the 60x20m school. If I wasn't so lazy, I could fence off a section with some jumps but unfortunately I'm not very strong, and would be puffed out after such strenuous work :P Anyway, all of a sudden everythings come together and Olivia's been doing circles around me, like SMALL circles! As I watch her I can see her consider pissing off, but I've had to exert MASSIVE control, and 'trust her to respond, but be ready to correct'. I think getting handy with the 45ft line has helped a lot in that respect, because now I can coil and through pretty quickly, Olivia is thinking 'daaym. Now she can get me from 45ft away? RESPECT!!' So thats my theory on why its come together anyway.
I also had fun running around with her cantering after me, doing sudden stops and changes of direction, and started a bit of the cutting. The expression on her face is just like, 'wow, who knew Jo could be so much fun!?'. It's awesome.
My fore-mentioned laziness also means that taking Olivia (and her field mate - we aren't allowed to leave a horse in a field on its own) up to the yard, saddling her up, taking her back down to the school, doing my thing, taking her back up to the yard to unsaddle and bring her horsemate back down to the field is just too much! Instead, I've used it as an opportunity to improve my bareback riding, and there have been massive changes. From being bounced all over the place, I can now sit to her canter (woopee!!!). It's not as great as my seat in the saddle (I don't want to brag, but my independant seat in the saddle is pretty solid) but it's getting there. I find that so many things are revealed when I ride bareback, such as my right leg tends to tense up and shorten a lot. I think this is why people always talk about my stirrups being so uneven. A couple of years ago I was hit by a car on my right side, and I never went through the physio to get the muscle working again, so that leg just got weaker and weaker while my left leg got stronger. Unfortunately, this isn't helped by Olivia also having uneven muscle; with her left side being much stronger. So we really have to work together to bring our right sides up to the same level as our left sides.
Loong post today, sorry about that! There's just so much to say!! Anyway, tomorrow I have a lesson with a classical dressage trainer as part of a clinic my yard is organising. I am so excited - I've designated my mum as photo taker and video maker. So hopefully loads of pictures to come. Until then - here's a couple recent ones of Olivia.
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| From Jo and Olivia |
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| From Jo and Olivia |
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Happy Holidays!!!
Merry Christmas ! Unluckily, the snow missed christmas by just a few days, but I've got a picture of Olivia in a light white covering from last week.
Today was the first day I played with Olivia since before Christmas Eve. She wasn't keen on the idea of coming out of the field, but I made sure that when she wasn't with me she was getting some exercise and it certainly didn't take long for her to come running straight to me, and then she really did not want to leave! So we played a bit with the question box online to prepare for a nice riding session. I've been working on my bareback riding for a while now for two reasons - 1. my independant seat bareback is light years behind my seat in a saddle especially in canter 2. I've been too lazy to lug my saddle around :)
Anyway, we played question box and bullseye at walk/trot and it was nice. Then we started cantering, which I'm unsure about. I know that I tense up a lot more in the canter and thats probably the reason for her being silly. She tends to toss her head about a lot and she does short, snappy strides and stops, and does little bucks and jumps normally. Because her canter is lovely under saddle, I can only assume she does this because she feels the tension in my body. So she was giving me the same today, and we just kept going through it. And then, she did the LOVLIEST rear ever! I say lovely because it would have made a beautiful photo, she was veery left brain about it and I wish my Dad had caught it on camera. Unfortunately, I hadn't asked her to do that. But after the rear everything just fell into place. She did lovely canters to both sides, and I felt totally at ease. I really wanted to keep on going with that canter, but I heard Linda Parelli's voice in my head: 'ride for tomorrow', and so I left it at that and cannot wait to see how she goes tomorrow.
Hope everyones had a fantastic christmas! Can't wait for the new year and what it will bring
Today was the first day I played with Olivia since before Christmas Eve. She wasn't keen on the idea of coming out of the field, but I made sure that when she wasn't with me she was getting some exercise and it certainly didn't take long for her to come running straight to me, and then she really did not want to leave! So we played a bit with the question box online to prepare for a nice riding session. I've been working on my bareback riding for a while now for two reasons - 1. my independant seat bareback is light years behind my seat in a saddle especially in canter 2. I've been too lazy to lug my saddle around :)
Anyway, we played question box and bullseye at walk/trot and it was nice. Then we started cantering, which I'm unsure about. I know that I tense up a lot more in the canter and thats probably the reason for her being silly. She tends to toss her head about a lot and she does short, snappy strides and stops, and does little bucks and jumps normally. Because her canter is lovely under saddle, I can only assume she does this because she feels the tension in my body. So she was giving me the same today, and we just kept going through it. And then, she did the LOVLIEST rear ever! I say lovely because it would have made a beautiful photo, she was veery left brain about it and I wish my Dad had caught it on camera. Unfortunately, I hadn't asked her to do that. But after the rear everything just fell into place. She did lovely canters to both sides, and I felt totally at ease. I really wanted to keep on going with that canter, but I heard Linda Parelli's voice in my head: 'ride for tomorrow', and so I left it at that and cannot wait to see how she goes tomorrow.
Hope everyones had a fantastic christmas! Can't wait for the new year and what it will bring
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Polite, Passive, Pesistance
I started this post last week, so its a week out of date, sorry!
I think that is the main lesson I learnt today in my lesson with Terri Martinus. And along with that line, is a story she told me. When she was in the Florida centre, she was lucky enough to have a talk from a top trainer from one of the water world parks. Now this lady had trained dolphins, whales and other trainers, and one whale she trained was named Shamu. Now just the week before, Shamu had put another of his trainers into hospital. One of the students on the course asked why/how this trainer had ended up in hospital, and the lady said 'we tell or whales/dolphins to send like this (much like the way we send our horses), but this trainer made the movement twice with his finer, and Shamu was such a dominant whale he was having none of it and just went at him'.
Ok, so obviously Olivia is NOT that extreme, but she is like that! She is so very very sensitive but also needs to be TOLD you ARE going to do this.
We went right back to basics today, and spent most the lesson refining the first 3 games. We started to get really picky about what I was asking, and rather than boring her to death, this actually caught her interest. I've never seen my horse yawn so much!
I think that is the main lesson I learnt today in my lesson with Terri Martinus. And along with that line, is a story she told me. When she was in the Florida centre, she was lucky enough to have a talk from a top trainer from one of the water world parks. Now this lady had trained dolphins, whales and other trainers, and one whale she trained was named Shamu. Now just the week before, Shamu had put another of his trainers into hospital. One of the students on the course asked why/how this trainer had ended up in hospital, and the lady said 'we tell or whales/dolphins to send like this (much like the way we send our horses), but this trainer made the movement twice with his finer, and Shamu was such a dominant whale he was having none of it and just went at him'.
Ok, so obviously Olivia is NOT that extreme, but she is like that! She is so very very sensitive but also needs to be TOLD you ARE going to do this.
We went right back to basics today, and spent most the lesson refining the first 3 games. We started to get really picky about what I was asking, and rather than boring her to death, this actually caught her interest. I've never seen my horse yawn so much!
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Working REALLY hard on my emotional fitness..
Because, I really want to throw the hugest tantrum that I can't be at the NEC celebration this weekend :(
Was sooo close to going - I've been deadly ill all week, and I was hoping that my geography teacher would say it would be better for me to not come on the school trip to Cardiff. Sadly, I think he barely noticed me sniffing and coughing away today in our lesson (the first one I've been at all week), and so I can't persuade my mum to let me skive. Ah well, I got my email this morning saying the whole would be televised which is (in Scrubs' JD style) AWESOME!
While everyone parelli in the UK is in Birmingham, I will be in Cardiff on Saturday and then back home on Sunday, hopefully having my mum take some photos of me doing cool stuff with Olivia. Last week was a massive break through for us, we got the bridleless canter (everyone now, woop woop!!!). It was loverly, I felt so in tune with her. In fact, the whole session was like we were on a cloud. She was so responsive, and kept a real tab on her emotions when I asked her to go faster and then slow down (when she would normally get a little stressy).
Anyway, after an amazing and motivating session like that its inevitable that I would get ill and not be able to do anything. But the last week at home as let me get back on top of all things of Parelli. Finally caught up on the last 2 savvy club DVDs, loads for me to play with there! I also finally began reading 'Natural Horsemanship Explained', a book I must have bought over a year ago. How embarresing that I'm only reading it now...!! I guess thats intensive UK education for you. Boo!!
Oh well, I'm dead excited becasue I'm going to be pestering a friend on blackberry messenger all weekend for the gossip from the NEC, I'll still be able to order the DVD, not to mention the new levels that are coming out, AND I'll still get to spend a little quality time with my beautiful horse.
I'll try and get some pictures on here soon, I hate this blog being a big fat chunk of writing. YUCK!!
Was sooo close to going - I've been deadly ill all week, and I was hoping that my geography teacher would say it would be better for me to not come on the school trip to Cardiff. Sadly, I think he barely noticed me sniffing and coughing away today in our lesson (the first one I've been at all week), and so I can't persuade my mum to let me skive. Ah well, I got my email this morning saying the whole would be televised which is (in Scrubs' JD style) AWESOME!
While everyone parelli in the UK is in Birmingham, I will be in Cardiff on Saturday and then back home on Sunday, hopefully having my mum take some photos of me doing cool stuff with Olivia. Last week was a massive break through for us, we got the bridleless canter (everyone now, woop woop!!!). It was loverly, I felt so in tune with her. In fact, the whole session was like we were on a cloud. She was so responsive, and kept a real tab on her emotions when I asked her to go faster and then slow down (when she would normally get a little stressy).
Anyway, after an amazing and motivating session like that its inevitable that I would get ill and not be able to do anything. But the last week at home as let me get back on top of all things of Parelli. Finally caught up on the last 2 savvy club DVDs, loads for me to play with there! I also finally began reading 'Natural Horsemanship Explained', a book I must have bought over a year ago. How embarresing that I'm only reading it now...!! I guess thats intensive UK education for you. Boo!!
Oh well, I'm dead excited becasue I'm going to be pestering a friend on blackberry messenger all weekend for the gossip from the NEC, I'll still be able to order the DVD, not to mention the new levels that are coming out, AND I'll still get to spend a little quality time with my beautiful horse.
I'll try and get some pictures on here soon, I hate this blog being a big fat chunk of writing. YUCK!!
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
So...this program REALLY works?!
After a month of doing nothing coz I've been so busy, sunday I finally got back into the swing of things and took Olivia for a little online stuff. She was in one of those 'MAKE ME' moods' which I understood because it's been a while since I've exherted my authority over her. Anyway, as I was bringing her in from the field I noticed how bolshy and badly mannered she was becoming, after JUST a month ?! Her respect for me was waning very much...
So on Monday I came to get her in, and the little angel came straight to me :) After Sunday's session, as I was taking her back out again I was thinking 'dam, after today Olivia's not gonna want to come to me on Monday...' Then I smacked myself on the head and remembered not to give horses human emotions. She wouldn't be annoyed with me, she would respect me as her leader. And surely enough, she did :D
So online was beautiful, got a lovely sideways trot (although her hind end stills lag behind a bit too much for me to be REALLY happy with), got some lovely figure of 8s going. When I got on, the whole ride I barely had to touch the reins (I'm thinking ready for some really bridleless soon..yay!!). I'm just so happy with how we're progressing.
Also, in the good news, Terri Martinus (2* professional) is hopefully going to be coming to give me a 3hr private lesson in Decemeber, which should be great and really helpful with getting us out of this end of level 2 rut we seem to have got stuck in.
And if life couldn't get any better, I got an offer from one of my favourite universities the other day. WAHOOO !!!!
So on Monday I came to get her in, and the little angel came straight to me :) After Sunday's session, as I was taking her back out again I was thinking 'dam, after today Olivia's not gonna want to come to me on Monday...' Then I smacked myself on the head and remembered not to give horses human emotions. She wouldn't be annoyed with me, she would respect me as her leader. And surely enough, she did :D
So online was beautiful, got a lovely sideways trot (although her hind end stills lag behind a bit too much for me to be REALLY happy with), got some lovely figure of 8s going. When I got on, the whole ride I barely had to touch the reins (I'm thinking ready for some really bridleless soon..yay!!). I'm just so happy with how we're progressing.
Also, in the good news, Terri Martinus (2* professional) is hopefully going to be coming to give me a 3hr private lesson in Decemeber, which should be great and really helpful with getting us out of this end of level 2 rut we seem to have got stuck in.
And if life couldn't get any better, I got an offer from one of my favourite universities the other day. WAHOOO !!!!
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Poorly Pony
Poor Olivia was feeling down over the last couple of days with a mild colic :( She hadn't touched her food (this is a horse that literally inhales her food normally) and she was very uncomfortable. Annoyingly, my mum wasn't home and so I couldn't get down to the stables, but lovely lovely Emma and Sharon stayed until about 11.30pm to wait for the vet to come down and take a look and to make sure she was ok before she was left for the night. I love where I stable my horse :D :D
Today I went down straight after lessons, and she was much perkier (phewww) and was eating her hay. Took her for a little walk to stretch her legs coz she wasn't turned out, and by the time I left she was looking a lot happier (as was I).
It was a bit of shock because my horse is never ill, and also because its really difficult for me to be down there and I trust everyone 100% but I'd like to be with her. At least its all good now, as long as nothing happens next week when I'm away in Rome with school. Then I have a week free so I can begin to bring her back into work, and we can really dive in level 3.
And in brilliant news, I've booked my driving test for December, so FINGERS CROSSED!!!!
Today I went down straight after lessons, and she was much perkier (phewww) and was eating her hay. Took her for a little walk to stretch her legs coz she wasn't turned out, and by the time I left she was looking a lot happier (as was I).
It was a bit of shock because my horse is never ill, and also because its really difficult for me to be down there and I trust everyone 100% but I'd like to be with her. At least its all good now, as long as nothing happens next week when I'm away in Rome with school. Then I have a week free so I can begin to bring her back into work, and we can really dive in level 3.
And in brilliant news, I've booked my driving test for December, so FINGERS CROSSED!!!!
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