Day #18 - “Leadership Wednesday,” September 16

“The better you can go backwards and sideways, the better you can do everything else.”  ~ Pat Parelli 

Today we started in the lodge, once again talking briefly about horsenality/personality.  We then broke into our personality remudas.  I decided to join the LBE’s today, mainly because I feel that, although I might be more innately RBE, I am currently fairly equal LBE/RBE, mainly due to all my years of policing and leadership.  So - the LBE’s met up in the Big Top and talked a bit about what they had already talked about the previous two times in remuda.  John Baar led this group from the beginning and I must say, I felt that I was more “at home” with this group than I was with the RBE group.  Some of the things that were talked about as being specific to LBE’s are:

- we need a “talking stone” or something so that only one person talks at a time - when people talked out of turn, they had to quack!

- LBE’s are famous for talking without thinking and blurting out whatever comes to mind - this can be VERY threatening to introverts.

- related to above: we need to develop a better “inner editor” before we open our mouths, act, or run roughshod over others

- progress (get ‘r done) is easy for us, but we have to be careful that we don’t sacrifice relationship for progress (our tendency)

- our “natural energy” is attractive to other extroverted people (and horses), but can be very threatening to introverts

- extroverted people tend to “wear out” while introverted people tend to “rust out.”

After this discussion, we went up to the pasture where John and Kathy had their horses.  He wanted to give us a demonstration using his RBI gelding, Leo.  Poor, trusting Leo was waiting by the gate (big mistake!) and John asked us to form a “human round pen” around him.  Leo followed John into the group while it was still a horseshoe (there were about 15 or so of us), but became very obviously worried when the horseshoe began to close behind him.  He immediately began to look for “the marshmallow” (or weakest link) as an escape route - hard to find with our group!  As an excellent natural demonstration of individual horsenalities, Kathy’s horses Chloe (LBI) and Macchiato (LBE) were busy trying to get INTO the circle!  Belinda made Chloe happy by giving her a good scratch (photo), although she really wanted a treat from me - she knew I had them in my fanny-pack!

John talked about how a horse’s SURVIVAL depends upon body language.  He talked about the difference in his energy to give Leo confidence in him as a leader (”don’t worry about these people - I won’t let them hurt you - you’ll be alright” as opposed to “Damn it - leave my horse alone!”).  He talked about how important it is to have a positive “emotional bank account” with our horses.  Each time John gets gentle and/or waits on Leo, he makes a deposit.  Each time he pushes him or blows him through a threshold, he makes a withdrawal.  Deposits need to be way MORE than withdrawals to improve the relationship.  This is similar to what I have learned in some marriage seminars - so true!  John said that with horses, however - because they are so much MORE perceptive than people, even extroverted THOUGHTS can make withdrawals in the relationship - whew! Because of this - we need to get ourselves in our right mind BEFORE we have any contact with our horse - especially if they have any introverted tendencies.  This was good food for thought with regard to horse AND human relationships.

After the remudas, we went back into the lodge and Kathy talked some more about POWER in our riding and what can give us power.  The pre-requisites are relaxation, mental/emotional/physical collection, and longitudinal flexion.  She talked specifically about:

1) transitions: (”1 MILLION transitions!”).  As Walter said - everything we are doing is preparing for the next thing.  We were asked to think of all the possible transitions WITHIN the trot, and we came up with the following: shorter, longer, extended, medium, collected, working, piaffe, passage, half-pass, shoulder in/out, haunches in/out, leg yield, suspension, backwards, flexion, diagonals.  And that’s just within the trot!

Then, we watched a video of Linda’s first lesson with Walter, which was an excellent example of continual transitions.  With a more LB horse (Remmer, HotShot), you need to think:

- often

- long sides

- forward/power

- softer

Walter - “The less we do with our hands/reins, the more the horse knows the door is open to him and can go forward.”

Then we watched a lesson of Pat’s with Walter (riding Magic).  Walter had Pat do a lot more lateral movements with Magic.  As she is a more RB horse, you need to think:

- more flexion-type transitions

- “very careful, easy, gentle” - Walter must have said this 50 times.

This took Kathy into more of a discussion on:

2) lateral manuevers

- sideways

- HQ and FQ (direct/indirect rein)

- half-pass (flexion TOWARDS direction of travel)

- leg yield (flexion AWAY from direction of travel)

- shoulders in/out

- haunches in/out

- lateral movements help us to build suspension (floating - feet in the air more than on the ground)

We then watched a couple of videos on preparation for bullfighting and real bullfighting.  Can your horse BECOME your legs?  These horses were exuberant, flexible, engaged, HOVERCRAFTS!  I can’t imagine riding a horse that is that sensitive and engaged both physically and mentally with their rider - something to strive for, no doubt!

Before we went to lunch, we took about  1/2 hour and went into Arena Grande to practice shoulders in/out and haunches in/out - with just ourselves and conga-horse partners (three).  The middle person was the “rider,” the front person was the shoulders and the rear person was the haunches.  The rider had to effectively “tell” the “horse” what to do - very interesting!  Then, we went and got our horses and worked on both shoulders in and haunches in with them.  HotShot and I can definitely use some work in these areas - I’ve gotten rather lazy, but now I am re-inspired to perfection!

After lunch, we did more of this and also did some “check stations” in the Big Top - working on shoulders in/haunches in on the long side and shoulders in/haunches in on circles.  All in all, a very busy day!

Then HotShot and I meandered down the field towards Pat’s barn to “spy” a bit and take a few photos.  He was so funny - going from alfalfa patch to alfalfa patch - such a foodie!  This is his favorite part of the day.  Then, I fed grain/Equishine/probiotics, filled water, cleaned the pen, and let him have a good roll in one of the round pens.

A good, long day - I’m pooped!

Edie

This entry was posted on 17. September 2009 at 18:07 and is filed under 2009 ISC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.