Getting Fitter, Being Provocative

Now that Wendy and I have Maverick, a very athletic, alpha horse, I have made the decision to get back to my wedding weight, 135lbs.  It should make it easier for me to keep up with him! It’s a pretty big goal since I haven’t seen that weight on the scales in about 10 years, but I am not going to be in a hurry, I need to do it in a way that makes it possible for me to maintain. So no crazy diets, no artificially adjusting my metabolism, just more exercise and less food. I have already dropped about 5 pounds this month, so I figure if I can lose another 2-3 per month, I will be there by June.

I’m lucky because although my left knee has not allowed me to jog for the last several years, when I tried again over the last month, it hasn’t bothered me at all. Maybe it’s all the rest it’s gotten, maybe it’s the Juice Plus that has helped it to heal finally, but whatever it is, I am grateful. There’s nothing like hitting the road to get weight off.

Randy and I went to visit my Mom this weekend, and since she lives on a golf course, I got up early and headed out the back door for a jog around holes 3-7 on Saturday morning. It was about 46 degrees and the winds were blowing at about 25 miles per hour. I was happy for it though, since you burn more calories in the cold, and no golfers were braving the weather that morning.

As I started out, I was thinking about a DVD I watched last week with Linda Parelli showing how you can be provocative with your horse while riding. So I thought, “How can I make this more provocative for me?” Jogging is useful, but I don’t find it much fun.

I decided to take advantage of the layout of the course, jogging up and down the natural drainage areas, making circles around the trees, going over all the bridges and up and down the swales along the fairways and greens. A few of the swales were quite steep; some walking was necessary! I learned a long time ago from Covert Bailey that you don’t burn fat if you are breathing too hard to talk, so that is my yardstick when I exercise. It’s far easier than taking my pulse all the time.

I had a gas figuring out where I would go next! Anyone watching me might have thought I was a bit whacked, wandering all over the course with a big grin on my face, but it was fun! It made me think how easily bored a horse would become just walking a trail for miles on end. It would be like me never getting off the cart path.

When I did my circles around the trees, I tried to pick ones with uneven terrain around them, focusing on the tree, making my circles really perfect. It was more challenging than I thought it would be, making a perfect circle, not looking at the ground, focusing on the tree, and then alternating making small circles and bigger circles. But it also made my exercise session a lot more entertaining.

It really helped me to realize how challenging it must be for my horses to do all the things I ask of them. And how being particular about my riding will make their jobs a lot easier, otherwise how do they know what I want?

Never-ending self improvement…

Highs and Lows...

I got to tape Wendy's Level 2 Freestyle assessment last Sunday, and I think it went really well. So well, in fact, we only taped it twice, and I think either one would have gotten her that blue string. We should find out in about 2-3 weeks what the official word is, but for what it's worth, I believe Wendy is now clearly a Level 3 student. 

She and Bingo have come so far, it's been fun to see their progress. He is such a challenging horse, always testing the human for their level of leadership, but I don't think Wendy would have had as much fun or progressed as far with her horsemanship with a less provocative horse. Now she gets to apply her knowledge to Maverick, which is great for him and me.

Unfortunately, Maverick developed another hoof abscess, which bummed me out, but as Wendy is good about reminding me, things could always be worse. Of course, she's right every time she tells me, but it's always good to be reminded.

So we are back to a regimen of wrapping the hoof with animal lintex every day until the abscess resolves itself. Last time took three weeks, but I am being optimistic in thinking this one won't take as long. 

The great thing about the Parelli program is that even when your horse isn't 100%, there are always things you can play with that aren't stressful physically, but still challenge your horse emotionally and/or mentally.

With that in mind, I started asking Maverick to back up by the tail, a form of the Porcupine game. We played with it for the third time today, and he is really getting it fast. It only took one minute of playing with it today for him to get it with the rope completely slack from both the left and right. 

We also are playing with walk/trot transitions on the circle, and this task is taking a little longer, but what I noticed today was that he was not reactive to the carrot stick coming at him. At first, he still thought it meant to go faster, not slower. Today, I still needed the rope to remind him to slow down, but he did it much more quickly and calmly. Again, we didn't do much as I did not want to stress his abscessed hoof, but he's getting a little better every time we play with it. 

Having said that, I can't wait to ride him again. We had such a wonderful passenger lesson at the walk and trot before the abscess, I am looking forward to seeing how he improves when we do it again.

Progressing with Walker

It’s been a week of highs and lows with my horses, but to be fair, more highs then lows.

Last Friday, Walker and I started with liberty play with his saddle on. Sarah told me about a pattern she saw Karen Rolf do with one of her horses, a figure eight and circle game combined. I thought that sounded like fun, so we did it once last week, but we refined it, and it was really soft. Then we moved to something more challenging at liberty for Walker, the four-barrel weave.

Walker has trouble understanding the draw around the third barrel, but we played with it for about 10 minutes, he got it and we moved on. We will need plenty of refinement there.

When we started out under saddle, he voluntarily went straight to the pedestal and put all four feet on it and stopped. He looked back at me with what appeared to be a mixture of satisfaction and “Where’s my cookie?”

To top that off, we started with a ten minute trotting passenger lesson, and he trotted over the pedestal twice and over a small jump several times. I rubbed his withers a lot during that passenger lesson.

Despite the trouble we have had getting his left lead over the last week our two, I never fail to be grateful for how hard Walker tries to please now. If natural horsemanship is judged in great degree by our relationship, I think ours is pretty good.

I went back to simple bow tie lead changes on Friday, and just like that, he picked up his left lead again. It proves again that going through the levels makes a lot of sense because when you have a problem, you can break it down yourself and get it fixed, at least most of the time.

We then played the cantering yo-yo game for the third time in a row. It’s a lot of fun, because it brings Walker’s life up, which is getting more challenging to do with his increasingly left-brained behavior. If the passenger lesson wasn’t enough proof of that, one day last week, I’m not sure which, he ran me into the rail when I upped my phases asking him to move off my leg! I had to laugh, because even though that is not something I want to encourage, it showed me he is really thinking now, even if at times it’s naughty thinking.

And something I just realized on Friday was that I don’t worry at all about Walker spooking under saddle in the arena anymore, which makes playing games with him a lot more fun. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t’ ever spook, it’s just no big deal anymore, I play with it, he blows and we move on to something else.

Playing the cantering yo-yo game makes me thankful for an athletic horse. Walker was a little worried at first being asked to stay on the rail, stretch at the canter, then collect, then stretch, then go faster, then go slower, stretch, collect, faster, slower.

But in this session, he really started to understand, and about the third time around the arena, he blew and blew and blew some more! I immediately asked him to collect then stop with a rub and a cookie.  After walking to cool off, I hopped off, fed him more cookies and as it was a pretty hot day, gave him a nice hose down. Of course, the first thing he did when I brought him back to the turnout was roll!

Transformations continue

One of the things I love about playing with my horses is you never know what surprises they may have in store for you. 

Today, I got to the barn and was welcomed by gorgeous clear blue skies and a light cool breeze. After chatting with Wendy who had an interesting day with Mav and a fun liberty session with Bingo, I got Walker and tacked him up. He seemed his usual cheeky, cheerful self, so I thought we would probably do some more cantering yo-yo game again today. We started along the rail, and he was completely blowing off my leg, so I decided I would pick up my carrot stick so I could more effectively up my phases. 

That is when Walker deliberately jammed me into the arena fence! My right brained extrovert had turned completely left brained! I laughed out loud, and now that I have had a chance to think about it, next play time, I am going to let him do what he wants to do before I ask him to do what I want to do.

That lesson was reinforced for me when Wendy let me play with Bingo, her left brained, introvert/extrovert, handsome Paint, at liberty on Sunday. He was much more willing to play a good stick to me game when at first I allowed him to go where he wanted to go. When I felt him soften, I knew I could ask for more. Thanks again, Wendy, for allowing me to play with your horse.

Can't wait to apply that to Walker next time. Today, we also did lots and lots of cantering. Walker is having trouble picking up his left lead again, so we did that until he was able to do it three times in a row, which took awhile. Once we had it, I played the yo-yo game at the canter, and wow, does that bring up the life in my horse. He really seemed to enjoy it. I know I did. 

At the end, I did a walking passenger lesson to allow him to cool off, and he walked around that arena like he owned it, a long, relaxed but energetic walk with his ears focused where he was going. Wherever he was going, it seemed as though it was with real purpose. Not once in our play session did he spook at anything, and there were lots of horses and riders in the arena when we first started, so he could easily have been distracted. He chose not to be. 

My horse is becoming a real partner and a joy to be with. It's been a long, steep, rocky journey, and we still have plenty to accomplish together, but with a partner next to and under me, the mountain doesn't look so tall anymore.