America and I had a two hour lesson yesterday with Jerry S. Williams, 3* Parelli Professional, and one obvious fact came out of that lesson. I've been doing a good job with the positive and natural aspects; however, I need to get more progressive to keep everything in balance!
Jerry has been helping me with America's development online, at liberty, and under saddle. We're doing great and are building a nice foundation; however, Jerry noted I need to get more progressive with America to avoid dulling her out. He suggested I need to start challenging not only myself but America as well. We are past the teaching phase in many things and need to move on to reinforcement and refinement. I also need to begin being more particular and working from greater distances and with more speed.
I got some great tips on several things yesterday and saw an immediate improvement with each one. During our online part of the lesson I learned to really use my phases and phases within phases. America has been pretty sticky when I back her up, especially when at a distance. Jerry had me practice being effective in delivering my phase 4 down the rope...wow...what a difference and how much easier!! Once I was able to deliver a couple of effective phase 4's down the line, America was backing when I brought my life up and backing with effort!! I found the power of my belly button!!!!!!!
Next, I'd been having a problem online with drawing America around the right barrel in the figure 8; the left barrel is no problem. Jerry noticed, after watching us play, that I tend to reward America after she goes around the left barrel so she "cheats" the right barrel trying to get back to the left barrel to get her reward! Once I stopped rewarding her at the left barrel, America really made an effort to get around that right barrel instead of cheating it. The second trip around the right barrel and she was really looking for me and I brought her in for her reward. I can't wait to play with this some more and get our right barrel as good as our left!!
During our liberty part of the lesson, I learned some stratigies for our stick to me. I tend to "leave" without America and she ends up following my lead rather than staying with me or she will shoot past me, in effect leaving me! Jerry gave me an assignment to help me break the habit of leaving without America or America leaving without me. I am to put a clip, with a string on it, on my shirt at my shoulder and clip the other end to America (on the saddle pad or her mane) at her shoulder. If either of us gets out of position, the clips will come off and I need to do something about it; if America failed to follow my intent of moving forward, I need to encourage her, if I moved off without her I need to start over, if America shoots past me I need to send her out on the rail to work! The clip idea is great because it will increase my awareness!! We also needed help when I ask for the back up as America wants to turn to face me rather than back up straight so the assignment for the teaching phase is to put her on the rail to eliminate that option. It will help her find the right answer sooner.
During our freestyle part of our lesson I got some help with mounting. I had been mounting America from a mounting block or from a fence during the early part of her saddle training. I did this to avoid putting pressure on her withers and to help encourage her to stand still for mounting. Yesterday, I mounted from the ground instead and I was having a bit of a struggle until Jerry reminded me of the proper position. WOW...I bounced three times and up I went...no problem!! One of the things I kept doing before Jerry got me sorted me out was having my butt too far out/away from America's body and my belly button pointed in the wrong direction.
America stood still during my mounting foibles and when I finally got into the saddle, she stood until I asked her to move off. She was a bit sticky at first and I had to use all 4 phases to get us moving. America was drawn to the side of the round pen where someone else was riding their horse. I upped my leadership to make that idea uncomfortable for her and America picked up a really nice free walk and blew out a couple of times...she was pretty relaxed. It was time to ask her up into the trot! It took a bit of convincing, the use of my phases, and rewarding her for going into a faster walk and three repetitions and we went up into the trot. We did 2-3 strides and I rewarded her big time by stopping and rubbing her. I was happy that we got the trot and REALLY happy we got it without a lot of drama and NO BUCKING even though I did have to spank her a bit (only when spanking myself to create commotion didn't work)!!
It was a great lesson, I learned alot, and Jerry gave me some homework assignments: I need to get more progressive (for both of us), I need to make up my clips and use them during our stick to me, we need to do more trotting (starting with a couple minutes and building up to 10-15 at a minimum), and we need to start cantering within the next month even if I need to get someone to do it for me for the first few canter rides. Since Jerry is leaving Florida for the summer, I'm thinking of contacting Emily Thompson, another Parelli Instructor AND a horse development specialist, to help me with the riding parts of this assignment. Emily will be in Florida all summer.
Jerry leaves Florida next week and I'm really going to miss our lessons and his help with America. I'll be looking forward to next fall when he returns! Until then, I have lots to play with and I have a goal to film our Level 2 auditions before summer is over!!
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