Training Journal Week 2

Session 5 - February 2

This was one of our most peaceful feeling sessions so far.  When I picked up the whips after releasing her she came straight toward me without me having to draw or chase her.  It was the first session where she offered this and I think it is indicative of how settled we both were right from the beginning.  We accomplished circles in both directions without losing her.  

This session was also the first session I was able to start to correct the fact that she had not been always drawing all the way to my shoulder.  It is common in the beginning for me to have to step toward the horse and rub on their shoulder if they don’t make it all the way to mine but I felt she was ready to take a correction as needed and draw all the way.  

Another big thing I started to introduce this session was keeping my own feet more stationary when she was circling around me.  This is much more of a challenge as it requires quite perfect draw-drive balance.  She consistently tried to push into me with her inside shoulder so I worked a lot on sending her out onto a slightly larger circle with more bend using my carriage whip and keeping my feet stationary.  If I started to lose her I would simply take a couple steps back to draw her back onto a smaller circle.  

Our reverse switches were getting better this session.  I started to figure out that she just needed to draw a bit more toward me while my back was turned away in the switch.  Because of this I decided to go ahead and add in for the first time transitions from circling to following at the shoulder.  This exercise went surprisingly well!  I was able to get her following at the shoulder in both directions. 

Although she did disconnect and run off a couple of times in this session overall it felt like one of our most calm and connected sessions to date. 

Session 6 - February 3

My goal this session was to focus on achieving better changes of direction on the circle through both front and reverse switches.  I began by focusing on front switches since they have been easier for her than the reverse switches.  This is unusual as most horses enjoy the reserve switches because the turning away of the trainer's body helps relieve the energy that is emanating from the trainer.  This generally makes it easier for horses to maintain the draw because the reverse switch naturally offers that release of energy as the trainer's belly button turns away.    

Limra and I really got in some flow with the front switches.  I began to challenge her more to orient herself around the whips.  We built momentum through repeated switches and I was able to get her to shift her shoulders over and around into the new direction as opposed to me having to do the footwork to help her out.    I was able to keep my feet calm and direct her around more through the repositioning of the whips.   I really felt like she started to take her problem solving skills to the next level with the front switches.  Even when she got confused or really unsure she stuck with me and really tried to figure out how to adjust her orientation to the whips.

At times she drifted onto a much wider circle than I intended but I was able to use that to play around with distance control.  I did totally lose her several times but I felt like we were having a detailed conversation overall both about distance from me and the changes of direction. 

Then I went ahead and tackled the reverse switches.  To help improve the quality of my reverse switches I used the following at the shoulder and switching shoulders exercises as building blocks.  I flowed between working on the reverse switches and shoulder switches so that the line between the two became more blurred.  This seemed to ultimately have a very positive impact on Limra’s draw overall and I believe I had some of my best reverse switches to date.  

My only other thought that I really want to share from this session is that I am noticing that Limra is highly distractible when it comes to louder noises outside the round pen.  There were some cars doing wheelies in the park behind our barn and she found the screeching tires very distracting.  I’m trying to strike a balance between allowing and acknowledging when she is interested in something and also trying to keep her connected with me so her attention doesn't leave me and the round pen entirely.  Sometimes I just pause and also look at where she is directing her attention and then after a couple moments ask her to reinenter the conversation.  I want to continue to contemplate how to address this issue because this is something we will for sure encounter often in our future together.