Training Journal Week 5
Session 11 - February 20
In the beginning of this session Limra was distracted by some hay left on the ground and was more interested in nibbling that up than in doing liberty circles. Once we overcame that distraction we had some really beautiful reverse and front switches. I felt like we really accomplished some of our most fluid changes of direction this session. Perhaps the best part was she started to really shift her shoulders around and move off the whips as opposed to me having to adjust my feet continuously to keep the draw. It really felt like we were starting to dance.
Next I started training liberty following at the shoulder in a variety of patterns. We practiced shoulder switches and introduced following at the shoulder with the horse on the inside of the bend and the handler on the outside. This can be more challenging at times but Limra had no issues. I did have to correct her to move away from me a couple of times when turning. For the first time with me on the outside she did great.
Our trot circles started out fantastic but then she took offense to the whips coming at her from behind and kicked out at them. Terral and I had been expecting this moment. She is a very opinionated mare and not the most forward thinking at times. There had been several moments in previous sessions that we saw her thinking about kicking out at whips when I was driving her but up until this point she hadn’t actually done it. I quickly disciplined her with a crack from my lunge whip and sent her out onto the big circle with very high energy. A couple seconds later I drew her back into the same circle we had been working on and after she performed a beautiful trot circle I stopped and rubbed on her. I felt that I did a good job rapidly punishing the potentially dangerous behavior without overdoing the correction. Although it’s never fun to have a horse resist and kick out, it can be a natural part of a young horse expressing their emotions and exploring their options.
Unfortunately after the correction Limra was understandably more apprehensive about drawing to me in trot on the circle. To fix the issue I went back to using the side of the round pen to support me in getting her to draw more quickly to my shoulder. She did turn and leave several times but it got better and better. Soon she started to draw more consistently toward me in trot and I was able to move back to the middle of the round pen and away from the support of the edge of the round pen.
At the end of the session I worked on stopping and backing up from the side and also for the first time from the front. I was impressed by how quickly she picked up the back up from the front. It never ceases to amaze me what I am able to accomplish without a halter if the draw is good enough. It’s awesome how sensitive Limra is to energy and how quickly she can pick up a new concept that many horses struggle to understand WITH a halter. I think this may be because everything in liberty is about applying and releasing pressure through your energy. You have the whips to make that energy more clear and give you more reach but it all starts and ends with sending and releasing energy. Once the horse can understand that conversation through energy modulation it’s actually pretty easy to introduce something new. You simply send your energy to draw or drive their energy in a specific direction and then soften your energy when they perform the correct movement. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t hiccups along the way - misunderstandings or expressions of emotions are totally normal. But the fundamental language of the conversation is very straightforward.
Session 12 - February 22
This session was one of my more frustrating sessions and I have mixed feelings on whether it was just an important session to push through some more challenging concepts or whether I was just simply asking for more than she was ready for at that moment.
The session started very smoothly with work at the shoulder. We did figure 8 patterns with Limra staying both on my outside shoulder and my inside shoulder. She followed at the shoulder beautifully in walk and then even did some brief trot work. She stayed connected with me the whole time which was particularly impressive considering what a windy day it was.
Next we moved on to working on yielding the shoulder for the first time. This went very smoothly as well. This exercise is reliant on her responding both to a shoulder yielding cue from one whip while simultaneously responding to a half halting cue from the other whip. I interspersed backing up off the front whip to keep that cue sharp and the yielding the shoulder was overall very successful in both directions.
Where we ran into issues was when we started working on trot work on the circle around me. I could get her to trot around if I ran backwards a lot and let her fall onto her inside shoulder but if I asked for more distance from me and bend while maintaining the trot she would leave. It was either she would trot toward me and fall on the inside shoulder or she would leave to the edge of the round pen. Once she left she was not receptive to any cues about coming right back which created a cycle where she do a half a circle, leave when I asked for more bend and distance, and then not respond to my pleas to curve back toward me until she had spent some time on the very edge of the round pen. We had this issue in both directions and unfortunately just did not make much progress. I ended by trying to practice some distance control in the walk as opposed to trot hoping that a slower gait would enable me to work on the bend and ability to draw her back when she drifted out. Unfortunately she repeated the exact same pattern of extreme drawing in or leaving me. She was getting quite hot and sweaty so I decided to just accept a slightly improved walking circle in both directions with slightly more distance from me in both directions. Then I just called it quits.
I think the success of this session will largely be determined by how she is tomorrow. It was asking for a lot and a leap up in difficulty level in many ways. Particularly because up until this point I generally let her leave and now I began asking for her to come back to me as she started to leave me which is a much more advanced concept for the horse to comprehend. It could be I broke through and have made progress or it could be that this session back tracked us. Only the next session will really answer this question.
Session 13 - February 24
My notes from yesterday honestly feel ironic because this session far surpassed yesterday in level of frustration and difficulty. This was our longest (over 40 minutes) and most intense session to date and both of us were exhausted and intensely frustrated throughout.
After yesterday's difficulties I wanted to start the session just hanging out with her and not asking anything. I wanted to just be with her for some moments and let relax around me. I wanted to start in a state of “non asking” before working on some of the more challenging concepts. I crouched down and let her sniff and explore me. She sweetly nuzzled me and calmly took in her surroundings.
Next I worked on some walk circles and they were ok although she drifted away several times. From there I started working on drawing to my shoulder with more energy for short bursts. Because I was having the same issue with the bend and falling on the inside shoulder as yesterday I thought I might work on a cue to get her to yield her hind quarters. I had trouble shooting and failed in how I initially set up the exercise and she just ran away. Then I tried using the wall of the round pen for support and that also failed as she clearly just became claustrophobic and ran away. Finally I started just trying to draw her in between my two whips and get her comfortable with that and then slowly building off that set up for the exercise. Ultimately I got her to yield the hindquarters to both sides and stay in between my two whips. I also practiced backing her up off a pressure cue on her nose to help her get softer and calmer about the handles of the whips guiding her nose.
Then I went to attempt the trot circles. I tried all sorts of tricks and strategies from using the edge of the round pen to varying how I used my energy and footwork to no avail. At best I would get a half a circle before she either ran off and changed directions or just drifted away. Even when she drifted away I found that she usually ultimately ran off because she would not draw back to me. I tried to be very clear with how I used my energy to guide her but it just felt like I lost connection with her entirely.
In comparison to our earlier sessions she showed a lot more forward energy when she ran off - for better or for worse. I was at least happy to see the forward energy and sensitivity but it felt like I just was not getting anywhere. I ultimately got back to some sloppy circles going around me to the left on the left side of the round pen. I was able to take those to the center and felt at least mildly successful. That success was short lived though because when I tried to accomplish the same circling to the right we had failure after failure. She would drift off and if I put any pressure on to come back she would wheel around towards the gate and turn away. This pattern was on repeat over and over where she would leave me for the exit gate. We were both getting more sweaty and exhausted with each awful go around. She started really breathing hard and I felt like I might fall over as I was still in my winter jacket. I had alot of doubts but Terral encouraged me and basically said to keep at it. In the end I started getting trot circles to the right on the side of the round pen and in the middle and she started to choose to draw much more clearly toward me and tolerate me using the whips on her side to keep her in trot while staying with me. Honestly if Terral had not been there filming and offering moral support I would have given up. He pushed me to keep asking and once she did start circling me encouraged me to make sure that that success was repeatable in both directions.
She and I were both so sweaty I wanted to do some walk work and not end the session with Limra breathing so hard. I took off my winter jacket and an idea popped into my head. I thought I might as well try some desensitization work with my jacket while she was tired and connected. I had not really explored much desensitization work with her prior to this so I had to troubleshoot how I was going to approach the concept. I decided to draw her to the jacket and also use the edge of the round pen for some support. I worked on her sniffing it and drawing to it and then rubbing her with it on the shoulder and later over her back. She was quite jumpy about it but also drew back to me in the end and I was able to successfully rub her all over with the jacket on both sides.
Session 14 - February 25
Sweet relief at last!!! I was very unsure how this session would go after the last two but this session was just about as close to perfect as it gets. We started right away circling at the trot. I just wanted to dive right in and see where we stood as opposed to avoiding the potential issue. She circled immediately in trot in both directions with strong draw. Then we went on to work on fine tuning distance control at the walk. Terral helped coach me abit and we experimented both in the walk and trot with varying the size of the circle. I was so happy with how connected Limra was the entire time and felt we were finally able to have a productive conversation about things even when they were not perfect. We were able to adjust to each other and work on things without disconnecting. We reviewed the yielding of the shoulders and the hind quarters and also practiced the back up from the front.
I cannot express how much joy I felt about this session. Not only did it feel like we had overcome the challenges of the past two sessions but it was the first session where I felt she never left me emotionally.
I have known from the start of this process that there would be moments of doubt, difficult sessions, and a general uncertainty at times. I also believe that those moments are the ones that we can learn the most from when we are out the other side of those experiences. I think there are two things that I have learned from the last three days.
This is a situation where having something attached to the horse's head could have offered more clarity for the horse. Terral pointed out that I had to use working her lungs as a way to show her the answer I was looking for and I am not sure that is ideal.
However, I also wonder if there is some benefit to not being able to just simply force the horse on the trot circle by pulling on a lead rope. Although this way left us both sweaty it did result in Limra making very clear choices to behave differently in the end. So far I feel the liberty start does allow expression of more emotions on the horses part. They get to show exactly how they feel about doing a certain thing and although we make some behaviors much easier and more comfortable and other behaviors more difficult and less comfortable they do ultimately have the freedom at liberty to make their own choices. I feel when Limra does accomplish a behavior at liberty, I can really trust that behavior is something she is truly comfortable with because she does have options. Options with certain repercussions (i.e. both of us sweaty and exhausted) but options nonetheless.