Working from Center....

Spent the last 4 days up in Orland riding with Gwynn and Dave during a horsemanship/cattle working clinic.

For those of you who have not participated in one of these clinics I highly recommend it. They are great teachers, awesome people and have a very nice set up in Orland.  Between Dave and Gwynn I think there must be 70 years or more experience and every-time your around them you cant help but learn more.

We did horsemanship the first 2 days, and then applied that to working cattle the next 2 days.  You start around 9am and get done around 4pm. So its good concentrated training.  Plus you get to watch your peers and understand what they are doing, and how the horse responding.

We worked on softness, suppleness bend, removing brace, working on the stop and the back up, doubling along the fence, riding on the right leg, moving away from pressure... just a ton of good stuff...

It was good from the perspective of continuing on the learning curve... learning more about how to get ourselves and our horses shaped up to be fluid, willing, forward partners.

It is interesting when you step away from it all and understand that the horsemanship is not about the control we have over the horse through the tack we have on them.  Or using fear, or pain to induce them into submitting to our direction...

It is True Unity, I think when the horse is connected to us, through feel, there focus... Without rein, without huge cues to move together....

Of course I think there are times when you go through hardness. But it is not always..

It should come from you and the horse moving together... Getting them to open up to us and move with us, instead of pressing into us..

If you have to hold them, then you will always hold them...

We as riders need to get more sensitive, more trusting with our horses. We should try less to force the transition, but push more to set it up, and let the horse find it... Maybe the horse will find it wrong..
Fine, fix it up and try again..

Keep the horse trying, rewarding the try and moving on... Keep the horse thinking.. searching with us..

How little I knew about that, how little understanding I had about that.. How much I have to remind myself now when I ride to let the horse search for it, let the horse make mistakes... Trust in the horse to find the right solution...

I also have to be careful about pulling to much out.. The horse gives, great, then back off.. Dont take that slack away... trust the horse will continue on, and if not, fix it up, and get out of there...

Its a great journey.. Learning about ourselves... Learning to ask for more, with less...

There is nothing more inspiring, then to watch someone work a horse and go through all the maneuvers you want to do, with no bridle on the horse...

Run out and stop the cow... back up, soften, bend, side pass... haunches in... Wow...

Or get done in 15 minutes, what you worked 4 days on..! LoL

So I think, do more with less... get in, get out... set the position, for the transition...

Its one of those things that gives me great satisfaction to watch Phooka out there working cows, better then the ChexLittleLena cow horse because we can offer that good feel.. We can get the horse mentally and physically shaped up to move.. Instead of the brace.. getting that brace through the head, the neck the body...

Understanding the concept of brace is important.. Understanding how to move your horse in order to find out if there is brace is important... And then understanding what to do, to massage that out is the ultimate!

Spool them up, reel them out... Feel of the horse to get them feeling of you... Wow.. those words are actually starting to mean something to me... Some glimmer of understanding for me...

Understand from the horses point of view...

Its amazing to watch people ride their horses.. If they dont have an understanding of these concepts, of how to release with timing and feel, how their horses will brace against them.. And maybe it is not a hard brace like you see in some, maybe it will be just the horse staying straight, or not moving through the spine, or lifting from underneath themselves...

Brace... It can show up in so many places... and its resistance.. maybe not defiance, maybe resistance because the horse has "braced" into pressure and it is normal for the horse... but it does not feel good to the horse... we can help with that... We can make it so the horse can partner with us, with less effort...

So my feedback is if your riding your horse and he is hanging on your hands.. any pressure on your hands, you have brace... you are building that pressure up in the horse... Figure out a way to get them light... get them responding off your leg, so you can ride up on a cow, rope em, back up, pop your dallys and ride off again, without that rein contact... Wow..

Yeah....

L

Why Cant we Get Along?

You know

After you cry in your milk, pour it out, and figure out if what you want to do next.
This cleansing process, is important to help turn around negativity in our feelings.

So, getting back into the saddle, challenging myself and my horses is helping me tear down the barriers that I had in pushing my riding to the next level.

Which brings me to the next point.

It is interesting for me, because I am learning from different teachers...when I ask my own teacher questions how it can create deltas and mis-understandings.

I know my teacher has a point of view... and maybe she things I am not ready in my understanding to go onto the next step.. But I know that I have seen and am trying to get a further understanding of the quality, lightness and partnership...

So it is now a goal for me, to get my horse to have the basics, so she can see that in them... that way she will know, when I ask these questions it is because I am driving to understand.

The whole concept of feel and horsemanship is something that is one of those things that is hard to grasp fully...

It is setting up your parameters and letting your horse find the softness within it... There should be no contact.. riding with your legs, your energy, you focus...

So when I say, I want to set up the parameters and let the horses find the softness... what I mean is if I set up the parameters the horse should be checking in, feeling of me.. I should not have to keep constant contact on the horse...

Yet the discussion I had with my trainer is how is the horse supposed to know... Well my thoughts are it does not have to be with constant contact.. there should be float and softness in the reins.. the horse knows from my energy, from the parameters I have set...

Frustrating when I am learning, like a child, I dont know how to talk right, but I know that the words mean something, that it means something...

Hi Ho
L

You know...

I went through a dark spot...

I call it a dark spot because I did not see a way past it... I only saw my own failure..
I only saw my own fear..

I observed other riders, some younger, some older, achieving that which I was striving for...
And I realized I may not be up to the task..

I doubted myself.. I loathed myself and I hated the way I felt...

Horses, riding, roping, It started to gain a aura that equaled pain and inability to meet my own standards..

When I saw other people ride it only highlighted  my own failure..

I was ready to quit.. To forget the sweat and tears of the last 8 years and chuck it..
I was never going to be good, not even decent.. I was always going to be a hack.. a back street video pushing, self proclaimed nobody that never gained the respect of the people that really mattered..
A failure..

And there is nothing worse to my nature, then admitting that... caving into that feeling...
To know you will never be good at a thing.. regarded by those you know as a mere shadow, or even worse a poser..

Sure you could talk the talk but did you know what it means, could you ride the way you spoke? Did you horses move, act, and respond to you the way your horsemanship vindicated?..

Or were your words empty and hollow, like words sex partners share in order to feel safe with one another...

Gads..

So I went through a dark patch... Sell or put Miss M down, turn my horses out to pasture and forget it...

But then I went to Legacy.. Listened to the clinicians... Buck, Lee and the people around me. I watched people I consider my friends and even close acquaintance ride and speak to friends and make new ones..

And I realized, the only person I was quiting was myself.. The only fear I had was a fear I created.. The only reason I could not gain the respect I wanted from my peers was because I was blocking the way..

Gads..

So if your wondering why I have not updated my blog its because of that.. Because I did not know were I wanted to go..

I was injured, not because of the way I was riding, or even the horse, but because I did not take the time to cinch up a horse I knew needed solid support.. Because I was taking things to "easy"...

I lost so much and now I need to figure out how to regain my spirit.. To re-capture my desire..

Its hard, and I understand why people who come back from events like that do not push themselves or their horses as they needed to... The fear creeps in... just keep it easy.. keep it slow... dont push it... stay on this side of safe... so safe..

Sure... But then you never grow.. never experience... never learn..

So I pick up my Miss M on Saturday... lets see where this goes...

Hi Ho!
L

So  we spent another week up at McGinnis Meadows...

A week of riding, reflection and retrys...

Thats the nice thing about riding. It is the ability to retry.. To do something, think about the result you got, and then try something again...

It was a lesson I got from this time around..

That this mountain, called Natural Horsemanship, Thinking Horsemanship, whatever you want to call it, can be approached from different angles... and those angles have different terrain depending on who is climbing..

Take for example the people I know who I think are excellent teachers and have a solid foundation in the school..

Buck - Learned for himself, had a hard upbringing... student of Bill/Tom and Ray
Shayne Jackson (McGinnis) - Same deal like Buck but approaches things a different way...
Randy Bock ( McGinnis ) - Learned from the ranches he worked on, and self taught until he also crossed paths with the Dorrances/Ray and Buck...
Bonnie Stohen - Came up from 3 day eventing, dressage and then learned from Buck/Bill/Tom
Ray Berta - Learned from Bill/Tom, cattle family and steeped in the heritage....

I would consider these people my teachers.. And you know I am lucky to have them. Each of them has their own way of handling horses, of approaching the horse.. Sure the words are the same they use, "soft feel", getting down to the feet.. but the approach is different..

This gives someone like me a variety to learn from. Something that may not have sunk in with Bonnie, may for some strange reason be crystal clear when I hear it from Shayne... Thats not to say Bonnie is wrong and Shayne is right... ( though something tells me Shayne would say it!! LOL), but that how I interpreted it came through one way vs the other...

There are other things too.. Like the fact that Randy I think trys to approach things from " Where can I make the horse the winner ", Where can I offer justice in what I am doing...
This is on the skin when he is working with horses, vs when I am working with Ray it is more about what does it feel like for me... Why they both may be approaching the problem the same way, what one  them brings to the surface may be different because they have things that are important to them.
That is not to say that Ray does not think being just with the horse is important too, it is just more apparent with Randy then say Ray...

There are other things too, when working with teachers...

Some of them may not verbalize what they are doing, so you may not see it, where others will. This is important to a student because it helps the student calibrate what is going on..

Like Shayne working on a horse.. you can hear him say.. "Don't get heavy on my hands " which means there is no float in the rein.. Where someone like Bonnie may say something else, or not say anything at all.

It is having these teachers and the ability to watch them, get feedback from them and to learn from them that helps us grow, that helps the students learn what "right" should feel like, and what the results of " not right " are...

This is helping me put things together.. Not to mention working with cattle and people and keeping everyone safe..

It brings into clarity the fact that horses need to respond, and sometimes that response may be explosive.. And as riders, we have the responsibility to be able to support the horse through-out this experience.

So in trying to learn how to communicate with the horse so they look and feel classy under us, and are happy to do the job we are asking them to do.. is a hard course.. Hard because it requires dedication from ourselves.. and a ego-less appreciation for the horse..

There can be no ego when working with horses.. It is no us against them.  It is a partnership, a unity of feel and heart as we work with them.. There is no dictatorship, no showmanship, no ownership.. It is a union of two entities... a joining of mind and body.. A benevolence of spirits.. If I ask, you can perform. I will do all I can do to make you a winner, to set you up for success to make it easy for you to do the right thing... And because you are balanced, and full of life you are able to move smoothly and perform the tasks I may ask of you.. Because your feet are my feet, your thoughts my thoughts, we are together, one, a perfect union of mind and body...

Hi Ho!

L

Getting Ready!

So I have some time to think about my misfortunes..

To cry in my milk and to lament on why oh why I am not a bronc rider...

Well I figure its that I just have to figure out how to engage my brain when a horse starts to buck.

Now I am not talking about crow hopping around which I think most of us can handle.
I am talking about tail in the air, bucking..

Now I am not talking about bronc bucking.. 
Which is how I came off Miss M ( she was bucking!) and I slid down her neck.. Though her chunky butt was not so high, the physics were the same!!)

No, more the snarky saddle horse type of bucking..


While they look the same they are not.. the naughty horse will usually stop after a few bucks when they realize they are not getting their way.. The bronc horse will also stop, but maybe after trying to roll you off, or drag you down the rail for good measure.

So I am trying to change my way of thinking.. Since the horses I am riding are not dead broke, and have sketchy backgrounds sometimes...

I dont want to be afraid of the horse or of riding.  I dont want to feel fear when I get on a horse and I ask for something quickly.

I know some of you know what I mean.. You see people out riding but you never see them canter, or never see them kick up their horses with energy.

You never see them ever real push their horses or push on their horses for more life...

Its that tube of toothpaste theory, once you push it out, you can not push it back in..

But how do you grow as a rider, a horseman/woman if you do not?

While I am not saying each of us should go out and be bronc riders or ride horses that push us outside our comfort zone.. Some riders would get into a lot of trouble pushing their horses...

What I am saying is for me.. I know a couple things.

I know a horse will get scared and unsure... and I know if I can hang in their with them, I can support them.  That is the most important thing honestly, and why riding a bucking horse is important to a rider who wants to grow in their horsemanship.. I dont mean in your riding.. anyone with lessons can be a decent rider.. I mean as a horseman. There is pride in that word, there is knowledge in that word, there is dedication, commitment, blood, sweat and tears in that word...

So if a horse gets scared, they are going to speed up, the rider needs to be able to handle that burst of speed, and let the horse know its ok..

If the horse gets cranky and does not execute something the rider needs to be able to come in with spur, whip or stirrup to get a change, any change.. and that may mean a run off, a buck or something, but you must get a change.. and a big enough change that it holds.

You know what I mean

You see someone dinky around on their horse, asking them to move out and whap whap whap they go with their heels into the side of the horse... and the horse dinks around.

now what if you came in with the tail of your mecate as hard as you could on their rump when they dinked around.. Well they will probably scoot out, maybe buck up a little.. If your prepared, and have a good seat you can ride that burst and them circle them up again...

And then the next time you ask, they are there, they are with you... and you reward that!

But you have to be able to ride.. I have to be able to ride..

Otherwise.. I am nothing but a rider... I dont think I can live with that...
So we push ourselves.. learn from our hardships, learn from our mistakes... and hopefully
next time we have a success and become closer to the goal, of being a horseman.

Hi Ho

L

Common Sense is not Common!

So you would think I would have learned...

Over the weekend I went to a Ricky Quinn Clinic.. He is a great by the way, if you get a chance go ride with him.

So I was not going to be able to ride all four days, so I signed up for two. I was planning on riding Phooka.. Even when he gets cranky, I am still able to handle him.. And when he gets really bad he just takes off at a gallop and I can ride that... So I figure with my injured ribs I was going to be ok.

I had got Bonnie my trainer signed up to ride my red mare, as I knew I was not going to be able to handle her if she got spooky because I was still pretty sore, and have been tired more then usual as my body heals up.

So we turned all the horses out into a big pasture.  Saturday morning I get up go out to get Phooka and you know what.. he is lame... Poop!

Well lucky enough for me Mack offers for me to ride Jack in the afternoon class and it works out pretty good.

Well the next day he knows they will be riding pretty hard so a friend of mine offers me one of her horses.
Now I had watched the horse the previous day and he seemed pretty let down so I figure no issue.

So I saddle him up, do some ground work and he seems pretty good. So I mount up, work on some transitions, walk, stop, walk trot, walk, back up.. Turn on the hind and he seems alright. So i figure I will work on the canter transition to check that gear, and the moment... the moment my foot slipped back to ask for the left lead he starts a bucking...

Well after the first couple hops when he realizes I am still there he starts to put some real effort into it... and off I go...

shit shit shit shit shit...

Now you all know I was playing that reel over in my head... playing it over and over... shudda woulda coulda done it differently...

Never been on the horse, never seen him go through his gears... shit shit shit....

So I land on the other side, not the broken side... and now figure I am even on both sides...

Lesson 1
new horse = ride like colt starting.

What I should have done was take that thing into the round pen and really checked it out before ever going into the arena.

Lesson 2
Why the *uck did I not grab my night latch? What the hell?
My mind just locked up and I was a dart looking for a place to land...

Anyone want to go to bronc riding school with me because I am ass dumb when it comes to this!

Lesson 3
If you are busted up, dont ride a horse you dont know, anyways.

Hi Ho!

L

So far so good...

So I have had a little time to review the event and the things...

One thing is the fear factor...


Now I am not saying that I had fear in my mind.. The accident happened so fast I was not even aware of what happened.  I mean I did not have time to think, ok what do I do... But the body had some fear.. Which I thought was interesting when I when to ride Phooka on Saturday.... But after about 30 seconds in the saddle I felt fine.. But for that brief moment...




The other thing I noticed was right after the event.. I was sure, sure I was done riding MissM
Sure that I did not have the skill or the ability to help her... Even though this event was pretty much my fault, and even considering I have taken her around cows and other things successfully.. Yet I have to state, that riding her, is not "easy".. It requires much mental and physical alertness from me, that goes beyond having fun and honestly enjoying it... It is like work.. where riding Phooka feels rewarding, riding Miss M can feel like a chore...


Yet what I realize now is this.. That in normal situations I can help her, and provide her the support she needs when she gets confused or worried. On the ground I can manage any situation that may occur. Yet my issue is that my seat is not good enough to support her when she has her meltdowns when I am in the saddle.

When I reviewed this with my trainer she agreed.  The issue for me I think in many ways is the weight.. Which is an ongoing theme in my posts..

One thing I learned is gravity works. Had I been a little thinner perhaps the saddle would not have shifted, and perhaps had I been more agile I could have regained my balance quicker... Words to the wise...

So I know, that if I want to take this seriously, then I have to seriously consider my condition and change it...


It was like at Bucks clinic I was chatting to him about something with Sofie, and he gave me the scan.. I think you all know what I am talking about.  He started at my head, scanned me down to my feet, then scanned me back up to my head.. then I got the look... Now I think we all know when we have been weighed and measured...

I had been found wanting..

Maybe he was trying to work it out in his mind.. or maybe something else... But if you know you can be better and are limited then why not change especially when I have a horse that needs extra attention.

There was a concern with me too. I know we all know that person who has a horse that always seems to get them hurt... Mostly because they are fools and the horse is beyond their level or they dont have any common sense.. I dont want to be that girl with that horse.. So until I can ride her and support her when she has these momentary breakdowns, then what good am I?

Hi Ho!
L