Level 2 Online Audition At Last!

Study Group Task # 2

We've got two tasks this month. the one I picked out of my envelope this time was to go ride sideways without something in front of us, - more of that in the next post. the second task for this month was to think about what we have achieved over the past year.
The best way I can think of it is by describing where we were this time last year.

So this time last year we had not even submitted our level one audition and now we are ready to film our level two audition. Looking back at this video and thinking about what we can do better now I am most struck by the changes in me. My confidence when playing with Liquorice has increased and, with that, his confidence in me. One of the feedback comments the audition team made was that they "noticed your horses expression and ears were cranky. Improving this now will excel your relationship and growth for the future." and I have struggled with this for a long time. I think I have come to realise that I don't have to work at asking him for less but to ask him for more. He seems to look at me more often with ears forward if I have been more of a leader and more assertive.
One of the big achievements of the last year was to actually take him off the yard. This was achieved when we booked on a level two clinic at Wisborough Green in early December. This was a huge breakthrough in MY emotional fitness and led to us buying our own lorry. This, in turn, has helped me begin to realise another dream which is to ride Liquorice safely on the beach. We have taken him to the beach several times now to just walk about in hand, have a bit a of a paddle in the sea, and generally hang out. About three weeks ago he was calm enough for Kevin to get on him and walk about.

Parelli Study Group Task #1

The lovely Jo has got us all organised! As part of our study group she has encouraged us to set ourselves 12 challenges (one per month) to complete by the end of the year .... That way if nothing else we can all say we can do 12 more things than we could do before! Each month we pick one out of our own envelopes and have to do that - it's quite exciting now because, two months on, I have forgotten what challenges I put in my envelope!
So, this video shows my first challenge which was to load Liquorice from outside the lorry. He had been very good at loading ME up to this point! since we had the new van we have been getting him used to it by feeding him his tea in there (LBI highly motivated by food) and taking him on short trips. He then had a very long trip to Wiltshire (see previous posts) and this made him much more relaxed about being in there. However I had a little bit of difficulty getting him on on my own because he would get on if I was already in there but then, of course, I had to get past him to get to the partition to close it.
Anyway, on the day of our study group meeting I asked a friend to video me attempting the task and he was on the lorry in less then a minute! I think that says something about the power of focus!

J R Foundation Station Epilogue

This is what I'm taking away from my week here at JRFS - in no particular order -

• "doing Parelli" is a means to an end, not an end in itself. My goal is to have a horse that I can ride anywhere safely - a good riding horse. Isn't that what most people want?
• do simple things well.
• have a plan.
• rate the success of your actions from minus ten to ten and don't go on to the next thing until you've got to at least zero.
• focus - no. I mean really focus
• everything you do with your horse matters
• either you think you can, or you think you can't - either way you're right.
• look where you want to go, not where you are going.
• don't stop doing something that bothers your horse until your horse stops being bothered .
• watch the Level Four DVDs so you know what you are heading towards.
• take another look at the patterns - I think I get them now.

Lynne and Liquorice arrive home safely from the JR Foundation Station

So it's goodbye to all the folks at JRFS. It was another beautiful frosty morning and I mustered an army of two helpers to help me get the lorry out of the field. I soon discovered that we should have bought a scraper for the front windscreen of the lorry as a credit card doesn't reach far enough when you are only five feet nothing, standing on a sloping field and I can only reach the very edges of the windscreen even when you are standing in the cab and trying to lean out. Fortunately the hot air blower was very efficient and that, with the help of the friction of the windscreen wipers on XXX fast speed the window was clear enough to at least get out of the field. Except, the ground was so frosty the wheels kept slipping and I kept stalling and I was beginning to wish I hadn't asked for helpers so that I didn't have to do all this with an audience!

I fully expected Liquorice to not want to get on the lorry as he was dead keen to get back out in the field with his new chums but I remembered that James said "either you think you can. or you think you can't and either way you're right," so I thought I could and he loaded just fine, and I did it all by myself (my helpers had melted away after the fiasco with frosted up windscreen, the slippery field and the stalling and everything).

The damn TomTom's battery had discharged itself - as I predicted, but thanks to Victoria's excellent directions I found my way back to the M3. Who says women don't know their left from their right! Well I don't apparently. I must have taken a left, instead of a right at the end of the A303 and I eventually ran out of M3 and found myself avec half a ton of horse, heading straight for central London!

I noted, with interest, that I was entering a low emission zone and, funnily enough, I had been having a conversation with a woman this very morning about how her horse box was too old to drive on the M25 because it did not conform to low emission zone regulations, and I remember thinking (rather smugly as it happens) that my swanky new lorry would be able to drive anywhere in London, and here I was - how lucky was that!

Anyway I didn't cry, I just did a U turn, got back on the M3 going the opposite way and rang Kevin to ask him where I was! I should have known better. I told him that the sun was on my left so was I going in the right direction, but he just said that it depended on where I was coming from! Men are such useless individuals when it comes to finding things. Anyway, just then I saw a sign for Southampton so, as usual, If you want a job done, do it yourself! The extra bit added about a hour to the journey but as James says "the longer a horse is on a horse box, the more time he has to get relaxed and will be less worried the next time he gets on." So that all worked out all right then.

JR Foundation Station Day Five

Well today the sun came out. I've been carrying my camera around with me all week and the first time I have something decent to take a picture of the battery runs out!

Today we went for a trail ride with the colts. I wasn't nervous. Trail riding is what Liquorice is very good at. Then the other students started talking about their horses. One has a history of bolting, another bolts when other horses do and the the other horse had never been hacked out before, so she didn't know if it bolted or not, but it was an ex racehorse. So then I was nervous.

It was a spectacular ride along one of the ridges of Salisbury Plain. We must have been able to see at least three other counties. Liquorice loves riding in new places and he walked along at a fair old lick. I did get a bit scared coming down a steep muddy track when Liquorice kept breaking into trot to catch up with the horses in the front. The more I tried to bring him back to walk, the more he tried to trot again. until James told me to just let him catch up because the more I tried to stop him the more he would worry about losing touch with the horses in front. After that he was ok and then he didn't mind getting behind while he kept stopping to eat - now there's the Liquorice I know!

And then it was all over and it was time to pack and get ready to come home. The shower of snow that I hoped would snow me in didn't come to anything but if the battery hasn't lasted in the TomTom I won't be able to find my way out of Devizes so I'll have to stay.

JR Foundation Station - day four

James really isn't making all this up as he goes along, you know. He really does have a plan.
Today we started from where we had left off yesterday. That meant everyone else was careering round the indoor arena while Liquorice and I (being in the special needs group) were walking round the inner track dragging a rope with a plastic box attached. This was to give Liquorice a job to do so he felt that there was a purpose to him being there. So after everyone else had done one lap in walk, trot and canter without breaking gait, and Liquorice and I had dragged our box around with it on the inside of us and the outside of us, we all stood in the middle. We watched Kitty, whose TB won't stay still, trot round and round until her horse relaxed. Then James told me to take Liquorice out to the rail and trot round. After a few minor adjustments of me - getting me to look up where I want to go instead of down at my horse, Liquorice did a very nice complete circuit, almost following the rail, in trot. YEP, I SAID LIQUORICE - COMPLETE CIRCUIT - IN TROT!
Then we watched Rene, (who never thought her WB would canter a circle and certainly never thought he would do a Flying lead change) do a canter in a circle and a flying lead change. When James asked me to take Liquorice out to the rail again we trotted a circuit then changed direction in the "question box" and trotted another circuit. YEP, I SAID TROTTED A COMPLETE CIRCUIT, CHANGED DIRECTION AND TROTTED ANOTHER! I could be heard squealing, "He's going a bit fast." Everyone laughed.
Anyway Batchelor chicken and vegetable cup-a-soups are really quite tasty, when you get used to them, and you've got a whole packet of them to use up, and there is nothing else to eat anyway.

JR Foundation Station Day Three

Tonight I bin mostly eatin' Batchelors Cup-a-soup (chicken and vegetables with croutons), and a hot cross bun. Tonight i'm, going to curl up in bed with a Bounty Bar!

Well, it's official, Liquorice and I are Special Needs and need to be in the remedial group! We took so long to get our lateral flexion - which he perfectly well knows how to do - that everyone else had nearly finished all their other tasks so we were well behind. But there are still two days to go and every day we start at a point a little further on than the day before. I can see how we can carry on making progress when we get home.

Liquorice loves it so much here that he didn't want to be caught tonight! I said "OK if you don't want to be caught, let me help you with that, I don't want you to be caught either so keep moving. It didn't take long for him to decide to be caught after all.

For the past two days it has sounded like we've been living in a war zone. Tanks are firing, army helicopters flying over head as we are right by Salisbury Plain. The horses here don't bat an eyelid. Its no big deal to the humans so it's no big deal to them either.

The picture shows what Liquorice will look like when I try to get him back on the lorry to bring him home.

JR Foundstion Station Day Two...

... and we still haven't sat on our horses! However, James says that when we do tomorrow, we will notice the difference because we have spent a lot of time on getting the basics right. I think Liquorice wondered who I had turned into this afternoon though, when we did the "falling leaf" to get a softer "feel" on the halter! I had to fix a carrier bag to the carrot stick as "encouragement." I don't think I ever seen him move so fast!
We do get very cold in the mornings sitting and watching James. I forgot to bring a deodorant and it's been so cold that I swear, haven't perspired even once!
We do have mad periods of activity though helping to muck out - a job we all fight over because it warms you up! When I have finished outside in the evenings, I have a long hot shower, change into my Jim Bobs and watch BBC iplayer on the laptop, eating Crunchie Bars - heaven.
James has a refreshingly uncomplicated view of the purpose of the Parelli games as prerequisites for riding which makes progressing through the levels feel much more "do-able."
I've posted this picture of Liquorice because James keeps calling him a "she" because he's "so pretty!"

J R FRoundation Station Day One

So, today I got up at 6.00 and went out to see to Liquorice about 7.00 am, then helped bring in a couple of James horses - one of them was Dennis! Then I had a fab cooked breakfast and put Liquorice out into the field with another gelding and a mare. Liquorice just couldn't believe what all that green stuff in the field was and he was off at a gallop without even waiting for a treat. By 8.30 was in the indoor arena watching James working Princess and Dennis. I felt like I'd done a days work already!
Then we all went outside to the outdoor arena to watch James and members of his team get some young horses and restarts ready for a trail ride.
After lunch James asked us about our goals and said that he would give us a plan that would enable us to reach level 4 with our horses in six months if we followed it! (When I told Kevin about this bit he said "Has he seen Liquorice?" )
So then went went out to be caught by our horses, halter with savvy and meet in the indoor arena where we went through the next three items on our plan. Tomorrow we have to meet having already gone through all the first five stages to be ready to go on to the others! James says that by Friday we will all be ready to ride bridleless!

We've arrived!

Today wasn't the best day to discover that the cigarette lighter in the horsebox wasn't working and therefore wouldn't power the Sat Nav! So, I had to leave in charging in the Vitara for a couple of hours with the ignition left on in the hope that the battery would last the journey.

I thought babies needed a lot of equipment when you travelled with them but we've spent two days loading up the lorry for Liquorice. Fortunately loading the actual horse only took two minutes, thank you Pat Parelli!

He expressed his opinion of my cornering at regular intervals round the roundabouts on the Chichester bypass then it went really quiet and I thought "that's it, he's died of stress and I shall arrive to find him on his back in the lorry with all four legs in the air."

He hadn't died of stress of course, this is Liquorice we are talking about, and he was soon tucking into the complementary hay as soon as he got into his new stable.

So, since the scratch on the new lorry, where I tried to demolish one of James barns while trying to park, isn't too bad, (just don't tell Kevin!), all in all, it't been a very successful day.