Seth and the Missionaries

I haven't updated the blog for three weeks now so i'll do my best to remember everything that has happened.

Paris has been doing great - i recorded a freestyle self assessment audition to see where we are at. Paris was great as i did all the transitions on the follow the rail pattern whilst riding bridleless. i tried out the lateral flexion, direct and indirect reins, back up and sideways so that any points that needed attention would be highlighted. i watched the video with Gabi and the other students and we agreed that my direct rein and sideways needed to be improved with reins before they would work without. the indirect and back up were pretty good. lateral flexion still needs work because without reins Paris kept moving his feet and i got very dizzy as he spun faster and faster trying to work out what i was trying to ask him with the carrot stick! we only managed to go for one trail ride last week and one of Paris' hoof boots flew off and it was broken in several places. i was really disappointed because he had been as impulsive as ever. i realised that on that day i had been rushed and had not been able to give him a good warm up on the ground. it proved to me that despite being as far in the program as he is, he still needs to be warmed up strong in order to get his impulsion to be better. i have been thinking about how lovely and calm he was on the fast track when we were playing with the horses on average 4-5 hours a day. i guess he responds well to that kind of workload and playing for one hour a day isn't enough for him mentally! due to not having hoof boots for him, and because we were focusing on doing zone 5 driving in the arena i haven't taken Paris for a trail ride since. it is hunting season here and on the weekends it is to dangerous to ride in the woods. Paris' changes of directions are getting really good, he seems to really understand the idea now and he has a lot of fun with it and is capable of doing flying changes in both directions, although we have to make a game of it for a bit before he will offer them. i got a few pointers from Gabi to improve my sideways game freestyle and it seemed to really help so i'm looking forward to playing with that some more. this week we didn't get to do as much as i'd have liked. the vet came last Wednesday and gave all the horses injections, Paris got the Rhino injection, and the vet recommended only walking for a couple of days. it means i have spent undemanding time with all of my horses. Paris doesn't really seem to respond to undemanding time at the moment but the youngsters i'm playing with really love it and when they see me they make an effort to come to me. this week i have ben going for bridleless trail rides with Paris. he is so cool now that i can mount him bridleless and do all gaits and transitions in the arena. i did a canter figure eight with simple change yesterday before we went on a trotting bridleless trail ride. the next step is to have him in the lead of the trail ride and on his own before i begin cantering him out on the trail. i would happily canter him bridleless in the big field because i can put him on a circle there but on the trails it is straight lines so i really need to be sure of his impulsion first. Marie-Claire has returned this week from her treatment and said she heard my freestyle riding was good enough for me to begin the game of contact! i'm going to start practising the simulations so i can train my hands to be good enough before i start doing it with Paris.

Touria has been fascinating. She had gotten a bit opinionated when i was riding and was threatening to buck all the time so i looked at my leadership. i noticed that she was much better when i was strict with things like that she should not move her feet whilst being tacked up or mounted. they are simple and obvious things really but it really reinforced just how inportant these little things are. also i discovered that she was likely to buck if she refused to disengage her hind quarters. i started to really mix things up online, for example cincle to the left, into a sideways to the right then yeild the hindquarter, yeild the foreqaurter so she is facing right, yeild the hind quarter again, a few steps of back up and then draw at a trot... suddenly she was interested, asking questions, having fun, making an effort and responding positively on a light phase one. things have gone so well that i tested our online skills at liberty. Touria is so sensitive that you can play online as if there is no rope so i guess it shouldn't have been a surprise when i played with her on her first ever liberty session and she could play all the seven games at liberty with change of direction on the circle game! the only thing missing was the stick to me and so we are now playing with that online. having made such a break through with playing with Touria i decided to apply the same principles to riding. before i was quite conservative, trying to use the levels and patterns for guidance because i was afraid of messing up this young horse. but she is so smart that she got bored very quickly. so i got on her and began to do stuff like, back up, trot forward walk transition, indirect rein, direct rein on to the rail, trot a few strides, circle the barrel back to the rail halt in the corner. back up a few steps walk on trot transition circle the round pen into a figure eight around two blocks back to the rail. soon she was no longer trying to take control because she was having fun following my ideas. suddenly i could steer her, even at a trot as i had captured her mind and the body simply followed. it has been going so well that i have even thought i'd try to canter her in the arena! she gave me a real effort but didn't quite understand what i was asking for. i'm very happy with her attitude at the moment! this week i have played with her online and she showed me hat she is ready to move on because she is getting very naughty in our normal circle game! so i started asking for change of direction and playing with improving the draw and throwing in the odd figure eight. we have been having theory lessons every day this week so had less time for practical horsemanship so when i finally had the oppertunity to ride her i did. she was feeling very opinionated and when she thought about cantering she would start to shake her head and lift her back to buck. i feel so much more confident now that i would just laugh and shake the reins to interrupt her evil thoughts and throw a different transition or obstacle her way to keep her interested in my ideas. she was really picking up on Sirius' energy. he was cantering around bridleless with Anna and so i asked Anna if we could follow her and i encouraged Touria to go until she finally took the canter. she maintained about ten strides of a very springy canter but didn't actually buck. i leapt off of her and rewarded her for her valiant effort. i'm so proud of her, we had our first arena canter!

Riva has been interesting. i had been building a nice rapport with her by treating her as a right brain introvert but we reached a point where she was confident and my long gentle persistent phase one was being met by dominant head shaking and only a quarter of a circle before she would turn in. i matched her and soon we were dramatically flying around the arena. she pulled every trick she could think of to out smart me but i matched her and threw more ideas at her and it was funny to see her face when she realised she wasn't outsmarting me. finally, with her absolutely dripping with sweat she decided to try my ideas and soon i was riding her and cantering her around the arena. she was going so well it was like magic. i rode her again a few days later but with a rather less intense online workout and her canter was much more uncomfortable and down hill. it will be interesting to see how i can get the best from her without such extreme conversations being necessary. this week I made sure i had Riva's mind before i rode. it is difficult because i think she really doesn't understand some very simple things like her responsibility to maintain gait, especially when she goes behind you. if you insist she does it but she sweats up with emotions and countercanters the left lead. freestyle she is better, i think because she had a more thorough education from her back and because she feels like she has more guidance from you, kind of like your seat is a holding hand! we had more good canters in the arena and this week i took her for a trail ride to help her keep a positive view on being ridden. once we were in the woods she was pretty forward and i just popped her behind Elvira's pony, Indy and she soon relaxed into a little trot that i could sit. i was happy to leave Riva alone and work on my independant seat whilst she enjoyed the chance of being out and about.

I have officially been given Seth as my third project horse. Online he is pretty cool and more advance than either Riva or Touria. Freestyle, however, he hasn't really started because he has been very extreme RBI about beeing ridden and violently exploded. Gabi has done a lot of flank rope work and friendly game to better prepare him and has started teaching me to build up on it. we both agree he may be better now but we are not taking any chances and are happy to take it very slowly with him. he is mostly LBE when you play online and he is so mouthy that he literally destroys every peice of rope or string he sees! he has already managed to get hold of my reins! he is so much fun and i have been set the goal of getting his online to level three!



Ok now for the non-horsemanship updates. we're pretty isolated here so when we all want to relax we tend to chill out with a movie together. it has been getting cold and we have been starting the wood fires to warm up by and that makes our evenings especially cosy. I have been talking to Elvira about her faith and about my own beliefs, pretty much ever since she arrived her three months ago. our conversations were getting very deep and i wanted to know more. i could also see how important going to church was for Elvira and how hard it was for her to have suddenly become so isolated spiritually since she arrived here. i asked if it was possible to meet up with some people from her church or visit a church and she started looking it up. Elvira is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormons. I didn't know anything about Mormons before apart from the fact that some people seem to find them funny. As i learned more i found that they are simply another Christian faith who have an additional scripture, The Book of Mormon, which is called "Another Testament of Jesus Christ". Elvira told me about how her brothers were Missionaries which means they were trained by the church to go to other parts of the world for at least a year and try to spread their "good news" to the world. as i have learned more i can see why they are so important. I asked if the missionaries in France could come visit us. initially i thought it would be nice for Elvira to have the company of fellow members but i was also curious and wanted to learn more about the faith. It took us a long time to get the initial appointment with the missionaries. they came to visit us two weeks ago and i was very quiet. they were two young Americans and they gave me an English copy of the Book of Mormon. they explained the importance of the book to their faith and asked me if i would read from it every night, and pray afterwards for a sign of the truth of its words. i agreed that i would. each night me and Elvira have read a few chapters outloud together and discussed what we have read. we would then take a moments silence to send a personal prayer to God. our signal to each other that we had finished praying was to move around in our bed, that way we knew not to disturb the person who had not finished (it took us a couple of nights of ruingineach other's prayers to work that one out!). The first couple of days i did this i started to feel really anxious. i was waiting for a sign from the Holy Ghost but nothing was happening. i was finding myself thinking a lot on my own about the situation and thinking that for 25 years i have pretty much ignored God and now i am ready to get to know him i was expecting him to start chatting straight away! i mean seriously a couple of days is nothing in his eyes surely! so on the third night as i was praying i found my self not asking for the truth of the words anymore. instead i found myself asking for direction for my life. i knew then that i had made a shift but it wasn't until i woke up in the morning and felt all the anxiety had gone and i had such a peace about me that i knew i had had my answer. there was no more asking if it was true. i know there is a god and he is my spirit father and wants the best for me just as my earth parents want for me. i was so happy that i walked up to Elvira and whispered in her ear "I believe!" she looked shocked and happy at the same time. since then i have had more conversations with God through the Holy Ghost and i have continued to read the scriptures and learn from the missionaries. I was caught by surprise when the missionaries asked me if i would like to consider setting a date for being baptised but again the answer came straight from me - "yes!" I am now looking forward to getting baptised in December. I have learned about the guidlines our heavenly father has set to help us look after ourselves spiritually and have given up alcohol (that wasn't hard) and tea (less convenient but not hard). knowing i need to repent for my sins i made a list of what they were and made a special prayer to God. the hardest part will be eventually forgiving myself for my sins but i am taking the necessary steps. fortunately i had taken Marie-Claire's advice of writing down lots of nice things about my self and i have found myself looking at that this week as sometimes it is pretty rough and sucky to be in repent. i am really looking forward to my baptism as a moment when i can have the slate whiped clean and i can move foward with my life. i know i am going to have to be strong to resist the many temptations i never really made much effort to resist before. in order to improve my physical health i have made a rule of no eating after 6pm and it is really working. i took this to the next step this week because nearly every day someone was making a cake or some deliciously bad for you goodies. i have been proud of myself that i have found the stength to say no when before i would have always said, "ok just a little peice" and then wanted more! it's a small thing but i think an important step for me in having the selfbelief that i can make this journey. i mean there is no point in repenting and getting baptised if you intend to carry on sinning right?!

ok i promise i'm not rying to convert anyone, i'm just very happy and wanted to share my happiness with everyone i love!

i promise i'll try harder to keep the blog updates more regular!