So Many Visitors!

This week has been pretty crazy!

on Saturday night Elvira got a call from her best fries, Bas, from home. He told her he was planning to visit for the week as a surprise for her birthday and wanted to come on Monday! Cindy's boyfriend, Robin, and her sister, Jorina, were also coming for the week.

On Sunday we played with our horses as usual and me and Elvira had a talk with Marie-Claire about the possibility of attending Church. Marie-Claire told us that this week she would have a friend and her daughter to stay for three days, the vet was visiting, so was the osteopath and on Wednesday a TV crew were truning up to do a piece on du Plessis for the regional news!

Paris has been on top form this week - he has been so cool with being ridden bridleless in the arena that i felt confident enough to ask him to jump and he did! he didn't get emotional about it or lose his rythm or anything! on wednesday when the film crew came Marie-Claire asked me to ride Paris bridleless for them and after he had shown how amazing he is i felt happy enough to stand up on his back! we then went for a "trail ride" with the camera crew telling us to trot here and there and go through the densest thickets of trees. Paris was amazing just following the slightest change in my focus. i was riding him with a thraflex under the bareback pad and he was so comfortable that when i asked for trot he went into a real trot and i was having to work hard on myself to be able to sit it. i could tell he would like to have cantered but i was able to use my seat and occasionally the neck string to remind him to keep attention on me and stay in trot, even when Elvira cantered passed bridleless on Indy as the horses headed in the direction of home!

yesterday when i went to play with Paris he was somewhat emotional. he was sweating up where he stood and had runny poop. he was having trouble focusing and was extremely tense. i took him in the arena and decided to use the falling leaf pattern to get his mind back and give him something to focus on. Marie-Claire came in and asked me what was going on and i told her. we were both surprised at how emotional he was being. Marie-Claire asked me to use transitions instead of change of direction and at first i started playing the transition game where i invite him to make a downward transition and if he misses it i speed him up. Marie-Claire said that was too much for him at the moment and that he wanted to make the transition from trot to walk but felt unable. i held the stick out and shook the rope until he reached the line of the stick and i would stop if he passed it and try again. he was showing a lot of tension and several times he made i into a walk but then popped back up into trot again. finally he relaxed enough to maintain the walk and marie asked me to do travelling circles with him in the walk where i would alternately ask him to move his shoulders and flank over. this exercise gently invited him to engage his mind without applying to much pressure or adding to the factors he was already emotional about. whilst we were doing this a massive thunder and lightening storm hit. suddenly it all made sense. i've noticed before that Paris gets ver stressed before thunder storms. he got tense when the thunder roared and the lightning forked through the sky lighting everything up. the dark clouds rolled across the sky and it got dak in the arena so we turned the lights on and he flinched at first thinking it was a giant lightening strike. i carried on the exercise on both reins, occasionally bringing the travelling circle to a wall where we would flow into a few steps of sideways and soon he was blinking, licking and chewing and moving in a more relaxed manner. i gave him a break and he yawned and yawned. we repeated the exercise and i added a little bit of yeilding him around objects in a weave like pattern. Marie-Claire told me this is a better strategy for horses that lose balance when they go right brained than changes of direction. Paris' emotions affect his physical performance. i have noticed before that he looks unlevel and sometimes almost lame when he is tight and anxious but the next day he can be so relaxed and left brained and he moves like a dream! changes of direction when he is right brain basically mean him throwing his weight over from one shoulder to the other which does not help him physically and does not encourage him to feel less emotional. the walking exercise really helped because he found that he had the option to move more or less as he needed but constantly had something to think about. i spent some undemanding time in the stall with him afterward and  the evening took him in the arena where i put the bridle, with mollasses on the bit, on him, hung out and then took it off. i want to do this a few times and then start riding him without using the bridle but with him wearing it with mollasses. i am planning to start the game of contact simulations and in the mean time want him as comfortable with the bit as possible.

Riva has been interesting this week. i took her on a couple of trail rides with Elvira and Indy and she is doing great out. in the arena i haven't had a chance to ride her but i have played more with her confidence to maintain her responsibilities. she is really improving with the trot, with inly token moments of attitude but the canter is proving trickier. last play session she did manage to take the correct lead on the left which i immediately rewarded but i'm still not convinced she really understands it is the leading leg that i'm looking for.

Touria is doing great. i have just been quite relaxed with her this week. i played with her and Riva simultaneously the other day. it was tricky at first to get them both to do the circling game together at the same time but they got the ida, especially if i kept Touria in front of Riva. in the end i had them both backing, circling, draw to me change direction, circle, jump the jump, come back to me and do sideway from zone one all simultaneously. it was a lot of fun and got me looking forward to what i can build for MarieClaire's demo in a couple of weeks!

Seth was showing unconfidence with his backfeet on the pedastal last week but this week he was able to stand with four feet on it! we still have room for improvement before he will just walk over and put all four feet on but he is about level with Paris on that task now! i stood on a block above him and did friendly game and he wasn't bothered at all. in fact i think Gabi has done such a good job that his friendly game is better than any of the other horses i play with. i started doing some stick to me and i want him to synchronise with Paris so i can do friendly game above him in motion and take him out on trail rides without riding him.

it has been very funny and noisy in our house this week. Elvira's friend, Bas was very funny and me and him had more than one good old Queen sing-along session. we watched silence of the lambs together because no one else here watches horror movies. almost every night we had a wresting match before bed because he kept stealing mine and Elvira's blankets. i think it was good that we did because it was much harder to resist the cakes and icecream ths week, especially as it was Elvira's birthday.

Yesterday we had our final visitor of the week arrive. Anna found a dog sitting alone on the bales of alfalfa outside the youngster stables. she came to me and said she thought the dog had been abandoned. when i got there i saw what looked like a jack russel with long legs. she is so skinny you can see every bone and she is as light as a feather. she has a large tumour hanging beneath her belly, slighlty bigger than a tennis ball. her eyes were runny with sleep and she was covered in big fat blood sucking ticks. i managed to remove them without losing any of their heads and we took her to Marie-Claire. we fed her a little dog food and gave her some water and put her in a stable whilst we worked. Marie-Claire reported her to the lost dog authorities and took her to the vet to check her health and see if she had a microchip. when she returned the dog, who i have named Katie, was still with her. she said the vet had estimated the dog will last another couple of months or so before the tumour is so bad she needs to be put to sleep. the vet said for such an old dog (about 10), in such poor condition, with such an extensive tumour, surgery was not advisable. we were surprised that the vet had not trimmed her claws because they were very overgrown. one claw on the back paw had actually curled around completely and look on first glance like a fifth claw on her paw! i found the sharpest nail scissors we had in the house and trimmed her claws as best i could. luckily the extra long claw had a weak spot in the middle and i could cut it almost to the same length as the others. the claws are all still too long but the blood vessels had grown down into them and i need them to shrink up more before i can shorten them again. also i want to get some proper nail clippers for her. we bathed her in betidine to disinfect the numerous tick bites she had and applied some anti tick and flea liquid to the back of her neck. she is now living in the student house with us and sleeps in my room. me, Elvira and Rianne all argue over who gets to walk her, feed her and everything. she certainly is getting lots of love. she is sleeping a lot but when she is awake she is surprisingly active and moves well for such an emaciated dog. she is the gentlest dog with such a sweet nature and she is starting to learn to sit and stay on english commands. she would like to sit on the sofa but we have agreed that is not allowed and she is not to beg for food or hve scraps. everyone is taking turns to feed her (three small meals a day) so that she does not accidently end up overloading her digestive system. we are all doing our best to practice our ceasar millan energy and rules. it is hard to be firm with her because she has perfected the ability to look at everyone as if they are the most amazing person on the planet. it was sad for Katie to end up, cold, hungry and alone, covered in ticks but now i think she is very lucky having been taken in to be loved for the rest of her life.

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!

Jumping Jacks!

what an amazing week!

To start it off we had the Big Surprise. Saturday morning we all worked as fast as possible and had all the work done and lunch made and packed by 10.30 am. we were planning to use my car but the tire was flat and so we all piled into Peit's pickup truck. We drove for an hour and Thomas and Gabi had us play the guessing game about what we were doing. as they gave us more and more clues my stomach began to tighten and i became worried that i knew what we were doing. i had the image of climbing and abseiling and such activities - "does it involve ropes?" i asked "yes" they replied, i gulped and felt my self go introverted. i dared not ask anymore because i didn't want to know the answer. "Is it scary?" Anna asked, "Yes" Thomas and Gabi said. "Does it involve trees?" Elvira asked, "yes" they answered. after a couple of stoobwaffles Thomas was so excited he had to tell us, we are doing obstacle courses high in the tree. the first one is blue, then red and the balck one is the trickiest and is over 16 metres above the ground. i let out a tiny squeek and finally whispered, "i've never done it before" as the others finished recounting times they had done the same thing. i know my little sister had done it with her school but i had never done anything like it.

we arrived at Fantasy Forest at midday but the office worker told us the tree jumping was closed for lunch until 1.30 pm. we walked around looking for things to do. we passed by the cave entrance of the subteranean experience. it was a narrow underground passage full of obstacles that you had to crawl through. Thomas went in and it was pitch black and he came back out. i was intrigued and i climbed in. it reminded me of the school trip i did when i was 13 and we visited the trenches of World War one in Belgium and had walked through the tunnels in the dark. somehow i was less afraid here. everything was man-made and i knew there would be nothing dangerous. i crawled through on hands and knees, pushing my hands out ahead to feel the walls for turns and obstacles. there were ropes hanging in the passage that i had to push past and i was climing over a log when the tunnel filled with light. suddenly loads of french people with helmets with lamps on came into the tunnel. i could see all the obstacles and suddenly the whole thing was verfy boring. i turned back and returned to my friends annoyed by the french "cheaters" with their massive lights! we wondered around looking for a place to eat and ended up getting icecream. by then it was still only 12.30 but Thomas and Anna wanted to queue for the tree jumping so we would be first and not get stuck behind any slow people. i began to fret that i would be one of the slow people.

we hiked up a hill that was so steep you almost needed to get on hands and knees to climb it and found some picnik tables and equipment laid out. we sat down and chatted, Thomas had a nap and Anna did pilates with a tree. i was starting to get excited and agitated and wanted to move around. eventually, as more and more people arrived, a car drove up the hill and the instructor got out. he clapped his hands together and started talking in french. he pointed at the gloves, hairnets, helmets and harnesses. we all collected our equipment and gathered around the instructor who was at a frame with ropes and demonstrated how to use our clips and how to glide between the trees. as soon as he had finished we headed to the start of the first course. we managed to get ahead of everyone and Thomas and Anna took the lead, followed by Elvira, then me and Gabi behind me. it took me a while to get good with my clips, at first i wa wasting a lot of time fumbling with them. one of th first things we did was walk along a wire holding one that was susspended above us. there were three wires above us, one that the harness was attached to, and one for little people and one for tall people. i chose the little people wire, being only 157cm, but it meant my arms were bent and i really had to brace them ad the wires rocked and wobbles. Elvira, only 5cm taller than me, had taken the higher one but she could barely reach and went across like she was on "the rack" in a torture chamber. we then had to cross a series of swings, of various designs, some were planks, boards, poles or just wires, some went to anf fro others from side to side. we had to cross nets and swing on ropes, slide down the zip wires and pull ourselves along. i was starting to enjoy myself and get more self confidence but i still felt too slow. as soon as we finished the blue course we went for the more challenging red course. having been the first to complete the bule course we were the first ones to start the red. this one went higher into the trees and the challenges were more difficult. the swings were further apart and i had to jump between them because i was too small to step across. we came to an obstacle we call the stirrups. it was two parallel lines of stirrups hanging from red ropes but at staggered heights. it was tricky to keep stablility but i managed to get mine so still that i could not reach the next stirrup! in the end, after my foot had slipped all the way through a stirrup and i ha the image of breaking my leg, i decided the best was through was to let go. i dropped all the stirrups and let the clips of the harness take my weight and slid down to the end ready for the next obstacle. the course ended with a zip wire to a rope ladder on a tree. if you missed the ladder you would slip back and hand to pull yourself along the line. i watched Elvira wizz down so fast but she missed the ladder. i took my turn and jumped off. i started spinning in my harness but i managed to steady it facing where i was going and i pedalled my feet in the air like scooby do trying to keep up the speed so i would reach the ladder. i caught the ladder with one hand but then had to pull myself up and for a moment i was stuck. i reached my free hand up to the zip line and pulled myself closer to the tree until i could swing at it and grab it with both hands. i then had to disconnect the harness before i could climbdown. i was so pumped, i felt great! we all decided we needed a drink and toilet break before taking on the hardest and highest course. i had no hesitations this time. i climbed everything as fast as i could, i jumped through the swings, shuffled, slid, pulled, pushed, dragged kicked my way through the course. at one point we had another swing rope, my least favourite obstacle, and as i swang across the gap i managed to hit my eye on a safety cable! it wasn't too bad but came up red straight away. i felt on top of the world as i raced to the finish and felt capable of acheiving anyhting. Gabi and Thomas had said that our surprise would be a test of emotional fitness, balance and attitude and it certainly was!

we topped of the most amazing day ever with go-karting (on the most dangerous go-karts i have ever een in my life!) and mini-golf (i think an even biggger test of emotional fitness than the tree jumping!) and then went to McDonalds for dinner! we never eat fast food here so it really made it feel like a true excursion!

on Sunday i could feel my muscles but nothing as bad as i had expected. i played with Paris online and he was having so much fun. he was pretending he didn't know what a change of direction was so i would give him the oppertunity to change and if he didn't take it i would "close the door" behind me as he went past. he quickly was putting effort into changing direction and was doing amazing flying changes from left to right and cool simple changes from right to left. he felt so connected that we played stick to me at liberty in the bg arena whilst the others played with their horses. Anna had set up a big jump and i asked PAris to stick to me and go over it but it was a bit too much and he took off but i soon had him back. i went online and did more stick to me and this time he popped the jump without issue as if to show the others how it's done! he is the coolest horse in the world!

 i had a small session with Riva  and began thinking about my goals for the week ahead. Cindy, one of the girls i did my 10 day trial in january with, arrived with Rianna to start their 6 month working student placements.

On Monday we set our weekly goals. For Paris i planned to get a calmer canter and get canter trot transitions without reins, i also plnned to get flying changed from right to left and really start zone 5 driving which i have been meaning to do for ages. For Riva i had found that her friendly game in motion was broken, especially with the carrot stick and savvy string so i wanted to fix that with a view to leading to the Karen  Rolf stretching exercises. i also planned to do freestyle patterns, corners game with her and transitions on the trail. With Touria i planned to really get her thinking with puzzles like push the ball and carrot hide 'n' seek, as well as have her start the karen Rolf stretching exercises, as she always trots with her head up and using the musclse underneath her neck rather than over her back.

Paris has been amazing this week. he has been so playful and cheeky. he was cantering in a steady calm manner. it is still a big canter by most people's standards but that is his working canter and the pace he is comfortable with. he was so left brained and did not have a right brained take off all week. i was so pleased with how he was going i even tied the reins to my saddle with the savvy string and did canter circles with trot to walk to halt to walk to trot to canter transitions without reins. the hardest transition to get was the trot to walk. he either wanted to be jogging or grazing! at one point he even started grazing whilst doing a big relaxed trot - talk about left brained! he has become very playful online, making big efforts to do flying changes and changes of direction. i took the plunge and asked for a lesson on zone 5 driving. it was really cool - a few simple things and we were doing transitions and indirect rein with one rein in zone 5. the main thing was for me to keep physical contact with zone 5 with stick or hand until Paris really gets the idea. at first he was confused and kept trying to turn and face. i ran as fast as i could to keep up with his spinning hind end until he stopped and he worked out that he got comfort whilst i was in zone 5. first we started with indirect rein which is applied just like in the saddle but the rope applies steady pressure to his inside hind leg. he was over-reactive to this at first but i kept the rope on him until he was calm. the porcupine game is about appropriate response to pressure, not avoiding all pressure. he was thinking a lot about doing circles around me rather than accepting me behind him. my position was very important, i had to keep myself right behind his tail, which was harder than it sounds, but everytime i came out to oneside it put pressure on zone 4 and he would think about disengaging resulting in him doing smaller circles. once he was comfortable with me in zone 5 and could disengage i asked him to move forward, i lifted my energy and rythmically tapped his hind end. at first he took a step backward because our only previous communication in zone 5 had been backward lead by the tail. i walked back but maintained the tapping, doing it in phases. after a couple of trips through the four phases in four phases he stepped forward and i rubbed his tail. soon i had walk halt transitions from zone 5. next i lifted my energy and put a trot in my body and he was able to trot, as soon as i walked he would go back to walk. i am now so excited about playing more in zone 5. i was tired and sweaty after our session because it involved quite a lot of running! zone 5 driving will get me fit!

This wasn't my best week with Touria. she is now really questioning my leadership and when we were trail riding she was threatening to buck by lifting her back and snaking her head down. i would use a rythmic pop motion to keep her head up and interrupt her evil thoughts but i knew it was still there. on tuesday it was so bad she was doing it at a trot and i dared not allow her to canter. yesterday we tried a differnet saddle with her. this one is a western type saddle and when i cantered her online with it she bucked, i slapped the ground to send her forward and she took off bucking and bronking, i ran around the arena with her, matching her energy and slapping the ground until she was in a forward canter with no bucks. we did this several times on each rein until she was offering my a nice canter without bucks from phase one. her steering is not getting any better although i have found she is best if i do the level one "kicking the naked parachuter" direct rein method. i am fascinated about how to get her mind and her respect.

Riva has been very interesting this week. i began doing lots of friendly game, especially in motion. i was waiting for signs of her being left brained before i would quit and she has responded really well. when it came to doing any of the other games i was much softer and slower in all my phases, and treated her as if she were a right brain introvert. her first response is usually to brace and then she gets into an argument but my new tactics gave her nothing to brace against. she has become soft and sweet and much more relaxed and trusting! with her circle game she would always turn in after a few strides. if i increased my phases as she expected me too she would run to the end of the line and keep tension in the rope and shake her head and then turn and face anyway. so this time i would simply repoint and wait. she knew what she needed to be doing and after some time to think and when she realised that i was being passively persistent in the proper position she actually started to maintain the walk on the circle. we have built this up to the trot and had some nice canter transitions. i have started riding her in the arena in the bareback pad too - she gets tense and hesitent very easily and it is amazing how much more you feel through the pad. her trot is so comfortable though! i was hoping to do corners game with her but when she is alone in the arena she gets quite unconfident and so i did passenger, touch its and a weave pattern on a circle. I'm really pleased with how she has softened toward me, she is such a sweet horse really.

it will be really interesting to see how things develope next week with each of my horses!

Disections and Discoveries

This has been an incredible week in many ways!

On Friday, after updating my last blog post, i took Paris to Gabi for a trim. His hoof wall has grown down more connected and he has a little more oncavity in his sole, indicating that improvement is occuring, he just needs more time. So he is staying in the boots - no surprise there! but Gabi has given me some useful tips to keep the boots from causing any problems like thrush or sores.

 I then went and got Touria and played with her, Elvira filmed me. It was such a difference from the first time i played with her - we did all seven games and the circle game had slack in the line and she was maintaining gait! i asked her for sideways and she offered trot so i said "good idea, sideways in trot!" and she did it! i watched the video with the others so i could get feed back and see where i can improve. it seems that, atleast when i'm filmed, i do not give enough rewards! funny because i always have the feeling i am rewarding too much! i also realised i do too many circles, my neutral needs to be clearer and i need to hold the rope more lightly when i'm in neutral.  that way when she goes out to the end of the rope i can allow it to drift and close the hand more slowly to keep the connection without jerking on her head.

On Saturday I went for a trail ride with Elvira. She was riding Thomas' horse, Bertie, and ponying Indy for the first time so we kept the trail ride at a walk and did lots of halt back up transitions. when we where half way around the forest i felt so good, i hadn't used the reins at all so i halted (with my seat) moved my weight so Paris turned his head in lateral flexion and I undid the halter and slid it off! we carried on walking through the forest, halting, backing up, we crossed a road, went around some feilds and walked back along the road, past traffic (one car passed us - that counts as traffic here!) back through the forest track to the arena. i was so happy that i asked Elvira to take a photo. Paris was so relaxed and not at all bothered about what we had acheived.

On Sunday we went for another trail ride, again Elvira was ponying Indy from Bertie. Anna came with us riding bareback with one rein on Kalhua who has a lot of issues with being ridden. she has been working on doing freindly game to build his confidence with having someone on his zone 3 and it has been going well in the round pen so she thought she would join us for a quiet walk on the trail. unfortunately he got very emotional and was sweating and starting to panick so Anna made the Savvy decision to get off and take him back. Paris was again going well so I slipped the halter off and we carried on bridleless again. this time, when we went around the fields i asked for some quiet trotting and he was great! he came back to walk from my seat and we had a relaxing uneventful trailride.

On Monday we discussed our goals for the week and I said that i want to introduce canter. i want him to be calm in the canter and to come back to trot from my seat. i knew i would have to ride with a bridle again because his canter very easily tips into his gallop when we are out. Gabi decided to join us as she thought Paris' energy and fast pace would be a good influence on her left brain introvert. it certainly was! when we reached the big fields Paris lead the way with two laps of a fast endurance trot, really big ground covering strides that he never does in the arena. once he was maintaining the rythm we went into canter. my plan was to sit the canter, whatever he gave me, not ask for more or less but sit it and stay cool until he was able to think and steady up. Before we had began the ride i had taken him into the arena to push his buttons and he had leapt into a full gallop online for countless laps, on both reins! so when i asked for canter he again leapt forward, just as eager to go despite the heat and having already galloped untold laps. we went five laps around the big Scout Field before Paris asked to slow to a trot! we gave them a lap in walk to catch their breath and changed rein. again i asked for canter and this time he took off so fast i was caught by surprise and left behind the movement. i quickly got back into it and we flew down the field so fast i could not really steer him and he cut a massive corner and overtook the other horses who had decided to avoid racing us by only doing half of the field. after four laps we had a steady but ground covering canter. he was soaked with sweat and brething hard but full of life and sparkle. he had done what he had not done for a long time, what he was bred to do. he walked home beautifully and i put him in the arena to roll and relieve himself of the itchy sweat. i came out with his dinner and he still had the energy to nicker and trot over to me! i just couldn't help but marvel at his power - he was capable of all this and he wasn't even fit!

Tuesday i wanted to give Paris a rest from the canter trail ride and was itching to do some real play with him in the arena. he was just as energetic on the circles and i started asking for changes of direction. i made a game of it that if he missed the oppertunity to change direction i "closed the door" behind him, meaning i would tag the ground behind him as he passed behind me. in no time at all he leapt in the air and did a flying change to change direction! i stopped and let him get his breath and we left the arena. we headed for the round pen and i let him be at liberty. i asked for some stick to me but he was still so energetic that he could not hold himself back and he shot forward, i encouraged him to go out faster and then repeated the change of direction signal... and he did it! he gave me the most amazing change of direction at liberty! it was a simple change but it was correct! we played together with stick to me and i'm sure he was having as much fun as i was! i couldn't resist and i stood on a barrel - he sidepassed over to me and i popped on with just a neckstring around his neck. we did walk halt backups and a lovely figure eight around the barrels. i hugged him and slid off and sat on a barrel. Anna was taking lots of cool photgraphs and i especially love the one where whilst i was sitting next to him he got down and rolled and as he was about to get back up he really looked at me. it was such a magic moment caught on camera!

Wednesday was a whole new kind of awsome! after lunch we gathered in the stables where a table had been set up in the grooing area. on the table was a selection of tools and Thomas walked in with the lover leg of a horse. first we analysed th hoof from the outside and predicted what we would see inside! it was so cool to know that we would soon have confirmation of whether we were right or wrong! then Thomas got a knife and cut into the white line of the hoof. it was really hard to do showing how strong the connective fibres between the hoof wall and the sole really are. as he got through a little blood seeped out. next he fixed the leg to the table with a vice and used nippers to peel the hoof wall from the hoof. the hoof wall is so elastic that we could see how it functions to hold everything together. we all took turns to pull the hoof wall a little to really feel the tensile strength before Thomas managed to remove it entirely and place wood inside it to stop it shrinking. The sole easily came away from the foot revealing how it fitted into the laminae and upper hoof like a jigsaw peice. the internal structure of the frog was so fascinating to see and we cut into the digital cushion and looked at the hardened cartilidge fibres and the soft fatty tissue that formed it. the lateral cartilages were surprisingly hard in comparison. by this point Thomas was overcome by the smell of the leg. Gabi was standing back and Elvira was sitting down as the smell had caused her to feel a bit nauseous. Thomas was beginning to peel the skin off and i was hovering over his shoulder like a kid at christmas, fascinated as the first layer of tendons began to be revealed. Thomas asked if i wanted to take over and i jumped at the chance. i used the standing knife to seperate the skin from the tendons and peeled it off completely. i then cut through the tendon sheafs and explored the leg, following the tendons and working out how they worked. as i detatched each layer a new wonder was revealed. i was surprised by how it appeared that only one tendon had a real role in lifting the heal but a large fanning network of tendons worked together to lift the toe - it was really hard to pull the tendons to simulate the correct movement of a heal first landing and really made me realise how a small injury could influence the movement of the horse and development of the hoof structures.  i then cut away the tendond to revel the bones and cartilidge underneath. the deep digital flexor tendon ran all the way into the digital cushion, forming a unction over the navicular bone. i found it curious that the groove on the navicular seemed to form the starting point for the shape that later turns into the frog! the bones revealed arthritis with corresponding yellow colouring on the cartilidge. it was so cool to feel the various stages of calcification on the bones. the hoof had a crack all the way from the coronet to the ground. Gabi said they had tried everything to heal the crack so she wanted to see if it was caused by permanent internal damage. when the hoof wall was removed it revealed that the laminae corresponding with the crack had formed a hard scar like column. after the disection we boiled the leg for two days to remove all of the soft tissue from the bones. as the only person with a stomach for it, i was asked to scrape the bones clean. as i cleaned the coffin bone i suddenly saw a groove in it exactly where the crack in the hoof wall had been! the top of the bone had a spur of bone, caused by either a birth defect or permanent damage. the spur pushed into the coronet causing the laminae and horn to always grow with a flaw. it was so cool getting to see how everything worked. i was starting to have ideas and make realisations about things and marvelled at the amazingness that is the horse!

after the disection i had a shower and got changed before i got Paris for our canter trail ride. this time we took a gps with us to measure how fast we went. we rode a similar ride to before and found we had cantered almost 10 km! Paris hit a top speed of 41 km per hour! we got back late so i fed Paris on the lawn and went to do the evening tasks but it was dark by the time we were finished and i could not find him! i cycled in the dark trying to see as much as i could, trying to hear him but the night was full of the sounds of animals rustling in the trees. Anna and Elvira came to help me. Anna went for the mule whilst me and Elvira explored the small forest by the pond. unfortunately with only the light of my little torch the small but overgrown forest soon had us disorientated, the brambles grabbed our clothes and the roots tripped us up. finally we pushed our way out onto the road and saw the head lights of the mule come toward us. Anna picked us up and we drove around by the saddle horses where we saw Paris standing by the gate. The saddle horses were excited by the strange horses and galloping around their field and Paris was racing up and down the fence trying to follow them. he had a pinick on and ran past us at first. i got out of the mule and whislted at him he turned to me and ran over. i grabbed his rope and he skitted about as i started out for home. he soon calmed a little and i got im back to his pasture.

Yesterday I woke up and my back hurt so much i couldn't sit up. i had to roll out of bed and i asked if i could work buckets as i would not be able to do kakka force quickly. i took pain killers and massaged muscle rub into my back. i decided not to play with horses so i fetched Sesame, the hairiest of the youngsters. he had a mop of dreadlocks in his mane and tail, so bad that a couple of locks in his mane had knotted up together completely. he is also nervous about the shower so i had my work cut out. Sesame is inately LBE and he showed that although he was skeptical he was also curious about the shower. i decided to use reverse phychology and walked in and straight back out of the shower. i did this several times and showed him that the door was always open and he was not going to be forced to stay in the shower. next i had the water running and i repeated the walking in and out until he was offering to stand in the shower. when he did i gave him a carrot and lead him out of the shower. i tied him in the grooming area and went and got the shampoos. i then lead him into the shower and played with the hose. i gave him a carrot everytime he touched the hose and soon he was trying to touch it even as i hosed his mane. i lead him out of the shower and massaged shampoo into his mane and then lead him in to rinse it off. i was stunned at how quickly he got over his skepticism but then i thought about it and it was not a surprise. dignity is the most important thing for a left brained horse and he did not want to be forced. as soon as i showed him i would not force him but had an interesting game to play he was happy to be showered. after i had finished brushing his mane and tail i showed him to Gabi. she told me it was the first actual shower he'd had because before he had only had his feet washed and it had been rather task oriented which he had not enjoyed.

today we went for another canter ride, i played with Paris, Touria and Riva. tomorrow Thomas and Gabi have a big surprise planned for us...

Trail rides!

this past week has definately been about trail riding!

With Paris' fetlock related lameness i have been playing it safe and building up his strength with straightlines on trail rides. last week i had some really good walk halt back up transitions so my challenge to myself this week was to add some trot. Elvira went away for a few days so i also decided to have a go at "ponying" her 12.2 hh pony, Indy. usually people would practice this in the arena first but as I am not allowing Paris to do any circles i decided to give it my best shot straight on a trail ride! my first challenge was to get the two horses to the student stables - Indy is in the student herd where as Paris is in the gelding herd. I went to Paris first and put his hoof boots on and then led him up to the student forest. I tied Paris to a tree, worrying how he would be, picked up Indy's halter and headed into the student horse pasture. At first Indy wasn't sure about coming to me, but i imitated Elvira's way of calling her and used the "draw". she soon decided to come and i haltered her and led her back to Paris just in time - he was just starting to get a panick on and had wraped an extra coil around the tree but when he saw me he stopped, calmed down and waited for me.

i tied Indy in the student stables and tacked Paris up (I miss our pre-ride warm up but it's only temporary) and then lead the pair of them to a log. i held Indy's rope as i mounted Paris and then managed to drop it! with a couple of attempts i managed to use my carrot stick to lift her rope off of the log and then position her next to Paris. the first thing she did was walk behind Paris and he felt her rope and yeilded very quickly in a hind end disengagment. he was pulling faces and being bossy toward Indy so i started asking him to back up. as i did i asked indy to do the same, sometimes using my carrot stick to wiggle her lead rope closer to her head. as we moved off Indy would try to lag behind and eat grass - i popped her on the bottom and she would shoot forward and then i used the carrot stick to shake her lead rope if she went too far forward. soon Indy found the sweet spot at Paris' side and was putting effort in to staying there and i could do walk halt backup transitions with the pair of them. we walked up the road, then around the Scout and Canter Departure fields. Sanne was riding Tasja who got rather worked up and was soon doing circles around us in working trot. Jo France was following us on Bertie who she was riding in the bareback pad. he kept stopping to eat grass and then rushing to catch up with everyone and even gave her a couple of canters. Indy was so left brained and Paris was coping really well until i gave them a grazing break to allow Sanne more time to calm Tasja down before we left the field. Paris started pawing and getting very impatient and made it clear that he is inately an extrovert! I headed back home with Jo France and Sanne went for a longer ride around the woods to get Tasja to be more left brained. I was very pleased with how quickly Paris had adapted to leading another horse and had accepted that a lot of what i was doing had no meaning for him. a couple of days later i took Paris and Indy out again, this time alone. I was ready to introduce trot to Paris' trail rides and Elvira had mentioned she wanted Indy to trot so I took them back to the big fields where we had space and played a follow the rail at the trot. Paris leapt into a massive endurance trot, with medium trot strides far too big for little Indy to match so she hopped into canter and stuck beside us, looking at us with what i can only describe as a pony grin! she absolutely loved it. at one point Paris took a couple of canter strides that were no faster than his trot. i asked him back and kept him doing laps of the field with a view to having him find a more comfortable, steadier and calmer trot. unfortunately my plan was brought to a halt twice, firstly because my stirrup fell off and i had to dismount, fix it and re-mount (not easy when you have two horses trying to eat grass) and secondly because one of his hoof boots came loose and was flapping about. again i had to dismount, fix things and re-mount. i then took the pair of them back home via the long route passing the student horse pasture so that they had time to cool down after all their exercise.  Since then Elvira has returned and has been practicing ponying Indy from Bertie. I have been trying to help Paris find a calmer trot on a loose rein on the trail rides - it's amazing how much more forward he is out of the arena. i am finding it tricky to be really strong in my seat, and to keep my steady rythm and have him match me. it is so easy to slip into matching his increasingly fast and irratic pace. we are getting much better and i can feel all my muscles where i am really using myself! yesterday our trot on the trail ride was much improved. as we rode across the last farm fields on the way back to the arena i felt his mind go home as it always does. i was doing walk halt back up transitions (we had been doing trot halt back ups in the forest!) but he was feeling sluggish and reluctant in the backuop and then springing off into the walk as soon as i he felt me think about moving on. he was still at least a 6 on the impulsion scale so I had the idea to turn him around and back him up all the way home. my thoughts were that he would find a reason to backing up and get him really thinking of going backward rather than forward - tricky for a forward-aholic. i was very strict in only asking for the back up when he was not backing up - back up is a gait and i want him to learn his responsibility to maintain it as he does the walk trot and canter. i thought about how in riding we keep whatever gait we are doing in our body and felt a massive improvement when i was backing up in my body. he was starting to give me more and more strides of back up but it took us at least 100m of back up before he suddenly got it and gave me several massive purposeful strides of back up. i halted in my body ready to spring off and reward the change in his thinking but he went crooked and started to turn so i straightened him and asked for the back up again. he gave me the massive backup again and this time stayed straight as i halted and leapt off. we then turned for home and i gave him his dinner. i'm really looking forward to seeing if this makes any alteration in his back up - i may have to do it more but it really made me think how sometimes we just don't do things for long enough.

tomorrow we are planning to do the ride to the lakeside restaurant that we never got to do!

Riva - my poor baby has been lame and so i have mainly been concentrating on trying to clear up her mudfever. yesterday i checked her trot and she seems quite a bit better - the heat and swelling in her fetlock has gone. her mudfever just does not seem to be getting any better!

Touria - in many ways although being my youngest and greenest horse is my main squeeze as she is the only one i can play with and ride! she has been getting very confident. last week we had our first ever canters which were so cool so at the start of this week Gabi took up to the fields. Touria had been very slow when i first started riding her but we found when she gets to e in the lead she really has a forward going pace and the others had a job to keep up with her endurance trot. Gabi had the idea of putting her in the lead and asking for canter on the field to see if she would take it better. i could feel her really enjoying herself on the field and i took the lead and as we rounded the bottom corner of the field to head back up the hill i asked for canter - what i got were thirty strides of bucking and broking! at one point both my stirrups were gone and i was sent high in the air but i managed to keep my balance straight keep her between my legs and keep asking her forward until she stopped bucking. It was the most incredible rodeo experience i have ever had! I just couldn't help but be impressed with myself that i hadn't fallen off! after that everytime Salvia, her herd mate, came near Touria would pin her ears and try kicking, to which Salvia turned to kick back! In the herd Touria is the omega, she is kept at the back by all the other horses. it is interesting to see how the confidence of having a human on her back and going in front of the others has triggered her to challenge her position in the herd! it is also very obvious that she was not respecting my leadership and was having a whale of a time playing as if i was not even there! on the way home she was thinking of getting to the grass and passed the horsebox so close she crushed my leg against it. i had seen it coming but had no steering at that point! so the next day i had a short online session with her in which i took her into the round pen with the 45ft line. i wanted her to maintain canter without bucking and figured that in the round pen on such a long line we would not need to worry about her also keeping slack in the line which we are still playing with. i played a game of tagging the spots where she stopped and then i would change direction everytime she broke gait. she gave me a fantastic 2 and half laps of forward canter on the left rein. i decided to reward that and make a mental note to look for the same on the right rein the next day.  so the next day we went back in the round pen and i asked her for sideways all the way around. i wanted to make sure i kept her mind and didn't turn the round pen into the place where she just mindlessly runs in circles. I would ask her to back up and she kept making the assumption we were circling and turn to the left so i would disengage her hindquarters, send her sideways from zone one, back her out straight and leave her to lick and chew. soon i had her attention and i could actually send her back and then on a circle to the right. she is so smart, she remembered a game Gabi had played with her weeks ago where she would canter and then halt at specific points in the pen. i marvelled at her intelligence and remained passivley persistent in the rules of our new game and soon she got it - she gave me four laps of canter on both reins without bucking and then i knew we were ready to mount and ride. as i mounted she was a lot less fidgetty at the block and didn't try moving off when i mounted so i knew i had earned some respect. i checked out my lateral flexion, then i asked for a nine step back up and got the best one i had ever got form her! i then took the plunge and checked out my steering... AND WE HAD STEERING! we were doing figure eights at the walk! I had a brilliant trail ride, we all took turns to take the lead and Touria was much more calm and listening to me ven on the big field where she had done her rodeo on the previous ride. we didn't ask for canter but i could feel we were on the right track for improvment. as we were trotting through the forest Touria had a moment where she lost her footing on a small log she then stumbled over a bigger log which was actually a small tree and the branches shook which spooked her and she span 90 degrees and leapt into the bushes - i barely stayed on! it was so fast! apart from that she was very left brained.

I got to play with Sesame last week. he is one of the five year old youngsters. he is an LBE and so big he has trouble coordinating his legs, loses confidence and charges off like a steam train. i was advised to play with him on a 45ft line and use gloves - and i'm glad i did! he is a real sweetie but very powerful and can react extremely quickly! at one point i thought he was going to jump out of the arena (which he has apparantly done before!) but I found that if i was really soft in my phases he could handle it and he gave me some nice canter departures. Marie-Claire complimented me on how i played with him and said it was a pleasure to watch!

the other day i had been helping Thomas and Anna mark out the points in the field for the Honeycomb we want to build. once we were done i went to get Touria for the trail ride. i spotted a horse with black legs and white in the tail standing by Sesame and Sirius, Touria's friends. this horse was not looking at me but has a few bite marks and a messy mane that was half on one side and half on the other. i pretended not to be interested and then the horse turned to me and i rubbed the halter on it's head and slipped it on and was just asking it to turn it's head more toward me when Thoma and Anna turned up and asked me who i was haltering. i replied "Touria!" and looked and realised i was haltering Seth! Seth has the tiniest little piece of white where a star should be whereas Touria has a massice white blaze with two bits that stick out makin it look like a "T"! I rubbed Seth and took the halter off, Sanne had already collected Touria for me! I felt like such a wally that i had not even recognised my own project horse! After i had surviced the Touria rodeo Gabi made a half joke that i could ride bucking horses and maybe i would have Seth as he can be very explosive! not sure how i feel about it but as i walked away and looked back at Seth he was yawning and i felt there was some connection... who knows!

Sanne and Joke have both gone home now. it is just me, Elvira and Anna in the house. Next week we may have some American missionaries visiting us from Elvira's church. it should be really interesting! we also plan to invite Marie-Claire's husband, Peit, to dinner to discuss our ideas for a honeycomb at the Plessis! and then of course we have tomorrow's restaurant ride!

progress and problems

I have been here for over six weeks now.

last week i used my sleeping morning to watch Pete Ramey hoof care DVDs and then went to assess Paris' feet. Paris is very footy on the stones here and it has been getting worse and, when i looked at his feet, his soles, particularly in the front beneath the coffin bone, are very thin. his front feet are the worse so I put Keratex hoof hardener on him and booted him up. we went to the indoor arena and had a play session with Marie-Claire in attendance. she helped me with an excercise for a straight back up. I have realised that my efforts to improve my yo-yo keep failing because i have not been addressing the straightness issue first. distance and speed will only come when he is going back straight. i have started to play with a couple of barrels that he has to get his nose behind before he can rest.

on Sunday we all worked really hard to get our morning jobs done in time to go for the long ride to the restaurant. I cycled down to Paris who was near the gate and lead him from my bike back up to the arena. i suddenly thought he was not moving like normal, his head seemed to be moving to much but i was cycling beside him and couldn't look at him properly. at the arena i circled him and my fears were confirmed. he was lame.

Sanne came and looked at him with me, we agreed he seemed to be lame in the left fore and it was either an absess in the foot or something in the fetlock. Sanne was going on the ride so we agreed to look him over when she got back. I saw Gabi and told her Paris was lame and she told me to bring him in to the stable and she would look at his feet. we assessed him with and without boots and then with an assortment of pads. we changed his boots and found that a pair of Old Macs was the best fit for him. i was feeling quite emotional but we were all going for lunch so I put Paris in the stable and decided to cut a new pair of pads for him before when i got back.

lunch was amazing. we went to the lakeside restaurant again and the riders had arrived just before us. we had a beautiful salad starter (i had goat cheese in filo pastry with tomato), duck cooked with peach slices and I had a strawberry icecream sundae for desert. it was a beautiful afternoon and we ate outside and i was soon caught up in the high spirits of everyone else and we had a lot of fun. finally, fat and full, we headed back to de Plessis. As soon as we arrived i checked on Paris and dug out the pads and boots to make a new template, took a knife and cut out the new pads (which fit perfectly!). Paris was walking so much more comfortably in the boots. I was about to put him back in the pasture when i saw Anna with Kalhua and Joke with Rox. since he would have none of his buddies for company and i was so tired i decided to spend un demanding time with him and let him graze whilst i slept in the sun on the grass by the arena. I got my polypad as a pillow and laid down and had a couple of minutes of peace with Paris munching nearby when Elvira plopped down beside me. i moved over to share the pillow and we allowed our horses to graze nearby. then Joke asked us to hokd Rox a moment, the Sanne got back from her ride (she had made a great breakthrough and was very excited) and asked us to hold Tasja. it was impssible to sleep now we had so many horses to keep an eye on. eventually we gave up and took turns to watch the horses graze and eat their evening feeds whilst we completed the evening tasks.

On Monday we zoomed through our morning tasks. Joke had her progress report (which we are supposed to have every 6 weeks) and we cooked lunch. Joanna, a girl from France, turned up and Joke, Gabi, Thomas and Marie-Claire ended up being twenty minutes late for lunch because the progress report had over ran. Marie-Claire asked me to give Joanna (Jo France) a lesson on the seven games as she has done no Parelli before! i was excited and proud to be asked and gave Jo a tour of de Plessis before we collected Bertie. i touht her the first four of the seven games and was very impressed with how quickly she picked it up. i asked her if she wanted to learn more or absorb what we had covered. she wanted o absorb so i put on some music and allowed her to play with the first four games and got the video camera and recorded a short video of her playing so she could see her progress at the end of the three weeks.

I then went and collected Paris and took him into the arena to play. Marie-Claire had discussed our goals with us and had said cavalettis would be good for Paris but when i sent him over them he was so lame i stopped immediately. i played a little with backing through the barrels and then i played with putting the ball on his back and having it move whilst on him.  i was gutted.

On Tuesday it was young youngster day. the Osteopath was coming on wednesday so Marie-Claire asked us not to do too much with the youngsters. i played with Riva and Tauria with some gentle walk figure eights, asking them to follow a feel. Riva is so light now and Tauria is improving but still noticably heavier than Riva. I asked Riva for sideways along the fence and she kept thinking forward and lifting her leg as if to hook them on the bottom rail of the arena. finally she offered me two steps of sideways and i quit our session there. I had planned to do squeeze games with Tauria but she did the squeeze on the rail perfectly so i asked her to squeeze over the pedastal. she was very left brained, trying to squeez between me and the pedestal and then offer touch it. finally she walked across it (with three feet on it at one point) stepped off and turned and faced. i ended the session there for her too. Riva's mudfever has not been getting any better so i began a new treatment by soaking it with camomile tea to help get rid of the scabs and sooth the sore before putting Honeyheal cream on. i am now only cleaning it when it gets scabby as i do not want to keep aggravating the mudfever. Marie-Claire gave us a session on how to use the redlight phototonic therapy torches and i did Riva's standard points and then the "dragon" around her shoulder wound.

On Wednesday i spent time with the osteopath. she was correcting Salvia's hips, Riva's pelvis was tight and tilted back and Tauria was is good shape. all three needed three days rest and then a week of straight lines.

Sanne performed a vet check on Paris, we trotted him up on soft and hard surfaces, circled him and did flexion tests. he showed positive for pain in his left front fetlock. I am now bringing him in daily for minimum thre hour break from the hoof boots, cleaning his feet and massaging a relaxant rub into is fetlock. he is getting a herbal tea twice a day as well as painkillers and is being rested for a week after which i will bring him back with straight lines (in hand trail rides). i am using the red light on his standard points and also for the "navicular points" as they basically generate healing and health in the foot. Gabi, Sanne and I agree that Paris has two issues, his fetlock and his thin soles so i am trying to do all i can for both issues. he is getting very bored and cheeky at the moment. he seems to be in good spirits despite his funny way of moving.

Whilst we were checking Paris a trailer arrived. Joanna from England, who I have spoken  to by email, had arrived with her mare, Olivia. She comes from West London, where as I come from the South East and our accents are very different. it is funny hearing a fellow Brit, i realised how much my English had deteriorated into "European English"!

Thursday I played porcupine and friendly games with Riva and Tauria in the Paddock Paradise and took Riva and Paris in for their "treatments".

Friday I worked with Elvira as the other girls had their sleeping mornings. it was really hot so in the afternoon we decided to go to the lake with the horses. Riva has mudfever so i thought it was not a good idea to take her and Paris wears hoof boots and i did not want them soaked and full of pond silt so i decided to introduce Touria to the water. Bless her she was outside of her comfort zone and for a while she stood on the bank and kept looking back in the direction of "home". i went into the water and ignored her and let her natural couriosity take over. she got two feet in the water and was playing with it and touched a rock that was sticking out of the water with her nose. it was a calm stress free introduction to the water.

Saturday was my sleeping morning and i actually used it to catch up on sleep. most nights we watch Glee together (Sanne downloaded series one and two) and we have been a bit sleep deprived! so after a nice lay in i went on the computer whilst Elvira wrote a letter and then we headed to my car to go to town. unfortunately my car wouldn't start - the battery had gone flat where it had not been used for some time. Elvira tried to help me jump start the car and we had to push it up a hill first to get room to push it for the jump start. after pushing it for over 100m without success we headed for lunch leaving my car in the middle of the road (Plessis property so virtually no traffic and i was afraid we would roll it in a ditch if we tried pushing it to the side). At lunch Joke agreed to use her car to give my car a boost and I was happy I had brought a set of jump cables with me! so finally Elvira and I hit the road. my car was a bit low on petrol and needed a good drive to fully charge it so after posting Elvira's letter we decided to find a petrol station. the one in our village was closed so we went to Ecuille where we got lost trying to find the "intermarche". i spotted a (rather good looking) guy and told Elvira to ask him for directions (even though i was closer to him) she asked "ou est la intermarche?" and he looked and us and said "Anglais?" we nodded - i'm not sure what gave us away, our terrible french accents or the fact that my steering wheel was on the wrong side and i had a UK numberplate on virtually the only non-renault car in all of france! he then kindly gave us directions in English and i couldn't help but melt a bit at his french accent. we followed his directions which indeed took us to the intermarche but the cash booth for the petrol pump was closed and only payment by card was possible. very cleverly i have left my bank card in England! so we decided to drive home and come back next week.

when we got back i decided to have a drink in the house. as i tried to pull my left boot off (the ones i bought on the fast track) it got stuck. it had done this a couple of times and usually i would ask Elvira to help me and she would manage to pull me across the floor without the boot moving and then i would ask Sanne to help and she would just tug the boot straight off. Unfortunately Sanne was with her boyfriend and Elvira's arms were worn out from pushing my car all morning so i asked Joke to help me. I clung to the wall and she pulled my boot and with each tug my hip smashed into the wall and my leg got a little longer but the boot stayed on. Joke gave up and i tried again on my own to pry the boot off, after an hour i was getting desperate. i put one of my trainers on the other foot and carried the left one and decided to cycle to where Sanne was staying with her boyfriend and ask them for help. as i went past the main house Marie-Claire saw me. i explained that i was stuck in my boot and she nodded and said we just wondered if odd footwear was an English thing! i could hear Sanne talking to Jasper, her boyfriend, but was worried that i might be disturbing them at a bad moment so i thought i'd try using a ladel to unhook the torn lining that was catching my heel. it didn't work and at one point i ended up with my hand wedged in my boot and i couldn't do anything! with brute force i pulled my hand out but my foot was still firmly wedged in the boot. i finally headed up to Sanne's room and knocked on the door. Elvira joined me and i told Sanne i was stuck in my boot. at first she thought i was winding her up but when Elvira confirmed that i had been trying to get the boot off for over an hour Sanne tried her usual technique. even that would not work. she called Jasper over and i lay on the ground and wedged my free foot against a wall as Jasper pulled with all his strength. i marvelled at how my leg remained attached to my body. by this point the fits of laughter were heavily peppered with moans of desperation. Thomas came out of his room, concerned that we had chosen to have a noisey party outside his office. he soon realised that i had a problem and started offering his ideas. we had contemplated using horses to drag the boot off, the deisel mule, even the heavy duty manitoo (JCB type machine) to lift me free of my boot! in the end, after over an hour and a half of effort, there was nothing left but to cut my precious boots and free my (longer and thinner) leg. Thomas comforted me with a cup of tea and slice of apple crumble "troast". they say bad things come in threes, those were mine - car battery, petrol and boot!

.... two more weeks have passed before i updated my blog

Paris is still not 100% but the week's rest seemed to help him and i have started hacking him out at a walk to keep him on straight lines. i used the time he was resting to address his displaced behaviour with haltering and now using the trail rides to improve my walk, halt, backup transitions - this is going really well! Paris is sometimes responding to just my seat! i think another couple of weeks of this and we'll be able to ride out bridleless! Elvira is going away for 4 days (she has been trail riding with me) so I plan to keep her pony excersised by leading her whilst i ride Paris on the trailrides.

Touria has been doing fantastic - finally we are getting circles at a trot with slack in the line more often then not! her canter departures are getting less volatile too! we had a hickup when she got really heavy and i lost all steering with her and had no chance of a direct rein. i realised that i was going a little too fast, using a little too much pressure for her. she is so sensitive and easily offended, especially by steady pressure (porcupine game). i have started using the savvy string as a rope to play close range zone one procupine game as it helps me to be lighter and in turn so is she. her porcupine has improved to the point that i can lead her whilst cycling and i was very proud of myself when i cycled to the arena leading both Touria and Riva from my bike - after the massive knock in my confidence with cycling due to the accident 9 years ago, i am over the moon to even be brave enough to try leading a horse whilst cycling, let alone two! two days ago we went on the "little youngster trail ride" - Touria was doing great with the porcupine game online but it did not seem to translate to the freestyle. i attempted to be leadfile which ended up with a detour through very thick bushes. as we trotted along the edge of the fields Elvira's youngster, Sahel, popped into a canter. Salvia, being ridden by Sanne copied him and then so did Touria. all three happily cantered behind Gabi and Quimrahil who were setting a good paced trot. Gabi was thrilled that the youngsters were so happy to canter with riders and so we did a couple more canters. today i really put all my new learned tactics for lightness, steering, and being the ambassador of yes in to action and Touria had steering! we had enough steering to be lead file and trot in front for most of the trail ride! we also had another long canter. Touria was in the rear at this point and the others cantered off but Touria was happy to follow at a trot, i had to ask her for canter and she gave it to me! even then she was not worried about catching up with the others and set a lovely steady canter.  i am so happy with her progress, she is so different already from when i first played with her!

Riva has been doing really well, we finally seem to share an understanding about cantering for more than one lap! i have been using Marie-Claire's "yes, and..." strategy - if she broke gait or direction on the circle i would say oh yes lets do that and do some thing tricky like sideways, fast yoyo, squeeze between these tight cones oh how about just a circle? it's amazing how now she doesn't seem to thing breaking gait and direction are such great ideas! i was so excited by how this was all going that on Thursday I was set to play the game again. her trot seemed a little odd and she was reluctant to canter and i realised she was in physical discomfort - i asked marie-claire for her opinion and she agreed i should stop the excercise. Rivas front right fetlock has heat in it and she is now, two days later, obviously lame on it. i have clipped it and clayed it and also experimented with some new treatment for her very stubborn mud fever. i certainly am learning alot about horse care here! Riva seems to take a long time to heal anything so i have spoken to Gabi who is going to look into giving Riva more nutritional support for her immune system.  luckily i has already decided to start preparing Riva for accepting the bit. i have begun a program of putting mollasses on the bit for Paris to lick off (not wearing bridle yet). with Riva, i am seeking for her to accept my hand in her mouth first. once i can hold her tongue i will introduce her to the molassed bit too. i also played with the big ball and she was so good she seemed oblivious to anything i did with it! i still struggle with handling such a large ball, i can barely pick it up to bounce it her!

Today i was Gabi's assistant, which meant i got a morning lesson with one of my priject horses. i chose Riva so Gabi to check her leg. at lunch Marie-Claire said she would be giving a lesson at 3pm. since Paris cannot go in the arena yet, Riva had worked and was not fit, and Touria would already be doing the youngster trail ride, i had no horse for the lesson! Gabi suggested i play with Sesame as he had not done anything for a while and was always asking to be haltered. Sesame is 5 years old, and was Joke's project horse. he is 16.2 hh with a massive heavy head and a main like a rustafarian! he looks slow and lazy but quickly showed me that he is capable of great speed and power. i ended the session when he was emotionally and mentally collected enough to beable to physically manage a nice canter departure from a phase one on both leads.

i have also had my progress report. I was very happy with the nice things Marie-Claire, Gabi and Thomas saud about me. they liked my attitude and how i played with the youngsters. my focus point was to develope my emotional fitness by having more selfconfidence and not putting myself at a disadvantage for the sake of avoiding conflicts. i have since made a real effort to be open about my feelings and if i am not happy about something. it is surpisingly tricky and i realise how much i really shut down in normal life! It was also discussed that i could have the oppertunity to stay longer. i would love to stay longer because i am learning so much in ways i never expected. playing with young horses, especially young leftbrained horses really is an amazing learning experience. i do need to be home in March 2012 for my sister's hen party and to work and earn money to go to italy for my sister's wedding. i am also planning to re-take the fast track next year so that i can hopefully qualify for an externship.

loads more has happened and i just can't remember everything now! i keep getting sidetracked whenever i plan to update my blog but i intend to be stricter so i do not leave gaps!

Storms and rainbows

This week was my fifth week here and just as exciting as the rest!

After last weeks relationship difficulties with Paris I was over the moon when we had a play session in the play ground. i just played online, dropped my plans and concentrated on having fun like we used to do, soon Paris was having such a great time and when i drew him in from the circle game he cantered almost all the way too me! i then rode him. my idea was to get the relaxed canter Marie-Claire had been helping me with by giving him a big follow the rail so he had space to find the answer. despite having played online all over the playground Paris did not want to move away from the gate when i was mounted so i trotted him to the far corner and rested there for ages, letting him eat grass. we did this as a corners game for a while and it wasn't long before Paris wanted to head for the corners. so when i wanted to follow the rail i just focused on the next corner and just before he would start preparing to stop in the corner i swiched focus to the next corner and within minutes we were cantering the follow the rail! it was brilliant and i really felt like i had caused my idea to be my horses idea!! they next day i returned to the playground and we had a fun warm up online - Paris even jumped the masive log pile that is not meant to be a jump - it is easily a 6 foot spread! he made it look easy like a cross country horse! when i rode him he was happy to go straight to the follow the rail pattern at a lovely canter but when we headed up the third side of the field, which was up hill, he put on a lick of speed and so i said "good idea go faster and for longer!" soon he was wanting to slow down and we did a while lap of the feild at a relaxed canter and then i focused on a corner and he came to a smooth halt from canter (through trot) with just my seat aids! i was so happy i leapt off him and did the silent victory dance! I have tried to keep our playfulness in the arena too. the other day i put the tarpaulin on him and he was so calm that i thought i'd see if he was calm with it when he was walking. he was so i took my savvy string and tied the tarm together in front of his chest so he wore it as a cape and then i played circling game in walk, trot, canter and even over a jump! it was so cool to see how well he coped with it. this is a million times improved from the horse that would freeze when you put a rug on and freak if you slid it off his hind quarters.

After all of my fun days playing with Paris as his usual extroverted self it was a bit of a bummer for me to play with him yesterday and find he was back to being introverted. i kept things slow and soft online and then saddled him and decided to not touch the reins as much as possible. i asked Paris for the rein isolations (direct and indirect rein) without using the reins and was so shocked when he did them! at one point i must have been slightly wrong when i asked for indirect rein near a pole as Paris sidepassed over it instead! i was so proud of him and decided to ride a bullseye pattern at the trot to see how much i could do wothout reins. Paris did need a couple of corrections with the reins at first but it was not long before he trotted a perfect circle and then turned in and halted all from my seat cues with no reins!

Today everything was not as it should normally be. last night we had a massive storm. i woke in the night as the lightning lit the room as if someone ad the light on and it stayed lit for ages. then a roaring roll of thunder started and build up like a low flying air craft except that it lasted a long time. i felt the urge to run out and check Paris but we had had storms here nd i knew there was nothing i could do so i went back to sleep. Soon there was a knock on the door. it was Marie-Claire, the storm had scared the youngsters and they had gone through some fences and two needed to go to the vet. we were meant to be on our sleeping morning however we all got up, dressed and quickly ate something before rushing out to check if our horses were ok and then head to the stables. Paris and Rox were a little nervous and jittery but i could see no sign of physical injury. it turns out that the youngsters ran through every fence, smashed 7 wooden post and pulled out miles of electric tape wire. I teamed up with Anna and we fed the horses and performed kaka force. after we had cleared out the forests we helped muck out the stables and cleaned th food buckets. Sanne and Elvira spent the day cleaning wounds and applying bandages. by the evening when it was time to play with our horses we were all feeling physically, mentally and emotionally drained. Anna, Elvira and I teamed up for a "Can You...?" game session which was a lot of fun. it gave me the idea to ask Paris to jump a single tiny barrel - which he did! we then made a kind of living round corale (we used a corner of the arena and used a block to mark the oppsite corner of our square round corale. Anna and Elvira each manned one side and i played with Paris at liberty. when he ran off the others put pressure on him so i became the sweet spot. it wasn't long before i went from abismally poor and no connection to having him engaged, connected, doing stick to me at walk trot canter halt back up! it was a lot of fun.

this week i have also played with Riva and Tauria again. Tauria is so smart she worked out her first ever figure eight much quicker than Riva did.   they have both proven to so calm and left brained out on trail rides. Riva struggles to maintain gait on line so i am trying different techniques to make it a game as much as possible. yesterday i could not make my mind up whether to play with Riva or Tauria so i decided to go to the youngsters and see which one picked me first. Tauria came over straight away! i gave her a carrot and soon Riva was there also so i gave her some carrot too before taking Tauria for a play session. i gave them both a day off today after the storm disaster. Riva had actually jumped out onto the road and has nasty scratched all over her chest and shoulder. one nasty scrape is in her girth area so i will not be able to ride her for a while. i don't mind because her riding is better than he online which really needs to be imprived. i did spend some undemanding time with Tauria in the remains of the paddock paradise. i was looking up at the moody clouds when i spotted a rainbow. they always cheer me up and i took it as a sign that tomorrow will be a good day!

tomorrow we are planning to go on a 10 km trail ride with our own horses to a restaurant for lunch. i'm hoping it will be an uneventful ride!