Swimming As One

Today Sundance & I prepared for the taping that will take place on Wednesday, he did very well.

I started out riding in our bareback pad and the parelli snaffle but ended up using our halter and lead rope as a hackamore, why? Because the snaffle will fold in two while focusing on techniques used in Finesse riding. We worked on four tasks today: 1- Trotting on a Casual rein in a figure of eight. 2- Performing a canter to trot to canter lead change. 3- Nine step back up from a walk. 4- Sideways without a fence for 20ft. bothways. He did great on task one, we had ridden a figure eight with a carrot stick (only) so he could learn the pattern by relying on my body language instead of not reading the way my body communicates to him and relying on the reins. That has worked wonders with HIS communication skills when it comes to understanding, he is a Left Brained Introvert and had been ridden with a bit and or harsh bits before I purchased him and he is not as responsive as I would like or as resposive as my 4 year old clean slate. So now he is reading my body and not relying on my hands to guide him through the tasks I ask him to perform, which has made my job even easier. The drop to trot lead change task was a task I personally needed delevopment on, the first time I was exposed to the concept of leads and lead changes was through the Parelli Program and I am glad that they were to people introduce me into the seem-to-be complecated task, now that I think about it Nita Jo Rush (3 Star Parelli Professional) first introduced leads and lead changes to me. In the arena it all seemed backwards to me,but with Sundances patience and plenty of time to think I have gotten a hang of it. Tasks 3 and 4 are things we do all of the time and both of us found it quite simple to perform. After our work/play session I took Bebe and we ponied around the property, the trailer was open so we practiced some of our level 4 tasks, communicating with horses on the ground while on horseback. I asked Bebe to load the trailer, jump and swim in the lake with us. We swam in the lake and it was unbelievably fun, both Sundance and Bebe splashed, swam, drank and had fun. Today was a very sucessful, educational and fun day.