Monday, January 31, 2011

Externship - DAY 15 - Day 1 of 1 and 2 Star Courses

Today the Parelli Center was up and buzzing EARLY with the expectancy of a mob of smiling faces, soon they came and the energy of the already positive and progressive shot up like a rocket! 150 plus students, with and without stars slowly pushed in the Lodge with anticipation of excitment and opprotunity... and it was just that they recieved! Mark Weiler started the jamboree with even higher vibrations, Ann Kiser helped everyone organise their positive energy and Pat Parelli came in and added to the excitement! But this excitement came in a different form, it was a quiet yet wildly contained excitment of the future to come and the beauty and privlege of being one of those peoples making a difference so closely to the future to come!

Theory tests were handed out through the hustle and bustle, then the 2 star group was sent to the class room for Q & A as the 1 star group made their way out to the beautiful green spaces out in the warm caressing sun to play with a great teaching tool to be used... SIMULATIONS! With Carol Coppinger and Nita Jo Rush (I just happened to have Lisa R, a DEAR dear friend of my heart, her sister as one in my small group!) 5 humans play, 4 as each zone of the horse an 1 as the human. They play the 7 games, give feedback and rotate positions until all have reviewed every position. Mariah learned that EVERYTHING means something and nothing means nothing, they feel, see, hear and smell every single change. The 7 games quickly become the 7 tortures, especially for a LB horse. Mariah learned that she is a crazy LBE/I at the end of the line and that they become bored and hand over idle hooves as the devils workshop! That is me.

We had the opprotunity to break away from the crowd to take care of our horses then head out to eat away from the big crowd. We turned on the arena lights when we got back and played, Sundance and I had a very relaxing session! Wonderful time, very very nice, I do wish I could read him better... but that is why I am here. Tomorrow we will be up bright and early around 5:00 am to get ready to do horsemanship in the morning as the whole 100+ group over to watch the externs strut their stuff as we do our regular play time... we will see how the rest of the day goes from their! We shall find out...

Sundance's creative way of removing his tail bag!

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End of Level 1 Simulations with Nita Jo and Carol Coppinger... :o)

Mark and Pat talking...

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Externship - DAY 14 - Lot's of Stops Lot's Done

Today has been a wonderful day! I woke up and got a wonderful early shower, fed and cleaned the horses, did some laundary, went to Panera to eat some breakfast and did some shopping for necessities! Cleaner, clean pretty sheets and blankets and some rugs for the kinda nasty feeling old floor of the trailer... we had the opprotunity to add a womans touch to the camper, now it feels like a home! We went out to lunch with Jim Crew, got to watch Linda play a bit with West Point at the Performance Barn... we hopped to the feed store and Russells Western Wear , where you get a 10% discount for being a Parelli student! The rest of the afternoon was spent mucking stalls, giving Sundance a bath and re-assorting and feminizing our side of the camper. :o) The 1 and 2 star courses start tomorrow! We're anticipating it all, the campus is going to be OVER STOCKED! Wish us luck! Mariah

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Lazy Fabio and great lighting in the performance arena...

The Core Values and the most AMAZING chips at Pepe's!

Hey hey! It's clean up day! Finished making the Student Lounge more "loungable"!

Beautiful morning and waiting to help with the chores!

Externship - DAY 13 - Preparing for 1 and 2 Star Courses

We woke up bright and early to go help clean the facility for the 1 and 2 star courses! Had lots of fun with the whole group preparing and putting the core values, esp. doing more with less! We went out to Pepe's, great mexican food and came home and cleaned. I had the opprotunity to play with Sundance, we had a VERY interesting session but a good one! I had a huge BFO, Sundance taught me something great today... learning to set him up for success, warm up hard and play/ride soft and to not assume! I will send some pictures from the day. :o) Mariah

P.S. - Samantha, I have gotten your questions! Hoping to address them Sunday (tomorrow)!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Weekly Campus Meeting

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Saddling with Savvy and exercise during speech about "timing"...

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Externship - Day 12 - Saddling, Follow the Rail and Presentations

Mariah is a very tired little extern, disputing within my head whether I should shower tonight or in the morning! I do believe the morning sounds much sweeter! Today we had all of the saddles and horses in the Performance arena and Berin went over the professional and savvy way to saddle. We also went on for a couple of hours of follow the rail, I saw a DRAMATIC change in Sundance! Such a cool thing! We met after lunch to do our presentations, TON of fun! Everyone did such a great job. After that at 5:30 pm the whole campus met for the weekly meeting, our Core Value of the week was Truth, Transparency and Trust... great hearing everyones perspective on that topic. We have 115 plus people coming in Monday for the 1 star and 2 star courses, the externs and interns are volunteering to help spruce up the facility a bit tomorrow morning. We are meeting at 8:00 am, not sure how long it will last but we plan on putting our working pants on! Then of course Sarah and I will catch up on cleaning and laundary the rest of the weekend. I am about to hit the hay and hit it hard, time for some rest. Talk soon! Mariah

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Externship - DAY 11 - Western Saddling with Savvy, Horsemanship Patterns and Administration in the Office

Hello Everyone! Today was another wonderful day. We had another funny dose of the backwards Australian upside down rugby football game, it was great! Berin went over saddling and unsaddling a western saddle with savvy, great stuff to know! I am looking forward to learning how to do the same thing with savvy with an english saddle. Berin said we would be all riding in our opposite saddle and tack during our externship, which I cannot wait to do. We had 3 hours to play with our horses with the topic of follow the rail with rythm and relaxation.... I learned that Sundance and I will progress when we take our time riding, more like an hour + or more to really get the consistency I need to progress.

We went to lunch then to Administration in the Office for a couple of hours, here is an update from Parelli Connect that I posted... go to http://www.parelliconnect.com/ and add me as Mariah Helms and look at how my day went! Go get connected on Parelli Connect! I did kitchen duty along with my group, Group B, which is aways fun. I am not sure as to what we are doing tomorrow morning, but I do know we should be doing our presentations in the afternoon and the campus weekly meeting around 5:30 pm. I am going to finish the last details tonight on my presentation, I am very excited about the presentation! Please wish me luck, it won't be easy! BUT if it was easy, anybody could do it! Talk to you all soon, thanks for listening. I encourage comments, please give me some feedback on anything andd everything!

Fuego being a cover for the "Left Braine Introvert" Horse

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Office Admin time!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Externship - DAY 10 - Pictures

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Dressing her in her full gear, I got to take it all off and put it all on! SO FUN!

Simulation with the slack difference and the effect on the horse with the breast collar and britchen. Playing with rein placement and wagon hitch parts.

Learning from Nate Bowers and Thunder and Lightning!

More pictures from morning session. Part of testing for driving with Nate Bowers.

Externship - DAY 10 - Jim Carrey, Follow the Rail, Driving Naturally and Mexican Whipped Cream

Today was such a great day! Woke up to a normal morning, very windy today! We met at 8:30 am to do an exercise to work on our group morale (which is AMAZING, who knew such a diverse group could get along so well?) and get our blood pumping! Quite a funny little game brought up by our leader of the Extern and the Interns... not sure what it is called? All I know is that we all were running, falling in the sand and laughing our heads off! Interesting to see who in the group are the truly competitive souls?!

The externs were sent to some time to study for our testing this afternoon and to work with our horses... I studied for a second, then my extroversion got the best of me and I had to go get a little nosey and see what everyone else was doing and then went and cleaned Sundance up. Florida is getting the most rain it has gotten in MONTHS, and he externs and interns horses stay in metal pens without bedding... to say the least, it is muddy! Sundance's white leg was black, and so was other parts of him! So I cleaned him up a bit and saddled him up. We went out to play on the 45 foot line and oh my goodness! I put my sneaky little trouble making "mask" on, like Jim Carry, and we had MORE impulsion and the FUNNIEST, noisiest and silliest horse you have ever seen at the end of a line! At the end of our circling game, I was laughing so hard I was crying, Sundance had the happiest, most curious goofy look on his face and I saw quite a few giggles around me from the surrounding game players both in boots and horse shoes!

We started our horsemanship session with Berin in the Performance Arena, 2 hours of Follow the Rail at the walk and trot. What an awesome wake up call! It's amazing what your horse can teach you with that pattern, especially in a HUGE HUGE performance arena like that with 20 more horses there in with you adding to the energy! Sundance did very well with the following the rail, but I did find that we need to find more rhythm an relaxation within the trot, he tends to go the speeds he wishes when he is asked to trot. He goes from a very smooth relaxed slow jog, almost walk, to a big old warmblood trot... we need to find some rhythm there! Both of us were pushed a bit but we both seemed to enjoy the experience and seemed both of us learned from it!

We untacked and made our way to a nice lunch then met Nate Bowers and took our written driving harness test, GREAT stuff to learn! Great stuff to know! We joined Nate at the Carriage House, and went over all of the parts, all you need to know about safety in harnessing and how to harness them. I took PAGES of notes in my little pocket notebook, it was a BLAST to learn all of it! I am so excited about getting into driving, I really enjoy it. I was able to harness and harness one of the horses, the mare, which one is it of the two? Of Thunder and Lighting? One is a mare and the other is a gelding. They are Belgian Brabants! Blue roan rare beauties, they are VERY different looking and beyond beautiful creatures... they are definitely something to be respected.

A couple of students and I went out to El Toreos to celebrate my room mate, Zoe Thorrez's birthday, she was sang to, got a pie in the face and got a crazy cute Mexican hat put on her head! She definitley handled it all in stride, much better than I would! Afterwards we went to Cold Stone Creamery and enjoyed some ice cream.

I got my laptop in, a Toshiba, which I am writing on now for you! I am sitting here in the Lodge, quiet and dimly lit in my Parelli jacket, very cosy. I am going over my presentation for Friday, which I am excited about. It is already written out, now I have to transfer it here to this computer and organise it a bit! Need to get that done tonight, not sure if I can get it all done though... it's already 10:00 pm, I usually get to bed at this time and get up around 5:30 in the morning. Maybe I can work on it a good bit tomorrow! Wish me luck, it will be my first long presentation in a class room. I've done plenty with horses at demos and play days for long lengths but not in the class room. I think I will do fine once I get settled with the feel of the stage, I plan on getting the group involved anyway! I will share my presentation written here on my blog after my presentation on Friday, don't want to spoil any surprises! Hey, it looks like we will be attending and participating in the 1 star Instructor Course next week! What fun! Rumor is that it is one of the last ones taught by Pat and Linda, hmm? Hope not, but it will be a great opportunity for us nonetheless!

I have no idea as to what we are doing tomorrow, we are supposed to meet at the Foundation Station Intern Tack Room at 8:30 am to get our assignments for the day. Excited with this schedule, you NEVER know what you are going to do! "My Momma always said life was like a box of chocolates, you NEVER know what you're gonna get!" I love it.

Upside down inside out backwards rugby Australian tag football! Team building. Starting our horsemanship session with Berin Macfarlane, FOLLOW THE RAIL!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Externship - DAY 9 - Final Testing Savvy and First Rotations

A beautiful sunset to start the day! Been quite a rainy day on and off! It is beautiful, we finished off our Finesse testing! I am very excited as this was the first test I have taken with Sundance where I did not make a change in my attitude and responses for the negative, which is BEYOND exciting! Great progress on my part! Had a great lunch with very constructive conversation and went to our rotation for Group B which is teaching. Each of us had an assigned topic to create a 10 minute speech and peresent it in front of the class this Friday. My word is the 7th key to success, "Support". How COOL I got picked for that? Why do I write this blog? What am I so passionate about? SUPPORTING students! It's flooding around here, I just finished cleaning up the kitchen here. Tomorrow we should be doing horsemanship in the morning and working with Nate Bowers in the afternoon... we will be
testing on the single and draft team. I will see if I can find you a model of what we are learning!

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Externship - DAY 8 - Play to Win and Play in the Dark

Externship - DAY 8 - Play to Win and Play in the Dark

Today consisted of the "Play to Win" Seminar by Jim Patterson, Kelly Sigler's husband. The seminar was AMAZING! It's about harmony with yourself and the people around you... we as a group laughed, smiled, argued, cried, opened up our hearts and laughed most of all! If you get a chance to hear Jim or read the book "Play to Win", I HIGHLY recommend it! After the amazing exhilarating seminar, we did the dish shift and then went and turned on the Foundation Station lights and played! WOW! Sundance gave me some amazing liberty, the arena is HUGE, beyond huge and he gave me some WONDERFUL feedback at liberty... I sat on the ground and he did circles around me at a trot and a canter! yay! :o) We have our horses ready for the rain tomorrow, we were supposed to do finesse testing but it's gonna rain.. so? We'll see! We pride ourselves in flexibility here! It's a never-ending adventure... keep in
here with me! I'll talk with you tomorrow.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Externship - DAY 7 - And on the 7th day the Lord rested...

Today consisted of mostly laundary, horse chores, went to movies and had dinner. I am beyond exhausted so I am hitting the hay early! 8:30 am Externs meet for "Play to Win" meeting all day... will share about it and share pictures, hopefully will do finesse testing Tuesday if weather allows.

Party Fun at the Mastery Dorm

Relaxing Get Together for the old students and new! Ran from 5:30 pm until... lots of good fun.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011

Externship - DAY 6 - Parelli Games

More Parelli Games pictures...

Externship - DAY 6 - Parelli Games

Setting up and managning sound, music and microphone for Parelli Games!

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Friday, January 21, 2011

Sundance and Savannah (Sarah's horse) looking on at the excitement as the Interns send their horses out to pasture for the first time.

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