Externship–DAY 30- Horsemanship, Panels, more horsemanship! Pat’s Instructor Webinar and Extern Topic Speeches

I am figuring out that if I get up around 6:00 am and quickly get ready and do my chores (I take that back, there is no way I can call it chores! I find it an EXTREME pleasure and absolute honor to have the privilege to take care of my horse and everything it entails.) I have plenty of time to do what I need, relax an start my day right by setting everything up for success…. so I do believe I have finally established a very positive pattern in myself now in the mornings!

Now I just have to work on controlling my extroversion and it is much harder here because of the positive and electrifying atmosphere… Linda Parelli did a seminar on the Elements of Man, in which the Parelli Horsenalities were inspired from, she did expensive explanations and examples of every personality. Left Brained Introvert is Air, Left Brained Extrovert is Earth, Right Brained Extrovert is Fire and Right Brained Introvert is Water. I found out that I am a very typical medium to extreme Fire, with some Earth tendencies attached. The seminar really helped me figure out what I really am, why I do things and how to handle them… so now my goal is to tamper down some certain qualities of my fire personality, I do tend to have innocent yet mischievous child like facial expressions and tendencies, these are very natural and positive to me but it is not always appropriate so I have to struggle to program myself to react to certain situations differently. Especially in classroom situations, if I am not  moving my feet I cannot keep my mind going and I fall asleep which is very embarrassing because I do very honestly have a huge interest in what the speakers here have to say and I do not want to come across as disrespectful. So I am learning quite a bit about myself here! Are there any extroverts out there that have any good information or tips for me? PLEASE leave a comment or shoot me an email, I would greatly appreciate your feedback VERY much!

This morning, after a thrilling and sweaty game of soccer, we had personal horsemanship time with the topic of change direction on the 45 foot line with flying lead change and falling leaf pattern. At the moment with Sundance I am playing with him on giving to the pressure of the 45 foot line around his neck just clipped to itself, kind of like a lasso! He had a very hard time with it when I first introduced it to him a few days ago but now he I getting quite a hang of it. It is not anything I have been told to work on but I do feel this is really another porcupine game he needs to learn and will advance his refinement and understanding of the game even more! We played once again with the meaning of my shoulder positions, now if I am in front of him and just tilt my shoulder a certain way he understands to face me and sideways whichever way my shoulder opens up to… which is pretty awesome, one of the students during the speeches today had the assignment of talking about Principle # 7 “Horses teach Riders and Riders teach Horses”. Sundance has truly been an example of that during my fast track, my instructors and the experience here has taught me a lot but I do believe he has been my most influential teacher here, which is pretty amazing I do feel.

Berin called us in and said Jim Kiser, the faculty handy-man, needed our assistance in taking down all of the paneled round pens within the foundation station.. “Oh no!” Was my first reaction. Work? In this heat right now? Did not sound appetizing to me at that moment. THEN the core values kicked in, “Do more with less!”, “Get it done with a little fun!”. Oh yeah, “oh no!” ended up turning into an “Oh Boy!”. Many hands make a light load, experience creates learning, friends together never ever have to work… can we move MORE panels please!? We saddled back up and played with follow the rail, cloverleaf and the bowtie pattern. Sundance usually never has a hard time picking up the right lead, he did today! I told Sarah he really felt off, that this wasn’t normal, I knew it wasn’t. I went later and took the pad off and noticed quite a large dry spot on his right scapula! OOPS! I had been playing with the shims under my saddle, looks like I hit a No No pattern, just means I have more positive patterns to find! I seem close, I will need to purchase some more shims sometime this week.

We broke for lunch, had a webinar seminar with Pat, Linda and Neil Pye for all the instructors around the world. They had a record of over 100 live viewers and many sent questions in, it was all great to hear. Afterwards the externs met with Berin in the student lounge to listen to half of the groups presentations, every one did a fabulous job! Thanks for the wonderful information and inspiration. We all moseyed back to the foundation station to put all the panels back up, Yay! I learned something new too again, always learning something in every situation. We ran and did more chores, ran to publix for water bottle cases and came back and I played with one of my new projects here on the computer, I get to use my organization skills and fun creative side… so I am enjoying it, hopefully I can get the word documenting system figured out on this little technical computer soon so I can really get on it.

It seems I have typed off into the tomorrow, it is now Thursday! I have an exciting day ahead, I have NO IDEA as to what I will be doing tomorrow. I do know it will be very warm outside and we will all be on another beautiful adventure, please stay tuned and please help me along. I am looking forward to the journey, thanks for sticking with me. Until next time…

Mariah Helms