9 February 2010

Fourth Lesson:

In our fourth lessons we went over trot to walk to trot again. Both Francois and I needed a bit of refreshing. It is more complicated than one would think.
We did some walk to trot exercises up and down a steep driveway: halting uphill and downhill.

From my point of view it seemed like Jupiter just wasn't playing along. I felt that he was being impatient and stubborn. But Tas pointed out that I was the one who was not being clear in my communication. Every time I asked him to walk he would immediately put his head down (to grab a mouthful of grass) and instead of making him walk I was stopping him and lifting his head. By not enforcing my first request, I was confusing him and giving him another alternative to walking, when asked. Tas suggested that I don't stop and rather keep on walking. This way he doesn't have an alternative but to stay with me and thus give the correct response. No confusion.
I was also reprimanding him in an ineffective way. By pushing into him and trying to use my strength. This obviously (although I had not realized it then) was not going to work against an animal that far outweighs me.  Tas showed me that using short jerks on the halter is much more effective and doesn't dull him to greater force, as my method would inevitably.

After being made aware of these problems, I did much better and, thus, Jupiter did too. This made it obvious to me that I should spend more time focussed on my every step and every movement.

After this Jupiter did such a beautiful job of backing up.
Sabik struggled a little more. He is used to backing up when a command is used along with the pressure. He was not too happy with the idea of backing up without a voice command. But, as Tas said, if there is a huge truck coming and you need your horse to halt and back up, he needs to respond to a physical cue. Your voice is not as reliable a cue and it might even be drowned out.
So Francois had some work to do and Sabik seemed to be getting it.

We did a sequence of walk to trot to halt and back up immediately… Both horses coped well and did a very good job.

We have lots of homework for the coming two weeks. We have to do our exercises with their full tack. We also need to do some longer trotting sessions. Up and down steep surfaces. Stopping uphill and down. Trotting and walking around objects.
We also have some reading homework: Andrew McLean's Shaping Principle.
We also have some balancing exercises to do as well as practicing pressure/release on each other (Francois and I)

Unfortunately we won't be having a lesson in this week because I fell and hurt my leg and I am not able to bend my knee. So practicing this week is also out of the question for me.  I am very disappointed. I really love our lessons every week. Francois will be able to practice, though.
I am looking forward to the next lesson so much. We will be doing long-reigning. This is something I have always wanted to try.