Take the Ball and Run with It

A few weeks ago, Denny summed up the entire personality of my horse in one short phrase, "free spirit."  He told me she was inclined to want to do things her way and I was just going to have to learn to deal with it, abandon my tendency to want to over control, and go with the flow if I wanted to ride her well.

This idea has change a lot about my riding, not perminantly (yet), but my approach has changed.  I was having a heck of a time with left shoulder in, so I let go of the left rein and, go figure, there it was.  Canter work, particularly left, has been hard because she does not enjoy feeling out of balance.  I let go of trying to force her into balance and started playing with exercises the force her to balance herself on her own terms, such as shallow serpentines.

I took that information and applied it to something my dressage trainer, Deb, told me: hold the right contact going left.  I thought to myself, do I even have right contact?  Or is what I'm holding just pressure with nothing behind it.  So, again, I left go of what I thought Was contact and asked her to come into it with a lot of exercises and a lot of encouraging outside leg.

Let go.

Set her up for making the decision herself.

Try not to be a control freak.

These are the driving ideas behind what I am trying to do with my mare.  I took a concept and ran with it.

And I'm sure it will run me into some trouble, it already has.  Suki does not always make decision I agree with.  For example, she turned 10 feet too early onto a "trail" at a dead gallop in the woods while I was trying to retrieve a stirrup.  But, I survived and she did not put a foot wrong.

Somehow, I doubt that's what Denny intended for me to do by letting her be the free spirit she is, but I can tell you he commented on how much more comfortable I seemed on her during my next lesson.

I suppose any time you go through thick forest on a horse, burying your face in the neck to avoid being cracked by a branch and shoving yourself back on by pushing off the trees she is dodging, your participating in some sort of trust building exercise.  It's like submersion therapy for the type a personality type: relax and go with it or have a Wylie-Coyote moment with a tree.