Linda, Pat, Caton Parelli, Moxie and Vinny to the rescue!! On June 20th, Bill and I had just completed a 34 hour drive to South Fork, Colorado with our 2 horses, and 4 dogs!, only to find that our town was being threatened by a forest fire. A mandatory evacuation was set up for June 21st by 10 am. I was pretty scared. I had sent Linda (we’ve been friends for many years) a picture of what we were driving into. She is so gracious, she said “Why don’t you come over here until it is safe?” I said, “Linda, we have our 4 dogs with us along with our horses.” She said, that’s ok, come on over!” We spoke with the Fire Marshal in town. It sounded bad to me. I looked at Bill and said “I want to pack everyone up and leave, NOW.” (We experienced the 2002 fire that came just 500 yards from our cabin when the winds changed in our favor! ) We were in South Fork a total of 2 hours, packed up again and left and left for Pagosa. I remember Bill saying to his horse as he loaded him back on the trailer, “One more time, buddy.” I start by telling you all this so I can lead into sharing with you all that we learned while staying with Pat and Linda! I feel a little funny writing this, but several people (including Linda) have encouraged me to do this, so here we go. Who would have thought an emergency could have resulted in some great learning? During our 10 days in Pagosa, Bill and I had a chance to watch Linda coaching students and also ride with her - I had four lessons and learned a LOT. Bill’s horse, Pistolla came up lame on our first trail ride:(, so we took turns on my horse, Ready. Here are some key points that I brought home! -Get your horse to maintain a good, forward and rhythmic walk before asking for the trot. Then aim for a good forward and rhythmic trot. We did this using a steady rein. If he speeds up, check him with a steady rein, bring it to my hip, then right back to neutral the moment he regains the chosen speed and rhythm. It’s like a “half halt”. And if he slows down, a little thunk-thunk! Maintain this on the rail, then spice it up a little - come off the rail and throw in some circles and some S patterns while maintaining that same rhythm. That’s not easy! Once my horse and I could maintain a rhythmic trot, a good “working” trot, (you will know when you get it because your horse will lower his neck and blow through his nostrils and settle down) Linda said, “ you can now work on yourself.” Many of us have been saying that we want to be better riders. I now really know that the 4th savvy of Finesse will get us there. The idea is to engage our bodies. Which reminds me of the time Linda let me ride Zen last winter! That’s another story for another time! And, yes, I am an RBE! Okay, where was I?!, Oh yeah, better rider, working on ourselves and the 4th savvy of Finesse! I’m still so excited. As fire refugees, we house-sat while Pat and Linda went to Denver for their Horse and Soul event, which gave us lots of time for homework! Of course I worked on that rhythmic walk and trot with Steady Rein. Then I really focused on my body position - sit up straight without arching back, keeping my Balance Point under me. Linda stood beside both Bill and me positioned our legs 9pulled our legs down and a little back, so the knee was deep and stretching down into the heel. She said, “while you are sitting up straight with heels down and legs under your body, now push your heel back into my hand!” So, as I ride I think about pushing my heel down and back into her hand, which keeps my lower leg steady! 3. Now, lets work on Soft Touch- keeping a connection with your horse’s mouth but not trying to frame him: Elbows by your side and sinking down towards your belt, ie. armpits down. Hold the reins with your thumbs, not your fingers. Thumbs point slightly down towards the bit. Fingers curled, but soft. Follow the horse’s mouth, no matter where it goes, until finally stays steady. Push down from your knee into your heel. Heels out Helps make sure toes are in. Tuck your pelvis. Remember to keep your belly button pulled back towards your spine and wrap your ribs. Not that much to remember!! Now, when you post, go forward, not up. This is when you can successfully open your hip flexors while thinking about curling your pelvis forward and up (Micheal Jackson - OWW!, or what Janice Dulak calls your Eee-Eee muscles) on the forward rise, to open the hip flexor. Again, as Janice said to Linda: the horse gives you the ‘up’, you need to do the forward. Don’t forget when you rise forward, you are rising between your arms swinging from the shoulder with elbows down, verses having stiff shoulders. Your elbows and upper arms are like pillars that hold a steady frame for your horse as you rise through them. “Remember the Game of Contact principle: Your horse owns from my elbows down and I own from my elbows up. My hands are just somewhere in between... don’t hold the reins with my hands, hold the contact or the connection with my elbows. That’s hard! With resting hands we can prevent the flop in the rein that bothers our horses. Resting hands goes along with the fluid shoulder joint and holding the contact with my elbows. I remember when I was riding in front of Linda, I was practicing all of my body positions. (because my horse was in a nice working trot, so I could work on myself). She was watching Ready and me, and he was mouthing the bit. She called out, “loosen your wrist” The result was instant - Ready’s mouth went quiet. Wow! I finally felt how important ‘elastic contact’ was for my horse. 4.The “Windmill”. Oh boy...this sure let me know where i was in my balance! So, as I walked, Linda told me to rotate my arm like a windmill - forwards at first, then backwards later. One arm then the other, AND... keep the rhythm of the walk, and then the trot when ready. One arm was certainly easier than the other, and Forwards was easier than backwards. It’s amazing how this helped me get a more balanced seat. you are walking and/or trotting windmill your right arm forward then backwards, keeping rhythm! Then, try your left arm. One arm may be easier then the other, and forward and or backward may be easier. Good practice to get a good balanced seat! As if this is not enough ( sorry, I’m talking about four intense lesson! ), here is another thing Linda gave me to think about: “If your horse was to suddenly disappear out from under you, would you land on your feet or would you land on your butt... or your face? You need to land on your feet. Even just thinking about this will keep you in a balanced position. The ‘chair seat’ is a really safe position, but as you advance to higher levels of Finesse you need to adopt a position that is more athletic and still balanced and not stiff. The Balance Point still applies...at first you find it no matter where your feet are, then you learn how to tuck it under you in order to be more athletic for Levels 3 and 4. The last exercise I learned about with Linda was a Figure 8 at the walk with a Soft Touch. As I came through the center to change from right to left, I learned to reach under my horse’s body with my leg as if to widen the arc as I change direction. And not lose my forward motion... or let the horse leak out through his shoulder... and keep the Soft Touch! Yikes! Hard, but fascinating. The results were amazing. I could feel Ready’s back coming up under me. And after just 2 days of riding with this awareness I saw a big difference in Ready’s body. Even at liberty his canter was better. He moved better. He used to cross-fire a lot. I am sooo... excited about the 4th savvy, and I finally really get how each savvy can improve the others. I can see how this will improve my freestyle riding and my bareback riding. I’ve already seen improvement on line and at liberty, because of the way Ready learned to carry himself with a rider, most likely because I learned to carry myself better as well! My posture is so much better when I ride now. Bill and I took videos of each other in our lessons as well. I highly recommend doing this if at all possible. It helped a great deal to be able to watch the videos and see when you’re approaching the image you have in mind of what a good rider looks like... and FEELS like. It’s such a great reference to have. I feel so lucky to have had this opportunity and glad to share with you what I learned. My Best, Cheryl PS The fire came within 2 miles of our ranch... South Fork did not burn and finally the rains helped our wonderful firefighters get control of the situation. Recent update: It’s now been 3 weeks since our lessons with Linda, and I just wanted to let you know how it keeps on getting better: I’m much more clear on my leadership responsibilities. The techniques of keeping control of the rhythm and speed has been huge... getting my horse under control before trying to work on myself... I hadn’t thought of it like that before. Not only are my horses doing better, I’m getting to work on my posture too - even at the canter!
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 02:57:18 +0000
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