July 10 2010
(I am going to split this up into two parts. One explaining what I was thinking about before our session, and other second part explaining how it changed our session)
This morning I learned a lot from my play time with Twosox, from the importance of progressing to how much a learn burn hurts on your arm... :)
Twosox and I had a good but interesting play time. After I haltered him it kind of hit me that I have not been fair to Twosox in not progressing faster with him. He is at the point now where I can and should be progressing with him a lot faster then I am. For so long Twosox has been my "dear sweet RBI" that needs to have things taken slowly and etc etc but he is changing and I think that subconsciously I have wanted him to stay the dear sweet RBI Twosox he was. Yes I did realise that he was getting more dominate but not to the extent I now see. Twosox needs me to progress with him. He needs me to get big sometimes and let him play in his own way.
I could very easily play nice, gentle, soft etc (don't get me wrong, those things are good too but that they aren't the only what Twosox needs from me). If I just did that Twosox would stay nice and calm but as soon as I ask him to do something like... Figure eights he becomes a totally different horse. I could stay where we are at and keep Twosox calm looking but if he has all this dominance and play drive in him, which has been developing ever since he got confident, then I do not want to hold him back. Yes it will mean me changing and using different techniques but that is all apart of the journey. Nobody ever said that it was going to be easy, but we can keep it easy by choosing to ignore the signs that our horses are giving us, signs that tell us we need to change.
What is Principle #5? The attitude of Justice is effective. I was not being just to Twosox in not going to a phase 4 when he needs it me to. I was not applying that principle. I know it may sound the opposite, in our human ways we want to love, love, love but that is not all that our horses need from us. When you look at your herd when they are all together, do they just show love and nothing else? No! They aren't exactly the nicest sometimes, in our human eyes but that is what that horses needed at that time and so the other did it. Why do you think that people separate horses and can't put one horse with that other horse? (Now I know that there are times to separate horses, say mares and foals from other horses etc) but so many times it is because to us it looks like the one is horses is being "mean" to the other horse. If you look again though that horse probably deserved it.
So with all that in mind Twosox and I set off.... (Read part two above)
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