Oct 28 2010
Well today Ruffian and I had an interesting play time! The main thing we played with was hindquarter disengagements! Now this is where it kind of hit me... I should have done this with Ruffian before right? Yes we have done it here and there but we have never really focused on getting a good yield (and Mr. Parelli says that a yield is with less than four ounces of pressure, anything more is not a yield). So we don't quite have it that good yet but we are off to a good start.
So basically what I was faced with was that Ruffian does not yield his hindquarters, he would move.... ever so slowly if I asked and waited for a long time. But he wasn't responding with respect. I guess where we went kind of off was that for so long I was just focusing on "playing" with Ruffian, letting him get some energy out, and then maybe playing with a new pattern or something. Don't get me wrong, that is really good and all but is that is the only thing you do, you won't really get anywhere and your horse will probably get to a point where when you ask him to do something, he won't because he doesn't see you as a leader, just a playmate.
Needless to say Ruffian and I had a good conversation about that and Ruffian caught on pretty quickly about what I wanted, even though he wasn't sure he was happy about do it. But pretty soon it was fine with it. So we left it where Ruffian was responding at a phase one and even though there wasn't a whole lot of speed he was still responding and without resistance.
It was a good lesson for me to learn and one I shall not forget and I think that Ruffian and I will go a lot farther because of it also :)
Naturally,
~Keri
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