Day Seven

This morning, when I went out to play with Cherish, I didn't feel one bit bad for leaving Finale in her pasture as I have on previous days. I decided that I would get as much time to play with both of them as I good, and that would be the time that I ended up spending with them.

I was able to get Cherish to do a slow figure 8 at the walk without actual obstacles to guide her, because I was going mainly off of body language. She was able to do it just fine, but she had this look on her face that stated simply that she was not stupid, that she could do the same thing by herself, but that she would never do it by herself because it was completely boring. I have never truly liked the patterns, which is why I changed their names to "Abstract Designs", only to be done once you and the horse are already connected and focused and able to do such a thing.... with flow and lightness and expression and ease and a chance that at any moment you will completely abandon the thing at hand and go on to do something far more freeing if it becomes more of a task than a... possibility.

After playing for a bit more, I wanted to try and see if Cherish would mirror me... We started out with mirroring walk steps, then trot steps, and finally rounding of the back. Cherish did round her back with some effort, and at first her face expression was strained, but once she realized that there was far more lightness and ease when there was a rounded back and she began to soften, I let her feel it for a few more steps before dropping it and going to eat grass. I thought that this was really neat - the problem is, her top line is very weak. Today, I started the Journey to Roundness. We went up and down tons of hills under saddle and later trotted around on hills on the ground. Her back had improved within today and yesterday,

Day Four

Today, I ended up not getting out to the barn until about 7 am. The sleep in left me very refreshed and ready to go. I went and got Cherish, ignoring most of the details that I would usually pay attention to as I was remembering everything that we had gone over last night. I was planning on teaching Cherish the Parelli Patterns, which I now call Abstract Designs, with ease and flow. I reminded myself of this as I walked out to the barn.

When I brought Cherish into the arena, I went straight for the cones. We did some figure 8 around the two cones, with little success on the "flow" part. I was not using my body language, nor was I employing lightness, nor was I really mentally into it. Both of us were extremely bored. I went over to the barrels, to try figure 8 there. Cherish walked one Figure 8 around. For one moment, I thought "Wouldn't it just be so much more interesting to do Touch It? The moment after I thought that, Cherish stepped forward, put her hoof on the barrel and chewed on the edge. I had to laugh at her sense of humor. "So can we stop the Figure 8s now?" Cherish asked. I shrugged, and decided that that was fine. If we weren't enjoying it now, why would we enjoy it in a few minutes, after we had already worked on it for a while? What was the point of doing something if, at the moment, it was completely boring? I made a note to myself to figure out how to make it exciting.... energy!

In order to bring both of our energies up, as we were both lagging slightly by now, Julia and I went to smack the carrot sticks on the barrels... we had seen Linda doing it before, but I had never actually tried it. The harder I smacked the carrot stick on the barrel, and the more times, the more bored and tired I became... I