Wild Thang...

Hi ya'll,

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been kept far too busy to sit down at a computer AT ALL this week. It's been one hell of a trip, mentally, emotionally, and physically, it took a toll on my body, and stretched my devotion, pushed me as a learner, torqued around my emotions, and gave me the ability to see a way to change and be proactive. But that's a story that should be told one-on-one. If you'd like to hear about it, call me, or if you don't have my cell number, email me and I'll give it to you. The important thing is that I'm really inspired, excited, and a much fuller and more solid person. I have a plan!

Now, onto the important thing, my FABULOUS SESSION with my hossy. As my title suggests, Prinny was WIIILLD! I haven't had her out to the end of the 45' line in quite some time, simply because of time and space and focus on other things, so I was quite astounded today when I yoyo'd her back to the end of the 45' and sent her out, and was met with a willing-to-canter, happy, mild LBE. She was totally into maintaining her responsibilities (I think she's been eavesdropping on Kristi's demos with Maxi, personally) and gave me something like 8 flying changes of direction when asked for them. Totally cool, I wish i had had either a video camera or Pat Parelli, "Here you go, sir, my L3 audition if you want it!"...yeah,TOTALLY feeling confident and happy.

So next week begins my fourth and final course here at the center *tear*. It's focus will be liberty, and the course is entitled "The Truth". I'm really excited about it, it's going to be a great time. I'm particularly looking forward to the day that will be devoted to developing savvy spotlight presentations and routines. My weakness is in choreographing--if I could just go out and play, I'd be fine, but it is something that should be planned. Really looking forward to it, though.

Other than that, kind of looking forward to coming home, but on the other hand, I don't wanna leave...but hell, I'm broke!

I'll try to keep you posted better this week!

Love you all, apologies again for the neglect.

Love,

F&P

Left-Brain Monday

Ahhhh...That is the sound of my relaxing and getting truly comfortable in my environment for the first time in two weeks.

It's interesting, I've gone through this morning's classes, and NOT ONCE have I felt even the slightest bit unconfident about myself or my horsemanship. I'm not 100% sure on my reasoning, but I think it's probably the energy and teaching style. The previous group of instructors (we've switched) was a group of very RB people. Not to say anything negative at all about RB people or horses, but they brought that side, a part of me I'm really not familiar with in an extroverted situation, hence the discomfort. It's been an interesting thing to examine, I'm really fascinated with what I've learned about myself just in this little compare/contrast, and also in what I've learned in how to set my own learning up for success...I don't anticipate a PERFECT week, of course. I anticipate that if I have problems, they'll be dominance related, probably.

So this morning was much more relaxed and LB for me. I was able to take in and read little details like I used to (or should I say, what I did before I repressed that side of myself subconsciously) and also had NO problem piping up in class and asking questions to my heart's content :)

So all's well. I'm off for lunch now, and then back out to play UDT this afternoon, it's about 80 degrees, so Neither Prin or I will be up for romping around like crazies. Though the pond is looking more inviting!

Anyway, savvy on, love you all!

F and P

Mental Overload

Hi all,

Sorry to miss logging the past few days, but I promise it was the best thing I could have done for you all. I think it's so interesting, I've learned so much over the years, heard all the stories about how mentally trying these courses are, and still carried that mildly cocky mentality of "Oh, that won't happen to me!" Hahahahhahahahaha Oh my. I've already started to run the emotional roller coaster that Linda talks about in L&HB. It's fantastic because it's EXACTLY WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR (good thing I knew that when I was considering)but at the same time, it takes a lot of focus away from things like my social life. So sorry if I'm not on here as much as I'd like to be.

Okay so anyway, let me kind of give you a lowdown of what's been going on. Not too many details as I'm still trying to work it out myself, but here goes. Tuesday, we played a bit with horsenality/aptitude. Had far too many realizations about Prin that I didn't necessarily enjoy, but was interesting. I'll share my notes when I get home, since I conveniently left them in the classroom, about 100 yds and 2 doors away. Yesterday was all about leadership. We broke into horsenality-filtered remudas and learned some leadership, relationship, and interaction strategies to help our "horsenalities" grow (I was in the LBE group) Very interesting stuff, learned some great strategies for interacting with people of a less "WEEEEEEEEE!" nature-hehe.

Today has been all about fluidity and fluidness in horses. I spent the morning glowering and pouting about a bad day on the seat builder (they've got another one, a blue one, that's a bit more extreme than the mighty broncy, and it solidly kicked my ass today)

Later on, we had a demo about crookedness/straightness in horses, and Avery quickly chose Prin to use as her online example. How cool, right? Turns out Prin's blocking is mostly a physical problem (yes, I HAVE taken care of that mental/emotional for the most part! Yay!) Avery explained how to use the sideways game to my advantage in getting Prin's ribs moving how I wanted, and how to use the tracking of her hind end as a measure of the change. VERY helpful stuff.

So, now i"m off to go play with my poneh. It's a little cooler today, and I'm in a really mellow mood, so we'll have to see what happens. I have some ideas from yesterday as well as thoughts from today that I wanted to play with, but I'm seriously embracing a conspicuous lack of agenda right now.

Hopefully log again tomorrow or this weekend. Let me know if you have any questions and email me :)

Until next time, savvy on!

Love,

Fran and Prin