Being A Good Leader

I stalled out for a bit once more.  I've been playing, and things haven't been going badly per se...But I remember the week or so after the clinic with Tina where I was just leaping ahaed and making so much progresss.  So though the sessions were decent, I felt they were kind of bland.  I settled into a routine, and Cal, instead of becoming more confident, started losing faith in me as a leader.  Part of the problem, I think, is that I start putting more and more pressure on him to be confident with less and less help from me, thus I become a bad leader and stop helping him like I should.

One thing I have played with the past bunch of sessions is Cal's back up.  We've been playing on getting it faster and more responsive on a lighter phase.  A surprising result is that backing up has become a great way to get Cal grounded and back with me.  It really gets him thinking again.  (Pat always has said "The better a horse goes backwards and sideways, the better they do everything else.")

Yesterday I decided that we really needed to break up the routine.  So instead of just going out and playing without a plan, we took the horses for a walk around the property.  (Me with Cal, my dad with Furi, and my brother with Lyssi.)  There were some thresholds, mainly as we went down the driveway, but overall Cal was surprisingly confident.  I think I might have been able to do everything I did on the walk while riding, even!  A good boost of confidence for my hopes of trail-riding with Cal.

Today I went out on the 45' line.  I knew I wanted Cal to be confident, and I wanted to feel like we were improving.  So I talked aloud to myself, walking myself through reading my horse, what my plan was, and why that was my plan.  It helped me sort out my thoughts, I think, and also make me know what I was doing.  I picked a strategy, and stuck to it.  I didn't get angry, made sure I was patient when he was unconfident, and going through my phases and asking for more when he was confident.  In short, I was a much better leader today.

The main task I focused on today was my sideways game.  It hasn't been the greatest lately, and I want to start asking for sideways faster and farther away on the 45' line.  And I think sideways will prove to be as helpful a strategy as I am finding backing up to be.  I've discovered my driving of the hind end has gotten a litte broken, so I had to fix that before I was able to get sideways.  Also, he would be moving really slow, and when I read this as my RBI being unconfident and just went slow too, he started blowing and licking and chewing...and then was able to be more confident and speed up and get farther away!  Cool.

I also played with some driving from zone 5 with one rein.  Cal's slowly getting more confident and understanding with me in zone 5.

The big thing I found about today though...I don't know if it was because of my plans, being a better leader, taking care of his confidence...but my draw was really great today!  That was another thing that has been sliding down in the past few sessions.  Cal stopped wanting to come in after circles, after backing out on a yo-yo game, after squeezing over something.  Essentially, my draw was not doing so well.  I ended my session today with Cal coming back from yo-yoing to the end of the 45' line with slack in the rope, and a happy expression on his face.

And I just love it when I take the halter off and my horse is still right there with me.  <3