Following A Feel

Today I got a great lesson in "following a feel." Flyboy did, too, but I think I may have learned the most. Marleen did a wonderful job helping me to see what it means for a horse to follow a feel rather than to be driven into it. I really think this was a timely lesson for me. Fly does not always follow a feel which is why he tends to pull back against pressure at times. I will be working on this with him a bunch these next few weeks. This is a difficult concept to describe in words. It's about feel. About energy. About bring down the energy. About letting Fly figure out the right thing, and about "making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult but not impossible."

After a short session on the ground, I saddled up and we worked on very similar things from his back-- following a feel. He actually did quite well and showed marked improvement even within our short lesson. He did show resistance again going to the right a few times; something is bothering him and I need to get that figured out. Saddle or pad or soreness somewhere? I'm not sure, but since I know my saddle pad situation with the treeless saddle is not ideal, I'll start there and see what I can get fixed up for him. I also need to get longer reins--more like dig them out as I'm sure there are some lurking around here somewhere.

The cool thing about this lesson is that it put Fly into a frame of mind to load in the trailer without any of the significant anxiety I have seen the last few days due to the incident we experienced a week ago. (I'm sure this has to do with the frame of mind I was in, as well.) I sent him into the trailer, let him come out again, sent him in, let him back out, sent him in, asked him to stay in, backed him out, sent him in and closed the slant panel. He was quiet throughout, calm, relaxed, and did not fidget. I tied his lead from the outside just in case he tried to turn his head, but he showed no sign of unease. Wow. Wow. 


I have homework: get longer reins, change/fix the saddle pad, expose him to different situations (i.e. get him down to the arena when other riders/ropers are there), and bring a couple of old tires to my next lesson. (I have plans for Monday to begin our equine soccer fun with a couple of friends so that should help with the new situations exposure.)