Things I have learned from L2 FTR Pattern
For the past week or so, I have been playing with the L2 Follow the Rail Pattern with Gunny. Some interesting things came up. Gunny got very impulsive and emotional with this pattern. Throughout the week, I tried different things until I found the right combo that worked.
At first Gunny seemed over-reactive to my leg, so we spent a couple of sessions doing a lot of desensitizing to Zone 3, with my legs while at a halt and also at a walk, trot, and lope. Mainly walk and trot--lope is a little hard.
Then the next thing that I addressed is the idea that anticipation is good, but taking over is not desirable in our relationships with our horses. I mainly used Karen Rohlf's exercise of backing the horse up each time it feels like the back up isn't right there. My addition to this exercise was that I kept Gunny backing UNTIL he softened and then we stopped and waited for a lip lick.
Then the next thing that came up was that Gunny did NOT want to follow the rail. He was willing to follow the rail in a general way, but not in the precise way that I was asking. I was being particular about straightness as well as the distance off of the rail that I wanted to be. Mainly he kept wanting to put his inside shoulder further towards the center. It didn't matter which way I was going, but he wanted to carry that shoulder in. So every time I would ask him to keep his shoulder straight, he would get emotional and impulsive. This meant that we needed to have a discussion about "one leg means move a body part over, one leg does not mean go faster".
Also during this session we were still dealing with impulsiveness whenever I started asking for more frequent transitions. I tried many things during this session. The couple of things that worked best were mirroring him with my body and one rein (if he trotted stiff and tense, then I made my body match his and put a pretty stiff and tense feeling on the rein, when he softened, I softened). Also, separating each moment to be about only one thing worked well too. I added this in during the cool down portion of the session, so really only started to play with the idea.
After this session, I think that Gunny really just cannot believe that I am being this particular about following the rail, especially freestyle. He isn't overly happy about handing that level of control to me, or the effort of thinking about his responsibilities that this is causing. We are also riding the figure-8 right now and I noticed that Gunny tries to make the circles a different size than the size I am trying to make. Mainly he kept wanting to make the circles smaller. So I said, "if you want to make the circles this small on this half of the figure 8, then we need to make them that small on the other half too." After a couple of laps of that, he started to use himself better and to pay more attention to me.
By the end of the session today, I felt like Gunny was finally getting it that I wanted him to stay on the rail.
The final session during this week went much better. I mainly used my technique of "in this moment we are doing x" and "now in this moment we are doing "y". We had very little impulsiveness or emotional stuff, even after asking for a couple of upward transitions and then wanting to stay in a slower gait. That has been the area that would cause difficulty, so this was a very good change.
During this final session, one other thing that I added also was to really emphasize the shifts of my weight to indicate the gait that I wanted. For me, this meant that for a walk it felt almost like I was leaning forward but I really wasn't to the onlooker. Then for a trot I would sit back a bit and for the canter a bit more.
At first Gunny seemed over-reactive to my leg, so we spent a couple of sessions doing a lot of desensitizing to Zone 3, with my legs while at a halt and also at a walk, trot, and lope. Mainly walk and trot--lope is a little hard.
Then the next thing that I addressed is the idea that anticipation is good, but taking over is not desirable in our relationships with our horses. I mainly used Karen Rohlf's exercise of backing the horse up each time it feels like the back up isn't right there. My addition to this exercise was that I kept Gunny backing UNTIL he softened and then we stopped and waited for a lip lick.
Then the next thing that came up was that Gunny did NOT want to follow the rail. He was willing to follow the rail in a general way, but not in the precise way that I was asking. I was being particular about straightness as well as the distance off of the rail that I wanted to be. Mainly he kept wanting to put his inside shoulder further towards the center. It didn't matter which way I was going, but he wanted to carry that shoulder in. So every time I would ask him to keep his shoulder straight, he would get emotional and impulsive. This meant that we needed to have a discussion about "one leg means move a body part over, one leg does not mean go faster".
Also during this session we were still dealing with impulsiveness whenever I started asking for more frequent transitions. I tried many things during this session. The couple of things that worked best were mirroring him with my body and one rein (if he trotted stiff and tense, then I made my body match his and put a pretty stiff and tense feeling on the rein, when he softened, I softened). Also, separating each moment to be about only one thing worked well too. I added this in during the cool down portion of the session, so really only started to play with the idea.
After this session, I think that Gunny really just cannot believe that I am being this particular about following the rail, especially freestyle. He isn't overly happy about handing that level of control to me, or the effort of thinking about his responsibilities that this is causing. We are also riding the figure-8 right now and I noticed that Gunny tries to make the circles a different size than the size I am trying to make. Mainly he kept wanting to make the circles smaller. So I said, "if you want to make the circles this small on this half of the figure 8, then we need to make them that small on the other half too." After a couple of laps of that, he started to use himself better and to pay more attention to me.
By the end of the session today, I felt like Gunny was finally getting it that I wanted him to stay on the rail.
The final session during this week went much better. I mainly used my technique of "in this moment we are doing x" and "now in this moment we are doing "y". We had very little impulsiveness or emotional stuff, even after asking for a couple of upward transitions and then wanting to stay in a slower gait. That has been the area that would cause difficulty, so this was a very good change.
During this final session, one other thing that I added also was to really emphasize the shifts of my weight to indicate the gait that I wanted. For me, this meant that for a walk it felt almost like I was leaning forward but I really wasn't to the onlooker. Then for a trot I would sit back a bit and for the canter a bit more.
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