Lesson Plan Workshop: Define Obstacles Part 2
This week we will continue to explore potential obstacles.
For this week's exercise, spend some time thinking about a goal that you have been unable to achieve with your horse in the past. Some questions to consider are:
Once you have answered the questions above and thought about the goal that you were unable to accomplish compare and contrast the answers that you wrote for each week. Do you notice any differences in the emotions and feelings you felt, the strategies you used, how you dealt with obstacles in each situation, or anything else that seems important? Make note of these things.
Next week we will use all of this information to start writing a Lesson Plan.
Feel free to post your findings in the comments section. If you have any questions post them there and I will do my best to answer them.
For this week's exercise, spend some time thinking about a goal that you have been unable to achieve with your horse in the past. Some questions to consider are:
- What strategies were you using as you attempted to accomplish this goal?
- Why were you unable to accomplish it?
- When you encountered obstacles, what did you do?
- What did you learn about yourself and/or your horse in the process?
- As you were working on achieving this goal, what emotions and feelings did you experience?
Once you have answered the questions above and thought about the goal that you were unable to accomplish compare and contrast the answers that you wrote for each week. Do you notice any differences in the emotions and feelings you felt, the strategies you used, how you dealt with obstacles in each situation, or anything else that seems important? Make note of these things.
Next week we will use all of this information to start writing a Lesson Plan.
Feel free to post your findings in the comments section. If you have any questions post them there and I will do my best to answer them.
Comments
A goal that I have been unable to accomplish with Gunny so far is to do multiple, bridleless walk to canter transitions consistently and calmly.
The reason that I have been unable to accomplish the goal is that Gunny gets emotional and tense when I ask for more than one walk-canter-walk transition in a row.
The strategies that I have used to try to accomplish this goal include: doing multiple walk-canter transitions in an effort to get him used to them, using patterns to consistently ask at the same spots to help him understand, waiting until he is calm before asking for another one, riding with shorter reins to show him what I want and then lengthening the reins to work towards bridleless, and probably many others I am not remembering right now.
The main obstacle that we encountered in regards to this goal is that Gunny gets emotional and tight. He anticipates and hurries. Another obstacle has been saddle fit.
I guess that the main thing I have learned is that behaving insanely--that is practicing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is different from being persistent.
As far as emotions and feelings go, the main emotion is frustration that I can't get the idea across that I want to get across.
To compare and contrast my successfully achieved goal with my unsuccessfully achieved goal, I think that the biggest difference is that for my successful goal, I was very step by step and worked to make each little step solid and understood before moving onto the next. For my unsuccessful goal, I fell into the trap of trying to "do the thing" over and over until it worked. For me and Gunny, when we are working step-by-step and achieving understanding at each one before moving on, learning is fast, fun, and easy. When we are going down the wrong road things get frustrating. Also when dealing with the obstacle of Gunny's emotions, I had a tendency to try to get him to not feel the emotions by trying to desensitize him to the thing causing the emotions rather than figuring out why he was emotional and dealing with the pieces of that.
The strategies I have used are just going for walks alone and seeing where Java gets tense and working through that area showing that we are okay to continue on.
I believe we are unable to accomplish this goal because deep down inside I have this feeling that Java will get excited and I will not be able to stop her feet to get off and then I will get dumped. I know I should not feel this way because there is alway emergency dismount, but in circumstances like this I get nervous which does not help when Java and I are trying to work through in issue.
When I have ridden and Java got tight and nervous, I learned to listen to myself and not to just try to get java to quit... because now that I am listening and paying attention to me I figured out that I am being the same way Java is.
Some emotions and feeling that i felt while Java and I were both out of control mentally and of course physically were angry because Java was acting the way she was (this was before I realized I was acting the same way). Now that I realize how Java was mimicking my emotions I am going for walks with her on the ground where I am more comfortable because I can do anything to get her undercontrol. The few walks I have done I have learned that Java has set off this nervous emotions in me, she has been the one getting emotional first... well at least that is how the walks have been going.
First we practiced on the ground. Then tried it in the saddle and we didn't get it. So I went back to the ground and worked on moving his front and then his back, then his front, then his back and so on. We tried in the saddle again just moving the front and then the back, etc. So then I moved on to trying his whole body going sideways in the saddle and we couldn't get it. So I went back to the ground.
I couldn't figure out where to place my leg and how to situate my body to help Boogs understand what I want. We are still confused and I have to think some more about how to help him understand.
Whenever there was an obstacle I had to go back to the ground and sometimes I had to let it go a few days and try to figure out in my head what to do.
I got very frustrated and started trying different ways to move him one right after another if one way didn't work which ended up confusing him even more. I found I wasn't giving him time to think about what I wanted and confusing the heck out of him. Boogs tried so hard to please me.
I was mad and then frustrated but in the end learned that I was mad at myself and not Boogs because he really was trying.