What a great start to our Immersion Week! I am thrilled to be working with such a great group of people and horses for the next five days! I can’t tell you how much fun it is to work with people who are committed to improving their relationship with their horse. There is no need to explain or convince these folks, “they are HUNGRY!”
We started the day with a pledge to our horse of the four agreements. If you have taken any of my courses, you will remember these which are borrowed from Don Ruiz and modified for horses… “I pledge to be impeccable with my word and action with my horse. I pledge to not take anything from my horse personally. I pledge not to make assumptions about my horse or what he may or may not know. And I pledge to always do my best with my horse.”
As the day progressed, and through observation and discussions about the horses, it became clear how assumptions so easily get in our way and impede our progress. My favorite AHA on this was “I assumed I did not have assumptions!” That has to be the “mack daddy” of assumptions, but is so easy to do! It took a lot of self introspection and honesty to realize this and guts to admit it. The changes that will come from this will be huge, both for the person and the horse.
[slideshow]
Working Themes of the Day: 1) How reading parts of the body can give so much information- as seen in the above photo, this horse is “tight lipped” and has something to say. Watching for changes in this will give hints to the rider that the horse is making a change. 2) The importance of working horses on both sides, especially the “off” or right side-AHA of the day on this was that horses have to learn things on each side, horses do not transfer what they learn on one side to the other. Thus, many people today were working on the horse’s right side to “fill in some holes” in their ground work.
Such good stuff! Can’t wait for tomorrow!