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One Step Back, Two Steps Forward
Mind Games!

In her book Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want, Barbara Sher has some great ideas about how to move ahead.  One of them: every day do something that moves you ahead.  every day.  

And if you find you're not moving ahead, break down the item for the day into something smaller.  Why?  The fact you're not doing it means it's too big!   (Like today's item of 'find babysitter' might become 4 days of items: 'call neighbor' 'get reference/number' 'call number' 'think on it.') 

So, I finally caved.

I wanted to think 'Canter Tammy today' was a bite-size, doable. chunk.  

Nope.

I will skip how many days I kept telling myself it was a bite-size, doable. chunk.  

Just to make it credible, every now and again I actually would canter her.   And I would live.  I would pat myself on the back, itch her neck, kudos all around.  And then the next day I would start the internal dialogue all over again - 'no need for the round pen .... we can ride in the ring...  we did fine with the wind... we did fine with the doggies ... it's hot enough...   well, tomorrow we'll do it for sure...'

blah blah blah.

We're running out of summer here!  I need to get this horse to the point of where canter is totally 'o la - big whoop!'  

So I caved.

I called in a safety net.  And I took step back.

I now have a live person that is walking out to the picadero and standing there while I *actually* canter the horse.  No excuses.  Wind blowing, dogs in the bushes, neighbor doing God only knows what...  (seriously, what *is* he doing?!)

What's the deal?  Do the panels help her stay calm?  Do they help me stay calm?  Does this person (who knows next to nothing about horses) ... do what for me?  Hold me to my word?  Like, I made them walk out there, now I better do it?  Kind of like, I'm in an exercise class with 20 other people, I better do my crunches!?  They're watching!  (?!)

So I suck it up.  I set her up, I set myself up, I push the button, we canter, life is fabulous.  

(WTH!)

OK - to cut myself some slack, I ride bareback and the problem is not going *into* the canter, it's coming out of it.  Or rather, what might happen before we get out of it.  Yesterday my person was probably thinking I was pretty nuts - when it looks good it looks totally good, until I was leading her back into the barn and she startled in the stall.   The same one we were in earlier, btw.  Over what?  uh... the clod of dirt?  the shadow?  a leave twitching in the paddock?  Who knows!  That's the thing with this horse.

Ryan Gingerich (Beyond a Whisper: Training Horses with a New Language from the Behaviorist) is big on four times.  Do it four times and be done.  The horse doesn't need to get drilled.  Jim McCall is similar.  Don't put your horse to sleep!  Get in, get out, get done.

So we've done the 'magical fours,' but I'm not quite ready to head back out to the arena with killer chickens, killer trees, killer sand....  So my new plan is: five more days in the 'padded bubble room,' four times each lead.  Then re-evaluate.

Books: Amazon Assoc. / Old Favs

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"The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities." 

~ James Allen