I was able to watch my Calm Ride and Freestyle Patterns yesterday. I LOVED them. And am so excited to have these new arrows in my quiver. I'll definitely have to watch them again. But today I'll be checking out Finesse and Natural Collection.
All the riding portions, especially in level 3, remind me so much of my first "natural horsemanship" lessons I took several years ago before I found Parelli. Only now that I have filled in the gaps and know the foundation and psychology side of why it all works, it is so much more exciting and makes so much more sense. I think my timing and progress will increase greatly because of it. I'm SOOOO excited to be "re-doing" what I have already done with such a better understanding of why I'm doing it.
I played with Tucker yesterday reminding myself of his low motivation and boredness with the roundpen. So I placed grain in little piles all over the property and sent him from point to point. All of a sudden he was offering a trot with ears forward and looking for what I'm sending him to. I asked for the lope, and though he had a hard time picking up the left lead, he was very round and collected. So I allowed him a few strides before rewarding with a stop. Sometimes he is not very physically coordinated -- I don't know yet if it's his mind or something else, so we'll play with it. I think we'll work in figure 8 today and try to pick up a nice easy lope again.