Day 8 - Conquering the Green Ball

One of the neat things about taking a course at the Parelli Center is access to the playgrounds and the toys that most people don't have at home. Among the more interesting of the toys is a gigantic green ball. One of the tasks we had to perform during on-line testing was to put the ball on our horse's back for seven seconds and then to bounce it on his back seven times. We had two minutes to perform this task.
At home, Sonny and I have played with the kind of exercise ball you would fine in most gyms. Our ball is about 36 inches in diameter and Sonny is fine with it on his back. I have bounced it off most parts of his body and he is pretty blasé about it. But the green Parelli ball has to be at least 72" in diameter and I couldn't figure out how to pick it up to get it on Sonny's back. After a few attempts, I finally started bouncing it up high enough to get it in my arms but I wasn't successful in the time allowed. Sonny stood there looking pretty disinterested while I was grappling with the ball. I was pretty sure if I could have gotten it up, he would have let me put it on his back.
I wanted another crack at the green ball but I didn't see it anywhere so I was excited today when I spotted one of our instructors bringing it out to the playground this morning. I got Sonny on his lead line and walked him over to the ball. He sniffed out it and then looked away. I started bouncing it, which caused no reaction in Sonny. It took me about a dozen tries but I finally was able to balance the ball between my arms and my head. The key, I learned, was take off my hat (the bill was causing a problem) and to tilt my head to the side to form a tripod with my arms. I carried the ball over to Sonny, but he scooted a few steps sideways before I was able to lift the ball to his back. Once I did, he stood there like a champ with this giant green ball sitting on his back. I know it is just a simple thing but I felt really good when I finally figured out how to pick up that ball.
The classroom session on day eight was devoted to the idea of leadership and what we needed to do in order to be a leader for our horses. John Barr gave a very interesting and entertaining presentation. He told us that our horse will give us instant feedback when we do something they find annoying and he encouraged us to make sure we give our horses feedback. Horses live in the moment and for us to be effective, we need to live in the moment with them. John finished his talk on leadership by asking us to consider three questions. 1. What caused us to be interested in horses to begin with. 2. What kept us in horses. 3. What kind of a leader did we want to be for our horses.
Wednesday's afternoon riding lesson was a marathon session that lasted almost until dark. We rode for 3 1/2 hours, rotating among stations where we worked on a number of different freestyle riding tasks including the “follow the rail pattern“, the sideways game, the bow tie pattern and the circling game. Our instructors are working hard to make sure that we understand how to use our seat and legs to communicate with our horses so that when we get to finesse riding, or reins can be used to shape the horse’s body. I am still working on this concept and while Sonny is getting more responsive to my seat and leg, I know I have not yet mastered the independent seat that is required for the communication I need with Sonny. More than once during the lesson, I found myself lifting the reins top quickly to stop or turn Sonny. The concept is fairly simple to understand but difficult to execute, especially after years of depending on the reins for control.
But the time we had rotated through all of the groups, the sun was setting and there was a definite chill in the air. It was a tired group of students that unsaddled and cared for our horses in the dark and after a dinner of Cajun style fish that was, like all of the meals we have been served, incredibly tasty, I dragged myself home, took a shower and crawled into bed still thinking about what kind of a leader I wanted to be for my horse.