Happy Natural New Year!!

As we moved into 2012 - it was a natural time to reflect on the previous year and look forward to all that the newness of another year will bring.  A few of us on Parelli Connect and my local playgroup took the time to come up with a list entitled "10 Things" - 10 things we are most proud of accomplished in 2011 and 10 things we are setting as goals for 2012.   While I did post this list on PC on January 1st - I am going to post it again - one would maybe wonder why I find this exercise important enough to post twice ... but my reason is this.  I discovered last year that stating your goals and putting them out into the world for others to see, makes them easier to achieve.  If you have a goal and only you know about it - if it doesn't get accomplished, you can slide it under the rug as if it never existed in the first place!  Stating goals aloud makes me more accountable!   So here it is:

10 Accomplishments from 2011

1.    I can't remember what fear feels like!
2.    I strengthened my existing Parelli friendships and made lots of new friends!
3.    I connected with instructors and a doorway to unlimited opportunities for learning.
4.    I got better with the 45' line and learned how to use it safely.
5.    I rode with Walter Zettl.
6.    I have ridden Tido enough without a bridle that if seems "normal".
7.    I played more at Liberty than ever - not enough to be truly passionate about it, but enough to respect
          why it is an important savvy.
8.    My relationship with my horse was stronger at the end of the year than at the beginning.
9.    I learned I am an RBI (axis point) and that my Humanality isn't a negative condition.
10.  I am right where I should be.

10 Goals for 2012

1.   Work to get proper facilities at home so that my Tido can be just outside my door!
2.   Physical Fitness - improve my balance, flexibility and endurance by being savvy with myself.
3.   Learn from Walter Zettl again!
4.   Ride a flying lead change.
5.   Trailer load, at liberty, while sitting on the roof of the trailer.
6.   Ride an experienced dressage horse to gain a better understanding of how some of these more
        advance movements feel when performed correctly.
7.   Renew my old passion for jumping.
8.   Trail ride regularly with a confident Tido and a confident me.
9.   Start my young Jessie while always having her stay calm and confident.
10. Take advantage of every learning opportunity that comes my way!

Sending out all my best wishes and hopes to everyone for a peaceful, successful and fun filled 2012!

Step off the Path into Silly

How did I get here?  I don't know the exact moment I arrived ... here.   Three years ago, the thought of just walking into the barn would cause me to vomit.  Yep, I was that scared.   Fast forward three years through starting with Parelli, finding my dream horse and taking-the-time-it-takes.  I am now surprised to find I am riding bridleless, taking the first few tentative tries at Liberty spins and getting Tido measured up for his new cradle bridle as we venture into Finesse !  We are loading up and travelling out, considering clinics and seminars I never dreamed of being able to participate in, meeting the most amazing and wonderful people (and their horsey partners).  But the biggest and most prized accomplishment - we are having fun.  Everyday.  Lots and lots of fun. 




  Living in a time that is fast paced and high-tech, it is so easy to lose the fun - in working life and recreational pursuits.  It is easier to postpone fun to another day when you have more time, and less laundry.  But what if everyone decided to have fun everyday?  Even for just 5 minutes?  Just this morning, as I did my morning ritual of watering the plants, the dogs, the horses ... I suddenly dropped the hose and ran to the kid's trampoline for a 10 minute jump-fest!  You can imagine how surpised my 3 kids were, but they recovered quickly, picked up their jaws, and quickly came running to join in.  So we jumped and laughed and laughed.  And its funny how later (when my post-kids bladder started to stage a revolt to the jumping) picking dirty socks off my son's floor didn't seem quite so mundane. 

It is amazing what we can accomplish when we open the door and invite fun into our lives.  In my younger days - my time spent with horses was always fun.  As I venture further down the natural horsemanship path, it becomes easier and easier to recapture some of that silly fun with horses. 
~ its steamy hot out, fill some barn buckets and launch a full out water gun war.  
~ you are sitting on your horse bareback, relaxed and enjoying the day - lay back and put your head on his hindquarter and appreciate at the beautiful blue sky above you.  
~ practice dismounting off the right side, a clumsy landing will have you giggling for sure. 
~ take your horse swimming.  Or canter through the snow bareback!  
~ spectate a clinic, workshop or competition that you have never heard of before. 
~ maybe you have a secret wish to ride with cows - find a way to do it!! 
Whether a big fun goal or just a little bit of silly, how can you add fun into your horse time? For most of us, horses are a hobby.  Any hobby that you devote time, effort and money to - should be fun.  Sometimes all it takes is to step off  the path and just have some plain, old fashioned silly!

The sister to silly fun is the "fun" of acheiving your goals and realizing your dreams! Having goals is necessary to keeping us focused and progressing, but the journey and the acheivement should still be fun!! The other day, I slipped Tido's bridle off for our third official bridle-less ride.  I have gotten over the "holy crap" novelty of seeing my horse's naked face from a mounted perspective but this is still so new to us - I am constantly amazed!  After a short ride that included a considerable amount of trot segments - we headed to the big ball for Tido's favourite playtime.  For the next few minutes we trotted around playing ball - digging it out of corners, swinging his hindquarters around to line up behind it .... and forgot everything else in the exhuberance and enthusiasm of our game.  Like a lightening bolt, that tingly realization hit me - "he doesn't have a bridle on!!!!"   Wow. wow.   And I started to laugh.  How fun was that?!!!

I wish everyone the joy of finding your "fun" in your life and most especially, with your horses!  With it comes a deep satisfaction and a quiet peace that could only be defined as ... happiness.

Road to Walter Update: I have been making positive steps towards my future ride with Walter Zettl. Since arriving home from Parelli Experience camp on May 15th - I have lost 10 lb and am starting to see improvement in my fitness level. I have been focused on acheiving balance in the 4 savvys by improving our Freestyle riding and have tackled some of the early Finesse tasks taught to me by Don Halladay, with regular consistency.   In early August, I will have the opportunity to sit with Walter for one of his teaching days to become accustomed to his teaching style and learn to "hear" his instructions (mental preparedness).

The Road to Walter

I originally dubbed 2011 as my own “Year of a Million Dreams” (thanks to Disney for coining the title back in 2008). Since my Parelli life began, I have a lot of horse-related dreams. A LOT!! So many so, that I get overwhelmed and burdened by the shear volume of things I want to accomplish with my horses. So in an effort to ease the dream burden, I have renamed 2011 as my “Year of 7 Dreams”.  I have broken my dreams into two groups: short term and long term (I know this is pretty high-tech stuff but stay with me ..). Here they are:

Short-Term Dreams (able to be accomplished by Dec 31, 2011)
    1. Learn and execute a ½ barrel jump online.
    2. Ride a flying lead change.
    3. Go on a half day trail ride – relaxed and confident.
    4. Formally audition for the first time.

Long Term Dreams (accomplish sometime between today and someday)
    1. Ride bridleless.
    2. Load Tido while sitting on roof of trailer.
    3. Ride with Walter Zettl.

Simple enough, right?  As 2011 has moved along, logically, I was putting more focus on the short term goals (after all: the deadline for meeting those is much closer!!) and spending very little time on my long term goals. UNTIL ……. I realized that my opportunity to ride with Walter is much closer than expected!! I knew that Todd and Maureen Owens had Walter coming into Ontario several times in 2011. On a whim, I decided to ask for more information about what level Walter expect his students to be at. “Solidly in Level 3” was the answer. My stomach did a flip as I realized – I am in Level 3!  So my nerves kicked into overdrive as I put together my Road(map) to Walter:

Physically Fit
This is my weakest of the 3 “fits”. So I head to a Weight Watchers meeting on Thursday and have immediately added an ambitious (but do-able) physical fitness plan to my schedule (thanks to Michele at www.naturalhorselover.blogspot.com for inspiring me). 

Mentally Fit
This is where I think confidence resides. I am planning to spectate Walter giving a lesson this weekend – to begin preparation for my future ride. I have asked Todd and Maureen to give me an assessment at the Parelli Experience Camp next week to see where my horse and I are in Level 3 and to help me put together a plan to prepare for my ride with Walter. I need to become “solid” in Level 3 and confident in my horse and myself.

Emotionally Fit
This "fitness" is going to be tough. I have had a dream to ride with Walter for a very long time – even before Parelli came into my life. Taking dressage lessons in my early twenties, his name coupled with the title “Dressage Master” was prominent in dressage circles. My dream to ride with him is on par with dining with the Queen and meeting Tom Cruise. A dream, but not likely to happen. So as the reality that my Walter dream is now an actual possibility, I quickly realized that I need to remove the stars from my eyes and learn to get my sweaty palms under control. I need to not be overwhelmed by his Master-ness in order to make use of every minute of his teaching! The answer is prior and proper preparation – … gulp!!

So my Road to Walter begins with the estimated accomplishment date moved from “someday” to October 2011 – May 2012!! I know that as I work on my 3 Fitnesses the lingering doubts of “Can I really do this?” will disappear and my dream will be reality. Watch for my Road to Walter updates ….

Seeing Perfection Years Later

Last week I had a light bulb moment when reading Linda Parelli's blog post entitled Things Change written November 11, 2010.  Linda's writings, "I believe that life is perfect, and is unfolding exactly as it should.  I have learned through experience that you don't see the perfection of what occurs until many years later..."  gave me the opportunity to see something I have instinctively always known, put into words.  I have always believed that things happen for a reason - good, bad or otherwise.  But sometimes reflecting on the path that leads us to today, makes the journey more clear!

Way, way back in 1992, at the tender age of 20, I was horseless.  Being horseless for an obsessed horse-lover-since-birth is a very difficult situation to find oneself in.  But University education left little time, or money, for my passion and I had to make do without.  Arriving home during my second year for Christmas break, Dec 23rd found me hearing about a horse that I must "go see" from a neighbouring horseman.  Giving this suggestion no thought at all - I carried on with my day.  That night - I found myself bolt upright in bed awoken from a deep sleep with one thought - I had to go see this horse!!  I anxiously waited 4 days for my appointment to see a horse I knew very little about; a 4 year old bay thoroughbred gelding off the track,  abandoned by his owners at a holding facility, for sale for the price of his outstanding board.  With a whole lot of luck and fate intervening - I brought Charlie home Dec 27th.  From our very first ride - he taught me about trust and together we looked after each other.   He was my perfect partner in every sense and we had a wonderful 11 years together. 

Charlie  1989-2004

On March 5th, 2004, my horse world blew apart.  At that time, Charlie was stabled at my parent's barn as I had three very small children and precious little time for daily horse care.  After having a horribly, restless sleep that Saturday night, I found myself the next morning watching the clock until it was an appropriate hour to call my parents house (completely out of character for me I can assure you).   I knew instantly upon hearing my Mom's wavering voice say "Hello?" that tragedy had struck.  We had had a quick thaw that week and Charlie had been running around the paddock with typical spring sillies.  That fateful day, his hind leg had sunk deep in the mud and as he spun to gallop back up the field, he broke his leg above the hock.   Thankfully, my dad discovered him soon after and quickly made the decision to put him out of his pain.  At just 16 years of age, my best friend was gone.   For the next 365 days, I didn't have horses in my life - at all.  I couldn't continue without my partner and couldn't bring myself to consider the possibility that I would ever find another perfect partner for me. 

But my old friend the "horse bug",  bit again about a year after Charlie's death and after much research, I purchased the appaloosa gelding who became the stepping stone for me discovering Parelli.   One of my goals when shopping for another horse - was to purchase one that was not a bay thoroughbred gelding.   My tender heart couldn't handle the reminder of what I had lost.  The next four years were very difficult and subconsciously, I expected this young appy to fill some pretty big shoes.  In hindsight, an unfair expectation for him.  For the first time in my horsey life, I learned some harsh lessons about fear and for the second time in my life, my lifelong passion for horses was almost lost to me.  But Parelli came along at exactly the right moment!   Parelli (and watching Linda's lesson with Walter Zettle in Harristburg, PA in 2009) helped me decide that without trust - we weren't ever going to be perfect partners.  I took a risk,  found a wonderful new home for my appy and began the search for my perfect partner.  Could I find two perfect partners in the same lifetime?

The picture that brought Tido into my life!  May 2009

This is where my story becomes a happily-ever-after.  Tido's beautiful bald white face appeared on my computer screen one day just hours after selling my appy,  in a Horse For Sale ad resulting from me accidently striking an incorrect key on my keyboard.   Deja vu kicked in and I found myself on a familiar path - I had to see this horse!!  I waited 4 anxious days for my appointment time to arrive - praying that he wouldn't be sold in the meantime (hhmm sounding familiar?).  May 27, 2009 I sat on a strange horse, in a strange saddle, in a strange barn, with his owner watching, and instantly felt an old friend surface - trust.  Mutual trust.  I was home.  My broken heart  began to heal that day as Tido travelled home with me.   He has been my perfect partner since that day forward.   And the irony of it all - Tido's birthday is ... March 2004.  

So I, too, believe that life is perfect, unfolding exactly as it should.  And I didn't, or couldn't see it, until many years later.  It takes a lot of confidence to get you through those tragic times, but they are as much a part of the journey as the good times.   Without the heartbreak and pain, I wouldn't be where I am today - finding true joy in my horse obsession, having more fun than I ever thought possible and achieving things I never dared to even dream about.  Looking back, it is now easy to see how perfect the path was that led me to today.