I have managed to get back into some of the study materials this week. I’ve been going back over the self-mastery section in the fundamentals module as I think I need to revise this material. Hard to find the energy though as there’s a lot of stuff going on at work and it’s been wet and dark all the time.

I have booked a lesson and transport for Dino with Roz in three weeks though! Looking forward to getting some in person help and hopefully getting moving again. We need to arrange that clinic at home for April as well and then maybe we’ll get some proper progress but at least I feel like I’m taking some steps forward. Now just to pray he gets on the lorry….!

…it’s been such a nightmare week I’ve had no time to get into the studying at all. Go me.

Ok, I’ll admit it….we are on a plateau. And I think the problem is my brain more than the pony or anything really to do with straightness training. Things are massively stressful for me at work at the moment and that stress is running over into all kinds of other things. This is not helpful for horse training.

My plan for the next month is to revise the early modules or the Mastery course and see the new material that has been added and revisit the other stuff. Hopefully this will help us have a BINGO moment. I would like to get him to a clinic next month in Benfleet but, as ever, transport is our nemesis!

I would like to get that longeing touchstone re-filmed. Perhaps Liz can do it in February when she visits. Would be nice to get that off my mind. Then I think I might start work on liberty stuff at least once per week and try and rebuild some trust. I did have a fairly good session of LFS on a circle last week so hopefully we can start building from there again but I think both our confidence has taken a knock for various things.

Right. Well, didn’t get through the plan as hoped but I did learn some things in my laboratory!

Masterson:
– Dino loves the bladder meridian and responds to it well. We get a lot of release, particularly in the areas David identified as being tight
– The lateral cervical flexion is not so easy though. He finds it a bit unnerving and I’m struggling to get him to relax into it. So I think we’ll keep trying with that again this week and see if we can make some headway once he gets more used to it.

ST:
– I think his saddle is making his back sore which is not helping much! We did manage some LFS down a long side without too much push so the longeing is maybe coming a bit? It’s really hard to tell.
– Free-schooling in a non-ST way is helping get him looser and build up some fitness

Plan for this week:
Focus again on:
– longeing touchstone (LO01)
– Masterson: neck release technqiue

Monday: Masterson/ST longeing
Tuesday: day off (OLYMPIA)
Wednesday: Masterson/ST longeing
Thursday: Loose schooling
Saturday: Masterson/ST longeing
Sunday: Hack

Nothing like committing words to ‘paper’ to help keep you on track, no? So. Let’s set a plan each week and then see where we get to?

Focus for this week:
– longeing touchstone (LO01)
– Masterson: neck release technqiue

Monday: Masterson/ST longeing
Tuesday: Ridden polework
Wednesday: Masterson/ST longeing
Thursday: Loose schooling
Saturday: Masterson/ST longeing
Sunday: Hack if time

ST structure:
– work on forward down and stelling
– LFS on a small circle each way
– LFS on a straight line each way [aware of pushiness!!]
– LFS onto a larger circle
– Stopping on a circle

Always right, then left, then right rein to stetch out that lower spine issue.

I’ve been a bit off the whole ST thing recently. Work and home have been stressful and we have some issues we need to sort out that are difficult and I feel like I need to be in the right headspace for. I’ve been struggling a lot myself, with anxiety and the edges of depression which does not make for good horse training!

I went to Marlborough yesterday for a ST social organised by Elaine Coxon. It was really nice and has started me thinking about next year and what we want to do and achieve. There are two things I feel hanging over me a bit at the moment: resubmiting that longeing touchstone and cracking the pushiness. He’s been a bit better since David saw him and he’s using his hind legs a bit better but I feel like we’ve plateaued and need a push to get moving again. Doesn’t help that I don’t have anyone to film us easily but I really need to have a crack at that longeing before Christmas I think.

I’ve been trying to put the stuff we discussed with Roz into practice this week and I confess I’m finding this very frustrating. So he’s also finding this frustrating. I’m really trying to drill the ‘one step at a time’ into him to get rid of his pushy behaviour but he’s really pushing back against it at the moment. He was very inattentive to me and a bit spooky in the dark most of the week so I tried today in the daylight and although I did get a couple of steps it was an effort.

I’m a bit worried there might be an issue with his left hip. He was a bit off on it after his trim yesterday and kept asking the trimmer to put his foot down when she was trimming his right hind. He’s not lame, but there might be something not quite right. Osteopath is out soon so I’ll get him to take a look. Meanwhile we’ll be back at trying to take the push out of everything….

Going to try and find some time to lunge/free school this week and get him moving a bit more in addition to the ST. Maybe a bit of variety might help us sort all this out!

Sunday morning 7am found me in the car headed down to Sussex to see Liz and TP and get a lesson from Roz Richmond.

I borrowed the lovely Jack pony who has done a little but not much ST work to get some new ideas about how to improve myself.

Photo credit to Roz.

The lesson was quite helpful. As was watching Liz’s lesson with TP who has some similar issues to Dino. Eliminating the push is the key thing for Dino at the moment and it was good to see the ‘one step at a time’ approach in action. I gave it a go with Dino later and he wasn’t very impressed at the ‘new normal’! It was also useful to play with HI with Jack a bit: I need to keep the hand on the cavesson for that and make sure the horse is moving with some momentum before asking for the bend but can’t do any of that until we’ve got rid of the push.

So I think it was worthwhile to have a session with Jack to get some things ironed out but I would really like to have a lesson with Dino at some point. Need to work out how to make that happen really.

Plan for this week then, is to work on ‘one step at a time’ and try and get him stepping under a bit more. Interesting comment about his hind leg needing to be almost in the middle of his front legs when he steps through which it isn’t at the moment.

It’s been a challenging week on the straightness training front and I’m trying to get my head in the right place to go forward. I’ve gone right back to the start and am revisiting the standstill exercises, to try and iron out the resistance that we’re encountering. It’s a challenge.

I’ve reintroduced treats for ‘good trys’ but this means the nipping is back. I’m hoping to get rid of the nipping by basically not putting any pressure on but it’s difficult not to escalate when he tries to nip. I need to him to go back to thinking this is easy though as I think he’s stressed about the prospect of the harder work we’ve been doing even when we start with the easy stuff. Too much time in the ‘stretch’ zone I think so back to the comfort zone for a bit.

I’m having a lesson with Roz Richmond on Sunday in Sussex with a borrowed pony so it will be interesting to see what she makes of my technique and have a chat about this issue.

We didn’t get as much ST done this week as hoped due to work commitments getting in the way. Boo. Today’s session wasn’t great though and I’m having a ‘we’re never going to do this’ moment. He’s very distracted when I try and work with him and quite resistant, even in the standstill exercises. There were other horses about a lesson in the other school but there’s often *something*. I can get him to engage better if I use treats….but then he nips. He was really stuck in zimmer frame mode today as well. Trying to eliminate the ‘push’ in other work seems to mean he backed off completely with everything.

All seems very hard and I’m not sure he’s enjoying it. Maybe we need to go right back to the start and do standstill stuff with treats again and then work on our LFS?