Special Anniversary: Lesson with Meggie Allen for May

I had a lesson with Meggie Allen, as the creative title suggests. It is the last day of May. Also today is a special anniversary. A year ago today was the deadline for the Red Hot Early Bird Savings price of $4495 for the July 4th-29th 2011 Fast Track course. A year ago today, I secured my place in that fast track, taking my first step off the beaten path; my first step into the wilderness of the creative unknown. It was scary and exhilarating doing something someone like me had no business doing. . .

Because I injured my back, I did not want to ride during my lesson, and because it was so hot, I did not want to have Blu cantering a ton. So, I settled on working on our sideways game with Meggie. I got to the farm at 2 pm, an hour before my lesson, but various things led to me only grazing with Blu for 30 minutes, no warm up. So, when Meggie arrived, I had a fresh Blu.

We put on her Natural Performer saddle and it fit Blu great, though he needed one more shim in the front. While I played with him, he acted like he didn't have a saddle on at all.

After showing Meggie the rough idea of our hindquarter yields in motion on the ground, we put on the 45' line and began playing with sideways to and from me with my feet staying still. Here are the important notes Meggie suggested or commended me for:

• have a focus to go sideways to. If you cut the distance in half, move yourself closer to the focus.
• if a dominant brace happens, wait wait and wait for the give then halve the distance and begin again
• if the hq is lagging as he comes sideways to you, when he gets to you, start backing up, having him continue to come along sideways until he evens out (then rest).
• aim for maintaining sideways without the stick so you can use two hands to gently feed out the rope
• using the fence to help the horse come sideways toward you with horse parallel to the fence sets you up for success if there is ever a time when your horse is confused or not coming toward you
• if your horse is dominate about not coming toward you sideways, you can drive him sideways to a fence and ask again for him to come toward me
• Driving problem is when the hq or fq lags- fix the driving game by working on driving the fq or hq
• YoYo problem is when the horse is going forward instead of sideways- fix by continually putting the horse back into alignment and/or isolating the yoyo
• once your horse is confident, you can go to phase 4 if necessary when asking the horse to come toward you

I asked Meggie about the time it took me to get Blu's respect. Things are always different when I am in front of people because I don't think as quickly. The things I need to keep close to the front of my mind is that it's okay to say that I need a response now, not later. That means effective phase 4 when needed. It was a good talk.

Riding around on the NP at the end was a joy and was ended when I felt my back start hurting. I told Meggie about my tree climbing mount up while I rode.

It was a nice lesson for me. It was about respect/dominance.

Natural Horsewoman Out.