Far Removed

Today was check-in day for Fast Track 5. My roommates and I got there early to feed our horses, of course. I gave Blu a good S&C bath (shampoo and conditioner). Blu was already getting excited from the environment, but I was the unflappable leader and he calmed down.

Then it was just a lot of sitting around and greeting the new fast trackers. I did my best to project confidence and easy-going-ness for them, and I think it worked because during the theory and tool savvy testing there was a good calm about everyone. I didn't feel like anyone was really panicking, including myself. Fast Track #5 day one was so far removed from the experience of that of Fast Track #4.

Let me back us up a bit to Orientation. Lee Palmer started us out because Ryan was on his way in from the air port after participating in the Mustang Taming event in Reno, Nevada. Ryan spoke about his experience in the event. He said there were too many ropes on the first day, but apparently everyone got really far with their horses. Ryan ended with mounting his mustang at liberty, but he said that he did not go in with a plan to do that. Like anything truly Parelli, he just put the relationship with the horse first, not the relationship with his ego or the customer. His mustang went from RBE to LBI after the first day. With a mustang (and any horse), once the human has the horse's attention, the most important maneuver for the horse to master is the stand still during stimulus. Another challenge was that once he had two eyes, it was hard to get just one eye. The example he shared was that when he was progressing to zone 2-3, the horse was standing still but actually keeping Ryan in zone 1 by turning his head to him. Ryan realized that the mustang was actually not accepting him in the other zones when he was releasing for the stand still. So, Ryan began to release when the horse truly accepted him in the other zones by standing still AND keeping his head straight. Ryan shared several experiences from the event and I think several of us are going to go in on buying the webcast to watch together this weekend.

Next, Ryan talked about his history with horses. Some of the most important lessons he learned were to put the relationship with the horse before that of the customer and making a game out of everything, something easier said than done for many humans.

Ryan's goals for us as fast trackers are

1. Become puzzle solvers
2. Make it a game(s)- this means that you have to have a picture of what to release on.
3. Win the game(s)

Here are some Ryanisms for the day:

• It's okay to have a happy horse that can't do anything; it's extremely difficult to have a horse that can do anything and be happy about it.
• Tight on tight is not right (ths is referring to the horse and rider being tight and we as learners are responsible for making the instructors aware of any tightness)
• I 'should' on myself (this is referring to when Ryan told himself that he "should" be able to do something with a horse, causing unnecessary pressure on himself and the horse)

After dinner I played with Blu on the 45' line in the 100' round pen. I focused on draw with the trot to me game and the yo yo then played the circling game.