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May. 23rd, 2005 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickHad a good day today with Cass and Chelsea. We talked about theory for sidepassing. (Ask front of horse to move right. Ask back of horse to move right. Do both at the same time, and horse should go sideways to the right.) We tested the sidepassing theory to see if it worked. Did it? Damn skippy. Leastaways, it did on NickNick, who had, heretofore, never been asked to sidepass under a rider. But I did the ask thing and the horse went sideways. Cass was impressed. Me, I knew Nick goes sideways nicely when I ask her from the ground so I figured she'd be smart enough to figure it out right quick with me on her. She did. It was a very minimal gamble on my part. :)
I put Nick away and we talked about why I didn't make Nick do it AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN... the idea is not to make the horse wonder if she's doing it right or not or to get her so damn tired of it that she doesn't want to do it anymore. Get a little bit good, there, and call it a day on a good note. You can try again tomorrow.
After that bit of theory work, I had Cass and Chelsea work on backing up some more. Yesterday we did two steps in a row, so today we did better than that. (Recall that Chelsea knows how to back up.) Today, we worked on simulated trail class obstacles... the first thing we did was a parallel line setup (using 4x4 boards for the 'lines') where you ride through the parallel lines and then back up out the way you came. That's a lot of steps of backing up, seven or eight in a row, and you have to back up straight because knocking the 4x4s is a fault. They did pretty well on that one, slow and easy and smooth. Cass looked good and Chelsea looked pretty damn happy to be there.
Right, then. Up the voltage. Next we built a dog leg backup, which is shaped like a V, kinda, only not so acute an angle. The deal is that you ride in and back out and the challenging part of it is that you have to steer around the dog leg while backing up. Most kids mess this up because they try to steer with the reins and the front of the horse moves around and the 4x4s get trompled and the whole thing goes to hell. The rest of the kids mess up because they steer either too soon or too late and the 4x4s get trompled and the whole thing goes to hell. Failing at the dog leg backup was one of the seminal incidents for this whole little project here. (The other was the sidepass obstacle. Cass wants to do sidepassing RIGHT NOW and she can't. Sidepassing is a fairly complex skill and it builds on less complex skills. If you don't have the less-complex skills, you can't skip 'em and go directly to sidepassing. It doesn't work that way.) So we looked at the dog leg backup. We discussed how to approach the problem. We discussed when to turn and how much to turn. And then, outside of the obstacle, we worked on turning the horse's hindquarters to one side or the other, using leg cues. Chelsea was pretty cooperative, so I had 'em try the obstacle. You usually only need to do one step over to make the turn on the dog leg -- you don't need to be able to do a 360 with the hindquarters to succeed with this obstacle. Cass and Chelsea backed up the dog leg. It went fine. Cass was thrilled. I was thrilled. It was a good day.
I put Nick away and we talked about why I didn't make Nick do it AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN... the idea is not to make the horse wonder if she's doing it right or not or to get her so damn tired of it that she doesn't want to do it anymore. Get a little bit good, there, and call it a day on a good note. You can try again tomorrow.
After that bit of theory work, I had Cass and Chelsea work on backing up some more. Yesterday we did two steps in a row, so today we did better than that. (Recall that Chelsea knows how to back up.) Today, we worked on simulated trail class obstacles... the first thing we did was a parallel line setup (using 4x4 boards for the 'lines') where you ride through the parallel lines and then back up out the way you came. That's a lot of steps of backing up, seven or eight in a row, and you have to back up straight because knocking the 4x4s is a fault. They did pretty well on that one, slow and easy and smooth. Cass looked good and Chelsea looked pretty damn happy to be there.
Right, then. Up the voltage. Next we built a dog leg backup, which is shaped like a V, kinda, only not so acute an angle. The deal is that you ride in and back out and the challenging part of it is that you have to steer around the dog leg while backing up. Most kids mess this up because they try to steer with the reins and the front of the horse moves around and the 4x4s get trompled and the whole thing goes to hell. The rest of the kids mess up because they steer either too soon or too late and the 4x4s get trompled and the whole thing goes to hell. Failing at the dog leg backup was one of the seminal incidents for this whole little project here. (The other was the sidepass obstacle. Cass wants to do sidepassing RIGHT NOW and she can't. Sidepassing is a fairly complex skill and it builds on less complex skills. If you don't have the less-complex skills, you can't skip 'em and go directly to sidepassing. It doesn't work that way.) So we looked at the dog leg backup. We discussed how to approach the problem. We discussed when to turn and how much to turn. And then, outside of the obstacle, we worked on turning the horse's hindquarters to one side or the other, using leg cues. Chelsea was pretty cooperative, so I had 'em try the obstacle. You usually only need to do one step over to make the turn on the dog leg -- you don't need to be able to do a 360 with the hindquarters to succeed with this obstacle. Cass and Chelsea backed up the dog leg. It went fine. Cass was thrilled. I was thrilled. It was a good day.
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Date: 2005-05-24 04:07 am (UTC)