It was a beautiful day, high 70's and sunshine. I got out to the barn today, Gunny seemed quite content. I saddled her up and whatnot, set up my camera, and went for a ride. I put a ground pole closer to the camera to practice stopping one foot over at a time. I continued doing the figure eight at the walk around the cones as well.
She seemed really relaxed today, head down nice and level, however, she didn't really want to stand still (more than usual). So, that's what we focused on today, mostly. I made sure I used one rein to hold the bit gently, and raised the other hand. It took a while to register sometimes, but I got her to stop when I asked. I was able to stop her feet 1/2 and 1/2 today with the pole. Not too bad for the first time. I'd stop her with one foot over, and she'd bring the other one over the pole to balance herself out. It's quite a challenging exercise, but I made it as fun as I could.
I also focused on holding her shoulder up with my leg as well as having her bend around my leg while going around the cones, so she didn't drop her shoulder. I've noticed in the videos that I took today that she was quite a good deal better than she normally is going around the cones. It's great to see progress! I know that it's not perfect by any means, but it's better than it was. :)
I know that the videos are quite boring, as I am merely asking her to stand still a lot of the time, but she needs to learn that when I say "whoa" it means NOW, and it means UNTIL I SAY TO MOVE AGAIN. She has learned to anticipate when I'm going to make her go again, and I have to teach her just to hang out for a while.
I was trying to practice using the stopping technique Don has told me about, and I hope that I did it alright.
My camera died before the end of my ride, but I rode Gunny until she stopped exactly when I asked, no extra steps. I then got off and called it a day.
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