Class is over now...

I never noticed how often I use ...

Yes I have missed a few days in updating my blog, and sorry but this one is going to be short too.

Thursday we had our presentation and Delilah and I did very well, all those in hand classes finally came in handy! Yup, we won! It was a very cute little "show", and it was cool seeing how nice all of our horses looked and were acting. All of these horses came in the first day of class looking pretty sad, whether it was there weight, lack of muscle (like delilah), nics all over there body, dull coats, or just a beat down appearance. But Thursday for our show they looked great, all had been bathed, brushed, and improved body conditions. I will put up pictures as soon as I get them.

Then Friday was fun games and tutorials. The games were a lot of fun, we had walking and running races. Delilah again is a draft horse, they are not known for cantering or quick movements. But at one time I was running to the finish line and my line was loose, so I turned around to see where delilah was and she was running full speed behind me, ears straight forward and having a blast! She is such a cool horse!

I had my tutorial after all the games and then that was the end of class. It has been an amazing month and I can not wait to come back again. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but it is definitely worth it all. 

I guess I'm bad at updating

We didn't do anything exciting over the weekend... oh... Courtney and I went to see the Mini horse farm!

So I did a join up with my gentler! That may have been one of the coolest things ever...

This little mare I have been working with is very timid. And still 2 weeks later she still isn't comfortable with me coming into her pen. So Kirsty said to get her out and it was time for a join up, the whole time I was thinking 'yea, sure like this is gonna work out, Join up will be to much for her' (right now reading this my dad is thinking, Join up isn't to much! but I didn't have enough confidence in my horse)

Well I was wrong... I sent her around, she gave me all four signs, when I went for the invite she came right up to my shoulder. It was amazing!

Now again, this is a horse that you really have to do advance and retreat with to get her not to just run away from you, and yet I was able to communicate in her own natural language and she responded! (did that make sense?)

We also learned how to teach the horses to tie... I'm not going to explain that all.

Then today we long lined the starters out around the farm. My mare Delilah did very well, she is a little pushy. She wants to rush away, but that will get worked out!

We also got to watch a demo today of the first rider being introduced to one of the interns horses.

So as you can see... they had a plan, they just didn't fall in love with it.

I think that was really good for all of us students to see, sometimes we wont make it as far as we wanted... but take what the horse will give you and try again tomorrow.

There was no "rider" today, but the horse still learned it was ok for someone to be belly over on her back. A little weight up there didn't hurt her at all!

Hopefully we will beable to see the first rider on her soon.

Then we bathed our gentlers, again I wondered how it was going to go...

but this time I had decided to just try to put faith in her and not pre-judge the situation. Plus being with an instructor kinda clamed me down, Maya just stood there like 'well do it!'. So Brenda and I started and it went really well! We even got her face, now even my well trained horses at home are not happy with their faces being done!

I am excited about changing some things in my routine at home.

Can not believe this is my last week here. I am happy to come home to my horses and kids, but I absolutly love being a student. A month has flown by... but hopefully it will feel like the time goes quickly before I can come back again too.

Gentlers amaze me

I know I keep saying how awesome this is... but today I was able to sit back and just be in awe...

First things first, we are getting our starters ready for the farrier (aka: Thommy)... So we are working on getting them to give us their legs and stand quietly. Now my starter Delilah is a giant bus... Her hooves way a million lbs. and she knows how to get away from me by pawing forward and puting all her weight on me. I tried just hanging on for dear life and hoping she gives it up for a second, so I have now been flung around in the pen a ton. Thankfully I'm a fairly tough girl... so I'm ok with that.
Today the intern Sophie came in and helped me a ton, by the end of the session I was even kind of able to stretch her leg forward without being tossed!
Then... Monty came and was doing a photo shoot or something.
This may sound strange... but I was dissapointed!
Yes it's very cool to meet the man himself and talk to him face to face. But actually doing hands on things, watching the sessions, and speaking with our instructors has been so educational, that slowing down and talking with him almost feels like regression.
Don't get me wrong, I know it's a wonderful privledge to be able to talk with him and ask questions... But he is absolutly right when he says the horses are our teachers!
Being able to be in a session and look up and ask a question about a behavior at the exact moment is so much better then sitting in a classroom trying to think up questions while someone is snapping pictures.
The first time talking with him in the classroom was very cool, the second time... I found myself wishing i was out in the pens actually working.

Anyway... Moving on to what REALLY amazed me today.

I haven't had very much opportunity to sit and watch the gentler sessions (especially down in the mustang pen at eye level), I've either been doing it or with my gentler in her pen. Today we put two horses in the shoot, the one courtney and I were working and the one 2 other girls were working. These two horses are the most difficult out of them all (not very bad, not aggressive, just afraid), after several days haltering and touching still isn't pretty. These horses may have been abused, we dont know their history.
The goal today was just to get the halter on quickly and let them out of the shoot and attempt to lead them. The buck and try to get away we just hold the pressure untill they take one step forward... then all pressure is released and they learn... when the pressure is on, going forward will release it.
Ok so... the other team had a horse I worked on like the second day with the gentlers. Her name is Jazz, a little QH (I assume) mare that was just skin and bones, she is very destructive and hurts herself alot by accident (flipping over, running into the wall, scraping her hips, yadda yadda yadda). First day (thur.) she was super super jumpy and never came out of the shoot. Second day (fri) don't know I didn't see. Third day (Mon) she came out and flipped over and would only step forward once and I was a good 6ft away on the line, had to put her back in the shoot to get her halter off. Yesterday I heard she did well, a few more steps a little closer to handler. But today was wonderful... she was walking with the leader, getting rubbed and ok (well at least able to deal with it), they even took the halter off without her going back in the shoot and she hardly reacted! Our horse was pretty much the same.
It was just amazing to see the kindness and the gentleness we are able to use and yet it's still a firm continual progression!
And think about these horses prospects now! before they were at a rescue, unable to be caught, haltered, or even touched. Who would adopt a sickly looking skinny thing that is wild? No one in there right mind! and even if they were adopted, the new owners wouldn't have the knowledge to help these poor things, so they would be passed around from auction to auction, feed lot to feed lot, finally ending up at a slaughter house, or someone getting angry and practicly beating them to death. It happens all the time!
But after next week these horses could either stay on to be started by the next course or even go back to the rescue with a MUCH greater chance to get adopted by someone who can now just continue to build on the already solid horse to human bond established.
I was just amazed. The horses are all putting on weight, and having a much brighter eye and coat. They are actually improving in physical looks AND behavior.
As a child I remember our horses coming back from training and they had such a tired look, expressionless, lifeless...
Here we got a few in with that same look, and everyday they are becoming more alive. They are learning the same things my horses learned back in the day... but they are keeping the splendor they naturally posess. Never loosing themselves.

Ok, I could go off on a very deep tangent right now about this topic. And my poor parents and friends are for sure gonna hear it all when I get home.
But for now I'm going to bed

monday and tuesday of week 2 with our starters

Monday...

Very cool, we got to put the surcingle on the starters and long line them (we were working with eachothers horses not our own). These horses have only had something on them once before and that was friday for just a few moments, some were very reactive!

This is Sammy... Friday he jumped around alot when he had his surcingle on... then Monday I got him, and this is what we got. When the girth is cinched up they don't quite know how to move with it on. So they can kinda suck back and hop and buck figuring out if they can get it off.

So before we put on the longlines we let them go with the surcingle on and get out all their bucks and kicks while they keep moving around the pen. Then we move on to the lines.

She did SO good! Wonderful turns for her first time! cant wait to see how much she progresses by next week.

Then we got to watch Monty work some cows... how cool is this?!

Tuesday

we worked our horses over plastic tarps and building on the trust... my mare was fantastic she even followed me onto the scary horse eating tarp without a line on her!

We start small...

And end big! at least she did... what a good note, just following me on the "lake" without even a lead rope on!

Sorry Sorry Sorry!!!

I'm so sorry it's been so long since I wrote last! I didn't realize 5 days have already gone by.
We have been having a great time in class, and I'm learning SO much. Now we are working with our gentlers, thankfully mine is very good. She's nervous when you approach and very shy, but after you've touched her she relaxes a bit. I can now catch her in her pen and approach her several times, but I havent tried it yet in a bigger pen and with other people. Next week I will try to get her in the round pen... So we will see how that goes.
My starter is going good too. We had the surcingle on her a few days ago and she didn't buck or anything! So I think she will move along very well. Can't wait to see how our horses all progress over the next two weeks.
Friday was a pretty exciting day, we had 3 horses get loose, only 1 was intense. This gentler (which means a relatively untouched horse) was being run from the pen where we can touch and handle them to their run and he got loose from one of the students hands, got scared by the rope draging behind him, ran straight into the fence and then jumped out of this small opening into the neighbors farm. By the way... the neighbors don't like Flag Is Up farm... so they were not happy. And again... this horse isn't handled, so you can't just run over and grab him and lead him back (he doesn't know how to lead, and he's still scared of people).
One of my instructors Thommy had to run and get him and then practicly drag him back. Thankfully the horse had a 30ft longline dragging behind so Thommy could grab a hold of it without getting to close.

Then after calss on friday I had a flat tire (which Thommy also fixed, THANK YOU THOMMY!) came home and had a nice dinner and little bonfire, it was very relaxing. Saturday we had to go work our horses and then into Santa Barbara to get the tire replaced, and take Nadine shopping. That was an adventure in itself! Santa Barbara is a crazy place to shop, the shopping place was like 10 city blocks full of stores (great stores!).

Anywhooo... that was my saturday. Now it's sunday afternoon and we are chilling out in front of the tv and writing out emails and blogs. Today I miss home...

But I'm having a GREAT time, and learning SO much. I will try to post more often, and get some pictures up soon.

Hope everyone is doing well at home! Love you all!

Drag day

Brenda has the pictures, but today we got dragged around, so we can get the proper stance if the horse takes off. We didn't fall thankfully but we didn't do it quite right either. Tons of fun but now my hands hurt, I'm such a sissy!!
We got to work eachothers horses, and watch ours get worked. That was really interesting, and it was great after we had done an evaluation, and I know we all had preconceived ideas of how our horses would act in these sessions, so it was neat to see where we were right and where we were wrong.
Delilah did great, she was very sensitive. Though she is insecure without a positive leader, I'm so excited to see how she comes along. I really need to work on her picking up her back feet calmly. and I want to put polo wraps on her.
All in all she is a very cool mare
(OOOO Nancy just brought me a bowl of ice cream! yummm mint chip, like this is all I need)
We also got to watch Monty do a demo today, that was very cool. Then he came into the classroom for a question and answer session. Thankfully we all thought up some questions so ewe tried not to waste his time. When it was my turn to ask one my face turned red and I got really nervous! All I wanted to say was" MY DAD LOVES YOU!" but I didn't want to be the biggest dork in class.
Anywho... I need to find an eye doctor while I'm here to get some new contacts... uh my eyes!
It's movie night here at the house so I better end this post now.

Mom... me being away a little is very good for you I think! hehe

I miss you all and love you very much.

a few days catch up in my world.

Recap for sunday and today.

Had a really nice time sunday... Woke up leasurely, I'm still on michigan time I guess, so I wake up around 7am every morning. Went into the kitchen and our new house mates were there. One I really like, but the other girl is ... um... different. I just can't warm up to her. The first night I met her (friday night) we only spoke for like 10 min, but we managed to get in a small fight (ok, not really a fight, but she was rude).

Had a great meeting, love the little congregation. You can meet everyone at the hall in like 15 minutes! lol

Looking forward to Thursday, because alot of the people know me from last time I was here, and Thursday I wont walk in so alone!

After meeting we went to the pool over at Brenda and Nadines hotel and just hung out for a while.

These are the girls in my class (Left to Right: Courtney, Brenda, Nadine)

This picture was from Saturday, but sunday we wanted to just chill out before the start of the advanced class, so we went to the pool and were lazy all afternoon.

Then on Monday we went to class and were assigned our horses. Here is my starter...

Her name is Delilah and she is from a rescue, She's very sweet and a giant! Everyone else has ponies practicly... and I have a draft horse! But I really love her. She will be great practice for me for Reggie when I get home.

Now this one is Buttercup... She is my Gentler... which mean she isn't comfortable with people.

She seems sweet too, but she's prego... and very shy, not the worst in the group, but it will be interesting to see how she works.

We have 3 weeks with these horses, and the goals is to get as much progress as possible. Leading comfortably, bathing, haltering, catching, and join ups and long lining, a bunch of stuff.

So I'll keep ya'll posted... actually I will post a whole explination of the Dually halter, Join up, and long lining. As well as my diary of my horses progress (and mine!)

That's all for tonight!!!

Saturday.. Relax day

Test is over... we passed! a woot woot!

They said I know what I'm doing I just have to get over being so nervous in a testing situation. GR I'm not sure how to fix that... I have always been this way when it came to test's. In middle and high school I had to go get special tutoring so I could pass big tests. and yet all my other grades were good.

Anywho... we got out of class early so we all decided to go to santa Maria for the Rodeo. We had a blast. Went to the mall and Boot Barn first, bumed around a bit, and then...

We had a lot of fun and it was a great way to destress after our week.

Plus it was funny for me to try to explain things to dressage / hunter jumpers riders. The girls I went with hadn't even really riden a western saddle, and definitly had never been to a rodeo.

So we have decided today we are going to go riding! We heard of a place you can rent horses and ride on the beach... so it will be great!

Will post more later, I feel I've been way to lazy today and need to go do something!

Second test day past, How will today go?

Yesterday was my final writen exam and full join up.
It's interesting how any confidence I may have in myself goes right out the window when they say the word test. As long as it's just for practice, I got it, no problem. But this is the test? yea not happening.
Let me address the problems in my join up first:
My line got tangled like 3 times I think (never happens at home, or in practice sessions!)
Didn't fully get his attention on the invite. Was to big for this particular horse (which means I didn't read him and adapt adequately). To agressive in the invite? (I'm still not sure what happened there, I thought I had him a few times and then he walked right past me)
I'm second guessing myself on my choice of sending him back to the wall a few times (the only reason I did it was honestly to give myself a mental break and try to reassess the situation quickly).
Long lining wasn't so bad, but I whish I had gotten a few smoother turns. I brought him off the wall enough but I didn't push him out of the turn very well. Not a whole lot of bending around the turn.
Then the written test came up. I think it was better then the first written exam, but when I get nervous I just shut down. Everyone was writting and writting and writting, trying to explain their answers just in case they miss a point. Then there's me, with like 3 points on my paper and that's it.
AND I tried to judge how the second test would be from the first one... I was already for more diagrams! and there were none (those instructors are definitly trying to stay one step ahead of us!)
So let's see how today goes. We have our Dually exam and tutorials (I think).
Honestly I think the tutorials scare me more then exams!

On to happy thoughts! I'm in my new room here at the house, it's an office behind the house actually... I have to go outside to get to the house. And I'm on an air mattress on the floor. It's cute though. The beding she used reminds me of my sister... all tie dye (lol it should be spelled tie DIE).
I really should be up and unpacking now.

catch up... and the test

Yesterday was interesting... we all got to do another full join up for practice, then we were able to watch a gelding! lol they sedated a relatively wild horse, laid him down, washed him... numbed him, then started cutting. Uh the sound of the demasculators was horrible you could hear it crunch! then he started wakeing up and that was it. No stiching or anything, they leave it open so it can drain over the next few days.
Very educational. One of my instructors does it at a farm in mexico and all they use is a mild sedative and a pocket knife... think about that for a bit...
Anyways, then we got to work some 2 year old over plastic tarps and into a step up trailor.
That was fun. Some of the babies would take a flying leap over the tarp.
And they like to run/jump out of the trailor as well. But after the session all of our horses were walking/standing quietly on the tarp, and going quietly in and out of the trailor.

THEN TODAY...
well it started good, my join up went very well I think. Although I realize that I do have one major problem in all of my training... I always think "just one more time and it will be perfect". But that's wrong, if it's good... end there!
Thankfully my horse was fit and patient with me, and my one (or few) more laps around didn't kill her. lol
then came the written test... first part... no problem, I studied that alot, and I feel I did well (we'll see tomorrow).
But I turned over the next page and what did I see? a diagram to lable with the bones... yup... I flunked that, and the muscle one.
Then there was another section I don't think I did to good at either...
ugh... I feel sick. maybe a fever, headache, sweating, fast heartbeat... I need to study. again!
I have another test tomorrow!

But on a good note, my luggage came today!

I'm sure tomorrows test will be better. I have my join up test (which I feel good about) and then another written exam, which I'm going to study for tonight! Hardcore study! these Monty Roberts instructors are no joke on being an educated horsemen!

I'll try to get pictures up ... they may not be pretty because yes I have pictures of the gelding!

Day 1...

I made it through day one...
we got there late, of course, but we had muffins! So it was ok.
But so we sat down, got introduced and then the instructors said we were going to all do a full join-up without any preparation...
niiiiice. I didn't do my best, but I will keep trying. I know I can do better!!!!
we have 3 days of review and then our test... So my nerves will stay on edge till then.
Well my binder is calling my name to be studied, so I had better make this short, I'm still exhausted from my travel days...
bed or binder...
GRRR I better study!