Saturday 5th July

Day 4 with Jackie Chant.

Well today was the first day of the intro to level 3 course – we had a few new students joining us for the next couple of days. So they introduced themselves and told us a little bit about their parelli journey.
Our theory for today was on level 3 ground skills – level 3 is just:

· 7 games – Use Imagination
· 5 Zones
· 4 Savvys – Online, Liberty, Freestyle, Finesse
· 3 Distances – 12ft, 22ft and 45ft
· 4 Speeds – Walk, Trot, Canter, Gallop OR 3 Energy’s – Slow, Medium, Fast


Makes it sound so simple, doesn’t it!!

We then had a simulation on body language – Jackie and Elle gave is a demo first, it was very interesting to watch.. They were moving there hands around in time with each other, at a first glace it looked like Elle was trying to mirror Jackie’s movements, but was getting out of time sometimes. But when you look closer they were actually changing the leaders, Jackie started leading then Elle would take over leadership and Jackie would then take it back. Very interesting to watch as they didn’t speak to each other during it, this was all done through the enrgy in their bodies.
We then got onto pairs, my pair started of as the leader and I was following her really nicely. But then she stopped to try and get me to take control and I just stood there ( Thinking to myself if I just stand here long enough I won’t have to be the leader) So again she took the lead and very quickly stopped again and I then worked out I better have a shot of being the leader, but very interesting is she took the leadership back very quickly and I was happy to just follow again. How interesting, from that demo I found I prefer to be the follower, not the leader. I wonder if that is how I come across to Blossom…

We then headed out to the playfield and warmed the horses up and then Jackie gave us a demo on zone 5 driving. Really good demo as the horse she used to start with didn’t won’t to go, so she had to work hard to get the energy up and get him moving of the pressure and then get him more in time with her body enrgy. But then once she got the energy up, she had problems getting him to stop and back up. So I think it was such a good demo because it showed how it could go with the more forward and the slower type of horses.

Blossom done much better at this task than I expected!! I know she does have issues in zone 5 so I expected only to be able to do the task from zone 3 possibly 4. But I think the extreme friendly from the other day must have really helped her, as I was able to do the task in zone 5 after teaching her what I was asking in zone 3 and then 4. I was very happy as I didn’t expect such a good result!!

The afternoon started with some theory on riding patterns that we need to be able to do for our level 2 assessment using straight lines and circles and also showing us how we can use the patterns we learnt the other day to help motivate a short horse and slow down along horse. Really interesting and gave us lots of ideas of how we could help our individual horses.

We then warmed our horses up and mounted and worked on what we have been doing for the last few days. Again today Blossom was really soft and done quite a lot of licking and chewing while I was riding her which was nice to see.

Jackie then got another student to give us a demo on riding a circle around 4 cones and talked us through how we should go about making corrections if we needed to keep the horse on the circle. Very good demo and was good for us all to watch.

We then had the chance to play with this pattern as Jackie had set up more obstacles for us – I didn’t think Blossom was quite ready for this task so went back to the round pen to play with her in there for a bit longer. She was going really nice, so we went out the pen and played follow the rail on the outside after a couple of laps and corrections she stayed on the rail and was able to stay calm in walk and trot. So I decided to take her out to the field and give the patterns a try, to my surprise we actually managed them quite well in walk and a little trot.

Jackie then gave us a demo on diagonals and canter lead changes – I learnt most of this at collage so didn’t get very much from this, but it was still really interesting to watch! Need to do some work on my diagonals, something I have always had problems with. I know the theory but just always seem to ride on the wrong one – for some reason I can’t seem to feel the difference..

Another student was having problems with her horse when she asked for canter – so I decided not to do anymore with Blossom and watched Jackie ride this horse. Very cool demo, the horse was really challenging her and trying everything to get what he wanted. Really felt I learnt a lot from watching this as she really used all the stratagies we have learnt over the last few days to calm the horse and get him doing what Jackie was asking him to do.

And that was it for today, really interested stuff – Barbecue tonight!!