liberty coming along

Here is some video Maria shot of me today with Maddie at liberty.  I took her off-line for the first time yesterday and so far the biggest problem is just getting her to give me some space.  I have also lost her a couple of times, especially on the right side.  I'm not completely sure if I should stand up and put a bunch of pressure on her when she leaves, or if I should back up and beg her to come back.  I have been doing a little of both.  For sure, though, I need to be able to put all kinds of pressure on her and have her remain hooked up to me.  It's also going to take me a few times to get comfortable with this kind of dancing.  Gonna have to clean up my act vis-a-vis body language, that's for sure!  Right now my signals towards her are occasionally sloppy.

Battery recharge

I was at Taking the Reins in Madison last weekend, where I was thrilled to watch multiple clinics and experience the first ever Wild Ass challenge.  What a great, informative weekend.  While waiting for the Wild Ass challenge to start I was dumbfounded to see John Lyons standing a few feet away from me, so I walked over and introduced myself.  I was even more dumbfounded when we spent the next 25 minutes talking horsemanship together!  He was genuinely interested to hear about Maddie and gave me some very good advice, most of it boiling down to the necessity of keeping Maddie in my world, and not letting Maddie take me into her world.  Mr. Lyons did a two-day colt starting clinic with 8 horses, and I was able to watch all of this and also talk horses with his two sons, Josh and Michael.  What a nice family.

Equally informative and helpful were the clinics of Ray Ainsworth and, especially, Dan James.  Dan was doing a two-day beginning liberty clinic with several horses and their owners.  Dan is a magician with liberty training and horse training in general.  I have spent the last week doing these exercises with Maddie as a way to increase her focus on me.  This morning I let he off-line for the first time and she was mostly able to stay with me.  The right side was a little trickier but I managed to get nice circles at the walk and trot on both sides.  There is no doubt that it is helping Maddie and my horsemanship.

The bow is coming along, I can get bows now with the whip alone.  I also introduced the pedestal, which she  basically figured out for herself in about 30 seconds.  Lots of fun!