Early stages of our Journey

OK... looking back through my posts on the Forum, I don't have anything from the earliest stages of my journey (they start one year after I started PNH) - so I'll have to try and remember!!

I do remember devouring the DVDs of L1 rapidly and my newbie idealim that everything was going to be sunshine and butterflies just because I watched the DVDs. Ha! No, life wasn't sunshine and roses -- not in the least bit!

The first lesson in L1 is to spend 30 minutes of undemanding time with your horse. That was the first clue to all the other horses in the pasture that I was a nutter! I took a lawn chair out with my carrot stick and just sat down. Didn't pet anyone unless they petted me first, tried not to look at anyone (although in hindsight I'm sure I was exuding pressure!). Cloud was intrigued. He stayed with me nearly the entire time, which I took as evidence that this would be all sunshine and bunnies. Yay! (hehe) He played with my boots, my jacket (there was snow on the ground as I recall), tried to tip the chair over, tried to paw my leg off, tried to bite me, &c. I remembered my body blocks and protected my space adequately and left after thirty minutes convinced that this Parelli stuff would be really easy! And so the roller coaster began!

The thing about roller coasters is that the dips and spins are extremely dramatic to begin with... you go really high, then really low, until as the ride progresses things become more mild. If it were not a theme park - if the coaster was allowed to go on it's natural course, there would come a time when it leveled out completely and had to continue working in order to progress instead of relying on momentum. That is PNH in a nutshell. Really good one day, really, really bad the next and very little moderation in the beginning stages.

So the next day I actually had to catch him (not too big a deal) and halter him up for our first round of the Friendly Game - a process of desensitization. Cloud could have cared less. He's not innately reactive and the things that spook other horses don't seem to phase him in the least. Another positive day - this PNH stuff is cake!

Next day comes (and I sould mention that although I'm saying "day" I really mean week, because this was all before I could drive myself and so I was dependent on rides from parents who only had weekends free. This was also approaching the Holidays and wintertime so I was also limited by the weather and darkness. Next "session" would be more accurate, I suppose.) and we're all set to learn the "Porcupine Game!" Woohoo! Or... not. Here is where I finally realize that maybe PNH isn't going to be as easy as I thought. Mr. Moose will not budge from steady pressure. At ALL. I try it on his face, his chest, his neck, his hindquarters. He gives no indication that he's bothered by me but he refuses to budge. Completely. Refuses. To. Move. Fun. I spent maybe a half hour in pasture trying to figure this out and left completely frustrated and sobbing. I hate Parelli! It doesn't work at all! This sucks! Cried all the way back to the barn (quite a long walk, we were down in the lower field) and most of the way home too.

Next session and porcupine is better. Maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel? I've gotten to the point now where he'll do a couple of half-steps away from the pressure, so long as I make sure I'm up to P4 -- the highest amount of pressure I can manage. We move on to the driving game. He moves his hind end very easily - although we did need a lot of P4s at first. His front end, however, is impossible. Maybe we get a step - maybe - but it's after a half hour of work, frustration and tears - more tears. I swear, I never cried this much until I started Parelli!

A few sessions pass and we're at the point where he's SORT OF listening to me. Better than not at all, I guess...

We're at the putting-games-to-purpose stage, where you teach them to lower their heads and pick up their feet... stuff like that. OK. Another 1/2 hr spent trying (and failing) to get his head down. This absolutely sucks. Go home in tears - again - and absolutely hating Parelli.

Meanwhile, Cloud is having a blast frustrating me! I don't know how many bad habits he picked up in the early stages of my journey - some of them I'm *still* working through - but I do know that he learned v e r y quickly how to get my goat and frustrate me to the point that I gave up. You could almost see him laughing at me! I, of course, wasn't laughing, but that's another matter. Parelli was beginning to be Much Un-Fun.

And to top it all off, I've got these new tools and I'm terriblewith them. You'd think I'd be OK with a halter, but I forgot everything it seemed. This halter tied differently - and you had to lower their head to put it on -- a task I was not good at yet. So that wasn't fun. The lead rope was twice the length of most ropes, and you were supposed to hold it differently. Instead of holding it up by the snap and having the horse walk right next to you, you were supposed to fold the rope about halfway and hold it loosely and walk with your horse far behind you, trusting that he'll follow. Well, he didnt, most of the time!! He learned exactly where that 12' ended and exactly how far away I needed to be so that I was unable to make him move - even with my carrot stick. Oh, yes, the carrot stick. That was an adventure. I'd held lunge whips before - never very well - but this thing was HEAVY and awkward. I could sort of do what I needed to do, but it took so long to make the stick do what I wanted that by the time it did it, I needed it to be doing something else. I was not coordinated to say the least and always found myself getting the stick stuck in the rope and looped around my leg at the most inopportune moment imaginable. Cloud would notice the confusion, laugh at me, and find some hay to munch on while I untangled myself. Then the task would be to get him away from the hay - far easier said than done, I mean he IS 1000lbs of muscle and bulk and worst of all he knows he's that big - never a good sign.

So by now it was pretty safe to say that I hated Parelli! But I didn't hate it enough to quit. We would have these sunny moments occasionally -- he would suddenly "get" the driving the FQ game, or all of a sudden he had a lovely porcupine, or he would nicker to me when he saw me -- and I couldn't just quit. I had to press on.

We moved up to the Yo-Yo game -- another nearly futile game in the beginning. Well, not entirely futile. It was really great for building arm muscles as I hefted a heavy marine braid rope back and forth and back and forth while my horse yawned and laughed at me as he stood, immoblie, six feet away. Yup, that was fun. Ha! But eventually we got it fairly satisfactorally and then moved on.

Unfortunately for me, the next game was the Circling Game... a common pitfall for Left Brain horses. But I didn't actually know that, did I?! See, at this time, PNH was only focusing on Right Brain horses - you know the scared, runaway, somewhat dangerous horses like the one I traded to get this moose. Every DVD, every magazine I received for a good 2-2.5 years covered only right brain horses. All this stuff they have now about LBs was entirely missing from the PNH program when I was in my early stages. I ended up learning it all anyway - but I learned it the hard way, through months upon months of agonizing struggle.

I'm going to break here so anyone reading can have a pee and coffee break... : )