Remmer Update

Dear Friends,

Had a GREAT ride on Rem today. As many of you know I'm really exploring dressage this past couple of years and learning a lot from our master, Walter Zettl. Talk about love for the horse, dignity, a careful pathway and never blaming the horse! Fits right in with our program.

So... the past few days of getting Remmer fit again and practicing our skills, he was getting a bit heavy. A lot of other things were going really well, so I didn't worry too much but today I could just hear what Walter would say or do if he noticed it. So I did something he had me do when I rode Goyani with him for the first time in England, preparing for our lesson together at the UK Celebration. Halt! In the Parelli Patterns (launched last year as an exercise program to develop your horse and not be boring!) in Level 4 there are some halt-trot-halt-trot transitions which really focus on getting forwards and backwards equal. Walter had me do that on my first ride with Goyani, which I never would have expected... and then of course he had me do halt-canter at the show, preceded by the comment "Now, don't panic...canter!" I wrote about this in my blog after the show.

So of course I'd done them, but I had not done them since learning more about how to engage my body and therefore the horse's body. So today I did it - in the trot and the canter. And WOW! Remmer was awesome. The first couple were not very glamorous, but suddenly everything came together. He was light, powerful, engaged - mentally, emotional and physically. I can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

Yours Naturally,
Linda

P.S. I just finished writing my articles for Feb. Savvy Times and one of them is a study of how the FreeStyle and Finesse seats differ.