Q & A

Question: I’m in need of a little guidance. I have been playing around with the FreeStyle patterns in Level 3 and noticed that my partner has very over-developed under-neck muscle. I’ve commenced hill therapy again (I spent a large part of last NZ summer on this), this time introducing some trotting poles as part of the therapy. Today I noticed that in the jog trot he very rarely over steps his front foot pattern. Could this be part of a bigger issue? Stiffness in the hips, hoof trimming (he is barefoot)? Should I need to be doing hill therapy again so soon?

Question: I'm wondering if you could go into more detail on how I can get my horse to be more consistently confident with a new environment. My mare is a three-year-old Right/Left-Brain Introvert and is pretty confident in most situations, but will sometimes lose confidence when her environment has changed and there aren't other horses around. I guess what I'm wondering is why does she lose confidence sometimes and other times she hasn't a care in the world?

Question: My experience so far has been that I LOVE PARELLI – but I have gotten too much into my head about wondering if my horse wants to be with me, if he's happy, etc, etc. And as such, my horse and I play on the ground and ride very little. We used to event together, gallop in the snow. It was almost like he saw me as more of a leader back then. Now I just question myself too much for him to look to me for leadership. Do you have any thoughts on how to overcome that?

Question: I'm having trouble getting the message to my 4-year-old mare's feet in the Yo-Yo Game. She is mostly a Left-Brain Introvert with a tendency to be on the lazy side, who will sometimes go Right-Brain Extrovert on me, usually during the Circling Game if I ask her to go faster than a walk. Whenever I play the Yo-Yo Game with her she turns her head away almost like she can't bear to look at me. At first I would just bump her head back to me and keep going but this has been going on for a couple of months now and her head turning has not changed.

Question: I recently read Linda’s blog entry entitled “Be prepared for the unthinkable by thinking about it.” It makes a lot of sense, but I am a bit confused. I recently spent a month at the Parelli Center with my horse. While there, I was told that I needed to try to “live in the moment more” and that a lot of the issues I was having with my horse had to do with the “baggage” I was bringing to each session, namely all the “what if” scenarios running through my mind. I was trying to be prepared for problems by thinking ahead of time what I would do in each instance so that I could be prepared with a response or a plan B. It was explained to me that because I was already preparing for something bad to happen, that my horse was reacting off of my energy negatively. So my question is: how can you prepare for the unthinkable and live in the moment at the same time? -Shannon P.

Question: My question refers to the October 2009 Savvy Club DVD, “Focus on Finesse.” First off, thank you so very much for this DVD; it really  helped build a bridge between my Dressage instructor's advice and the way I learned to sit using the Levels packages. I am wondering, however, about the horses blowing. When Jamie was riding, you said the sound indicated that the horse was on the forehand, but when Amy was riding, the sound meant the horse was relaxing. After watching the video a couple of times, I'm still confused.

Dear Friends,

Starting this week, Wednesday is going to become Q & A day on my blog! The team at Savvy Central is going to be helping me by selecting the questions (we’ve got a lot to choose from!) and I'm looking forward to sharing this little tid-bit of education with you every week. Enjoy!