I made this video awhile back.  It is interesting to see it again because the message is still the same but there are new challenges in my life that I have had to apply this to.  I’m sure many of you go through seasons of your life where the same lessons need to be applied within new layers and new depths of your journey.

I want to challenge you in 2012 to take a look at what you really want to do with your horses and Take Responsibility for your dreams and Take Action to make them a reality.

The path to success is to take massive, determined action.
~Tony Robbins

In this video I discuss the role of these obstacles in our lives and how we can overcome them. I put this video together as we were leaving Colorado this fall and I include a view from one of my favorite spots in Pagosa! Enjoy and please share below how one of these obstacles has affected your journey.

Jerry

For some of you that do not know I had a major head trauma in May and have not been able to keep the same pace as before. So, this blog has taken a back seat for awhile. Sometime I might share some of the struggles I have had to deal with but for now just know that I am slowly making my way back to my life.

Jerry

This video speaks for itself. It’s just funny.

Have you every felt like this? Please leave a comment.

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That simple phrase seems to have become my theme since then, both in my own horsemanship and in helping others raise their expectations. I have come to realize that my horses don’t give much because I don’t expect much of them, consequently I don’t ask for much. It becomes a vicious cycle that slowly grinds us to a halt.

At a few points during the summer Pat pushed me and my horse pretty hard and I never really questioned why he did it. But he explained to me that day that he pushed us hard so I could see what my horse was capable of. It was at that point the lesson became clear. He never pushed beyond what either one of us were capable but he did push us out of the usual. He had an expectation for both of us and we tried to live up to it.

To me an expectation is simply the picture we have in our mind of how something should or will be. As I have explained to many of my students we need to have expectations that are appropriate for ourselves and our horses. Much like we have expectations of a first grader and the skills that are appropriate for their grade level. However, as they grow and learn our expectations change. The expectations we have for a first grader are going to be different than a fifth grader and still different than a freshman in high school and so on. The same is true with our horses, we need to have realistic and appropriate expectations.

Sometimes in our endeavor to create a good relationship with our horse and not be too “direct line” we lower our expectations for ourselves and our horses. And on the other hand we can see in certain segments of the competitive world unrealistic expectations for horses, such as performing a sport before they have a foundation which can lead to disappointment, frustration, undue stress and finally force. But not having clear and appropriate expectations can be harmful in not living up to your full potential. We vacillate between two worlds, unrealistic expectations of our horses and no expectations. What we fail to see is the middle ground of appropriateness.

I challenge you to raise your expectations and ask for more and you may be surprised at how much your horse will give. As you raise your expectations of your horse, I want to challenge you again as students to “raise your expectations of yourself” and what you can accomplish in your own horsemanship.

Please leave a comment below.

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“Don’t saddle the the young horses in the barn because someone saddled Presence in here and she started bucking and about jumped through the plate glass window into the office” was one of the first comments I heard about Presence even before I knew her name. Little did I know that she would end up being mine.

The second time I heard her mentioned was when Pat asked if there were any problems with the horses that he needed to know about. One of the externs spoke up and said that Presence bucked every time you saddled her. The reason I remembered her name this time was because just minutes earlier I had looked on the board and realized she had been assigned to me for the week.

After the meeting I went out to do my assigned chores and when I came back to start my horsemanship time an extern told me she had groomed Presence for me but she bucked like a fiend when she saddled her. I thought to myself “What have I got myself into here” and then told the extern, “Don’t saddle her, just groom her and let me saddle her so that I can help her through this.” I knew I needed to take it slow and see what was going on inside the mind of this little horse.

My first play session with her I took it slow but at the same time I pushed her a little to see how she would react. On the ground she did great and she seemed to have gotten past the bucks.

When I went to get on her all the comments came flooding in. “She’s really sensitive”, “she bucks when you saddle her”, “has she bucked yet” all just comments but enough to make you think twice about putting your leg over her. Needless to say, I took a little extra time with my pre-ride check before getting on. She seemed good and it was now or never and I got on.

The first thing I noticed was she didn’t argue with me. If I asked her to go right she went right, no muss, no fuss. I brought the life down in my body she slowed with no hesitation. No pushing or pulling and she seemed to want to obey, what a pleasure.  From that first ride I was hooked. I never had a problem from that point on or had a second thought about riding her.

Anyway Presence is now mine. She was part of the Parelli Dream Horse Program and now she is in my Dream Horse Program.

I’ll share more about her in later posts so keep tuned in…

Flashback…

…to a job I had over 30 years ago. I mowed the fairways of the country club golf course. I always hated to mow on Tuesdays because it was “Ladies Day”. That was the day I always had to dodge several balls that came flying my way. If the ball didn’t hit me or the tractor I would usually run over it with the mower and tear it to shreds. Not good for customer relations.

I had to ask myself…

Are women that much worse shots than men? No! I don’t think so! I do, however, think they were more concerned about hitting me than most men. Therefore, their focus was more on me than down the middle of the fairway. Naturally, the balls followed their focus and headed right towards me.

So many times we focus on where we don’t want to go, instead of where we do want to go and wind up exactly where we didn’t want to be in the first place.

I don’t know about you but that sounds a lot like our horsemanship journey at times. The results we’ve been looking for and working towards seem to get further away, without realizing it we are focusing on the wrong thing and as a result we wind up exactly where we didn’t want to be.

Remember, we determine our focus and as an outcome we determine our results.

Please leave a comment about how focus has affected your results.

A story I like to tell about Kahn is how he showed me that horses never lie…

It was sometime back when we were in level 2 and I was really focused on liberty. So everyday I would get him out and ‘play’ at liberty. I thought it was great fun. After a couple of weeks of me drilling him on liberty he started to limp. Each time I sent him out on a circle he would hobble around like he was crippled for life and got slower and slower.

That first day I thought maybe his arthritis might be acting up so I turned him out. As I let him loose in the pasture I noticed that he walked off just fine.

Hmmmm…

The second day I got him out and led him to the round pen to “play”. As soon as I took off the halter in the round pen he started to limp again. So I haltered him and led him out to the pasture. This time no sooner had I released him into the field, than he ran off kicking up and bucking, no sign of lameness.

That got me thinking. Was he smart enough to trick me? What about that saying “Horses never lie” was he lying to me to get out of doing things with me?

On the third day the same thing happened again but this time I didn’t fall for it. I insisted that he trot out with a little more energy and the limp magically disappeared. I had learned my lesson the night before. So as soon as he trotted out without a limp I brought him in, haltered him and turned him out to graze and play in the pasture.

What had I learned the night before? That night as I pondered on his behavior I was deeply puzzled. Was he lying to me? But on further reflection I realized that he was actually telling me the truth. He was telling me that he was sick and tired of liberty and maybe our relationship was not as great as I thought either. That revelation hit me like a ton of bricks and I changed right then and there. I chalked it up as another lesson learned.

I’ve learned a lot from that old horse and some of those lessons are just now beginning to make sense to me.
Jerry

This is a tribute to Kahn that my wife created in honor of him. If it had not been for him I would not be where I am today. He carried me to my first star as a Parelli Instructor. We had 13 good years with him and I still think of him often.

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*Note* For those of you that have seen the article. There is a picture on page 86 of Kahn and I jingling the horses in on a cold Colorado morning. Some of my favorite memories of him are of those times. If you look closely in that picture, on his right front leg there is the scar that reminds me of the injury that started our relationship. It’s interesting that I have seen that picture dozens of times before but I never noticed that scar until it was published in the “Savvy Times”.

Please leave a comment about either the post or the article.

Pat talks about “the little things that make a big difference”. It’s the same idea. Sometimes if we make a small adjustment it makes a big change in the person and the horse. Maybe your position is off by a few inches or your timing is off by just a hair, but to your horse it makes a big difference.

My encouragement to you is to realize that in some cases you might be 99% there but it’s that last 1% that makes the difference. It may be that extra ounce of effort or that extra second that makes all the difference in the world to your horse or for anything in your life for that matter.

I found this video on you tube the other day and thought it would be appropriate. It talks about the same idea just in a slightly different way. It’s called 212 Degrees.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Jerry

Toward the end of the course when we started learning about finesse my instructor showed us a dressage round from the 2002 World Equestrian Games in Jerez Spain. The horse and rider that captured my imagination was Rafael Soto and his Andalusian horse Invasor. That performance so inspired me that I asked if I could watch it again.

From that point on I probably watched that clip at least twice a day until the end of my course. I burned it into my mind. What it did for me was that it changed the picture in my mind and gave me something to aspire to. I can honestly say that I am no where close to that picture and may never be but at least I have a picture in my mind of where I would like to go. That was the time my fascination with the Spanish horse began.

Here’s what I want you to take away from this…

Find something that inspires you and burn that picture into your mind. Who knows, you might find yourself becoming more and more like your picture.

Here is a video I found on youtube of Rafael and Invasor. This is not the same as the one I watched but it is still great. Enjoy!

Rafael and Invasor

Please leave a comment below. Just click on the word that says comments and you will be able to see all the comments and make one of your own.

Jerry