Update

Wow I haven't posted anything in FOREVER!

I never got my level 2 freestyle audition up either. I'll do that.

I got my results back finally for my online and freestyle level 2 auditions!!! I passed both with level 2++!! I'm on my way to level 3! I'm so excited!

Elliot's been soo good! We've been working on getting fit and in shape and building muscles and fattening up. I need to put some "after" pictures up to go with the "before" ones I've got. I'm interested to see the difference. He's been looking so good lately.

I'm going to be going to college soon too. I'm going to BYU-Idaho for a semester this fall. I'll be doing general studies there. Then I'll probably end up transferring to University of Maryland to do an Equine Management Major. I'm also planning on starting some courses with Parelli soon. I might do a four week course in the spring that will start me off on becoming a Parelli Professional. :D I'm so excited about what the futur will bring!

Level 2 Online Audition

I finally got my Online Audition video taped! Now I just gotta send it in. Then do my freestyle and I'll be an official Level 2 graduate!! Woo!

I actually think I'm going to redo it because I forgot to use my 22 ft line. I accidentally used the 12 ft line. And I ended up having to cut a couple mins worth of video out of it because it was a little too long. Oh well hopefully I'll do everything right next time.

Finally Bridleless!!

I started riding Elliot bridleless for the first time this week! It's amazing! It's like magic when you feel so connected to the horse and him to you that you can ride without a bridle or anything. I feel like my relationship with Elliot has just soared over that past couple of weeks. I've been able to do things with him that I wasn't able to before and he just does things so easily and willingly now. I'm not sure exactly what changed but I'm SO glad it did. I've recently been thinking that we just weren't making any progress and I felt like our relationship just wasn't there. Then recently everything just started getting better and better. I love him so much! :o) I'll try and get a video soon of us riding bridleless and put it up.

Hill Therapy

In case anyone was interested in reading more about the Parelli's "Hill Therapy" program that I'm doing with Elliot now, I thought I would post a link to some information about it.

Hill Therapy

Of course the Parelli's are not the first people to come up with using hill work to get horses in shape. Just like they did not create natural horsemanship. They just created their own programs for them.

P.S. Happy April Fools Day!! :P

Progress?

The last couple days of Hill Therapy with Elliot, I think there may be a little improvement! He's doing a little better to the left now. He's making his circle a little rounder and he's being more consistent. And I think he looks a little more muscular too! Maybe I'm just imagining it. I don't know haha. And I haven't gotten pictures of it yet.. but he's starting to stretch his neck down a little now. Especially on the down hill part, which I found interesting...

Ok so I can already tell I'm going to be terrible at updating this on a regular basis.... Oh well.

I did have a busy last few days though...

Thursday evening

Me and my friend Laura were giving a lesson to a couple girls this evening. The one I was teaching hadn't ridden much and last time she had come and had a lesson from Laura she fell off. :/ So of course she was a bit nervous about riding again. She got on Elliot and was really tense. So I was like... ok first take a deep breath.... hahah. By the end of the lesson she was trotting him over poles and looked and felt 100% better. It was a good lesson.

Friday

On Friday I gave Carolyn (my little sister) another lesson. I had her riding Bravo. She did really good trotting around all by herself and being in control in the bigger arena. Then we went into the round pen to try cantering which I'm still working on getting her confident in. She did NOT want to canter at first and we almost left without even trying then my mom got there and she said she would try if my mom watched. So she tried and she did it very good! In fact when I started to stop Bravo she was like, "No! Don't stop him! I want to keep going!" Hahaha. I know she could do it. Hopefully that helped her confidence a little and it will go even better next time.

We also continued Hill Tharapy today. It went basically the same as yesterday.

Saturday & Sunday

So I don't know if the Hill Tharapy is going to end up working as well as it's supposed to. :/ I couldn't do it on Saturday or Sunday sadly. And since I've got a dressage rally for Pony Club coming up in a couple months, I'm still going to be riding him. I don't think you're supposed to continue riding them while doing it. Hopefully we'll still make some progress with it. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

On Satruday I had a lesson with Elliot. He was so good. A little lazy... But good. :o) We were jumping grids. Something I noticed though was how much he was paying attention to my weight. After the grid I would just think which way we were going to go and suddenly I found myself going that way. Laura was like, "Elisa, stay strait!" Haha, So after the grid I had to think strait, strait, strait. lol. The last couple days our freestyle has been getting a little better! Yay! I'm so happy! :]

Monday

We continued Hill Therapy today. He did good. There wasn't any significant difference from the last couple times yet though. But we just started to I wasn't expecting anything. yet.

We worked on our freestyle a bit today. I'm still amazed at how suddenly he started progressing. I hadn't really been riding much recently. We've been doing a lot of online instead. Maybe that break from it helped. Well, whatever it was, he's doing really good. I love him! <3

Sugar and Elliot had a good time together earlier today :o)

Getting close...

Closer....

Even closer....

Touch-down!

Hah, I love it when they do that. She looks like she's trying to pretend she's grazing but she's actually trying to see if she can slowly get closer to Elliot without him noticing. Hahha. Chinook does that to things she's afraid of. :o)

They're so cute! =]

Yesterday & Hill Therapy Week 1 Day 1

Yesterday was a fun day. My little sister, Carolyn, came to the barn with me and we went on a short trail ride with her on Elliot and me on Bravo. She's working on some confidence issues right now. Some pretty extreme confidence issues. I really don't know why she's so unconfident and nervous when she's riding. She really is a good rider otherwise and she looks great on a horse. She's blessed with a naturally good position. So we just have to take it slow and have consistency until she starts to feel more confident with things just like with unconfident horses.

After Carolyn went home I had a lesson with a 12 year old girl named Ali. She started taking lessons from me a few months ago at the beginning of winter. She stuck through it all winter through the freezing cold weather and everything so she must really like it! :] She's already getting to the point where she wants to jump and canter! lol. I have let her go over a few very small jumps and she really likes that. Yesterday when she came she started out on Elliot (I still had both horses tacked from just getting back with carolyn) and we did some work offline. Usually I have the 12 ft line on so I can get control if I have to. Yesterday though I had her on Elliot while I was on Bravo and we were trotting doing transistions playing follow the leader and everything and she did great!! Then I let her get on Bravo in the round pen and she got to canter a bit. She did so good. She's really progressing fast. :o)

So Elliot and I started hill therapy today. We found a good hill in the mare's field that we could use. I didn't think he did bad. He seemed like he had a bit harder of a time going to the left then to the right... hm, how interesting... Honestly I'm not the greatest at being able to tell things like he's pushing himself up the hill with his back legs or he's pulling himself up with his front legs. But I'm working on being able to recognize things like that. So any comments about how you think he's doing are helpful and appreciated. Thanks. I'm putting up a video of his first hill therapy session from today. I also took some "before" pictures so I can compare them to the "after" pictures later and see if it made a difference in the end.

Sorry, I didn't know when I clucked that it was so annoyingly loud on the camera. My bad. I'll remember that for next time. It's hard holding a rope, camera and carrot stick all at the same time. And going to the left he was pulling on the rope a bit more so it made it even harder so I didn't hold the carrot stick that time, hence the clucking for encouragement to keep going instead of the carrot stick.

Another uneventful couple of days...

Well the last couple days haven't been too interesting. I've been trying to finish an English paper so I haven't gotten a chance to work with Elliot or the other horses yesterday or today yet. Hopefully I'll be able to do something tonight.

I've been reading a lot on hill therapy and peoples results with it. I've been thinking about doing it with Elliot. I think it'd be really good for him.

I was feeling a bit down the other day... you know... one of those days when you just feel kind of like a failure. But luckily my older sister was there to talk to me and re-inspire me. I love her. <3

My first post

I've been looking around at peoples blogs and decided to make one myself. I'm still trying to figure it all out though, I've never had a blog before. I'm excited about it and hopefully I wont be too bad at keeping it up to date.

Elisa :o)