The process of learning.

I often think, if only I could do everything that Pat or Linda Parelli suggest in their DVDs I would be a great horseman! So what is stopping me?

As a school teacher, I understand the process of learning: You have to be ready! It doesn't matter how great the teacher, if the student is not ready to work with that concept, he just can't learn it. It is very obvious when teaching young children. If you try to teach a child to read the time on a clock before they have assimilate the time concept, it doesn't matter how bright the child, it doesn't matter that they can already read numbers, they just can't learn to read the time.

Trigger

I am discovering, as an adult that it is pretty similar. It is very interesting because now I am on the learner's side of the fence and I consider myself a super learner, always got High Distinction at uni... but with horsemanship, which is quite new for me, I cannot assimilate all the teaching of the Parelli Program by an act of will.
To be a good horseman we have to take the time it takes, just as we do with our horses.

Today I finally got the concept of doing the same program for 7 days in a row. I have heard Pat saying this a hundred times but I just didn't actually properly get it. As a LBE, it doesn't come naturally to me. I want to do too many things at once. For the sake of my horse, I had to make myself do it!
The results have been awesome! Things we have struggled with for months have just got better and I have discovered that in actual fact, I do enjoy the consistency because the reward is in seeing your horse getting better so much quicker.
My horse is so ready to learn that it is hard to keep up! I am looking forward to my next breakthrough.
I just love it when suddenly something you have been hearing for a while becomes part of you!

This is such a fun, exciting journey!

Cisco

writter's block

It's amazing how many time during the week I think of things to write on my blog and then when I finally get the time I go blank! Is that what they call the writer's block?

The last few weeks have been a bit frantic so I should have lots to say. I finished a 6 weeks training block with my 3yo. I try to do 6 weeks then give him at least a couple of weeks off. It's been a great time to reflect on what we have achieved and where we are going. I wrote a new plan for the next 6 weeks. Everything is getting better, softer and more established. Our big break through was with Liberty which is now developing nicely.
While Cisco was having his little horsey holiday, I started playing with Trigger again. I've really enjoyed the change of horsenality. It's quite different playing with a damaged horse. Everyday I have to prove to him that human are not all bad. We start most of our sessions with a horse that has gone so deep within, that he is almost catatonic. We mostly finish with a LBE and often have gone through all the horsenalities in between. Keep me on my toes!
The big new challenge has been my new volunteer position on Parelli Social Media team. It's been a great learning curve in many respects. The most difficult so far has been to try to porcupine myself away from the computer and to keep some form of balance in my life. In my attempt to drag myself away from Parelli Connect, I have started reading again. I am reading Temple Grandin. My mother had given me the book years ago. It's one of her favourite books. When I saw that it was on Pat Parelli reading list, I thought I would give it a go. It is a fascinating insight in the mind of an autistic woman who because of her illness developed a deep understanding of the psychology of prey animals. I am trying to understand what it is like to perceive the world in pictures. What a challenge!
It's been really funny because, in my initial efforts to dissociate my private life to my Parelli life, I've set up a new FB page and a new email address, except that they are both almost identical in their content. I came to realise that there were no longer boundaries between my "normal" life and my "horsey" life, and that the Parelli ethos and philosophy had become my way of life. I can't think of a situation where I do not apply some of my Parelli principles to solve the puzzle.

Well, maybe I did not have writer's block after all!