Level 3/4 Clinic with Rob McAuliffe DAY 3

Question: Particular versus Critical?

Doesn't mean correct everything necessarily, it depends where your horse is at, what is his horsenality, and whether it's an obedience/dominance issue!
If you know your horse can do a certain task correctly and he chooses to do it badly then don't move onto the next task till you get obedience. Sometime when you insist on getting your horse to do a task well, the rest of the session goes well because he knows you are onto him.

Subtle use of phases

When starting a session: Match your horse energy to start with, then slowly challenge your horse. If you don't challenge your horse both physically, mentally and emotionally then you are not making true progress.
When playing with your horse, keep the flow of energy going, for instance in the turns or the change of direction keep the tempo. If you are in front of your horse movement or behind, then you interrupt the flow and your horse may stop or rush.

Getting the hang of jumping!

Liberty: Better not to start till you are a solid level 3 online or at least, only do what you can do really well online.

If you teach things too soon when your horse is not mentally and emotionally ready and have strong basis you can create real problems. For instance Cisco doing sideway towards all the time! Same goes for teaching spins, backing towards, trotting backward, rearing. Rob has seen a horse that once taught to load in a trailer backward would not load forward!
There is a reason why certain tasks are in level 4 and not 2 and 3. Stick to the program!

SIMULATION: BOW TIE

The bow tie is a very powerful pattern. Pat uses it often to test a horse whoa and go, his straightness...

• downward transition at the beginning of the circle
• Upward transition when exiting the circle and going onto the straight line along the rail. 
• Start at the walk and trot. 
• Be careful not to loose the arc of the circle till you are ready to go into an upward transition. This is what will lead to flying lead change.
• Prepare in your body to ask for a transition just before you actually want it to happen so that you get snappy departures.
• You must have good circles first. If your horse think of leaving the circle go into a spiral inwards then go back out in a outward spiral. It's a pattern within a pattern. Study the pattern booklet!

Key points for today:

RAPPORT, RESPECT, IMPULSION, FLEXION: for each level you need to take each of those to a new level
CONFIDENCE, UNDERSTANDING, ACCEPTANCE, RESULTS. This is the learning process for a horse in this order. If you horse has confidence issue you must continue with the task till at least the beginning of understanding. It's knowing when to quit. Too soon and learning does not take place, Too late and you have pushed your horse over the edge. Learn to operate close to the fulcrum point. The more experience you become the closer to the tipping point you are able to play at.