Hi everybody
,
I am reading her for a few days now and I am really fascinated. Very very interesting and I like the AND philosophy. But as my english is not the best I will probably more read than write. I came here through another forum where Romy wrote about the encouraging politeness. I liked that a lot and so I came here to learn more about it and to add it to my toolbox
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I have my mare for 3 1/2 years now, my first own horse. She is spanish (PRE), 7 years old and has a lot of pepper. I am living here in a very traditional environment concerning horse education and so I am quite alone with my ideas of how I want things going with my mare and me. And all what I do is learning by doing as I don`t really have very much experience in training horses. And as I have no help or teacher I do it all by myself and Amapola, my horse, shows me how that works for us.
Concerning riding for example, there is no riding
. When she was 5 years old I showed her what that means, my weight on her back, and it seemed to be okay for her. So for maybe 1 to 2 times a week for maybe 10 min I got on her back to get her used to the idea that riding is fun. But last year I stopped that. There was one moment where she showed me that she was annoyed by that and since then I didn`t get on her back again. This for two reasons: one is my feeling of fear. As I have no chance to force here to anything (not bits for example) I need her "Yes" and without this there can´t be any riding. The other reason sounds probably a bit strange, but I think neither me nor her is mature for riding as we are both not straight yet. Is that understandable? I mean my english.
I have a real focus on this straightening thing, I don`t know why. It started a few years before I got her. Anyways I am "working" a lot on my straightness and of course on her`s too and apparently it takes a long of time to get really straight. What is funny is that our asymmetry is identic. So if I was I horse I would look like her and if she was a human being she would like like me. The good thing is that I can`t only see her asymmetry but feel it within my body too as it it the same for me
.
So today riding has become something special for me. It`s difficult to explain in english but it`s almost kind of "holy", something that will hopefully crown our relationship one day. Until then there are lots of things that we can to on the ground. The new thing is encouraging politness
. She adores that. Too bad that she doesn`t like the "chase the tiger"-game . I tried that out a few times now but the look in here eyes says everything...........
. When she touches the bag with her nose it seems that the she really only does it to do me a favour and to show me the she understood what I want but she has no fun with it. Maybe because she is not scarred by bags or other things that I bring to her. The challenge is missing for her. But maybe I can find some ideas here how to motivate her because for fun and straightening this seems to be a pretty cool game.
So, enough for know.
Tanuschka