I have written lately about Cisco and I because I’ve been pondering the meaning of life with a horse. That sounds cool doesn’t it? Believe it or not, the Level 4 Parelli journey with Cisco is not the same as the Level 3 journey with Velvet. All I really remembered was the intense focus on flying lead changes. Yes, I still have that fierce focus, but things are very different.
Things are very different as I don’t have job. I have few time constraints. When I play with Cisco it isn’t after an 8-10 hour day at work. It isn’t at night in the dark. Another huge difference is that I understand tons and tons more about the principles of love, language and leadership. I can talk much better non-verbally to my horse now. I understand physical and non-physical feel of connection with my non-verbal partner. Slowing down has never been easy for me, but Cisco is teaching me how much he appreciates my toning down my body language so I don’t scare him to death. Yes, I can scare him to death and cause him to go right brain with just a higher level of gestures or being in the wrong place and making an gesture with my arm. He is that sensitive.
So I’m thinking that only the deep kind of people that are involved with a deep level of horsemanship will understand the garble of the first two paragraphs. If you want to understand this kind of stuff, come to a clinic/lessons with Tony and Jenny Vaught or Nichole Copple!
Now I’ll talk in regular English. Maybe. Maybe I can make this clear and maybe not. What you will get out of this is the passion.
I having fun playing with Cisco where he and I are face-to-face. I ask him to do tasks and he tells me immediately that he doesn’t understand. It takes me a while to understand that. Then I ask him to do the task in a different way or I might break down the task into parts. I love to play with Cisco when he has no rope or no halter on his head. But now I can see when my asking isn’t working and I go to the rope. The rope gives me physical feel so I can tell him better what I want. When he is relaxed and doing what I want while using the rope, I can then switch to liberty.
People who don’t know how incredible is the horse in a face-to-face basis are missing an immense part of their horse. Many of the times I go to play with Cisco, I’m thinking about those flying lead changes or leg yield at the flat foot walk or canter. I say to Cisco, let’s just make certain your saddle is tight and then I will ride. After that, the magic happens and I get caught up in the deeply satisfying happiness of getting Cisco to understand my cues while we are playing online or at liberty. When Cisco understands what I want, he is thrilled to do it. Cisco wants very much to please his human. He overtries. He struggles to figure out what I want. If I want him to move a step, he thinks five steps will be better. Is that right! Is that right!
I’ve watched thousands of liberty acts. I grew up with Dr. Paul in Osceola who had a liberty act with six white horses. I’ve watched circus acts. I’ve watched it all. I could never figure out how Dr. Paul and all those other people could get horses to do all those things, much less six horses. I still can’t figure out how Dr. Paul and the circus people can do it. I can’t understand how David Lichman does it. I can’t understand how Double Dan James can do it! What I can do is figure out how to ask Cisco to do tasks, I can spend enough time with Cisco that eventually, we click and he discovers what I’m asking. Then I glow with happiness and my life is extended for five to ten minutes. Yep, this horse stuff will make you live forever!