{"id":3447,"date":"2015-11-07T19:38:46","date_gmt":"2015-11-08T01:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/?p=3447"},"modified":"2015-11-07T21:25:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-08T03:25:29","slug":"just-another-day-on-the-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/just-another-day-on-the-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Another Day on the Journey 11-6-15"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I saddled up Cisco, an amazing event occurred. A butterfly happened along, or was meant to be a sign.
\n

\"Lightness<\/a>
Lightness is how you must be with Cisco<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nMy thought is that the butterfly is meant to show how light I must be with Cisco. Lightness with Cisco is the key to a successful journey.<\/p>\n

Cisco and I did our ground work, online and at liberty. \u00a0I’m pretty certain that we made little to no progress. \u00a0These things happen in the horse world with us learned amateurs!<\/p>\n

I then rode Cisco and we practiced side passing, leg yields, hind quarter yields, bending the forequarters, hind quarter and forequarter turns, ya know…all the normal stuff. \u00a0We practiced flat foot walking and accelerating into a fox trot. We cantered around the arena. \u00a0We practiced maintaining gait. \u00a0We had success and failure.<\/p>\n

Then I decided it was time to TAKE OFF THE BRIDLE! \u00a0Cisco had the string around his neck and I was carrying a carrot stick. \u00a0I decided to use the round pen again. \u00a0Our job was to circle around the outside of the round pen. \u00a0We did really really great at the walk. \u00a0It took us a while to get a flat foot walk. \u00a0It took us longer to get a fox trot. \u00a0One complete circle is what I asked. \u00a0When Cisco did one circle at the requested gait, we screech to a stop, rest and get a treat! The faster gaits weren’t a pretty sight to see, but it worked. \u00a0With great confidence, I asked Cisco to canter. \u00a0Getting a canter took about half a circle. \u00a0Keeping Cisco at a canter wasn’t successful right away. \u00a0Getting Cisco to make the turn instead of heading off to the other end of the arena got better and better. \u00a0Finally, we made one complete turn at a canter. \u00a0We rested a while, did some moving around the arena practicing our guidance system until Cisco was fully restored to normal breathing.<\/p>\n

I asked Cisco to reverse direction. \u00a0I must not have been practicing this direction nearly as much. \u00a0We made a good circle at a walk. \u00a0Upon trying for a good circle at a fox trot, it got messy. \u00a0Cisco’s desire to follow the round pen was very low. \u00a0Instead, he wanted to go visit the exit at the other end of the arena. \u00a0We trotted and trotted around the circle, trying to make the turn without me using the string or carrot stick to make that turn. \u00a0Oh this was difficult. \u00a0We were also at a full hard trot most of the time. \u00a0Getting a smooth fox trot while following the rail was not happening. \u00a0Cisco’s trot is big. \u00a0I occasionally tried to post. Posting while using the string to direct him to the rail and \u00a0the carrot stick to keep his head following the rail ruined most of my balance. \u00a0I bounced. \u00a0Thank goodness no video record of this exists.<\/p>\n

Finally, we got a good enough circle at a trot and I immediately called it Over!<\/p>\n

We had our first riding experience without a bridle. \u00a0It went great! \u00a0Cisco was under control the entire ride. \u00a0He stopped, slowed and sped up upon command. \u00a0It was wonderful!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I saddled up Cisco, an amazing event occurred. A butterfly happened along, or was meant to be a sign. My thought is that the butterfly is meant to show how light I must be with Cisco. Lightness with Cisco is the key to a successful journey. Cisco and I did our ground work, online and at liberty. \u00a0I’m pretty certain that we made little to no progress. \u00a0These things happen in the horse world with us learned amateurs! I then rode Cisco and we practiced side passing, leg yields,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,125,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cisco","category-missouri-fox-trotter","category-parelli-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3447"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3466,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447\/revisions\/3466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}