{"id":552,"date":"2002-02-22T19:28:40","date_gmt":"2002-02-23T01:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/?p=552"},"modified":"2011-01-27T20:40:06","modified_gmt":"2011-01-28T02:40:06","slug":"jr-journal-2nd-ride-on-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/jr-journal-2nd-ride-on-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"JR Journal &#8211; 2nd ride on JR"},"content":{"rendered":"<table cellpadding=\"4\" width=\"100%\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"20%\" align=\"left\"><a href=\"\/group\/Parellinaturally\/message\/22388?delete=confirm\"><\/a><\/td>\n<td align=\"center\">\u00a0<\/td>\n<td width=\"20%\" align=\"right\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>&#8220;Gee Susan, He&#8217;s REALLY Testing You!&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;My, JR is being ORNERY Tonight!&#8221;<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">2\/22\/2002<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s nothing like a young horse to make one humble. I was foolishly<br \/>\nthinking I had gotten pretty skilled in natural horsemanship principles. I<br \/>\nremember riding Velvet in many workshops thinking, &#8220;Gee, I wish I had a young<br \/>\nhorse so I could experience all those early training experiences again with a<br \/>\nyoung horse. I&#8217;ll be so much better this time.&#8221; Ha!<\/p>\n<p>Jenny uttered the two statements that make up the title during the latest<br \/>\nThursday nite group lesson. This might give you a hint of what JR and I went<br \/>\nthrough.<\/p>\n<p>JR had 30 days of training with Tony and Jenny.\u00a0 Jenny rode him most of the time.<\/p>\n<p>This was our second ride. Our first ride group lesson, JR and I got to<br \/>\nspend quite a bit of time walking a circle around Jenny. We only<br \/>\nparticipated out on the wall at the tail end of the lesson. Although JR did<br \/>\ncanter with me during that lesson without permission, I lived through it and was a better woman for it!<\/p>\n<p>Before the lesson, I tried very hard to &#8220;image&#8221; me riding JR I asked<br \/>\nmyself, &#8220;Why are you nervous?&#8221; I had no answer. As I mounted JR, I<br \/>\nwas nervous and strove to relax tense muscles. I tried to breathe normally!<\/p>\n<p>The lesson started and we took to the wall at a walk. Nooo!\u00a0 Internal<br \/>\nscreaming!\u00a0 BANG, here goes JR and I at a canter! I was carrying a carrot stick and managed to stop him with that. We cantered down one long side of the arena.<\/p>\n<p>We were pulled into the center of the arena where we practiced stepping over<br \/>\nwith the hindquarters while walking forward. This time I remembered to use<br \/>\nmy body position, then legs, and last, reins. I tried to be very very soft<br \/>\nwith the reins, so as not to build a brace in JR.<\/p>\n<p>When it appeared that JR was listening to my body and legs, we got to return<br \/>\nto the rail again. Our theme of the month is the point to point pattern.<br \/>\nWe go at a fast clips, trot or canter. The person looks straight ahead at a<br \/>\nspecific spot at the next corner. You don&#8217;t get to use your leg aides or<br \/>\ntouch the reins unless the horse turns. We ride into the corner and let the<br \/>\nwall stop us. We relax for a while, back and go at a fast clip to the next<br \/>\ncorner. It doesn&#8217;t take long for the horse to learn to stay &#8220;on the wall.&#8221;<br \/>\nThis game makes the horse happy, as they know they get the comfort to stand<br \/>\nstill and do nothing for a while.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny told JR and I to try to stay at a flat foot walk. JR likes to fox<br \/>\ntrot. We managed a few steps here and there at the flat foot walk. Jenny<br \/>\ncomplimented us every time we hit the flat foot walk.<\/p>\n<p>I thought since JR was a young horse that he would just get to stop somewhere<br \/>\nclose to the spot that I focused on. Nope, Jenny asked me if JR was straight<br \/>\nto my spot. By that time he had moved his rear end 180 degrees. We had to<br \/>\nget to my spot and straighten up. No slack for the young! How PICKY!<\/p>\n<p>We were doing pretty good at this. I almost forgot about being nervous. JR<br \/>\nand I were getting to know one another. Jenny mumbled something about a word<br \/>\nbeginning with &#8220;C&#8221;. I asked a woman onlooker if Jenny had said the &#8220;C&#8221; word.<\/p>\n<p>The woman said, &#8220;She said canter!&#8221; \u00a0&#8220;CANTER!&#8221; I exclaimed. JR and I are<br \/>\njust new! Surely she doesn&#8217;t want us to canter right now at almost the very<br \/>\nstart of the lesson. (About a half hour had gone by!) Jenny explained to me<br \/>\nthat I was to tell JR to canter when it &#8220;felt right&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>All right! We left our corner going straight down the wall at a fast clip.<br \/>\nI shifted my body and squeezed my legs. Zip, we went into a smooth canter<br \/>\nwith the correct lead! By this time JR knew we were going to stop in the<br \/>\ncorner, so he was almost ready. We managed to stop.<\/p>\n<p>Coming back towards the front of the arena was a lot more fun. JR knows the<br \/>\nfront of the arena is the place to be, so he speeds up quite a bit! I was<br \/>\nheartened by the stop. We didn&#8217;t slam into the fence, although we came<br \/>\nclose.<\/p>\n<p>I was very surprised that I didn&#8217;t have to shift my body very much for JR to<br \/>\nstart off in a canter. That was very pleasant. By this time, I had only<br \/>\nsome residual nervousness left! I had to concentrate too much to remember to<br \/>\nbe nervous! I think we made it alive going twice around the arena. I<br \/>\nremember looking at the woman onlooker to see if she thought we were going to<br \/>\nslam into the railing at her corner. She didn&#8217;t appear to be too concerned.<br \/>\nFoolish woman!<\/p>\n<p>Then the dreaded sidepass exercise started. Sidepassing is most difficult<br \/>\ngame on the ground and mounted. Here&#8217;s where my memory starts to fade<br \/>\nbecause of the extreme embarrassment. This is where Jenny said those two<br \/>\ntitle statements, &#8220;He&#8217;s really testing you. He&#8217;s really being ornery&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m to lightly tell him to sidepass with my body position and legs. I&#8217;m not<br \/>\nto grab the rein and pull his head back where it was when we started to side<br \/>\npass. Fine, I let that rein go and he took off down the wall. I grab the<br \/>\nrein and pull his head back. Jenny discusses with me how bad it is to do<br \/>\nthis. We manage a step at the sidepass, and we are free to go until the next<br \/>\ncorner. I ask him to sidepass; JR squirts off down the wall, I pull his head<br \/>\nback and Jenny discusses how I&#8217;m going to start building brace. Brace is a<br \/>\ndirty word! In desparation, Jenny tells me to ask JR to sidepass like I ask Velvet. Well, sure. I put my body in position and give some light leg pressure if she doesn&#8217;t respond. I do the same for JR, and he starts to try and run down the wall. I believe this is where Jenny said,<br \/>\n&#8220;Wow! He&#8217;s really testing you tonight!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I feel worse than a beginner. I&#8217;ve seen people do better than this the first<br \/>\ntime they ever ride a horse! Jenny discusses how I am to use the rein to<br \/>\nkeep his head from squirting down the rail. She again tells me to ask JR<br \/>\nlike I do Velvet. I asked, JR squirts and Predator Susan grabs the rein and<br \/>\npull his head back. The slogan is, &#8220;Slow hands ask and quick hands release.&#8221;<br \/>\nMy predator hands are doing the opposite!<\/p>\n<p>Now, Jenny is walking with JR and I. We are ignoring the other two people in<br \/>\nthe class. They don&#8217;t exist. Jenny, JR and I are in a private sidepass hell.<br \/>\nFinally, I manage to do something right, although I was too far-gone to know<br \/>\nwhat. We quit sidepassing. The lesson ends. Jenny brightly tells me, &#8220;You<br \/>\ndid really well tonight.&#8221; I was sunk in despair. However, as I am a great<br \/>\nactress, I smile and brightly say, &#8220;Thanks!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That evening while tossing and turning in bed, I suddenly decide that JR will<br \/>\nbe softer than Velvet, as long as I don&#8217;t ride him! I half seriously told<br \/>\nthis to Jenny several days later. Again, she brightened up and said that she<br \/>\nwas pleased at how well I had done. What a nice trainer she is! I almost<br \/>\nbelieve her.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 &#8220;Gee Susan, He&#8217;s REALLY Testing You!&#8221; &#8220;My, JR is being ORNERY Tonight!&#8221; 2\/22\/2002 There&#8217;s nothing like a young horse to make one humble. I was foolishly thinking I had gotten pretty skilled in natural horsemanship principles. I remember riding Velvet in many workshops thinking, &#8220;Gee, I wish I had a young horse so I could experience all those early training experiences again with a young horse. I&#8217;ll be so much better this time.&#8221; Ha! Jenny uttered the two statements that make up the title during the latest Thursday nite&hellip;<\/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":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","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=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}