November 17, 2009

Today was our first training day with Jen Hall, a Parelli instructor.

Background – I came by her through the North Central Florida Parelli Playgroup – a horse group that I have recently joined.  It’s giving me a fresh start with my horses and really refreshing my desire to work with them and ride again…. something that had been fading for some reason.

At any rate, I asked around and one of the club members, Susan, had recommended I ask if Jen would like to work with him.  I met Jen at the Parelli Playday on November 7th and she officially introduced me to the Parelli system of training.  It’s not a 1-2-3 process as much as it’s a series of games that advance with the horse and from which to guide their training… if that makes sense.

So we set a date for her to come meet Astar, along with the rest of the horses and to see if she would be a right fit…. and she was!  Even though it took us 2 hours to connect with him today, I could tell that, overall, he accepted her in his space and he was curious; that he would give her a try.  We spent most of the time walking around the field and working with him.  By the end we had peaked his curiousity and he was spending some time with us.

Her leaving remarks for the day were; that she likes him; that he definitely has to go a lot slower than most; that we need to focus on zone 1 and 2 (horses have 5 zones of contact) playing what Parelli calls the “Friendly Game”, where you just touch the rope to him (esp. in the sensitive zones) and wave it around with the idea being that it means “nothing”; we needed to find a way to get him into the round corral to have a smaller space in which to work; and to spend as much time with him as possible.

… And we made an appointment for the 2nd training!