Highboy and cole in round pen

Lip wrestling horses

Cole and Highboy had a good time playing in the round pen yesterday.  I took Highboy out to do some clicker work with him, but he was too wound up to concentrate and I didn't want to deal with his shenanigans myself.  I got Cole out of the pasture and put him in the round pen with Highboy, and after a few minutes of sniffing and greeting each other, "Dude!  Where did you live this summer?  Really?  I lived in Wellington but I've been to that place..."  they commenced playing together in a happy reunion including WWF horse wrestling, lip wrestling, running, and rolling in the sand.  I'm learning how to use the various features on my new phone and got two videos of them "horsing around".

Centered Riding Instructor Update Clinic Photos

The week prior to moving out of our old place we were at my instructor update clinic in Steamboat Springs, CO at Regina Wendler's barn.  It was a four day clinic during which several certified Centered Riding instructors demonstrated their teaching techniques and several people attended as student riders.  We did unmounted work to practice having soft hands/elbows, address balance, and loosen up our bodies before getting on the horses.  We also took turns teaching the student riders each day, then in the afternoons the instructors were given lessons to improve their own riding.  We also practiced doing bodywork on the students and on each other to help our bodies work more efficiently and with less effort.

Shoulder release

discussing how a shoulder release felt

shoulder release

shoulder release

shoulder release

centering ourselves (finding and dropping our center of gravity)

grounding feet

grounding feet and leg position

discussing the "springs" a rider has in her ankle, knee, and hip joints

"breathing out the button holes"

getting my feet grounded

Discussing the pattern we were to ride

Teaching my lesson the first day

Who knows what I'm explaining?!

Peggy Brown and I discussing with students how my lesson went teaching "the blender" from my jumping collection

Carla Jo on Cisco

Diane with her endurance horse

Karen with her arabian

Lu with her gaited gelding

Regina with Walter

Sara and Fergie are focused

beautiful leg position

Rain and Kim H - smiling!

Michelle and Obie looking good

Khreed, Joyce's arabian

I rode Khreed in the riding lesson where I'm a student

I rode Obie on another day

I rode Rain twice

Loving on Walter

Some of the Bit of Honey crew waiting for the airplane to deliver our clinic supervisor

This cat was really something, I forget her charismatic name but she was all over everyone and wanted to play all the time

She even helped herself to breakfast from the (occupied) bird house

making new friends

Joyce and Khreed

Overall it was an incredible week, with amazing views, new friends, and good ponies!