I <3 finesse!

I got to play and ride last night.. wow amazing! I rode Magi in the western bridle I bought to show him in and I practiced riding one handed. It's funny how much I freaked out about it because the truth is I think I could go into a show ring bridleless and it wouldn't be an issue. He was collected and so mentally engaged I loved it! I love him! He is really enjoying the higher finesse stuff we've been working on and I think it's been good for me because we're doing a lot of the finesse Parelli patterns that include things like figure eights, clover leaf patterns... so ones that i've done before pre-Parelli. So when I realized it was for finesse I was like ok this will be interesting because I know how to do these. But the amazing thing is how Pat explains it on the DVD is it's like a dance.. it's a language. As I've been riding the patterns with Magi it's incredible because we'll be doing a figure eight pattern and it's like the whole time he's collected.. not just physically.. but mentally. Asking me questions like "Are we going to turn here? How extended should my stride be? Lead change here? Sidepass here?" And then as we get to higher levels I begin to ask "can you do this circle with your hindquarters pointed out of the circle?" Asking for a whole other degree of balance. Things like this fascinate me!!!! I absolutely love it and the cool thing is Magi is a very extreme LBE/LBI.. very dominant horse and gets bored easily and switches between introvert and extrovert so fast it's so hard to see the switch. So you would think that he'd get bored doing a figure eight pattern, but doing it in a way where I'm asking him "can we do it with your body positioned like this instead of like this?" keeps him so mentally engaged. I love L4 finesse!!!

I'm going to Blackhawk college tomorrow for a judging camp and college visit.. and then on tuesday I'm competing at the Illinois state judging contest and hopefully I can qualify to go to nationals!!! I want to go to Blackhawk next year and I'll stay at COD (a local community college here in IL) this coming fall. I am so excited to go to Blackhawk.. I'm hoping to get a full horse judging scholarship to go there and I want to major in equine science and ultimately hopefully become a equine vet techinician and train horses and give clinics on the side. And of course be a parelli professional! So these next couple days will be awesome to get to visit Blackhawk again and meet their horse judging coach!!! I'll post when I get back!
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