Monday, August 23, 2010

.........learning by teaching....my beloved Game of Contact*.


It sure was a riveting day teaching my fearless subjects Kim and her quarter horse Tunes, Shannon and her Iberian warmblood Desi and Lisa and her quarter horse Minnie.

This whole Game of Contact thing is FASCINATING to me. I want more people and horses to play with!





Kim and Tunes have been doing a lot of cool fun stuff (like extreme trail courses!) but not really any arena stuff. So we just played around with the concepts of free forward movement.

Shannon and Desi have been together since Desi was just a few months old. Shannon has done quite a bit of Parelli with her and takes dressage lessons once a week. I feel like Desi came "through" about 80% of what she is capable of. I can't wait to see her in a few months!Lisa and Minnie were on their 8th session with the game of contact. Even I can't believe how differently she moves!!! wow!

All three girls had such upbeat happy attitudes and made the whole day fun. They were sweet to their horses and didn't once (at least not that they let on) get frustrated. The horses were troupers too. Even when they got a little emotional with the new information, they hung in there and tried their hardest. It was a pleasure.
I want to say thank you to Jim and Lisa for hosting the clinic. Beth for her support and Kip for being my assistant scientist and recording the data via video camera.

ONWARDS!...or should I say: FORWARDS!



*I must add that this is actually my understanding of Linda Parelli's Game of Contact. Its her brain child. See the glossary at the bottom of the page for the Parelli links.

4 comments:

  1. I wish I was closer so you could give us a lesson! If you're ever in Minnesota...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had such a great time! I can't believe the changes in Minnie either. She's like totally different horse! And, thank you for helping me with Jake. I can't wait until he reaches the state that Minnie's at. Jim will love him even more! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. i know! when jake gets put together more it will really be impressive. we should take before and after pictures of his topline.

    ...and of course. you are very welcome!

    ReplyDelete