Even though it was only 10 degrees outside it was absolutely beautiful and relatively warm feeling without the wind blowing. Had a lot of fun with Aspen and played with our new Feather Lines for the first time today - LOVE the FL! It was great to have a light feel on her and allow for more of a Liberty-style interaction.

Played with a few things that I took some video of - circles, figure-8's and sideways. The videos provided lots of helpful feedback and I have some new ideas for how I need to adjust my energy, position, and timing to get a better response from her. If you watch the clips you'll see where there are a few times I just needed to stop and refocus, slow down, and start smaller when it wasn't going as planned. I really need to work on finding a balance of sticking with a task long enough to make a difference and at the same time not getting too direct line.

I saw a pretty good neutral in my circles but when asking for the change of direction I needed to prepare myself (and therefore Aspen) just a bit more by allowing her time to see and understand my request before moving onto the next step. I need to run back farther/faster to keep our energy up and allow her time to come forward and through the turn rather then get stuck and brace against me a little while losing momentum.

In my figure-8's I need to be careful not to have puppet arms and be able to raise my rope/lead zone 1 without lifting my stick at the same time. I also need to step out and run back farther/faster to help encourage a more fluid turn around the buckets.

I'm not overly excited with everything on the tape but am grateful for what I've learned from watching myself and hope to greatly improve it over the next few days. Watch for updates!

 

 

 

 

Samantha Thorning with Aspen, (On Line, 15 mins) Aspen's leg is looking so, so, so much better! The wound is really filling in and all the bubbly proud flesh seems to have ceased growing. I've finally begun alternating the caustic powder with some wound salve every couple days to really promote healing.

I played with her on-line for just a few minutes today. Would have played longer but with the cold temperatures and biting wind I was starting to go numb. Had a few nice (and sound!) circles and some great, great, great figure-8's. I didn't ask for them at the canter but she offered and did flying changes in the middle!!! Wow!! Certain things are really coming together for us - I'm sure it's a combination of all the undemanding/friendly time we've spent together since her injury and my developing awareness of accepting what she's offering to me and then shaping it into a desired outcome for both of us. Today we got 3 steps of Spanish Walk too!! So cool! I have to be careful with this one because she wants to offer it whenever she's unsure of what I want... which is cool but I don't want it to become a habit to default to Spanish Walk all the time. :) Silly girl.