Some time last week (or maybe it was the week before, it's hard to remember when you've been babysitting four children over the course of one week), I mentioned that I had ordered Philippe Karl's Classical Dressage (volume 1), and that I would share all of the wondrous things I gleaned from the DVD.
Well, I didn't glean much.
When you watch the DVD at 10:00 at night after a long day of work, your brain gets a little...
fuzzy.
I tried. I really, really did.
But I kind of lost focus.
(post concussion syndrome will do that to you).
I did, however, have a breakthrough with Grim using Philippe Karl's method of lunging.
All my life (okay, that's an over-statement) I'd been taught to plant my feet in the middle of the circle and do. Not. Move.
(I can feel myself getting dizzy already)
It was fact. Just stand and let the horse go around you, because if you move the horse will think he's got the upper hand (or something like that... I'm honestly not sure what the point was). So when I saw Philippe Karl walking his horse up the long end of the arena I went HUH?
Then I went
Yep
You may be wondering "why the stupid face? It's not a big deal."
But YES. It WAS.
Because, you see, Grimsey hates lunging. He will do anything to get out of going in a circle attached to the end of a rope while I stand in the middle and make kissy noises brandishing a long, thin stick. Huh. Can't imagine why.
Anyway, he leaned, and ran sideways, and was just an ornery bitch on the lunge line, and so the next day, I grabbed my equipment, grabbed my horse, grabbed my helmet, and we set off for the arena. After de-tangling my lunge line and de-tangling my whip from the weeds gleefully growing in my arena, Grim and I set off on a battle of wills. It was he versus myself. It was horse versus man. It was... it was... oh, my, he's lunging.
I walked him up the long side, asked him to circle, walked back down, trotted, circled, and then I wondered:
Did I grab the wrong horse?
Grimsey was engaged, not fighting the line, not leaning, and it was like Christmas in July (only it's June).
For once, Grim and I got on just fine.
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