Terrie's Lesson

So Terrie came out on Saturday the 26th to trim the horses feet and to also give me a lesson. So, when she got to the house she was so excited because Woody looked like a completely different pony because he had lost so much weight. She took pictures of him and gave him lots of scratches, which he enjoyed thoroughly.
After she trimmed him I went to get the bareback pad (I couldn't use my saddle because I never found my stirrup elastic) and saddled him up. I then expressed my problem of his continuous eating when I played with him outside and his problem of sticking his head out the way he wants to go and not listening to my rein when I'm riding. To answer the first problem, she told me to give him a 10 minute eating break before our play session started to get all his hunger out the way. I did that and once his break was over she told me to not give him the chance to eat unless I want him to. So, I sent him on a circle and he started to do his head thing on the ground and pull the circle up to the hill he loves. She told me that in order to keep his attention while circling, I had to bring him closer and watch his eye for the moment that he disconnects, and when that happens I need to do something (bump the rope GENTLY, make a commotion) to get his attention back on me. So, once I brought him into a closer circle and started catching him when his thoughts drifted, the rope on the circle wasn't taught and he wasn't leaning on it! He started to actually make a circle around me and wasn't pushing against the halter anymore. It was really cool. So, I asked him to pop over a barrel jump (which he did very willingly... very exciting!) and disengaged his hindquarters to end the game. I gave him a little bit more of an eating break, a reward for doing great on the circle, and then went to mount up. I got on the fence and, after ramming my leg with his body a couple of times, he figured out the right position and I slid on. Once Terrie lowered the gate, he immediately started his head games to get out the gate and Terrie explained something that really made me "lick and chew." She told me that rather than one-rein stopping him and completely shutting him down and discouraging forward movement (which doesn't come often with Left-Brained Introverts), I need to just lift the rein. She told me that this was because of where we were as a horse and rider team and where we are in our journey, we are more in our refinement riding stage. She said that when we are just starting to learn or teaching the horse (i.e. colt starting), we need to give them big boundaries to "bounce off of" because they are more right brained and their minds are all over the place, trying to figure things out. But as you get them past that and they learn what the legs and hands mean, you make their boundaries smaller to bounce off of and don't use such exaggerated movements. So, in Woody's case, his boundaries are with my hands, and since he knows all his aids and what movement means what, there's no need for the dramatic disengagement of his head as much as his need for the message to get to his hindquarters. I know that there is no way I could muscle him, especially his head, so rather than get into a fight with his head, I could pick up one rein (like a suspension rein) as a phase 1, and if he doesn't listen to that, then go through phases 2-3-4 by pushing his hindquarters over and straightening out.
So, right away when we got out the gate he started pushing his nose out, and all I did was lift my rein and he straightened and kept going past his favorite hill to where my focus was. Pretty much the rest of the lesson was putting this into practice by doing different patterns of weaving in and out of trees. He had it going really well at the walk, but when we went into a trot he was speedy and pushy and I had to use LOTS of hindquarter movement to get him turning correctly. Overall he and I did really well, but we both have tons of homework!
Things to work on: Weaving in and out of the trees and trying to get him lighter on the turns, work in moving Woody's hindquarters from his back and the ground to his pre-flight check, keep making commotion whe he eats without asking and also making grass breaks my idea often.
~Eden

Terrie - I hope I explained everything that you told me about the refinement correctly and did the speech you gave me justice! Thanks again for everything you do for me... you're the best!