Venturing Out in Traveling Circles

Yesterday I decided to take Woody outside to play on the 22'' and work on doing very little (on my part) by practicing some circles. After he ate for a bit, I sent him out on a circle and he kept pulling the rope out toward the tall grass, so I waited until he stopped pulling so much and circled around me bending more, then I brought him in. Then I sent him out again and started walking. It was really great seeing him trying to figure out how to circle, move, and not hit the end of rope all at the same time! I would stop every several steps and stand. Then I walked over to the hill with all kinds of yummy grass on it, and of course, it was very difficult for him not to eat! I would gently ask him to go again every time he stopped. He then went around about 2 times without stopping (although he couldn't keep an even pace... hmmm, hill therapy needed?) I brought him in and let him eat some grass and hung out. Next, we played Touch It with the board bridge and during my sending him toward it he really started crowding his zone 1 & 2 into me. I had to use my blocks several times to keep him out of my space, but finally, once we reapproached the boards again, he looked at me and put his front feet on the boards, snorted, licked and chewed, and then looked at me. It was the funniest thing because I could just picture him saying, "Oh! Well if that's what you wanted, why didn't you say so?" I gave him a cookie and asked him to walk all the way across it, which he did.
We then practiced a sort-of Stick to Me where we did I walk, you walk, I trot, you trot, I stop, you stop, and so on. He did great with that and even backed up without me having to use my stick for support!
The last thing we did was the weaving pattern. At first, he got distracted because he wanted to put his nose on ALL of the barrels, ALL the time (it's amazing what point-to-point with cookies can do to a horse), but once he figured out the purpose he did the weave pretty well. I let him a graze a bit and then we went inside.
Overall, we had a great session and I'm happy that he is learning to catch on to the patterns quicker.
~Eden