Well, now I'll tell you about our
first ST session. Karina welcomed me rather warmly and she did't
insist on staying in the pasture, as is our custom when I come to
her. I don't just take her on a lead rope and take her away, but I usually
spend some time with her. I wave away the flies as she's grazing and
I scratch her. But this time she didn't want to graze, she almost
pulled me towards the gate. She obviously was pretty anxious to know
what we are going to do this time and I think that she missed me a
little, because I was absent for four or five days.
Our first ST session was
short. There were lots of people in the stable, which is not a normal
state there, and Karina was a little nervous. I groomed her just as
usual, then I put a saddle on her, without even fastening the girth -
she actually hadn't been ridden for months, and I just wanted to
remind her saddling and see how she'll react to some weight on her
back. She took it all calmly, she swished her tail only once - when I
was manipulating with the stirrups. Then I took the saddle away and I
washed Karina's legs. She does't like washing much (except on a hot
day), but she tolerates it. Then I took her for a short walk, during
which I reminded her the exercises she already knew (leading,
stopping and backing up), and after that I introduced to her the
exercise forward-down. I was not entirely sure if this was the right
succession of exercises, because the actual LFS starts with lateral
bending of the horse's body, but as Marijke says, the horse with
extremely stiff and contracted back muscles (of which I suspect
Karina) should first do the forward-down exercise. Those exercises
actually cannot be done one without other, because they won't work
just as they are supposed to, and it is in fact hard to say which
should go first. Karina answered well to the pressure of rope halter
(I have ordered her a cavesson, but it hasn't
arrived yet), but she seemed a little confused. She searched for a
carrot, because I trained with her before some carrot stretches and
she was disappointed that now there was no carrot. Of course she did
get one just as soon as she responded to the halter. After the
forward-down exercise I proceeded very cautiously with the so-called 'stelling'. I have made a mistake though, because I should
have placed her next to the wall, to show her that for the moment I
want her to bend in the neck only. And it was really tough for her -
when she bent the neck, she stepped to the side with outside hind
leg. It showed me how stiff and contracted her muscles were, and at
that moment I had a feeling that I pushed her too far. According to
Marijke, as soon as the horse accepts the stelling, it will bend
through the entire body and move the inside hip forward, thus
completing the LFS with the third element - stepping under the point
of mass. It seemed to me that working on LFS will take us a long
time, and it will take at least a couple of sessions of working in a
standstill and in a standstill only. Karina must relax her muscles
more before we move on to work in walk.
After the session, which
took us some 3 minutes, I massaged Karina's neck and back. A couple
of months ago I completed an equine massage course, so I know a
little about a sport massage and can support my horse's training with
it. Despite throngs of people moving here and there Karina took the
massage well and she relaxed. When I massaged right side of her neck
(the splenus capitis muscle), she released the tension and yawned
some six or seven times. She seldom yawns at all, so that showed me
how big was the stress she was in, though the session was so short
and I was really gentle and I didn't ask much bending. And I know how
careful with lateral bending of the neck you have to be not to hurt
the horse by damaging laryngal nerves. When I thought about all that,
it seemed to me that I was going to fast with all that training and
had to slow down, but...
Of course after the
session I took Karina on a halter to graze round the stable. I don't
always do that, because I don't want Karina to force me to go
somewhere everytime, but most of the times I take her to graze on the
best grass that I can find. This gives me an opportunity to work on
our relations. I noticed that she entirely trusts me to watch the
surroundings, just as a leader should, and she just calmly grazes,
and nothing disturbs her, no matter what is going on around - as long
as I don't pay attention, she does not pay attention either. It can
be an express train passing by, or a barking dog, or a roe-deer
walking through the bushes - nothing seems to be dangerous as long as
I'm on the watch. And this is an enormous improvement, because in the
previous stable she was scared by every noise in the bushes.
Fortunately, although she spent over a year there, she didn't learn
to flee in panic, as other horses in that stable did. It was funny to
see, because when the herd fled, Karina came after it in a lazy trot,
looking around in surprise, searching for that terrifying object,
which scared her mates. Now it seems that she isn't paying much
attention to sudden noises in the environment.
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