Friday 21 June 2013

Parelli workshop with Russell Higgins & Jo Bates



Last week-end 15/16 June I participated in another Parelli workshop near Marmande. You're probably bored of reading about them but this time was a bit different as we brought over the big guns in the form of Russell Higgins, a 4* Instructor. He's from New Zealand but does a tour in Europe and UK each year. I looked him up beforehand, there's some video of him jumping one of his horses bareback & bridleless with another alongside at liberty and other impressive stuff; but he wasn't coming here to do a display so I didn't know quite what to expect or what would be different or better than our usual sessions with our favourite fun 2* Jo Bates. Russell was a quiet, calm person, easy to be around for humans and horses but there was no doubting his ability to be respected. He had a good sense of humour too; and was a sympathetic teacher with a few ideas outside the box which was very helpful and refreshing, showing you could develop your own style and variations within the method.
Russell, me, Jo

Firstly, what was different was that a Parelli 4* attracted a lot of attention on the French side and word went round the équitation éthologique circles in south-west France, bringing in several people from within the French system who were diploma'd Saveur 3 / 4; even instructing themselves. The interesting thing when talking to them is that they thought Parelli was the best learning system, they just don't usually have access to it except via DVDs and internet. I made some new contacts which I'm happy about, as one of them lives not far away, near Cahors, and he himself organises stages, in fact he organised one in March with Andy Booth which I only heard about afterwards when I read about it in the newspaper; hopefully next time I'll know in advance. Russell knows Andy from their days at the Parelli ranch in Colorado.
 
The whole week-end was well organised and planned. Russell took the lead role, with Jo assisting him; they were both always ready to explain or check how we were doing and offer support. It was all very professional, reflecting the importance that Parelli puts on training instructors and presenting themselves to students and the public. We started the day in the classroom with notepads at 09h00. With Jo, we are usually more laid-back, starting when everyone's ready and present; so when I arrived at 09h15 (which was pretty good for me, with a 2 hour drive) I was told I was late, although nobody had given me a start time).
Russell introduced himself and Jo, and asked us all to briefly introduce ourselves and say why we were there, what level we were at and our goals, and what we hoped to get out of the week-end. Although most of the French spoke a little English, Steffi & Carole did a great job translating whenever necessary, and Jo made an impressive effort too.
The classroom session proceeded with Russell asking us to recall the four motivators for horses: safety, comfort, food/incentives and play, and the importance of recognising which of these were foremost in the horse's mind at any given time.  If the horse is worried about his safety he may not be able to do things for you but once he has confidence in you and that you are going to look after his needs, he will do things with you and for you.
This moved us on to the three L's: Love, Language and Leadership (in equal measure; never one more than the other). If things start to go wrong, we need to go back to these and identify which one is broken, and repair and rebalance. These relate directly to the first three games in Parelli, which are usually in this order: Friendly game, Porcupine game (response to direct pressure), and Driving game (implied or rhythmic pressure); all three need to be in balance. Leadership equals respect, this may need to come first; we had an example of this later in the day.
In teaching and playing with your horse, there are 4 stages of development: teaching, control, reinforcement, refinement. Not necessarily occurring in this order.
We should think about where the horse is at and which of these we are doing, and adapt our strategy accordingly. If we ask the horse to do something and he resists, does he understand the task? If not, and (for example) we are still teaching, we would use our phases of asking differently (long slow phases). Our actions or reactions would be different according to where the horse is at in his confidence and education. If we are fairly sure the horse knows what we are asking (and we are asking it clearly and calmly) and he doesn't respond appropriately, we may need to reinforce (phase 1 then moving quickly through 2 & 3 to phase 4). Question asked: how do you get a light P1? Answer: by having an effective P4. Refining comes later, your P1 would get less & less. There may be moments when we need to control the horse by bringing your energy up fast. 
So we can think of 4 words to describe the application of our phases depending on where the horse is at or what we are doing with him.
Teaching : Slow... (slow clear phases and lots of support)
Control : Now! (the horse needs to move right now; it may save his life or yours in an emergency, so you need to be able to react, and do as much as it takes quickly)
Reinforcement : Later (when he is confident, your phases or cues would be much more subtle)
Refinement : Always (always looking to refine and improve)
We went outside and did some practical exercises, using as an example, asking a horse to back up. We did this as a simulation, the halter tied to the hitching rail. Each of us had to ask the" horse" to back up in 3 different ways and the onlooker had to guess what we were doing e.g. were we demonstrating control, teaching etc. because if the onlookers couldn't see what we intended, then the horse isn't going to! This was a really useful exercise and I will be thinking about it when I'm with my horse.
Because Russell is a 4* he is qualified within the instructor programme to teach more students at once than is Jo, who is less experienced. This is because of safety; especially with a mixed level group and a lot of horses, things may go wrong. There were a couple of young horses today and it was strange and unsettling for them all; even the resident ones were behaving out of character because their habits were upset by the presence of new horses and people. 
On Saturday morning we all took our horses out so we were 8 in the arena, and Russell wore a microphone so we could all hear him. At first we played with our horses to warm up, ensuring we had them yielding and responsive backwards, forwards, hind and forequarter yields all equally balanced. As we would prepare for riding.
Some of the tasks which I found particularly helpful: (Notes for me, but others might find useful too!)
Sideways off fingertip pressure (Porcupine game); finding the sideways button on the horse's side, somewhere between the forehand yield button and the hindquarter yield position (being equivalent to leg aids); Russell showed me how, by not taking the hand off in between, it would  help both me and the horse to find the sideways button and have a smoother movement sideways.
Driving game with back-up and roll-over: a useful practical exercise for control and respect. Set off across field or arena with your horse alongside, driving from zone 3 as in riding position; focus on a point the other side of the field. Halfway, turn to horse and ask for hindquarter yield with a 180° turn on the forehand, then back up (you are now facing horse) a few steps (gets hq's engaged and under) then "roll over" move, drive the front end away and round 180° from you so you end up leading from the other side; continue straight to your end point on the opposite fence. Eventually this should be one smooth continuous movement in a straight line, without stopping. Doing it a few times creates a pattern which helps you and the horse. Remember to keep focused on the destination.
Neutral lateral flexion and wrap-around: stay at the drive line (shoulder); throw rope over horse's head & hold loosely under chin; throw rest over body to wrap around above hocks. Ask for flexion (head turns away from where you're standing to flex opposite side); if horse moves use the hand under chin to tap far side of neck with rhythmic pressure to stop drift; rub other hand on side and follow drift until horse stops moving and relaxes; once the horse can stay flexed without moving, you can continue to the wrap-aroud and unwind the horse away and towards you. Remember the horse should do the moving of his feet.
Stop eating grass / permission to eat: have a cue, like raising your hand or a vocal cue. With training stick, tap (steady rhythmic pressure) on horse's croup until he raises his head; once you have this response understood, you can develop a cue to allow or invite him to eat; based on the cue to lower head that you will already have. Russell suggested pressing on the neck near the withers, as you might use this when riding too.
Backing up straight: I have trouble with this. Russell's suggestion was to develop direction contol when backing up off fingertips on nose, by directing each foot and using the head to steer. He said if I can back the horse arond a figure 8 it will improve straightness; watch this space!

In another task, this came up again; this time I was in zone 3 alongside the horse, we were again doing back-up and roll-over and Polly would turn her forehand into me, causing the hq's to swing out and she'd go crooked. Driving the front end away would swing the back end towards me and straighten her up; in theory... I also had trouble asking Polly to go through the gap between barrels; interestingly, the only horses to make a scene about this were the two resident horses, Polly & Bliss, who see these barrels daily! Polly would not go through them and tested my nerve by crowding on top of me as I tried to straighten her to face the obstacle. She managed to unnerve me sufficiently that I decided I wasn't ready to ride her this afternoon as planned. Instead, Jo came and helped me with some gymnasticising which got her stepping under and away from me, but by the time I felt confident with her again, it was too late to join the ridden group.



Sunday:
After a short 09h00 classroom session introducing the auditors who had joined today, and a recap of yesterday and a chance to ask questions, we all took our horses out into the arena.
The plan was that those who wished to ride would do so at the end of the afternoon. Until then, we would work as a group. The exercises were towards preparation for riding, so a lot of Porcupine game: backing up from fingertip pressure on the nose; going sideways; flexions and rein positions from the ground; direct rein & indirect rein. Also some circling game; first checking we could ask the horse to maintain gait and direction for 4 circles (two of the four responsibilities of the horse); once that was solid, we introduced transitions, looking for snappy departures in upward and downward transitions. Russell demonstrated a useful sideways exercise developed from circling whereby the handler stands on the fence line, asks for a half-circle, turn and half-circle the other way. When the horse passes your hip you start to move, ready to drive them sideways as they come to the fence, thus maintaining impulsion for sideways.
The general afternoon session finished with a fun challenge with obstacles. We had to stand on a brick, behind poles on the ground in line with us to form a marker, facing the line of barrels, and bring our horse into the marked zone, turn and jump the barrels, use hq yield to stop and turn the horse to jump the barrels again, with another stop and turn towards you, all without leaving the brick. Points were gained or lost for you or the horse. The winner was Sophie, who completed the challenge easily. Second was Liz with Bliss, thus ending the day on a good note, having been very challenging all week-end and more than once managed to pull away and come & stand next to her mate Polly. I got pulled off my brick after the second jump and as Polly stepped out of the markers I was eliminated. As she's pretty big, I did well considering and nearly got her through!
I was thankful to take Polly back to her box and relax and watch Sophie and Marina ride.
After mounting with Savvy, Russell coached them in emergency dismounts, before moving on to turns and direct / indirect rein exercises and upward & downward transitions with snappy departures, bringing up the energy in phases. Also the 9-stage back-up... Finally he set up an exercise to help the horse & rider depart on the correct lead at canter, using two barrels by the fence.
Sunday was hot and we were all tired but happy; it was an excellent well-organised week-end, thanks to Liz, Carole and Richard (the latter making sure everyone including horses was supplied with cool drinking water, chairs and shade). We hope to get Russell back again next year; in the meantime we have another workshop booked with Jo in September. Lots to think about and practise on my own horses before then!
Readers please note that this is my personal record of the workshop and how I understood the tasks and techniques; I may have misunderstood or misrepresented certain things, I am a student and am not qualified to offer coaching or advice on the Parelli method, and I do not represent the organisation.
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So how was our 4* Instructor different? One thing I always tell Parelli-sceptics is to watch the people coming up through the programme, those that have learned under Pat Parelli but develop their own style and approach; by the time they get to 3* upwards these are the horsemen and women to watch. If you don't like the cowboy hat and ponytail, look beyond them at the horsemen they are producing... Many are now stars in their own right, out there making the world a better and more interesting place for horses and humans. Go see them if you get the chance.