Movin on up!!!!!

I've decided that Xena and I are well into level 2, because she's smart like that and remembers everything we played with before her hives came. After watching the new Level 2 DVDs, I have some level of confidence that we can get through this pretty quickly. Funny, after watching the online levels 1 and 2 the past few days, when the clip stopped, it left me a feeling of "...that's it?" It was like there certainly wasn't any new info in level 1, and level 2 was the same thing only with a longer rope and obstacles. Because they are my friend's, I brought my notebook with me to take notes so I can return the DVDs to her quickly. I think I wrote exactly one thing down, and that was "remember your body blocks." So out I went with my 22' rope to the round pen with Xena. I tried to think of everything Pat did with the grey demo horse on the DVD. Low and behold, there were some things that weren't as easy as they looked. We had fun playing with those. You know, maybe that's all level 2 has to be... longer ropes and better sensitivity. I'm feeling so much less restricted now!!!

I fly sprayed her, brushed her, and cleaned out her front feet at LIBERTY for the first time!!! I'll admit that since she kicked me, I've been hyper aware of when I'm in the kick zone. She picks her back feet up WAY high, as if she's going to kick, exactly like she did before she actually kicked, so the rest of the feet cleaning session was teaching to lift them by tapping with the carrot stick. I'm quite grateful that the carrot stick is the length of her leg. I hope someone thanks Pat for that lol!

Anyway, the majority of today was spent hanging out with her and thinking about when I'll ride her, how I'll do it, and that (knocking on wood with fingers crossed!) we might possibly be somewhere like level 3 before winter. In my mass confusion of how the whole levels thingie worked last night, I went on a youtube rampage. I looked at what I could find of old school Assessments, people resubmitting failed tasks, and then compared it to the new one. WOW am I glad of the new standards!!!! I was also looking through 4 and 5 year old Parelli Forum posts, and saw how the whole tasking thing got some people stuck in level 2 for an embarrassing amount of time. The good thing, though, was that I got to see some of the things that were once Parelli signatures, that are now excluded from current material... i.e flank ropes and Cherokee bridles. The tasks were difficult, I could see, for some people to accomplish, depending on the horsenality and personality match. But I like seeing what they were, just to play with them for fun. The youtube videos of how LIGHT some of those old level 3 horses with just 45' lines around their flanks were responding, made my jaw drop. In any case, the new formatting seems SO much easier to get through. My friend who is just beginning said she hasn't even watched the whole new level 1 DVD, because there was so much information being presented at one time it was overwhelming. Well, I guess then this new shorter version would certainly fit her best! No telling how slow she'd go with the old level 1 lol! (although I do wish that somewhere they would include the bottle simulation from the old level 1 on communication - that was priceless!!!!)

In other news - I'm having issues with playing with Mesa again. NOT, by any means, because we aren't getting along. In fact just the opposite - we are enjoying level 3 liberty and she's THE horse I can't wait to finish breakfast to play with... but lately she's dropped some weight, her joints crack, her back is atrophied and hollow... and I kind of feel bad about asking her to move around that old, decrepid body. Is that like ridiculous? I know I just had that awesome ride with her the other day. And if you close your eyes, she feels great to ride. Plenty spunky. She's just having old horse problems, not digesting her food, even though I'm pumping her full of double what the others get, it just comes out mush and she stays thin. :( Perhaps I would feel a bit better if she could have 24/7 pasture, guess that means I gotta fix the fence. She's so arthritic that I feel bad playing with her, yet I'm paranoid she'll jump a 3 foot fence. How hypocritic is that! LOL.


Life would be perfect if fences fixed themselves, there was a Miracle Feed for old horses, and back legs didn't kick. Hmmm, I spose emotional fitness is learning how improvise those things hahaha.

Savvy On everyone!