Facing my Fears

Almost 4 years ago I set out on an adventure to take a young horse from start to finish. But here is the thing I wanted to do it with clicker training and breaking away from traditional methods. While there has been set backs due to injury, one of the bigger issues is my fear. Many times I have made mistakes and attempted to go back to what I knew in the form of traditional training. And it isn't that it has failed me, but I didn't get the results I wanted. Yesterday I wanted to try riding Navi again after our 3 week break. I found myself to be very very nervous. I wish I wasn't so worried about getting hurt, lol. Darn getting older! She did very well when I laid over her and we took some steps, but when I went to get on again she was nervous. Why? Well I can only assume she was feeding off of me. So I decided I needed to go back to what I do best, liberty work. While we had taken a very soft approach to teaching Navi to ride and we definitely stepped away from traditional training,but it still had its components of traditional methods. I was using tack, and my partner to hold her and be my back up on the ground. Safe right, except when Navi felt like she didn't want me to ride and decides to blow up. Had she yet, not really, but I didn't want to risk it. So I decided to go to liberty work and take off all the tack. If I wanted to know how she felt about riding, I had to give her a choice. So off we went for me to face my fears. I was going to get on her at liberty. No halter. I have a hard time trusting Navi and we can have a battle of wills at times. But I think I am the cause of that. She knows that I don't trust her fully and how can I expect her to trust me if I don't trust her. It was a lesson I had to learn with Pixie and one I needed with Navi.

The moment that I sat on her at liberty was a wonderful breakthrough moment with us. It was the 1st time I actually felt that I have put my trust into her. She choose to let me get on her and stayed perfectly still until I slid off the other side. We did it multiple times and ended on a very good note!

I have always thought my finish line with her was when she became a trail horse, after all that is why I got her. I wanted to take a horse from the ground up to a trail horse. For a long time I thought riding was out and we were going to tackle driving. (Which I am still planning on, I think she will be great at it). However, now I realize getting a finished trail horse shouldn't have ever been my end goal. Finding a partnership should have been. It didn't matter what we did in the end as long as we were working together. I do think we will be on the trails and driving in the near future, but first I have to work harder on finding my trust in her.  


https://www.facebook.com/sarah.shipman3/videos/10202129873604992/

A link to our video of lining up at the mounting block at liberty.