This is just an evaluation and back ground post, so you can get to know me and my horses. And that way we all know what the starting point looks like, so we can gauge our progress. While Riz states that the length of time to train a horse to take a few steps of piaffe(well, to train any thing really), depends on the individual horse and individual handler, but that on average you can see results in about 8-10 weeks...maybe sooner, maybe longer....so to be fair, I am giving myself 12 weeks for the experiment. The official starting day is 2-19-12, and we have 12 weeks , so judgement day is 5-19-12. And to be fair, at the moment...I have the flu, but will start this weekend regardless.
Participants Biography:
Michelle....that's me of course....I am 42ys old. I have been riding since I was 2yo, started western and went english when I was 10yo. At age 20y, I discovered dressage and never looked back. I took my mare Snookie (RIP) into 3rd level on my own, but not before traveling down many wrong roads. When she foundered in 2001, I retired her and moved to the country and started Natural Horsemanship and Horse Rescue. I was in a really bad car accident in 2007 that took me out of the saddle for a few years. I have unofficially passed Parelli L4 and am back into dressage and have decided to learn about French Classical Dressage this time around, as it seems to suit me and my current horse better in our current situation, than the German Classical Dressage of my past.
Rose......my main squeeze......14yo 15.3hh TB mare. She is a Left Brain Extrovert(LBE), meaning she is innately a confident energetic horse who is super smart, but also super opinionated. I rescued her quite a few years ago, started her under saddle and then sold her. THEN....regretted it every day of my life after that. We came into a little bit of money at one point, so I took the oportunity to buy her back. Not alot had been done with her under saddle, if anything at all. I spent the next 9 mos getting her going again and working thru some bucking issues and just as we were starting to canter without bucking....I got in the car accident. So theoretically she is still a green horse at the age of 14. I could not even go ride a training level test with her right now if someone offered me a million dollars. So as far as the experiment goes.....and his claims that ANY horse can do it....well....she is about as average and green as they come.
Cha'cote....my soul mate......12yo 14hh BLM mustang. He is a Right Brained Introvert (RBI) meaning that he is innately not confident but very low key and timid. I rescued him 2ys ago, where he had been kept in a stall for @ 6ys due to no one could halter start him. 6 mos after joining my life, he passed the parelli system L3 online with flying colors. He has not been started under saddle yet, as my accident injuries just make it too big a risk for me to try to do it myself, and most important to me is that he can just be horse and be my buddy, so this Piaffe thing just may be a really fun way for him to learn even more than he already does without the saddle.
Once I get going with this, we will see if my 13yo son would like to try it with his pony....that'll be the true test of whether or not this method really can be done by a novice. But we will see, my son sadly is not into horses like I am.
The Venue:
My piddly little front yard. It is roughly the size of a 15m X 40m arena....If I had to take a stab at a guess. It is not sand or even great soil, so cantering is kind of out of the question at my place. I may even play a little with this on trail if it seems suitable at the time. For now, it is still dark when I get home from work mon-fri, which means I will have to play with this in my well lit BACK yard during the week.....which is "just" big enough for this task.
I also have reviewed JP Giacomini's "Endo Tapping" dvd set, while not a fan of the second disk, I found some interesting info in the first disk. He did have a horse taking a few steps of Piaffe during the end of the first lesson, so I will probably be refering a little bit to his dvd as well.
For all intents and purposes....it would be a whole lot easier to NOT tell people I am doing this until I achieve success. Or never say anything, if I don't.....But that is not me and how I roll. I just put myself out there along the way, either I will soar to the heavens or I will flop on my face....regardless of how it goes...you get a birds eye view along the way. So pull up a fence rail....and join me....here we go.
Click here for the dvd review
Savvy On
Michelle
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