By Laurel: The two Tassie clinics are over and were both very worthwhile, we all learned so much and met new friends through them. The one-day clinic was on a day of heavy frost, poor Yvonne shivered as we drove through frosted white paddocks to the Indoor Arena, I packed lots of woolly hats and scarves into the car and organised hot soup to be on hand all day, but forgot teaspoons and sugar :-[ .
One late cancellation and one "no show" meant we had only 4 participants plus 7 auditors who drove from all over the island braving fog and icy roads to get there. We all packed into a rumpus room at the farm for our introduction and rope handling to try and keep warm, "light bulbs" going off all round as people experienced how it feels to a horse to be 'grabbed' by a lead rope, and aahs of wonder as they felt just how little it takes to feel pressure correctly and softly applied and released. Yvonne explained those tricky concepts of 'positive' and 'negative' for more light bulb moments "aah, positive is merely adding something, negative taking something away", then we all wandered out to the yards to condition 3 horses to the clicker. Everyone took turns and this was very valuable to improve the target handling, timing and treat delivery for the non-CT savvy people. I realised that a one day clinic is not the best situation to start a horse off, there isn't enough time to do much else, but with my niece Kate and clicker savvy Lil giving a little demonstration and all the participants making a good start on basic tasks everyone went away enthusiastic and keen to participate in future clinics. A funny thing happened at the clinic, one girl blurted out "Jesus Christ!!" when her horse did something unexpected, and Yvonne smiled at her "You can call me Yvonne!" :-D We all sniggered... For the next week despite having a heavy cold, Yvonne worked with me and my horses, and in between by a log fire she read Klaus Hempfling's two books and we talked horses nonstop and watched horse dvds and generally had a wonderful horsie time (luckily my poor husband was away all that week! :-D ) T he words to remember are "SOFTEN" "SLOW DOWN" and "RELEASE! My sliding down the rope was too fast, even though I thought I was slow I wasn't, I had to practise at home yielding a chair, and then on Yvonne being a horse, then when my slide was good the hold on the rope was a little too abrupt, so I had to practise doing that one finger at a time till I had it down pat, it was just great. I did the loose slow slide without picking up contact with Jed whenever she got worked up, and also learned to just stop, breathe, totally relax my own body and the horse would always do likewise. Yvonne would say "Breathe!!!" and I'd go "How did you know I wasn't!!??" but she was always correct! =-O . I learned such a lot, managed to do things like Alex's 3 flip 3 exercise and even shoulder in on Pedro, this was the first time I've ridden him, as I broke my ankle shortly after he arrived. It was so cool to see how it worked, and Yvonne gave Pedro and Belle a lot of confidence being beside them to support their efforts. Pedro was a darling, he was so soft and responsive. With the year of training Yvonne did with him 4 years ago, he knew a lot of the work better than me so it was good to do it with him before trying with Belle who is a beginner like me at this stuff, but did so well. Pedro being a Peruvian Paso, I experienced a paso llano for the first time-WOW! just had to tilt my pelvis, pull my shoulder blades together, raise my hands a little and make a kissing noise to get him into it (those were the instructions from the chief!). Kate and Lil achieved a running walk to Kate's delight (if a horse has any inclination to gait, Yvonne will find it for sure :-) .) This is old hat for you more experienced gals and chaps, but for other beginners what Kate and I learned about 3flip3 is that the give of the hip is indeed a _very_ small thing, also the importance of turning your inside hand _up so the nails point to the sky_ when you ask for the hip give. Keep the wrists straight, no twisting, your elbows bent and relaxed, your body straight (as in not collapsing over your ribs if you look at the hip.) Then for the shoulder over do another give of the jaw (that is tiny too, just the jaw tucking in the neck, not a big bend) and open your outside rein, look to the direction you want her to move and hold the inside hand pressed on the side of the wither. Please jump in and tell me if I've remembered any of that wrong! Oh yes, and a wall runs along the mane so you never cross your hands to the other side of the neck! The TWO DAY CLINIC weekend dawned fine (whew!) and we took Lil again (for Sue from this list who came over from Saudi Arabia), and my little Arab X Belle. The clinic was full with eight keen participants, most of whom had at least dabbled in CT, and 5 auditors, including 2 from a dog clicker school, who had seen videos of Alex and Panda so were very keen to come along and see how CT worked with horses. We added to the Intro and rope handling the "Trainers Game", which was a lot of fun and we had some very wayward 'horses' cantering around the arena, before being clicked into touching a particular letter on the arena wall, carrying a cone to a pedestal, lying down on a platform, backing through a pole corridor, and tipping over then rolling a drum. Yvonne then conditioned 3 non CT participant horses, which attracted protests from the dog trainers who argued that asking the horse to turn his head away before receiving his treat was breaking conditioning rules by introducing an extra criterion, however despite that the horses "got it" _very_ swiftly (maybe horses are smarter than dogs ;-) ). One horse, of whom more later, was very pushy and anxious, biting and extremely rude with his food acceptance. We then trooped down to the arena for a demo by Kate and Lil, and me and Belle. Belle was very nervous when we went into the indoor arena, snorting and prancing, so we went to the cone circle and did pre-WWYLM for a few minutes and she settled really well, and did all her activities very nicely (played soccer, stood under an umbrella, yielded across a cone, and along a pole, did magic hands etc). Then she helped me demonstrate how you could use CT to achieve a task step by step, using putting antibiotic into an eye, and paste drenching as examples. Lil fetched her lead rope and a ball to everyone's delight. After lunch all the horses came to the arena except that biting boy whose owner Amelia was too frightened to use him. On her registration form she had written: "My horse's name is Bundi. I have recently purchased him as a "nervous beginner's horse". I would like to achieve some trust between the two of us. I am a very nervous beginner and would like to ride one day. I think this clinic would help develop some trust between us, so I can feel more comfortable riding and he is comfortable letting me ride him. He is very pushing and has started kicking out at me." Amelia was lent another normally quiet filly to practice on, but Fantasy picked up on her fear and became _very_ agitated. Yvonne had to quickly move the filly back to keep Amelia safe which again upset the dog trainers, who felt that any pressure is "punishment", and that only targeting is acceptable. Useless to explain the difference between a poodle stepping on your toe and a 1000lb horse barging straight over the top of you! or that to a horse, pressure is information as long as it only matches the horse's own pressure and the release is instant. Yvonne was unphased and said safety is paramount. This girl was so petrified she literally _couldn't_ let go of the rope even when the horse gave to pressure. I gave her my Belle to practise with (having whispered to Belle how frightened Amelia was and that she needed to be extra good) and when Belle was sweet and gentle and Amelia experienced how light a pressure can be used to communicate she very quickly learned to give that instant release and her smile of joy I'll never forget, it lit up the arena, and she became noticeably more confident.. During lunch Yvonne quietly went up to the yards and using her body language alone moved Bundi around very softly. Within half a minute (!) he had 'joined up' with her, he was clearly looking for a leader and his whole attitude changed. For the rest of the day 3 of us took turns at going up to the yard to CT Bundi for a happy face and taking treats gently, and by the end of the afternoon he had added in the pose all by himself to our delight. He is a lovely boy in fact. None of this was seen by the dog trainers unfortunately (wry LOL!) Everyone managed to get their horses' attention, learned how to move their horses around on the ground, and we got in the first riding of the weekend. Sue and Katrina learned to pull back their energy so as not to put Lil and Ben through the arena walls, Ev had a handful with thoroughbred Dent, and Irmgard was beginning to learn to cope with Lady's altered vision - she came to the clinic hoping to learn ways to increase Lady's confidence after Lady had an eye removed with cancer. She had a vague notion Lady was "being naughty" but of course this wasn't the case at all. DAY TWO dawned fine but frosty. We learned how to access our T'ai Chi centres like Barb and Alex on the dvd, then sat on our hands to feel how it feels to our horses when we merely turn our heads (WOW!! if you haven't done it do try it...) Yvonne did a trailer loading session with Irmgard and Lady, as Lady had become bothered about loading and unloading since losing her eye changed her spatial awareness. Then the rest of the day was equally divided between all the participants for individual sessions, with Yvonne using a PA mike so we could all eavesdrop on what was going on. Everyone at the clinic was saying if we can get Amelia and Bundi going well, the clinic will have achieved something amazing, and that morning during their individual lesson Yvonne had both of them calm and happy enough for Amelia to get on Bundi. She was still nervous and a little teary, but bit by bit a click at a time she was up there and the tears were of joy and accompanied by a big smile. I think we all had damp cheeks at that moment (or was that just me :-[ .) Irmgard rode Lady for the first time in 12 months, she scrambled a little on the turns but was making good progress with her one eye, Dent settled down for Ev and worked solidly and calmly for their whole session, and the whole day had a positive feel. Yvonne worked like a Trojan all day, stopping for a drink and a short sit only as the horses and riders changed over, and I'll let the participants speak for themselves from the calls and emails this week: ****I wasn't too worried about Yvonne being hard on Fantasy - its better to keep someone safe. I think like me, Yvonne gets frustrated with incompetent horse owners who allow their horses to walk all over them, and so steps in to show them and it all looks so much more severe than you want it to because the horse sometimes needs a high phase of pressure to get it to understand that you're the leader now. I thought Yvonne did a good job of balancing that with her humour and softness though, and the message of soften, release was loud and clear. Thanks for the clinic - it was nice to do a low stress thing with my Zach, being his first major outing. Yvonne did a great job of keeping everyone safe and focused on the small steps so please thank her again for me. ***I just wanted to say that it was pleasure to meet you and you have a wonderful horse!! you are so gentle and patient with the horses and you have a real way with them... thank you so much for the opportunity for coming to the clinic. Although Dent was very unsettled during saturday and we didn't really get much from that day, she really understood and took off with it on sunday. I am very pleased at how she went and we had a chance to have a lovely long ride on monday through the bush and use all that we had learnt!! It was excellent. thank you so much and it would be great to stay in contact with you!!! ****We came down to the internet cafe today to check our emails. Thanks so much for having me to stay, and for organizing the clinic. I had a great time and learnt some good stuff. Can't wait to go back and try it on my horses. Cheers, Sue. ****"I think Yvonne was so generous with her time and that her energy button was stuck on GO. I had a great time and learned a lot. Please let me know when you are having another clinic." Yvonne has said she will come for a followup clinic, people here are already looking forward it, but as she requested, it will be in the WARM weather!! I was passing her door when she got into bed one night and having heard all the ooh, aaaah, ooh's bought her an electric blanket next day so her bed was warm to get into. That hot water bottle just wasn't big enough! ;-) . THANK YOU again Yvonne, it was so much fun, I hope your nose has warmed up :-D Love and hugs, Laurel and all the crew. ps we have found a riding teacher to follow up on Amelia and Bundi.
