The weather was a little chilly to start out on Saturday morning, but simply helped us all get motivated and involved. Pat introduced himself to each rider and talked to them and then greeted the audience. There were a lot of people that had never seen PNH before and Level 1 workers and graduates auditing. He made sure we all understood we were watching Level 2 and that it may be a little confusing to those that aren't that far or had never seen it. But assured them that even so he'd answer a lot of questions if we'd just let him roll along, and that he'd even answer questions we didn't know we had yet.

He started out with a lot of horse philosophy, explaining that this clinic would be most productive if he would spend the time to teach the why's and not the A, B, C's. If we can understand how and why a horse thinks, then as our knowledge and technique grows, we would begin to have the savvy to know what to do, when to do and why do something to help the situation. And that was going to be his approach. We discussed the predator/prey concept in full detail. How what we learn in PNH applies to every prey that exists. He shared all the prey animals he's had the privilege to work with and much it helps his understanding. Giraffes, Rhino's and Zebra's I know he mentioned. Course he chuckled at how interesting it is to get a Rhino to play the porcupine game! Now that would be interesting. And to get a Giraffe to put his head on the ground for you? That's his biggest defense, to be able to see things long before they become a threat. What leadership and trust would need to be developed to make that happen. It helps me to expand my thinking and patience when I think of working with other prey, I can't imagine what it does to your understanding to actually do it!

He then talked at length how threatening we are to the very nature of the horse. As one lady already posted, a 130 pound 2' tall cat scares the daylights out of humans if he just humps and hisses at us... imagine what it does to our horse! Let alone what in the world we look like being over 5 feet tall 130lbs and growl and snarl and yell... A grizzly can look at us threateningly and most of us would pee our pants, imagine what our horse feels with the mother-in-law look that really means it!! When I get put in my place to realize what my horse really feels in my presence it helps my patience and understanding too.

Then came working on the friendly game with carrot stick and string. After some gentle friendlies he then asked everyone to expand it by seeing how hard you could rhythmically hit the ground with the string without reaction from your horse. About half could handle it and half could not. He explained that you needed to up the intensity without losing the rhythm until the horse would react and back it down a little until he could hold his ground, bring it up and so forth until he could handle more and more. The horse must face you, but could drift. Several people were having troubles keeping the horse facing them - the horse would start to circle around them. So he took one lady and her horse and stood with their backs to the fence rail and did the rope rhythm side to side right parallel to the fence. This gave the horse his only drift area of being right in front of them which also kept the horse facing them. He did this technique and it didn’t take long before this horse could really handle quite a bit of intensity in the swing.

We then quickly found out as we applauded the horses success that he couldn’t handle applause. He then told us a story about a Lippizzaner stallion that could do all the marvelous Vienna School dressage, but couldn’t handle applause. Within 7 minutes he taught the horse to put his nose on the ground when he heard applause. He did just the same technique he’d just done only using us in the audience. We had to time instant silence to the horse dropping his head. And then when he would drop his head, to time it to his dropping his head and relaxing, and then to dropping his head further and relaxing more… In other words Level 2 is expanding the act to the emotion (get to that later). This little horse caught on real quick.

The students worked on this for awhile and then went on to the porcupine game. In porcupine you’re now trying to teach the horse between following a feel and moving away from a feel. To really start rewarding the understanding of both and to expand the porcupine games into a soft understanding. In Level 1 we rewarded the act - to move away from the pressure. In Level 2 we’re trying to create an emotional response of where the porcupine pressure is going. Like the 20’ sideways should be a light feel the whole time. The horse needs to understand that the porcupine is becoming something to do - not get away from. To do that, he must understand it emotionally. He’s gotta understand to move his feet first though (level 1) before you can teach the understanding (level 2). Please remember this all pre-level 1 grads reading this, stick to what you are learning first before doing this. It all has order for a purpose.

He had the students try to get their horse to touch their noses to the ground without using their hands. This meant slowly applying pressure to the halter through the rope with their feet on the ground. Of course this made the students realize real quick to ask politely and with understanding or they would end up on their butts in the dirt! I think that was a great game.

Then the driving and circling games. He explained the zones once again and what pressure in those zones causes. In order for a horse to go out on a circle he must stop looking at you. To come in - he must look at you. To focus on the zones to cause this to happen. And also to remember what the horses responsibilities are in this game. Do not change directions or gaits. He asked a student to come out and sit on the ground and ask her horse to circle. This took communication on her part and responsibility on the horses. Pat was looking for understanding of the horse and lightness of not pulling on the rope. These two did really good. He showed how to use the string in zone 5 if the student could feel the horse thinking of stopping on the back side. In level 1 we are forced to not move our feet. Here we’re learning to feel what the horse is doing - don’t look at him, his ears wont fall off and he wont change color. Our ropes are designed to give us feel, we now have to learn to feel it. Hard for us humans.. Pat said if he were to see this student present her circle game like she did, she’d pass it for Level 2. That made her feel good!

There was some yo-yo, sideways and squeeze. Mostly just talked about sideways. That the better your horse goes sideways and backs up, the better brakes he has. Like skiing, you can snow plow to a stop or dig in the sides of the skis. Snow plowing takes a long time if you’re going fast! That’s a horse without brakes. So teach your horse to dig in - go sideways and backwards. To do it lightly and respectfully. To follow the feel until there is no feel. Again, not just the act, but the understanding.

We talked about the carrot stick also being called the ‘neck stick’. We don’t have a neck to snake down low or push with like horses do, and that’s what our stick is for. He talked about what different prey use to judge who’s the best when they see each other. I think it was elk he said when they want to know who’s best the puff themselves up really high and whomever has the tallest antlers wins. This guy that works with them has a rake with big sticks stuck in them and he’ll walk into a pen of them and hold it up high. Them elk just take one look and say, yup, he’s the man. With horses it’s who’s longest and who’s tallest. Well with most all horses we’re tallest, but we have no length. He had a student stand at zone 2/3 and put his stick in front of and behind him, imagine that - he’s the longest too! And by using that advantage, we can use our ‘neck stick’ to push all zones and gain respect from our horses.

Pat took one of the student horses and demonstrated some of this. He also worked on the horses circling game. To get the horse to really turn into the circle and come to attention. He did this by doing the draw on the line and then the ask with the look and then the stick/string. If the horse didn’t respond, he would shorten up the line and repeat (not keep asking with the string). Soon the horse would be in close enough that the swing was quite a threat and he would face up. He would friendly and send the horse out and each time he got lighter and lighter until it was just a look that made the horse spin to a stop. He then started to apply how each step and hand motion of the circling game is exactly like what we are instructed to do in riding. Look, hands and legs. That without focus it wont go and that your legs do what your hands do.

He got on the horse with the halter and lead to demonstrate doing circles. This one is really hard to explain typing, but it was a real eye opener. And he made it really clear to understand that we have to do the motions just like they are pointed out. Because they relate exactly to what we do on their backs. Less confusion for horse and us. That if we just focus on doing all things in the exact order and in the exact motion we’re told that we’re doing exactly what is going to come next in the program for us - in other words there are no mistakes. That is so reassuring, to know that I can just do something I may not understand at the time, but there will definitely be an ‘ah-ha’ later as I see how it all applies.

He also used this horse to demonstrate how the indirect and direct reins control which feet and that we must learn to be able to feel what our asks in either rein cause. We need to be able to feel the instant reaction we cause in the horses feet and start learning that in Level 2. He did lots of circles, getting the horse to simply step to the side while walking with a direct rein and then a hind leg with the indirect. He then made a game of it by trying to get the horse to step on a rock in the dirt with a specific leg. This was to teach the horse to follow his focus (he never took his eye off the rock which helped his body tell the horse where they needed to go) and him to feel which legs were doing what. He also played the point-to-point game with the horse. Where you focus intently on an object, get energy and ride to it, keep riding until the horse touches it with his nose. I love to watch people play this game and doing it. If you create a lot of energy in you, the horses just come alive, they love to find the object!

Time for lunch! I learned some knots from Pat over lunch that will come in handy in the future and listened to him talk and answer questions. He never tires of it, good thing because I never tire of listening!

After lunch it was riding time. Of course there were some circles and such to prepare before mounting. Riders were asked to try lateral flexion on their horses. He then asked them to expand it. This was done by asking for the flexion then changing the rope to the other hand (so the hand on the same side of the horses head) and with the free hand lightly tap then up the phases (if necessary) on the horses butt near the tail to get him to move his feet. The horse was to move his feet when tapping (and leg pressure) and to stop when rubbed. However, the horses head was not let go. They were to do this back and forth (tapping and rubbing) without letting the horses head go until he learned he could relax in this position. Again, the mental relaxation release of Level 2 instead of the act of Level 1. The biggest point of this exercise he said, was to teach the horse he didn’t always get his head back (most importantly) and that he needed to learn to relax where ever he could.

Pat called this ‘letting down’ and his explanation of that was like urinating. You have to be totally relaxed to do it - you can’t do it under pressure. And when you do urinate, everything about you relaxes, your heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, etc. This is what you want to cause in the horse. A lot of students got a lot out of this exercise. Said that when they finally let the horses head go that they had a much more relaxed and responsive horse mentally. Pat recommended using this a lot in pre-ride checks and to do it a lot during riding just to bring the relaxed and mental part of the horse back. And of course friendlies in it as well (rub face, etc.). Similar to yo-yo and sideways on the ground usually creates a good sigh and relaxation of the horse when he’s done.

He then asked the students to expand this by trying to (and very friendly!) get your horse to do lateral flexion using on the carrot stick on the nose. To tap with the leather, then the string then more rhythmic and stop on the very slightest of tries. You are playing with the delicate zone area, so you must be very patient and friendly with it to keep respect. Some students got a ways with this, others kept working on it.

This lead up to sideways on a fence with your carrot stick. By riding your horse to a fence and using the stick in zone 1 and zone 4 swinging back and forth on the side. If your horse went too much with the head to increase pressure on zone 4 (upping phases to tapping if necessary) to get it to catch up. Rub him to a stop. Of course the better your driving game was on ground the better the results. Pitfalls were in looking at the horse to determine which zone to go for with the stick instead of staying focused on where you were going and using your feel to determine what to do. Also forgetting what your body needed to do - legs, hands, etc. to help communicate to the horse what needed to happen. Students worked quite a while on this one even doing it next to each other, which I think probably helped some of the horses get a better picture of what was being asked of them.

They also worked on the 9-step back-up. They were to back up until the horse mentally dropped his head and moved mentally and rhythmically to the task, then release. One person asked why the bumping with the feet on the shoulders would cause a horse to back-up instead of go forward. His response was that after going through the steps of the back-up and you get to the hold and the horse doesn’t move his feet you need something to help the horse understand that’s what’s coming next. We’re trying to stay off the head and use our body. The rhythmic beat of our feet helps the horse relax and follow the rhythm (if we’ve done our ground games well this will come to the horse). Eventually speeding up the rhythm and the energy will speed up the back-up. Just as raising our energy and the rhythm of our bodies while riding forward changes our horses pace and gait. If we do the body rhythm of a canter (three beat) while the horse is trotting he will speed up to a canter eventually to get in rhythm with us. A lot of students again commented that they got a much softer feel and response from their horses by doing the back-up until they had a soft feel and good mental connection with the horse then releasing.

The students then moved out to play with rhythm and feeling for the foot falls of the horses. They were to check out their bend to a stop as well, remembering to release on the relaxation of the horse. Pat had them split, some going one direction, some going the other around the arena. They were then to touch tips of their sticks as they passed each other. After that was good then touch hands and then touch feet in stirrups. As they were doing this one person in the audience asked what this was all for. He said it gives principle to purpose. To the horse it was not to change directions, don’t change gaits. To the rider it was to relax and quit ‘doing’ so much. That sometimes that is what helps riders understand most that they don’t have to keep telling the horse what to do. It also helps develop the independent seat of the rider.

Everyone applauded when they were done. Pat pointed out how much more relaxed and focused the horses had become during the games that were played - yet they were still fresh in the minds. How many other ‘training techniques’ do that? Easy answer. Pat then asked the students to name something they had learned for the day. It seemed a lot of them were really happy about the day and felt they had gotten a lot out of it.

********* Day 2 (tired of reading yet?)

Pat got us all started by making sure there weren’t any questions from the previous day. There came a lot of philosophy discussion out of this (my favorite). I think some of these may have been throughout the day but I put them all here.

In creating partnership, harmony and finesse with our horses, we are trying to recreate with us and our horse what happens naturally between the mare and her new foal. He asked if anyone had ever seen a mare and foal get separated across a fence line. How the mare will incessantly request the foal to find a way back and how foals will simply blindly do whatever it takes to get there. And if nothing else the mare will do it herself. He commented about how a mare will stand by her dead foal and repeatedly ask it to get up because she knows that if he doesn’t he will die. And that they will stand in watch over them until something happens that means she needs to leave.

He likened the finesse we are searching for is like watching a mare and foal play together, how they will move in perfect unison (I really wanted to post my favorite pic with this email that reflects this comment but didn’t know if everyone could get it), legs, ears and all. The mare takes the time to teach the foal this because she knows that if it comes down to it the foals life may depend on this unity. If we can recreate the language the mare used to teach this to her foal, we can then also have this light, mental and physical unity with our horses.

He then talked at great length about the ‘handshake’ of horses. How we must always "feel of them and then feel for them and release". How we do our handshake helps the horse evaluate who and what you are and how much savvy you have - and in turn how much respect he should give you back. Horses do it and we should learn it too. The handshake involves walking up to a horse with a friendly smile and outstretched, not drawn to you, arm and hand without hesitating. Stop in front of him and with your fingers curved downward draw it to his nose - don’t touch it! Reach for him. Offer it to him and see if he will reach out and touch it with his nose. That response is the horse ‘shaking’ back stating he accepts what you will want to do next. The horse always gets to withdraw first. If the horse does not reach for you right off, we are to wait in a friendly manner. Maybe retreat and approach again if necessary. In other words, if the horse doesn’t reach to feel for and of us mentally in this fashion he may well not in what task we ask. I’ve watched Pat at several other things other than this clinic and he always does this when he takes someone else’s horse to use - it may be so quick and subtle sometimes but it’s always there. I think it’s great, he really does what he teaches. On a whole level of savvy I can’t always understand, but it’s always there. He’s so consistent.

You were then to expand this to your approach in other ways such as the friendly game. When walking to a horse friendly (meaning he shouldn’t move) you were to do it with the arm outstretched that will be on the side of the horse when you get there. Don’t sneak, don’t rush, just walk in friendly and rub. Then take two steps to the side, stare at the hindquarters and ask the horse to face up. Then repeat on the opposite side. Said this was a great way to combine two important games - friendly and driving. And that we needed to start thinking in Level 2 how to do these things (combining games) to make things interesting and creating more purpose and thinking.

Examples of bad handshakes he did on the crowd. Said one of the worst ones was to walk up, make eye contact, reach, grasp hands … and then don’t let go. In other words, the other person (not you) should always be the one to say when the handshake is over. This is like when we ask something of our horse, he responds and we don’t release. Dirty dog! That’s what the horse thinks, just like us if someone didn’t let go of our hand. That’s the hand shake that you try to avoid every having again, because you can’t see it coming and you can’t get out of it when you want to! Other ones were of course missing hands, grasping the hand too hard and the wimpy shake. We can evaluate people pretty quickly based on a handshake - just like our horse can evaluate us in what we do first to and of him. Don’t under estimate how quickly they decide who we are! After all, it’s one of the few things they get to do all day - judge humans and horses. So never forget - feel of the horse, for the horse and release.

Which led to the question I hear a lot at Savvy Days and clinics. The ‘hot’ horse question. Over fed and over bred was the answer. Nature causes horses to check-out and run to an imaginary line of safety and then they will turn 180 degrees to evaluate if they’ve made it OK or need to run again. If they need to run again, they do the process all over again. Pat mentioned how many had seen like a wildlife show that showed a herd of prey (like zebra) where the herd took off because of a predator attack. There’s always the stop and turn when they’ve crossed their imaginary line. When the predator has finally gotten a prey and the herd stops and turns at their imaginary line, what do they do? Watch for a second or two to make sure there is truly no danger… and then eat. They don’t run anymore, they go right brained, relax and go back to horse business. This is why it is so important to have the driving on the hindquarters good on the ground and the indirect rein good on the back. It creates that scenario in the horse’s brain - I’ve crossed the line, relax, it’s over.

He then of course talked about what horses that were created by man now bred for. The English Thoroughbred, 6 - 10 miles (originally), Quarter Horse ¼ mile, Belgium nothing, Arabian 100 miles. These breeds have become what man wants them to accomplish. And if we don’t use them with this in mind then we will have too little or too much horse than we need. Of course then we feed and feed them, while nature required them to travel up to 30 miles a day and live on grass and bark! Our horses don’t travel 30 miles a day and we feed them powerful food. So of course they get reactive quickly some times! We must keep this in mind as we work with different horses in different circumstances. Because if they don’t use the energy daily, it will come out in something.

Pat had brought a bunch of his beach balls this day and we tossed them out in the ring. A lot of fun pursued in passing the balls back and forth. Some horses were really reactive, some were not. But this really proved that a lot of horses simply calm down in watching their partners (students) relaxed and just having fun with the task. It was great to watch. It expanded into having the balls up in the air playing ‘volleyball’ and of course some really good soccer goals under horses bellies…

Students did some friendlies and expanded into the circling game. He had two students come and stand back to back, bend at the knees and ask their horses to do the circling game. The students of course had to pass ropes and keep the horses consistent and the horses had to realize their task was to not change directions or gaits (or run the horse in front of them over!) from two different sources. A good task for all! This created a lot of fun for the students. Some of them go together and did (I think) 4 at a time, which eventually expanded to 6 if I remember right. It was really great when it worked and a great learning lesson when one horse said - nuh uh! Pat mentioned at the ISC last year they were having a Level 4 clinic and the students got together and they had (I think) 25 students and horses doing this at a canter. Supposedly they got it on tape and it will be on one of the tapes coming out sometime soon. Something to shoot for! A person in the audience asked what the benefit of this was (students being back to back). He said it helps teach them not to move their feet and not to look at their horse. A very important part to learning the feel and gaining the respect of the horse.

Pat then demonstrated the fun of the circling game expanding to other things. He took a student horse and got him into the circling game while walking across the arena. The trick was to move quickly forward while the horse was catching up to him and slowly forward when circling away from him - never losing focus on the other side of the arena. He did this at the trot stating the momentum helped the horse. This was a great game and you could see the horses really digging into their brains to work on this communication. Students were doing it across the arena and we were to clap on those that did it well. Pit falls were not being focused, walking too fast when the horse was circling behind them causing to bump the horses head which would make him stop circling.

This game then changed to walking forward with one focus and asking the horse to circle getting to your side, ask him to turn in and send him back the other way - get to your side, turn and go the other way. The horse only doing 180 degrees of the circle. You were trying to make this as smooth and fluid as possible. This of course, Pat mentioned, is one way to help teach lead changes and snappy departures on the ground. The students had a lot of fun and challenges doing this task. Pitfalls were not being fluid in asking for the turns, not turning your focus back forward once the horse did the turn in and also not moving forward the whole time. In my eyes, the constant movement forward helped send the signal to the horse for doing things snappy - or he’d be left behind. The people that kept their focus and moved their feet seemed to get the best responses from their horses.

After playing that, he then changed it to the sideways game - without a fence. Students started their horses on the circle and once the horse was in front of them (student is walking forward and focused) they were to ask zones 1 and 4 to move away using the rope to tell the horse not to go forward. To alternate these asks as needed to keep the horses once trotting momentum to sideways momentum. It seemed the biggest pitfall to this game was not keeping the momentum and focus. When horses lost the steam you couldn’t get it back without starting all over. If the momentum was there you could keep at the proper zones for the sideways.

Pat then had fun demonstrating putting fun into the tasks. He took two horses and did the circling game while moving forward. He also did it while asking both horses to turn and do the 180 degree circles (wow) and then he had one going sideways and one doing the circling game under the rope of the one going sideways (double wow). This horse was weary of going under the rope (squeeze game) and so he worked on this some. The neat thing about this was all the many, many lessons going on at once for these two horses! I can’t even type it all, you’ll have to imagine it and think of them. But the horse that was asked to stand out at the end of his rope had been very reactive all day long. He learned really, really quickly that the best thing was "don’t just do something, stand there". The other horse got good practice at the squeeze game under the others rope. He was also getting that horse to learn to drop his head and think instead of react. It was so great. All the things to just see if you can try it. Once you learn the tasks, to just see what you can do! Oh yeah, that’s the tough imagination thing we gotta work on.

After this demonstration it was time for lunch. Pat again answering lots of questions from his fence perch while munching on his lunch. I bought my 22’ rope as my present…

Time for some more riding. Pat had them do the lateral flexion game they had done the day before. He then had them walk their horses with reins on the horses necks and try stopping using the carrot stick to bend to a stop. If they were comfortable at that to take it up to a trot. It was fun to watch this dizzying display of students riding around, reins free doing walk, trot and stopping patterns amongst themselves.

They then worked on turning the horse with their bodies and focus. Important emphasis was put on "your legs do what your hands do". This question came up several times, what do your legs do? What your hands do. Exactly. If you do, your body is the perfect set up for allowing the horse to do what you are asking - and again all of it relates to what you did on the ground in the seven games. There are no mistakes to how it all applies. It was exciting to watch these students and realize just how close they were to being bridleless.

We then went to the beach balls again, tossing them in the audience at first amongst ourselves. Then as the horses calmed down we tossed them out into the arena. Students then were to pass the balls around batting them with their carrot sticks. What Pat then helped out with was asking the horses that were very reactive about it still to follow very closely to one who wasn’t. To get those horses right up there beside them. This helped calm the horse (having a good example) and to make them actually turn curious about what was going on. And in turn this turned into the horse focusing with a calmed mind on what the rider was focused on. A direction we are trying to get to.

Lots of games were played with the beach balls and then questions from students and audience. Pat had been giving away great gifts all weekend and he gave away the rest of the plethra he had brought with him. Some great stuff, like certificates to clinics at the ISC, tapes, a couple of the new Level 1 kits and stuff. It was a great time, a great clinic and well worth it!! How much better can it get than to be taught by the head teacher. All of the instructors are really great, but it was exciting to actually be taught the information from Pat himself.

********** End of clinic.

And my summary of most important things I learned would be:

1. "Be assertive without being mean and be nice without being a wimp." If we don’t expand to assertiveness when necessary our horses won’t believe us and therefore the respect and willingness in the tasks will not come.

2. "Slow and right beats fast and wrong, but nothing beats fast and right." In other words, keep working at it! Focus on doing it right, but always work on being better and faster at it or there’s no improvement on our part to make the relationship better with our horses.

Level 1 - timing to the act (example - release on the horses attempt to bend).
Level 2 - timing to the act and mental (example - release on a horses physical bend and emotional relaxing in the bend)
Level 3 - timing to the act upon the thought (example - release on the horses response in doing all of the task as asked and totally relaxing at the finish of it).

The last part helped me immensely to know where I was going and to help understand when I need to give my release. It’s the release that teaches. And it’s the WHEN of the release that teaches what. But you MUST go in order, or it doesn’t teach anything or something you didn’t want to teach! I loved the last part the best. It helped me understand where I’ve been, where I’m at and where I’m going in PNH.

********** End of notes.

Hope you enjoyed this! I did this mostly for my own records of what happened, but hope those who read this understood them and hopefully learned something too. I’m sure I may have gotten some things out of order and missed some of the things that happened. But mostly, if anyone was there and can see I got something I mentioned wrong - please correct me! Thanks. Linda (tmaster)