JUMPING!!! and pillar work with meg

So... today Meg came out to work with us on the pillar work. She was so helpful!!! We went up to the arena and I showed her what I was doing and explained some of the issues I was having. She watched and then worked with him for me and showed me some good things to try/incorporate into it. 

Basically.. she thought that he seemed to be overstimulated a bit with touching, so... try to work from a distance with him. I can use the flag as a guide. Once he starts releasing the muscles better, then we can go back to more touch but for now, he needs to be a little bit on his own and process on his own. She also suggested helping him shift his weight back first so he didn't feel like he was falling forward when he did let go. Also, practice walking at different speeds with his neck released. If he loses it, stop him and shift him backwards. (It was cool how you could actually see him rock back and carry himself!). Once he's a little more relaxed I can work on light touch in his neck... stroking the brachiocephalic and sternocephalic and do gentle circles to help relax the fascia. 

When I do get closer... to avoid getting into a "game" with him and having him bite at me and chew on me, if I stand more at his shoulder so he really has to work to come around to get me, it'll make it harder for him and easier for me to block him and redirect rather than having to correct after the fact. And to keep in mind that less is more. I'm only looking for small steps of abduction, small weight shifts back. Reward those and they'll get bigger and better. She did say to that the mouthy horses might have headaches, so I can do some of the fascial work or craniosacral work to help alleviate headaches before we start. 

And the last bit of helpful info she had was to maybe use the cavesson instead of the rope halter because then it might be easier to lift the lead rope out of his way rather than trying to pull it out of his mouth. hee hee... 

But yeah... super cool. She had him almost targetting the flag and that helped keep him from just rolling forward. He got a lot of good releases and yawns and seemed much more rocked back and still soft in his neck. Cool! Lots of homework. 

After she left, I did a few things and then we went for a ride. I couldn't help it. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't as big of a mess as I had been over the low wide oxer. And if we were going to go run training at Poplar.... eeks! Yay.. I'm not that big of a mess. :) We went in the jump arena at Ashland and it looked like it was set up at Novice/Training, so we just popped over a course after a few warm up fences. No big deal. :) It went smoothly. Yay! Oh, and we did warm up with our pillar under saddle work too. 

After we jumped we went for a hack and I couldn't help it. We popped over a few small XC fences too. It felt so good to gallop and jump after not doing it for so long. Ahhhhhh.