Good times

Satin is still lame but we played on Tuesday and also today. Tuesday's play session was awesome. We had a bit of a break through that got both her and I excited about the next steps.

Tuesday Feb 2nd:
We did some driving games and 'touch its'. She started getting really curious about what I might ask her to touch next. This was the first time we played this game. At first she was like, "Boooring... I'm not listeniiiing..." But I kept switching it up, driving her to a fence, then a tree, then a brick on the ground. She started to look for things to touch. She 's doing wonderful with the yo-yo game and has really started to disengage that dominant front-end.
We moved on to the circling game - another game that we were trying for the first time. She's a total Left Brain Introvert so she's constantly in your space, purposely stepping on the rope and your toes, very nosey and pushy, and on a circle she likes to collapse in to you so that when you get nervous of her trotting into your space and ask her to move away she throws a big tantrum, swinging her head and throwing her front legs into the air and breaks into a crazy canter.
I had her on the 12' line just simply asking her to WALK around me in a circle. This was the first time I politely asked her to yield her shoulder out of my space as she circled (instead of hitting her with the end of a lunge whip). She responded with that habitual tantrum, "I DONT WANT TO!" and BOOM, she exploded and started to gallop. But I stopped her MID-thought by using phase 4 with the rope asking her to back. She slammed to a stop, head in the air with front feet planted. I persisted with phase 4 until she took one little movement backwards, then I relaxed and smiled. She stood perfectly still, licking her lips, nostrils flared, like, "WTF?"
She usually goes bucking in a collapsed circle, me yelling and snapping the lunge whip at her getting her more irritated. This time all it took was to disengage that right-brain thinking with a little bit of leadership in a loving way in a language she could understand.
I really got her attention in a positive way. She WANTED to know what was next and the idea of bucking had drifted off into the wind. I immediately changed games and did some driving, then went back to the circling game. This time she did beautifully. She was calm, asking me questions, and wasn't getting frustrated with mixed messages. She also was being more submissive and willing because she knew I was asserting my alpha leadership.
It was very exciting for the two of us. I am especially proud of myself for not getting frustrated with her! Yay, I am improving!

Thursday 4th:
Satin was asleep in the pasture when I went to say Hi. I decided to play a little game with her off-line until she came to me. Well, she did NOT want to play and did NOT want to come to me! How interesting! She even cantered away (limping :( ). So I didn't want to pressure her with her lameness, so I used gentle approach & retreats, trying to get her interest. Well, it worked. She gave in after a few trots around the pasture. We tried the circling game again and she threw another tantrum, this time even pulling away from me (on the 12' line).

Once I got her to come back to me I switched to the 22' rope. Aaah, much more leverage!
I kept switching things up - asking her to yield, then sending her into a circle, stopping her part way and backing her, then wandering around the pasture, etc. She was NOT getting into it.

But I had planted carrots and treats in strategic locations across the property, so we left the pasture and I played 'driving from zone 3', rewarding her with little piles of carrots when she touched the spot. She was still a little bored and making a cranky face, even after eating the treats, so I played the friendly game and took her grazing. All in all I can tell we are making progress.

Our relationship is improving little by little, for several reasons:
(1) Consistency. Consistency is the key to training any species with any method, from humans to rats.
(2) Patience. No longer am I trying to achieve some goal. We're not working on getting the side-pass by next week or perfecting our trot-canter transitions. I am being patient and simply working on developing a more positive relationship. Putting the relationship first.
(3) Education. The tools are all laid out for me. I don't have to hire a trainer (and hope I get a good one!) or buy books and try to read about 'how to ride', or watch a dozen Olympic dressage trials to try to figure it out on my own. My education is set up for me, step-by-step, in such a way that anyone can understand, from an Olympic jumper to a first-time horse owner.

There are dozens of horse "training" methods being taught across the world, so how does anyone know what the "right" method is? Is it a combination of several methods?
It's easy to rule out the extremes like using physical pain or letting a horse walk all over you. But where is that in-between?
Is the scientific behavioral training the key (operant conditioning (OC)/positive reinforcement (PR))? With strict science you cannot account for the multifaceted emotional side of the horse. When you're using OC/PR, what do you do when your horse spooks and blows a cork? Are their strategies to work through those issues? When a horse goes completely right-brained, say a feral Mustang, and your job is to load this Mustang from the corral into a trailer - can you spend the necessary time conditioning this Mustang until it loads? I have my doubts.
But if you respond to the horses' behavior the way another horse would respond, the horses will understand you (and much of the horse language is simple behavioral conditioning and behavior reinforcement).

Oftentimes we think of "pressure" as negative reinforcement, where in fact pressure is natural and normal in horse communication. Is there 'negative' and 'positive' pressure? Sure! A pinned-eared look is negative pressure. A kick is certainly negative pressure (just taken up a notch). What about positive pressure? Two horses grooming one another is positive pressure. Is there neutral pressure? In my opinion, absolutely. Pressure is how horses communicate at a basic level. I move towards you, you move away. If you don't, we'll play a game to see who will move first.

These are the basics of "Natural Horsemanship" - communicating with the horse in as "natural" a form as possible. Teaching you to act more like a prey animal than the predators that we are. What's beautiful about horses is that they can view us as either.