Showmanship!

We've had two SMS lessons now. I like to have video of my training sessions for two reasons: 1) I suck at judging things like speed and angles while I'm mounted/leading and 2)I like to have a record of where we've been and possible progress. It's only our 3rd time doing it and our first time doing it without KAT there.

This was our worst of the 3, and our best is still a very long way from ring ready, even for the little shows we go to. Remember, when I did showmanship it was simpler and easier. So far we've been working on teaching him the body language cues of HALT, Squareup, pivot, walk, and jog off, and back. He doesn't really like to stand still and he gets bored and tries to nibble everything in sight. Our sets are not perfect. Right now "close" is good enough. We'll start asking for better and better sets. KAT says you don't want to demand perfection yet because if you shift them constantly the horses get really unsure of their feet and end up sort of dancing around.

So the following video is full of mistakes. I was dismayed to realize our "backs" drift to my left. In an attempt to keep his body aligned by pushing his face away from me (he tends to swing his rump out) I've been pushing his whole body left. Ooops. He's definitely "getting it" but we have a LOT of work to do. Hopefully someday I'll be able to do a comparison video and we will notice some improvement!