It all continued to go well, that is the second day of the three-day clinic. After four days of this, it is now becoming routine. But this is a routine that I would not be able to continue indefinitely. It takes too much time and is too involving. The lack of sleep might be what is making me feel this way. The Centered Riding Sleep Deprivation Program is not for me.

I had a hard time staying awake this morning, while listening to Susan and Peggy lecture. I took notes, I drifted off, and the pen fell out of my hand. I looked over at Pete who was not taking notes – his eyelids were falling and he was nodding. He wasn’t even attempting to stay awake. I was trying to stay awake because I wanted to hear what my teachers had to say.

After twenty-or-so years of working together, Susan and Peggy are quite the team. They tell stories, use imagery, and provide their audience members with mounds of anecdotal evidence. This is not happenstance. They know that the means in which they are choosing to present information to their listeners will come back to mind when they are working with their horses. And they know that stories, images, and anecdotes go hand-in-hand with neural programming. They’ve figured this out by being observant, talking to people, and going with what repeatedly works. Abstract thinking here has in this respect fallen by the wayside.

I am at heart a cognitivist, so my thinking about this matter has provided me with a framework for my interpretive values. I sometimes think that I figured this out too late in life, but well, so be it. It works for me.

So today, all went as planned during Day #2 of the equitation and the body awareness clinics. Rather than stick by Susan’s side the entire time, I bounced back and forth between both classes – in the equitation class, Pete rode Raudi and Saundra rode Tinni. Today, like yesterday, Raudi behaved admirably.

We learned last week that separating Raudi and Hrimmi and Raudi and Tinni was a bad idea. Liked Peggy’s short term plan, which was to gradually put distance between them when I was in the arena. And I liked our long-term plan, which was to keep them together in the arena setting. We could have again put Raudi in the round pen and again let her get excited and calm down, but there was no need for this. She did just fine – there was no need to force the issue. Common sense was as always, a good dictate.

Today I also learned from Susan the importance of working with riders on just a few rather than a great many obstacles. Today we had a TTeam labyrinth out, and all the riders took their horses through it. I had a ringside seat as I watched the horses and riders work together, figuring out how to navigate it without stepping on the poles. In this sense, I learned as much as the horses and their riders.

Next: 165. 6/18/17: Day Three of the Three Day Clinic