Week 3

I have had another great week learning lots of new things. As well as the horsenalities I talked about in my previous post we have been learning about 'humanalities'- the human equivalent. I find it so interesting and I think that every time I meet someone now I'll be trying to work out their humanality! Like with the horses there are 4 different personalities. Right brain extroverts are very sociable, they love connecting with other people, are loud, emotional, like being the centre of attention, are always doing something and get distracted easily. Right brain introverts are quiet, cautious, diplomatic, want to do the right thing, often creative, avoid conflict, have to get to know people before they open up, and too much pressure can mean they freeze and can't think. They can occasionally 'explode' (!)- bottle up all their negative feelings about something and then let them all out at once. Left brain introverts are also quiet and are very organised- they love systems, structure and facts.  They might be seen by others as controlling. They know what they think, think their opinion is right and don't avoid conflict. Left brain extroverts are talkative, loud and (like left brain introverts) know their opinion and think they're right. They can be stubborn and don't like being told what to do, but can often be seen as bossy themselves.
People can be more or less extreme within their humanality, and can have traits from other humanalities. They can also have triggers that might change how they behave. In order to get along better with others (including horses) we have to be able to 'flex'- modify our behaviour to help the other person, for example an extrovert might want to talk all the time, but if they are with an introvert who needs some time and space to think, they could flex by being quiet for a bit.
I think I am a right brain introvert. Because everyone here knows about the humanalities and which one each other is, we end up analysing each other, saying things like 'all the introverts are being quiet!' I have started reading a book called 'Quiet: the power of the introvert in a world that can't stop talking' by Susan Cain. Its really good so far, I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in this sort of thing.

A chart showing humanalities in relation to working with horses- only showing the negative points!

We were taught humanalities by Gen who, as I said before, is a Parelli instructor who was staying at Avalo for a bit to avoid the Canadian weather. On Monday she left to go back to Canada (via a week in New York state) so we all went out for a meal on Friday night to say goodbye. We went to the restaurant Emma waitresses at in Aiken and she had to work that night, but she served us! Gen has a really big trailer than can take her three horses and has a living area, so that's where she lived when at Avalo and it means she has somewhere to stay wherever she goes.

We (Emma, Anni and I) also went to Aiken another evening earlier in the week. We went shopping at Old Navy (I am going to need another suitcase to take everything home...) and then ate dinner at Applebee's (an American restaurant chain) with Emma's boyfriend and his friend who are both golf professionals at a local golf club (South Carolina is great for golf.)

On Sunday we went to a local schooling show (a CT- combined test- which is just the dressage and show jumping phases of eventing, these are very relaxed and are basically a practice for the more serious events.) I was stewarding for the show jumping- not an ideal job for a right brain introvert as it involves shouting across the warm up arena to tell people when its their turn to go into the ring: my voice isn't loud enough! Emma, Michelle and Michelle's friend Anna competed, and Emma and Michelle both came first in their classes! Anyone who volunteered at this show gets free cross country schooling at that farm's cross country course. We were going to do that yesterday but the weather forecast looked bad so we will do it another time. Yesterday was a really fun day anyway though, Michelle, Anni and I went on a long trail ride in the afternoon to a huge field where we practiced our cross country canters and then all cantered along together. It was so much fun!! I was riding Babe who is one of Michelle's competition horses (although he is now limited in what he can do as he head shakes- some horses get this and it is unclear what causes it but it can distract the horse a lot) and he was great, its so nice to be able to go fast in an open space but still have control! Michelle filmed us and I'll try and get the clips to post here. Sometimes when I go on Facebook and see pictures of friends who are relaxing on beaches, I do get a little jealous, especially at 7 in the morning when we're up feeding horses! But after rides like this I realise how much I like it here and I'm so glad I came to Avalo.

On Monday and yesterday morning I played on line with Teddy. She is probably my favourite, I have

Teddy

been doing a lot with her, and she is just so good! She knows how to do everything and because I have been working with her from the beginning of my stay, I can see how my communication with horses has improved through her reactions. Yesterday she was following me and walking backwards next to me without me touching the halter or holding the carrot stick, it was so cool and made me feel like we were really in sync! I was just watching a Parelli (the Natural Horsemanship programme that we do) DVD that said something like 'you want the horse to be connected to you mentally more than physically' and that's just how it felt. I could also lead her around by just softly holding her ear. Parelli has different levels that you can be assessed at. The assessments are done by video, and if I want to I can do the level 1 or 2 assessment. I think I will do it, it would be nice to know I have reached a certain level in my time here.

As well as learning new horsey things I am now able to (sort of) park the truck with the trailer attached! Its quite hard as you have to turn the car the opposite way to if you just wanted to reverse the car, so even if the trailer's in the right place the truck probably isn't... Emma taught me how to do it properly and I am getting better!

On Monday night we had a power cut. It only lasted for about an hour, but apparently earlier in the year they had one that lasted for a week during the ice storm that hit the US! It must have been so bad. There are tornadoes in the south east at the moment as you probably will have heard, but thankfully they never hit this part of South Carolina.

We have a new working student arriving this evening who is from France so I will no longer be the newbie. On Tuesday we might be going to Charleston which should be nice, lots of people both in England and America have told me to go there if I get the chance.

Week 2

My second week at Avalo has been great. Last Tuesday evening we had a lesson about 'horsenalities' from Gen, a Parelli instructor from Canada who is staying at Avalo for a while with her 3 horses to avoid the Canadian weather! The lesson was really interesting, it's an idea that I had heard about before but had never really appreciated. Horses fit into one of four horsenalities: right brain extrovert (reactive and like to go fast), right brain introvert (obedient but timid and untrusting), left brain introvert (calm and confident but needs motivation to work) and left brain extrovert (confident and playful but easily bored). Each horse normally has traits from more than one horsenality, but they usually have one that they fit into the most, and some horses show the traits in a more extreme way than others. Knowing which horsenality your horse is means you can deal with it more easily, for example if you have a left brain extrovert, you know that the best way of riding or training him/her would be to keep it interesting and varied so that you hold their attention. If I think back to horses I have ridden in the past, I can fit most of them into a certain horsenality and this explains why they behaved in a certain way.

Casanova doing a cross country on-line warm up.

On Wednesday we all went to a local cross country course. Emma and Michelle took horses and practiced over the jumps, I took photos and Anni filmed. Both of the horses we took were great. Before getting on the horses they were warmed up on-line (see previous post), so were jumping the fences without a rider- an unusual sight! Hopefully some time soon Anni and I will be able to take horses cross country.

We went to an eventing competition on cold and rainy Saturday (not that the weather really bothered me, being from England!) Michelle was competing and came 5th, and the other working students and I volunteered. I was dressage scribing (sitting with the dressage judge and writing down her comments and scores onto the score sheet) which was fun. It was really interesting to hear why the judge gave certain scores and what she thought of each horse.

Trail ride

We are located in such a good area for competing- Aiken (the nearby town) is a very horsey place and top level riders from the more northern states spend the winter around here to escape the cold, so there is loads going on- events every weekend less than a 30 minute drive away.

I went for my first trail ride on Sunday with Anni and Gen on the quiet dirt roads near the farm. The soil here is naturally really sandy which is perfect for horses- the kind of surface that people pay a lot of money to have in an arena! We used rope halters on the trail ride rather than bridles (I have only used a bridle twice in my whole time here so far) which is pretty cool, they're different to the headcollars that are normally used in traditional horsemanship and give you a lot of communication with the horse.

This morning we had a jumping lesson which was really good. I rode a mare called Teddy who I've been riding quite a lot, she's 20 and is the horse Michelle started Natural Horsemanship with. I have also been working with a few different horses on-line. Now that I know the 7 basic 'games' I am starting to try them out with other horses of differing horsenalities and levels of practice at the games.

Other than riding, we went food shopping yesterday (its so nice to have the choice of lots of new food in the fridge!), had to do some DIY and use a drill last week to put up some new electric fencing, and I have been watching DVDs about Natural Horsemanship. Emma and I planned to start working out every day but have only done it once so far and that was a week ago, so that's not going too well... I have been listening to lots of country music as that's what is generally played on the radio we have in the barn!

It was a quiet day on Sunday so I took pictures of the horses. Here are some of them:

Jazzy likes to play in the water bucket! 

Poppy shaking the dust (and lots of shedded hair) off after rolling

The sunset this evening

First week at Avalo

I arrived at Avalo Farm last Monday (7th April) or technically Tuesday morning- a flight delay meant I didn't get to the farm until 2am! So I have now been here for a week. I'm really enjoying it so far. There's a fair amount of work to do everyday and we start at 7, so I have been going to bed at about 9pm! Its peaceful here, especially compared to New York, as we aren't near any main roads and few people are around. There are 21 horses, a few owned by people from outside the farm, some are here for training, some have been rescued, and some are Michelle's competition horses.

First thing in the morning we feed the horses (we do this by driving the Chevrolet around the fields, so I've learnt how to drive it), then we have our own breakfast. During the day we do chores, like tack cleaning, and we work the horses by either riding or playing with them 'on-line' (see below.)  The last thing we do every day is the evening feed which starts at 5.30 and takes about an hour. After that we have free time. Every few days we have a lesson from Michelle, and we get 2 half days or 1 full day off per week. Occasionally we have a day doing something completely different, for example on my second day here we all went to a show that Michelle and one of the other working students were competing in.

Learning Natural Horsemanship is really interesting. From what I've seen so far the horses seem to be happier and more relaxed than other horses, and more interested in people. The methods all make sense and follow a horse's way of thinking and herd mentality. I already feel more confident when dealing with the horses in the field, and have realised it is all about body language and making yourself the leader of the herd. 'On line' is working with the horse on the ground- we do 'games' with them such as porcupine game which is where you get the horse to shift sideways by putting your hands on its side, hopefully with only very light pressure, or yoyo game which is where you stand in front of the horse and get it to come towards you or back up away from you using your body language. When doing this the horse is wearing a rope halter attached to a 12ft long rope that you hold, and we carry a 'carrot stick'- this is a stick with a rope attached to it. We have to make sure the horse isn't scared of the stick and is completely relaxed with the stick being rubbed all over it, so it isn't used to scare the horse, its more an extension of your body. A lot of Natural Horsemanship is about pressure and retreat/release, so for example if you want the horse to move its hindquarters over, you might tap the carrot stick on the ground near the back end of the horse to create rhythm (a sort of pressure), and as soon as the horse moves over, you stop tapping, and so you release. What you do with the horse on the ground can be transferred to the saddle, and you can learn a lot about a horse before riding it if you do some work on line. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, its hard to explain!

So far I have ridden two horses, Teddy and Rhapsody. We had a jumping lesson that was really fun, and that was the only time I have ridden in a bridle so far here- normally I use a halter. I didn't realise you could have so much communication with the horse without a bridle- it's easy to forget that I'm not using one. I am learning a slightly different way of riding- for example if the horse slows down when not asked, instead of closing my leg on again and 'nagging' (which in the long term results in a horse that only goes forward with constant leg aids), I have to let the horse stop but then immediately ask it go again but in a tougher way (e.g. instead of just sitting up and closing my leg on, I flick a rope over my shoulder as well- not so that it hits the horse but to create rhythm and pressure) and then hopefully the next time you ask the horse to go, all that is required is the minimum- just sitting tall and bringing my energy up. This all makes sense to me and should result in much easier horses in the long run, but I found it frustrating when I hadn't got my timing of the new method right and I struggled to keep the horse going (something that I really should be able to do, and can do using traditional methods!) I need to work on being more assertive both on the ground and in the saddle (my personality in general is not assertive!) and Michelle also noticed that my body is crooked- I collapse to the left side and tilt my head down and to the left, so I always have to remember to keep my body and head straight, even when I'm walking around or sitting down. Now that it's been pointed out I can see where it has caused problems in my riding in the past.

There are two other working students- Emma who is from Michigan and is permanent, and Anni from Germany who has been here for a month already and will be leaving on the same day as me. They're both very nice and have been showing me how everything works. I am living in a bunkhouse that I share with Emma. There are loads of cats on the farm (it is also a cat sanctuary-there are literally about 100 of them) but only one in the bunkhouse which is good as I am allergic to cats! I have to cook my own food which has been easier than I thought it would be, and American supermarkets have more healthy food than I thought they would (they just have everything! They're all huge. The only thing they don't have is marmite so lucky I brought my own!)

It is quite hot here (temperatures in the high 20s) and really sunny. I didn't think my skin tanned but spending the whole day outside means I have a farmer's tan (so basically my hands are way browner than my legs...) Emma has introduced me to Gatorade (a rehydration drink) that I love! It's so good when its hot and you've been sweating- it contains the electrolytes that you lose in sweat and it tastes like its just what you need. They sell it in England but I've never had it before. Today it has been raining and it was quite stormy during the night so we aren't riding today and are only going outside to feed the horses. To be honest if it was this weather in England they'd probably be going ahead as normal, but rain seems weird here compared to the usual sun!

I'm now off to have a lesson about 'horsenalities' - horse personalities :)

The bunkhouse 

The bunkhouse cat, Cassie

Keeping Harcala's mane tidy!

View of the farm buildings from across the field

I♥NY

We had a really great trip to New York! Neither of us had been before and we both loved it. The first thing that we noticed in the taxi from the airport was how tall the buildings are, and because all the roads are straight and run across the whole city you can see a really long way down each street, unlike in London.  The people all seem to be so nice and helpful, and the city is almost entirely litter-free. We stayed at The Library Hotel on Madison Avenue and 41st which was great, and the mid-town location was perfect. All the way along the street outside are plaques with quotes about books, and all of the hotel rooms are named after a different section of the Dewey system. We were in room 600.005- computers.
On the first day, Saturday, we went up the Rockefeller Centre which had amazing views from the top, especially of the Empire State Building and Central Park. After that we went to Grand Central Station, and the Apple store inside it to buy a macbook for me before having a really really good coffee. On our way to the metro to go to the meat packing district we came across a Tartan Day parade- basically lots of American people wearing traditional Scottish dress and playing the bagpipes- really bizarre in the middle of New York. There was also a high school marching band complete with baton twirlers. We went through Times Square after this which was crazy- it's basically lots of massive adverts but they are really colourful and bright and some move, so there are too many things to look at. In the meat packing district we had lunch and went round some cool little shops, also passing a mass pillow fight which apparently also took place that day in London. We walked up the Highline (an old train line that has been turned into a park/walkway you can walk along) to get part of the way back which was nice, but would probably have been even better in the summer when the trees have leaves and more plants are out. In the evening we ate in a restaurant called John's Pizza. Both the restaurant and pizza were enormous but the pizza was very fresh and tasty.
On Sunday we went to the Apple store again because my new mac didn't work! They gave us a replacement. Then we took the metro to Central Park and walked around some of it. There were groups of children playing baseball which seemed so typically American, and by the boathouse was an amazing group of entertainers- the highlight was when one of them jumped over about 6 people lined up. In the afternoon we went to Broadway to see 'Kinky Boots.' The show is set in England and the actors' accents were awful! The dialogue also has lots of random English slang like 'mate' thrown in that just sounds wrong in an American accent. But other than that it was a great show. We ate at a restaurant called The Spice Market that evening which had delicious south-east Asian food.
On the final day I packed my bags and then we went to the Brooklyn Bridge. We were going to go on the Staten Island ferry that takes you past the Statue of Liberty and gives you a great view of the NY skyline, but we arrived just as one was leaving and they're only every half an hour. So instead we walked across Brooklyn Bridge which also gave very good views of the city. For lunch we had curry (probably my favourite food!). I didn't think they had Indian food in America but at Grand Central Station there's a huge range of places to eat, and the curry tasted really good. The last thing we did was visit The New York Public Library. I think we somehow missed the main room so it wasn't that good, but it did have a cool shop! Behind the library is a nice square that has a 'reading room'- an area outside with lots of chairs and bookshelves so anyone can read there.
I left for South Carolina on Monday evening (7th April) and spent a long time at NY La Guardia airport as my flight was delayed by 3 hours! New York was great though, I'd definitely like to go back.

Brooklyn Bridge

View from the Rockefeller Centre

Grand Central Station

Tartan Day parade

The Highline

Central Park

Goodbye London!

I am about to fly to America! Had my final drink at The Dog last night (USA drinking age is 21) and by far the most emotional goodbye was with Murphy our dog! I'm flying to New York with my mum where I stay until Monday, and then I'll carry on alone to South Carolina. In SC I'm staying at Avalo Farm for 2 months. Michelle, who owns the farm, is an eventer who specialises in Natural Horsemanship. This is a form of training that avoids using aids like spurs, and instead aims to understand the horse's personality and use a horse's natural behaviour and instinct to form a trusting partnership between horse and rider. I haven't learnt any Natural Horsemanship before so I am really excited to have the opportunity to try it out for myself, and to see how it can be used in eventing (dressage, show jumping, cross country). A lot of NH training is done from the ground (on-line) rather than in the saddle, and even when ridden it is sometimes bareback and bridle-less, so it will be a new kind of horsey experience and hopefully a very interesting and fun one.