RC's Journey

It's hard to believe that I have not blogged since June 9th?!

Things have been going very well with RC's training. He is coming along so nicely and is really a very smart and willing horse.

One of the reasons I have not written anything since the 9th is because I have been absorbing so much information from Matt that I've been at a loss about what to write.

I have spent the last 10 days with house quest and have been busy enjoying family and friends while they were here. Thanks for the visit mom and dad and everyone else. Our annual Fathers day run was here in Truckee this year and we had 3 wonderful days of motorcycle riding in the beautiful Sierra mountains. Everyone has gone home now,the last to leave was my son Jack who came home for some R&R after just graduating from The Art Institute of San Francisco with a BA in Media Design. He is in the process of interviewing with a gaming company in North Carolina and I have mixed emotions about that. Of course I want him to get a job that he can enjoy and be fulfilled, I am not excited about him being so far away. We are very proud of him and he is a talented level designer and am sure he will be very successful.

My Daughter; Kaydie is busy looking for apartments in Santa Barbara and will be moving in August. So as of August we will have no children living with us for the first time in 24 years and it is really kind of weird to imagine.

Okay so back to RC, I have gotten to ride him 3 times so far and each time I feel a little more confident and comfortable on him. I watch he and Matt together and am in aah at how much this little guy can do with a skilled horseman on his back. He is getting stronger and more coordinated every ride, he is learning to carry himself correctly and really enjoys making the moves correctly when Matt ask him to do so. He is learning how to make his turns very smoothly and Matt is pretty excited about his ability to spin. Well I am not so sure Matt would call it a spin, however he is setting him up to do an amazing one someday! It is really fun to watch this little horse starting to ask Matt questions and looking for the right answers too.

Matt is teaching me as much as possible about what he is doing with RC. It is my goal to learn all that I can from this very talented horseman. I have found that all I think about day and night is what I am learning from him and about horses. I am beginning to look at everything I do, with or without horses from a whole new perspective. I pay attention to how I move my body and where my weight is distributed when doing so and thinking about how that effects my horse and what he needs to do in order to move better. I watch how I am using my hands and how fast and hard I grab things. Wondering if I can do it softer and slower, how soft can I tap something with the end of my rope and am I micro-managing as I work with others. How is my leadership? Am I someone I would want to follow? I wake up in the middle of the night running things I have seen with Matt through my head and wondering how can I apply it, I am addicted to learning this stuff!

I rode RC on Thursday while Matt was coaching me with my riding, at one point he asked me to come over to the fence where he was and side pass RC up to him. My first thought was;" oh no this is going to be hard"! So I aksed RC with my leg and weight and before I knew it he was gracefully side passing right up to Matt. I was amazed and so excited to be sitting a top a horse that was so well trained and then realizing he was mine, I could hardly contain my excitement! Matt began to tell me about what I needed to do differently and I had to stop him so I could just savor the moment I had just experienced!!

I hope that soon RC and I will be ready to do our Parelli level 2 freestyle riding and submit the video for assessment and then we will be on our way to level 3. I hope to start tagging along with Matt at least one day a week so that I can watch him with a variety of horses and learn all that I can learn.

Stay tuned for more of RC's adventures and I hope that you are all enjoying our wonderful summer season.

Thanks for reading our updates.
Cindy and RC