My trainer, steveboyleshorsemanship.com and I have been back in lessons. I took a year off last year to work on something I learned from Ponyboy, which was just to spend time with my horse, learn about him in a herd, his dominance level, etc., but I worked on alot of things, from Parelli's Horsenality, to John Lyons, "let's do this instead of that, Oliver"..... to Chris Irwin's in hand work that actually I am just practicing and need to really just do that for awhile now, then I intend to bareback ride him......

Being out of lessons though I picked up a bad habit, so I thought I'd pass it on here to anyone that is working with their horses.....

My trainer does not believe in punishing or hitting or being aggressive with a horse, but his form of regrouping the horse if he needs correcting is the disengaging of the hind end.... which I had forgotten and I'd been blocking Olivers head and causing him to be a teeny bit headshy instead of going for his tail..... if a horse will give up his hind end, he really is submitting and being good.... Steve is alot rougher on Oliver than I am, I can go to his tail and he will turn..... I learned from Chris Irwin how not to be rude to my horse, and I think I'm efficient but not as rude as Steve... All week, I've just been practicing asking him to move his big butt by going to his tail. :) Disengaging is definitely a good tool for the toolbox and I believe to master something you have to do it over and over....