We got in the arena and I remembered immediately: soft eyes, do not stare at the ground. Radieserl was a bit lazy, so I raised my Energy and walked in front, resolute and energetic.
It took a few seconds, then he came with me.
We did a stop and a shifting of his COM, then we walked again. He is lovely, he just needs a small signal for the first step.

April 2017

We tried with walking faster and slower and I gave too much energy sometimes, he started to trot a few steps instead of just walking faster. Although I didn’t want him to trot, I was incredibly happy because in the past I really had troubles to get him into trot in Groundwork. I of course rewarded him a lot and figured out how I have to dose my energy. He needed more energy when I was walking at the right hand side. I am not sure if his right eye is as good as the left.
He tried to catch the rein a few times, for one moment I caught myself in getting angry, but I managed to shift in a redirection and asked for a back-up.

I asked for forward down and he was completely calm, pinned his ears in concentration-mode and followed my slow hand into the deep. No nipping, biting, twisting, chewing. I told him, he had done great and released, but remained with my body into that posture and he waited too. Again a reward for this patience!
I asked for stelling to the left and the right and tried to keep the left stelling until the neck is straight again, but he was faster mostl od the time. I could see the tilting of the mane base very good and also I could see the movement of the hip. I had to ponder a bit about that, because Radieserls hip movement was very small, compared to the movement I have noticed earlier today at a horse of one of my riding students. Maybe Radieserl has really gotten a bit stiff during the last months….
Sometimes I released before going back to straight, but I wanted to avoid to provocate the nipping-licking-behaviour and I wanted to release before he was showing stress signals.

Then we tried the LFS on the circle again and he did really really well - he remembered the movement with the whip hand to get his shoulder out and he let me touch him with the whip to ask for more stepping under. He had a really nice bending and behaved calm and concentrated. But I definately have to learn to walk circles!

On the right hand it was much much better today! He did not shift and tilt and I did not need so much weight against him to keep him out of the circle, although it was of course still harder than on the left. I even got the chance to ask for more stepping under, but it was hard for him.
I rewarded soon and gave him a break, he chewed, but not in this aggressive way he usually does. I relaxed to, enjoyed the sun.
We tried again on both sides and then I released him to liberty, but he chose to follow me. I could do some turns and changed the hand, but I didn’t want to do too much. I have not peaked into the liberty module yet, so better not to go too far without coaching.

He came with me to put his head into the halter, out of the arena, got his special menu and back to the herd. We were BOTH happy!

Working time: 20 minutes
Exercises: leading, faster/slower, stop, back-up, shifting COM, in stand-still: forward down, stelling, bending, LFS on circle
Food: Derby Apple Mash + 100 g iWest Magnolythe S100 + 10 g MSM + 70 ml EWALIA Leber/Niere