On Sunday 9th January we braved the cold and did the 220 mile round trip to JRFS in Wiltshire for a horseless workshop with James Roberts. The theme of the day was 'having a plan' here is the discription of the course:
'Plan your programme for the year in achievable steps. You will be taken through James’ Experience Plan to give you a programme to follow for the next 6 months! James’ plan is easy to follow, and realistic! It is used on a daily basis by James and his team, having been cultivated over the years by James in order to get the best out of his young horses, challenging horses and foundation horses. You can even watch James demonstrate areas of the plan with his young horses and foundation horses!'
As always with James this was a very beneficial and thought provoking day. Although I had heard a lot of this when Bella was there being started it now makes more sense now that I am a little further down the road.
We started the day with James saying I am going to ask you a simple question 'What do you want to do with your horses?' to which the normal answer is L3, L4, Instructor etc BUT on the grounds that Parelli is a training program for your horse 'What do you want to do with your horses?' .... after a few moments of silent processing people starting coming forward with things like dressage, endurance, riding club, having a horse my kids can ride safely ... James point to this was that sometimes we get so stuck in the programme that we forget why we are doing it in the first place! Which left me thinking, what do I really want to do with Bella?? Well I guess the answer to that is have fun, be safe, hack out and maybe get back into my dressage.
James than went on to talk about leadership, the tools we need (not the halter/rope type tools but the tools of a horseman) and then onto the plan.
Here are some photos of notes he made whilts talking including 'THE PLAN'
By the end of the day we all had a plan of what we are doing, where we are heading and why we want to get there. Thank you James for an amazing day.
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