NEIL PYE

PNH Level 2

by Yvonne Lehey

Magia and I went to a PHN Harmony clinic at McLaren Vale (South Australia) last weekend. The instructor was Neil Pye from NSW. Neil has done a good job of really making us use out body language and explaining lots of general points, and giving plenty of useful hints. I personally could have done without some of his sarcasms, and without his occasional "male chauvinist pig" remarks ("Here comes Rod. Don't forget, Rod, you are representing the GUYS!", or after a really beautiful performance of Sharon on her QH - "Ahh! Not bad! Not bad at all....for a girl"). He meant it in a humerous way, undoubtedly, just that it wasn't very much to my (and others) taste. But, apart from that, I enjoyed the clinic very much and have learned heaps!

Now for the details: We started with a lot of groundwork on Saturday morning, asking for snappy responses in the circling game. Then Neil asked us to go down on our knees and ask for the same. He encouraged us to use our tools, and especially the carrot stick, a lot more. Seems that many people have problems with this. Somehow your hand seems to consist only of thumbs, once you have to handle the carrots stick and the rope simultaneously. We all got some pretty nice results. Then tried the other games and learned a lot more about the friendly game. There are so many possibilities to use it which I would never have thought of. All this swinging of ropes, flags (crop with plastic bag at the end), rubbing, touching all over, at a halt, at the walk, trot and canter - all of this is the friendly game. Amazing. For example, Neil asked us to change reins (swing rope over horse's head). First standing in zone 3, then 4, then 5, in the end, we stood behind the horse's tail and swung the rope from one side to the other. Fun! Or he taught me a nice little trick how to pick up the feet from the same side (had neglected this task with Magia). She tended to pull away her offside leg. So Neil put the rope around her foot, asked her to give it, and just held it in the air. In no time at all, I could pick it up without her resisting.

In the afternoon, we started with the riding. First a lot of hindquarter yielding from the halt, i.e. move the hindquarter with an indirect rein and the leg on the same side. Then using the carrot stick as well. You give the rein and leg cue, let's say to the left, and reach over with the carrot stick in your right hand and point it to the left hip. That showed me that Magia needed a lot more friendly games, as she hasn't really accepted the stick. We worked a lot on this during the clinic and she got considerably better. Then we started doing it as a walk, and later at a trot and canter. The place was a bit crowded with 12 riders in the arena. Felt a bit scary to me when everybody cantered around more or less quickly. We had to pay attention not to bump into somebody....

Then came the real fun part. Neil asked all the auditors to come into the arena and they formed, together with the riders, a large circle. We started doing some passenger riding, i.e. the rider stays inactive in the saddle, just asks the horse to keep up the gait, but lets him choose his way himself. First at a trot, then at a canter. Each time the horse came close to the "exit", the prople forming the wall had to shoo him away. This was really a lot of fun. When it was my hot Magia's turn, she didn't think much of trotting/gaiting, but did most of it in a fast canter. I had to grab hold of the pommel in the beginning, as her turns away from the shooing auditors were quite fast. But it got a lot better and I loved it. I think that Magia enjoyed it too.

After the fun, we did a bit more riding, guiding our horse only with the carrot stick. We asked them to yield to the stick, pointed towards their nose, and they all got it pretty quickly.

Next morning, groundwork again. All the riders had become a lot more effective in their body language and we got for example really nice, snappy backups over 20 or more feet. The horses responded very quickly. It takes something to get used to the idea of asking for the tasks in a much more energetic way than in Level 1, but we all did a pretty good job, in my opinion.

After a nice seafood pizza at lunchtime, I felt a bit heavy, and guess what, Neil asked us to "rub our belly button all over zone 3". Yuk, what he really wanted us to do, is get on bareback. Well, I always had difficulties with this one, being so old and stiff now, and Magia is pretty tall. But, being a good-willed girl, I tried. Oh well, let's spread a forgiving veil over my attempts....When I finally got on, Magia immediately tensed up and became wiggly. She seems to hate feeling my seat bones on her bare back. So I got down immediately and worked on teaching her to line up alongside the fence instead, which she did nicely after a while.

Then we did a lot of freestyle, i.e. riding with the carrot stick as the only aid. Things got a bit heated up from time to time, but everything stayed under control.. Neil came up with a lot of suggestions how to use the stick and make the tasks interesting and variable. We also tried the simple lead changes, first at a trot, then at the canter. For this, everybody formed a large circle again, and the riders practiced one by one in the middle. Magia did this very well, and I was quite proud of her. She also yielded very nicely to the carrot stick, even though she tended to get pretty hot. That's why (like a few other riders) I chose not to join when everybody practised the canter around the arena, with downward transitions with the stick. We just did it when the others had finished, and this was exciting enough.

Then some more work on focus, 9 steps forward, 5 backwards in a straight line. Oops, we have to work on this. My focus must be quite bad, as it looked more like a zig-zag....

And, to finish an evenful day, Neil came up with something really unusual, as he asked us to form pairs of 2 rider/horses each. Once we had lined up side by side, (not easy for Magia, as her horsey partner pinned his ears back and she got scared, but in the end we managed by choosing the other side). Each rider was told to keep his outside rein and take the inside rein of his partner and then try to walk. Was a bit wiggly, but worked pretty well after a while. Then we were asked to trot. Ohmygawd! But even this worked. And then to CANTER! I suspected Neil to be a bit crazy, but believe it or not, we did great. It was soooo harmonious, as my co-rider also confirmed afterwards. And it must have been very impressing to see all these tandems trot and canter all over the place. What an incredible experience! I sure will try this with my friend Di here at home. She had come and audited, even though being a dressage rider, but she found this quite interesting and got some good hints for her own work.

Of course, Magia was the only gaited horse in this arena, and prople were quite puzzled about this funny gait. But I must say that after a while, with all this stark-naked liberty riding, she chose to trot a bit from time to time, instead of giving me her usual nice paso llano.

Unfortunately, we coundn't try the flying lead changes, as the arena was a bit to restricted for this. Ah well, will have to do this with Steve, our local PNH instructor. And it certainly is a good idea to do it without the exciting company of all these horses, bouncing all over the place. But, I must admit that Magia accepted this challenge very well, even though she is not at all used to having so much going on around her....

OK, that was it. Hope you enjoyed it!

Wish us luck for our test - we are working hard on it.