Videos, Conclusions, and Re-Vamping

I'm sorry my blogging has been so sporadic as of late.  I've been ill (spent yesterday evening in the hospital-_-), and as a result I've fallen behind in my school work.  This (in addition to the 50 million extracurricular things I do [riding 7x/week being largely, but not completely, to blame]) has left me stressed, yet not in a position to do anything about it.   Either way, none of that's really important.  The purpose of this blurb was to apologize for not havign this up yesterday, and for being so lackluster in my blogging.

Okay, first things first.  Ladies and gentlemen, we have fall colours!  On the blog, that is.  I redecorated. (just in case this change from blue-grey to red & oranges escaped anyone's notice.)

Next, a compilation of video clips from an old cross country school:

And lastly, my conclusions from earlier musings

Musings: Part 1
When I first began riding, the phrase "Horses are herd animals...." popped up more times than I could count.  "Horses are herd animals.  Therefore, they will be more inclined to simply follow each other around the ring.  It is your job as a rider to make the horse do what YOU want, and go where YOU ask them to."  or "Horses are herd animals.  See how the horses that go out together are less likely to turn away if they're following a herd-mate?"  It was equine psychology, but as I later discovered, we weren't really 'using' it.  It was just acknowledged; a useful explanation as to why certain things happen.  However, as my riding advanced along with my knowledge of all things horse-related, things began to change. Instead of working against the horse's nature, so to speak, I began doing specific things because of the horse's psychology and physiology as well.  "A horse naturally carries 2/3 of their weight on their front end.  It is the job of the rider to balance the horse over their back."  or "Horses are like people, they're right and left handed.  They aren't born straight, they're trained straight."

 balanced back 

(Yeah yeah, I cheated.  The horse is still balanced back though)

balanced on their front end

Originally, I thought of this simply as a  continuation of the incorporation of equine behaviour into my interactions with horses.  It was only when I was prompted to (thanks to my mare's tendency to become pissy when in heat) take a closer look at my interactions with horses, and the implementation of horse psychology, that I realized this key difference.  While everyone uses psychology, HOW it is used differs greatly.  Many people just use it as an explanation; far fewer actually implement it as a training aid.  My current question is how do you use a horse's psychology to better communicate with your equine partners?

There's more, it's coming.  While I was thinking, I essentially 'took notes' to keep track of my ideas.  These 'notes' need to be put into paragraph form.  Hopefully this'll be done in a (somewhat) timely fashion.  If anyone knows how to add an extra hour (or three) into the day PLEASE TELL ME!
I'll try to post my "Musings" and their conclusions once a week.  Part 2 is already almost finished.

Cheers, and thanks for reading!