A new 45' line and 40yo gunsil!

OMG! Last night, for the first time, I tried out my 45' line (lariat). I have always used one I made of 1/4 in marine rope, like the 12'/22' only skinnier. But it has been destroyed for quite a while now. I probably would have made a great "funniest home video" last night. I was getting tangled in it, tripping on it, getting it twisted in curls and knots. I don’t know how, but at one point it was around my NECK! While circling, I was stepping over it, again and again, only to realize I never made it OVER the dang thing. Rose was tripping on it.....WAIT!!!....She is the LBE who DOMINTATES the rope, when I dominate her....So I bet she was having a blast getting it between her legs and then stepping on it.


Just like, WAY back in the day, when I first got my 22' and felt like I had 300 feet of rope to get tangled in. Oh, LORD! I realized last night, just how much a part of my life, the 'rope' has become. I instinctually know where it is, and when to step over it. I don’t’ even put a single thought into it, where it is, or what it is doing. But 'ROPE' definitely has a life of its own. It is not a stagnant object in the horse world, and certainly not the parelli world. The 45' has a very different life than the marine rope. I will now refer to it as the LBE of the rope world! At times, it felt like it was alive and out to get me. I know Rose was laughing at me. How could she not? I would have been.

It took us both a while, but we got the hang of it. I finally figured out, it's own "feel', and how to make it work FOR me and not AGAINST me.

It's about time too. The thing has been laying out there, coiled neatly around a cone for months, in hopes that one day, I just may use it. So now that I have, thankfully, I will never feel, or look THAT dumb again with it.

The good news to the whole thing is that Rose cantered. Not just a few strides. Oh NOOOOO, she was a cantering FOOL! Couldn’t stop her….but a’cantering she was. It has plagued us for a while now. First getting the respect back with yo-yo transitions on a circle with a long phase one and a swift and just phase 4. I just couldn’t keep her in the canter. Well with the new “rope”, even she was trying to figure out the “feel’ of the rope. I wiggled that thing like mad, and it did NOTHING! Well not nothing, the part behind my hand was going crazy and somehow hit me in the back of the head! Of course that does nothing for stopping a horse. So after 6 or 7 laps….that’s right 6 or 7 laps in canter, I reeled her in to a manageable distance for rope control, and worked on figuring out the ‘how” to get my message from my hand to the buckle, into her brain and down to her feet. Once she was closer, I had even more rope around my ankles to deal with, and that is when she executed her brilliant plan to dominate that rope. UGH! But I got control of the situation, and soon we had a working yo-yo, though I would liken it to a Ford Festiva, not a BMW! Soon we were back out to good cantering distance and she did great. We even were doing the obstacle pattern, ie: look where you are going, don’t change gait, and BTW….jump when you get to the barrels. And she did. At the end, she was thinking clear enough to yo-yo all the way to the end of the line and from a stick to me in zone 3 from about 20’ away, and from zone 5. She even offered me a sideways toward without the aid of the carrot stick! All in all, it was a great session, I get to add a few checks to my patterns and self assessment, and work on the relationship as we proceed forward!

Great day for Online, the levels, our relationship, my spirit and the world as a whole!

Savvy On
Michelle