Perfecting the Basics

Beginning riders try to perfect intermediate things, Intermediate riders try to perfect advanced things and the elite level trainers try to perfect the basics. ~ Warwick Schiller

This is a quote by Warwick Schiller.  It is the first quote by him I've put on my blog but I can guarantee it won't be the last. If you've never heard of him, I highly recommend you look him up on either YouTube or his website.

I found Warwick by mistake one day looking at YouTube videos of reining spins.  I liked what he had to say so I watched another video, and another, and another, and...........

Most of what he teaches isn't much different from that of other clinicians/trainers - sometimes it just takes hearing it from someone else for it to hit home.

This weekend I took Cat for a short ride down the road and then when we returned I decided to work on some obstacles in hand.  Cat hates tires.  I'm not sure why, but she does.  I went and picked up 8 tires on Saturday.  I started out by asking her to go past one tire...SNORT!!!!!!  Once she did that well then I set up two rows of 4 tires making a chute with them and asked her to go between them.  She went through them but had a bit of worry in her so I continued to do it until she seemed more relaxed.

Once she was moving through the tires well I bumped two of them closer together making 1/2 of the chute a bit tighter.  I continued the process until all of the tires were touching each other making it so she had to pick where she was going to place her steps.  She was a little super star and I could see her gaining confidence and relaxing more with each step.

Next, I asked her to go over a piece of plywood laying on the ground.  She had no problems with this so I moved to the next and final step - placing the plywood on the tires.  MIL was fairly confident Cat was never going to walk over the plywood on the tires but to her surprise Cat did it with very minimal hesitation and almost fell asleep once she was resting on top of the platform.

Pre-Warwick I would have started out with the platform on the tires.  I would have been able to get her on it, but it wouldn't have been as pretty and I don't think she would have relaxed so quickly.

What does this have to do with the quote?  I've always been in a hurry to advance and in doing so I didn't perfect the basics.  Now, I have not time limit on perfecting the basics.  Tonight I'll work her on the tires again - starting back at the single tire and I'll continue to do so until she no longer greats it with a SNORT!!!