Progress? and Parelli Connect

My biggest challenge lately has been progress.  Or more aptly, lack of progress.

I just seem to be spinning my wheels, getting nowhere.  It's frustrating and seriously de-motivating.

The bareback stuff with Cricket has been fun.  I know it's an indication that things are moving forward.  I remember one of my first bareback rides out at Ed & Bonnie's.  About four years ago, I couldn't even walk into the little paddock with out being afraid.  Every undulation of Cricket's back was enough to cause me to tense and panic.  Now we are cantering.  There have been little milestones along the way with Pilates and Centered Riding contributing the most.

Work has been stressful and demanding.  The days are shorter and growing colder.  And with two horses I seem to be getting nowhere twice as fast.

I found out, through Jessica's blog that the Parelli Connect site was up and running.  I'm sure this has been mentioned elsewhere but sometimes I'm a little slow on the up-take.

My first thought - great, one more social networking site.  Another thing to consume my precious time.  But I set up my account, added my horses and had a little look around.  It's a pretty neat site where you can follow and interact with other Parelli Savvy Club members.  So in that respect, it's more filtered than Facebook.

The one feature I really like is the tasks for you and your horse(s).  Based on the level you enter for your horse, you receive a list of tasks you can check off.  Also, on your horse's wall, you can post activity, savvy and duration - a very cool way to keep up with time spent on your horsemanship.

So as part of my goal for making some measurable progress, I am going to:

• make a serious attempt to keep up with my Parelli Connect account, using the task lists to give me something to do with my horses
• take my Patterns maps to the barn, post them on the wall and work in a more orderly fashion

Maybe, just maybe, I'll come out in the spring a little closer to that damnable green string . . .