I reflected today whilst just hanging with Hoover (one of my numerous nicknames for Benji) and I thought to myself: 

Essentially, everything in Parelli comes down to the Friendly Game and the relationship. Success within the programme isn't having a horse that can jump 4ft or do flying changes at liberty, these things are nothing if the relationship isn't there.

Our relationship isn't as good as it has been previously because he is mostly Right-Brain introvert at the moment and I have been treating him as a Left-Brain extrovert. That may be his innate horsenality but because he hasn't done too much for a good long while, his comfort zone is very small. Almost like someone who can drive but only has driven to and from the local shops every week for years and then they are asked to drive long distances on very busy roads all of a sudden. Of course, he needs to be out of his comfort zone to learn but I have often passed the point of learning to the point where I've knocked his confidence. It is very easy to do, especially with horses who appear very confident and chilled but are really quite sensitive. All I might've done at one point is a phase 3 a few too many times when he needed more time to think, sometimes that is all it takes. I don't know... 

I could spend ages trying to think about what I did wrong but instead I know that if the Friendly Game is broken, we won't progress until we've fixed it. So until I am satisfied that we're on much better terms and he is showing less introverted behaviour, we'll be Friendly Gaming in each session and the other 6 games can have a holiday. This is how I think we will get unstuck, pick ourselves up and carry on. Otherwise things will turn ugly and I do not want to turn the 7 games into the 7 tortures and give Benji a good reason not to want to be with me.

Today after reflection and the revelation, I played Friendly Game! Mainly Friendly Game rubbing with carrotstick minus the savvy string (I want him to be confident with the CS before the SS comes back into play) in 4 zones. Once I got past the middle of his back he stopped blinking for a little while, with A&R he seemed to relax and I thought 'cool, this doesn't seem so bad' until I got to his tail and realised it was absolutely clamped inbetween his cheeks. How interesting! 

I played some more Friendly Game including a few moderate-pressure friendly games (Bumping the ground with the CS and bringing it back onto his back, rub, repeat. Rubbing then bumping it on my shoulder and bringing it back onto him, rub, repeat etc.) to encourage him to unstick his feet a little and show him that he can move his feet if he's anxious, that if I move the CS with a little speed it doesn't always mean my life is up and I want him to do something. General desensitisation and we got some licking and chewing, his tail was a little less tight. 

Then I upped it a notch and retreated whilst waving the CS in a rainbow, a little advance, more retreat and eventually he was stood, relaxed and blinking whilst I did this which is pretty big for him. I was really pleased with that so I turned him out on a good note with a sense that this was definately the right path for us at the moment. I'll be thinking about his short term goals because I am scrapping the other ones on his page. I'll also be thinking about several Friendly Games for different situations and which ones would benefit him the most at the moment.

What a long blog post, phew. If you read it all you get a cookie! ;)