If you are going to be successful in your horsemanship, you must take Jesus' advice and have the kind of spirit that seeks to remove the telephone pole out of your own eye before attempting to remove the splinter from your brother's eye. That is, if your horse simply is not progressing, the problem is almost certainly with you, not with your horse. You are probably trying to get too much too fast, or are using your cues in a way the horse just can't possibly understand, or maybe you are even leaning in the saddle in some direction hindering your own desired movement, like trying to move a rug while you are still standing on it. At some point, every rider who would progress in his horseback abilities must go find someone better than himself to ride with for a while. This is what we strive to help riders do here at Rising K Ranch, and if you outgrow us, we'll be sure to point you to someone else who can teach you something (and we'll also probably try to hire you .)
    A horse rider, somewhere along the line, must make a decision, not only of what kind of horseback rider he wants to be and what kind of horses he wants to make, but he must decide what kind of person he wants to be. Do you want to be the type who forces a horse around, getting the job done by jabbing and poking and pulling on him constantly, or do you want to take the time to teach yourself before teaching your horse, and get the job done by making your horse into a partner rather than a four-legged machine?

   I hope someday you'll drop by at our ranch here between Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks and we can show you a liitle of what I am talking about here!