Beginning ground work

We've had a few lessons beginning to teach her ground work from Clinton Anderson's new Foal Training series. It's really an awesome series and it has helped give me a starting place for Banjo. So far we have worked on desensitizing her to touch...i catch her and then rub her for 5 minutes on one side of her body then 5 minutes on the other. We have worked on yielding the hindquarters to steady pressure-which teaches her to move we hindquarters away from you when asked in a 360 degree circle. The next thing we taught her is to back up off of pressure from a string around her neck. The third lesson is teaching her to lead in a small circle around me by using a butt rope (just a string tied in a loop that goes around her hindquarters) an a neck rope (used for direction). When we finish an exercise, we spend a few minutes rubbing her and continuing to desensitize her to touch. Sometimes we stop for a break for her to nurse an I rub her and scratch on her then too. The most recent thing that I've taught her is to yield her forequarters to steady pressure. Basically I want to be able to ask to move her front end away from me in a circle when I lightly touch her neck and shoulder. Once horses lose their fear of you they tend to get pushy and will often lean into you with their shoulder. This exercise helps keep her respectful and teaches her that I can move her feet instead of the other way around. This is great because like the other exercises it helps establish my position as the leader. My goal for the weekend is to try to work with her and improve each exercise a little bit each day as well as introduce a few new ones as she is ready. I also hope to work with her twice on Saturday and Monday.