Dominance & Phases

In a horse's herd, there is a leader, or horse that dominants over the herd. It is usually a mare. When working with horses we are trying to emulate the behavior of the leader and the dominant member of the relationship. I have found that Rose will accept my leadership and dominance, but over time likes to question it, and I have to reinforce my stand. Today for example after walking and forth across the ground poles, she wanted to come towards me, but I had not asked to do that, and that was the opposite of what I wanted to accomplish. So asked her to back up to where she belonged, she was hesitate so I went the the phrases fairly fast to get as big as possible to her. After she backed up in rapid manner I released the pressure from her and were no longer big. She stopped, licked her lips, and then was allowed to came forward in a respectfully manner accepting me again as the leader. Just through that, we were able to accomplish herself stopping better after going back and forth through the poles.
The Four phases are:
1. Hair
2. Skin
3. Muscle
4. Bone
These phases are used to show how to get bigger to a horse. You don't necessarily have to use this phases for everything. For example, when asking your horse to do the circling, the first thing you going to do is suggest, that would be your first phase, if the horses doesn't go, you would then encourage the horse by slapping the ground with the stick, and if needs be hitting the horse. The key is though to release the pressure that you applied the moment they did something good. Don't release the pressure if they went backwards or just had the wrong response, because everytime you will use that signal they will be conditioned to go backwards. Wait until they do something in the right direction, even if it means to release if they shift their weight forwards. You will then use that to build up to going in a circle.