Swimming!

Hey! Well to start off, I'm trying to keep up with this blog a little bit better now that schools out. The only thing is that there is a delay between when I do things, write about them and when I post them (obviously) but I like writing using the word today when writing soooo that's just how it goes. Anyway, not that it really matters but I can't help but tell whoever might read this blog. Does anyone read it? I hope so but honestly, I just like being able to write and show pictures. So yeah.

Ok, today I went out to the barn and it was honestly 95 degrees. So I scraped any real training and decided to teach Jazz how to swim. Which kind of worked. I can ride him into water up to his belly but after that he gets worried and tries to bolt toward land. I got off and lead him into the water this time until he started to feel uncomfortable then let him stop and started splashing him with water until he stepped in a little bit more to follow me. We messed around for 30-45 minutes with him getting deeper and deeper until he needed to actually swim. Then he'd launch himself into the water, swim a circle around me and try to run back to shore. The circling around me was actually him getting worried and deciding to deal with that by coming toward me and me having to push him away.
He acts big but the second something happens that makes him even a touch uncertain, he has a bad habit of crowding my to stay confident that something isn't going to kill him. After 3 and a half years he trusts that I won't ever ask him to do anything that he can't do. Including swimming. So he kept comming in deeper and deeper as I asked him to which was really fun. Finally we concluded the day by swimming across the pond. Which is only about 25-30 meters wide bit gets deep enough in the middle that I (I'm 5'8") can't touch the bottom and Jazz actually has to swim.
Anyway, I kept asking him to go deeper until I pushed off the bottom and asked him to swim after me and he DID! I was super proud of him and as he swam past me I grabbed his mane and had him pull me across as I slid lightly onto his back. Once he could touch on the other side we walked then trotted out of the pond and with some big pats we galloped back to the barn.
I had some videos of him swimming around me but I can't get them to go from my dad's Blackberry and save to the computer. Hope to get something up soon!!!
Overall a very fun afternoon!
Bye!