First thing I do is launch her both directions to make sure the saddle is not pinching her anywhere and that she's okay with what I'm doing and get her in the working frame of mind before I start getting ready to mount. Then I just start flapping the stirrups, getting her used to that feeling and used to the sound. Move the saddle back and forth, shift it around like you would do if you were in the saddle and had to move it over and I flex her both directions to make sure she's soft to the halter and that I have control over her head, kind of like a safety check before I mount. Helps to get her attention on me as well. Do it both sides. Then I just start hopping up and down beside her like I would do when I'm getting ready to get on so that she's okay with this and not frightened when I do it. Then I put my full weight in the actual stirrups and lean on the side of her. This is a safe position for me to be in. Just in case something happens I can step down really quick and have control. Then I just put my full weight on the other side of her because honestly I'm awkward and I can't really get my foot up there on a new cold so then I just walk around hanging off the side of her. I can hop down really quickly if I need to and I did that for a couple of laps before I actually went and got on her all the way. Then as I have a leader here today I'm using him to get her used to me petting her all over while she's moving around so that she's not frightened of that at all. She probably would have been fine without a leader but with it being such a windy day we figured we might as well. Then I'm just flipping the rope back and forth over her head. This way I can do that when I want to flex her both directions I don't actually have to get off and change where the rope is. I can just do it from the saddle and it gets her desensitized to this kind of thing around her face. So it doesn't have to be pretty at all. It doesn't have to be beautiful. It just desensitizes her to it. Here I am riding her by myself without any help and now I'm just getting her used to moving her hindquarters over. This would be the beginnings of teaching her how to do an emergency stop and what it does is it just gives me some control over her movement in case something goes wrong. This is teaching her to move her body over when I apply leg pressure. She's pretty sensitive so it doesn't take much and also getting her used to not overreacting when I add pressure. Then I just practice getting on and off her quite a few times here so that she knows to stand still while I mount and dismount. There's nothing worse than a horse that walks off when you're doing those things. So I spend quite a bit of time getting her accustomed to that. Then I just rub my leg on her butt so that if I ever did touch her when I mount her dismount that it's not a trigger for her.