on your horse
On your horse how does your upper body sit? Have someone take a photo or line yourself up
alongside an arena mirror. Is there a nice straight line from your shoulder to your hip? When
looking from side on is your waistband or belt level? Is your lower back arched, slumped or
nearly flat? There are many and varied reasons why folk sit forward, hunch over or lean back
in the saddle: Sometimes habit borne from our early riding days (possibly lack of tuition), habit
from being told to sit tall or lean back, tight or unused muscles due to our lifestyle (eg long
hours spent sitting or driving, poor posture when sitting or standing), and sometimes fear or
a sense of self preservation.
Notice when you take in the full picture – upper body and leg position, where is the majority
of your weight? Is it centred or elsewhere?
If you are not already in the perfect line up when you look at yourself on your horse in the
mirror or at the camera screen – what do you need to do to achieve it? You may need to play
around with pelvic tilt, stirrup length, sliding your leg back or forward, your collar bone back
or forward, shimmy yourself around in the saddle. A good starting point can be to put your
feet up over the front of your saddle flaps – this will nearly always bring your pelvis into a
neutral (upright) position. Remember what you had to do in front of the mirror when you were
in your sitting-standing position. When you get in the near perfect line up what do you feel?
Let your eyes (or your observer’s eyes) tell you the truth and take notice of the feelings. Do
you feel pitched forward or backwards compared to normal? Does your foot feel stupidly back
or forward compared to normal? Keep checking in with your eyes – are you still on vertical?
Our bodies unfortunately don’t come with a built in spirit level and over time can adapt to all
sorts of wonkiness and it becomes our straight, so when we change things it can feel really
weird to begin with.
Once you know what your body does you are on the journey to improvement – awareness
enables you to search out solutions. Whatever you see at a standstill will be magnified when
your horse moves.
How to begin to match the forces acting on your body (stop yourself
falling forwards or backwards in motion) and take responsibility for
your own weight on the horse.
next month