Advanced Western Riding. Kara L Stewart

conformation, your body is free to move in any direction to match the movement of your horse. You can influence her movement and speed because your aids are independent of each other. Because you aren’t relying on grip or using unnecessary muscle power, you can use your aids to softly and effectively influence your horse.

      To find the position that is best for you, start by sitting on the edge of a hard chair. This allows you to feel your seat bones. Locate the top of your pelvis by putting your hands at the sides of your waist, then moving them down until you feel bone. Play with how rotating your pelvis affects the position of your seat bones.

      While on the chair, sit the way you normally ride. Notice whether your back is hollowed (the top of your pelvis is rotated forward) or whether your back is rounded (the top of your pelvis is rotated backward). Every rider will have a different position in which his or her body is the most balanced and stable. Play with rotating your pelvis—first with rather exaggerated movements, then with smaller and smaller movements. Find the place where your pelvis is softly centered between an arched back and a hollowed back, and try to remember how this feels.

      Next, take your experiment to your horse. How do changes in your position affect her? Start at the walk. Does she go faster? Slower? Stop altogether?

      If you have trouble finding the position that is most secure for your body type and individual characteristics, seek out the educated eyes of a trainer or expert who’s acutely attuned to body position and the biomechanics behind it. This person will help you learn to refine your position based on what’s mechanically correct rather than on what is popular in the show pen or is used in a certain discipline at the moment.

      This rider relaxes his foot outside the stirrup. As you ride, scan your body for any braces and release them.

      Have a friend check your saddle position if necessary.

      Frequently, an additional benefit of learning to ride correctly from a strong and stable position is a reduction of pain. Riding in good alignment, without excess muscular exertion, can make a big difference in your comfort and future riding enjoyment.

      Keep in mind, too, that your saddle will have an effect on your position. If you continually struggle with keeping your legs underneath you or if you always feel that you’re being left behind the motion of your horse, it very well could be because of the geometry of your saddle. (See Chapter 4 for more about basic saddle fitting for performance.)

      To test whether you have attained your own position of balance and stability, ask for a friend’s help and mount up. Hold a rein in each hand and have your friend stand on the ground just in front of your horse. Sit and breathe as you normally do. Then ask your friend to hold the reins about six inches from the bit and apply steady pressure to the reins in a straight line from your hands toward the bit, not up or down. If your alignment and breathing are correct, your friend’s pressure on the reins will only pull you deeper into the saddle. If you’re not sitting correctly (with a good alignment of your head, elbow, hip, and heel and with your breathing correct), your friend will easily pull you up and out of the saddle!

      If this is what happens, play around with adjusting your pelvis slightly in one direction and then in the other, to see whether this prevents you from being pulled out of the saddle when your friend pulls on the reins. Try altering your arm position, as well, to see how this changes your secure position. Try changing your breathing from high in your chest to lower in your ribs. Does this change the outcome?

      Once you find a solid position, be aware of it, and try to replicate it every time you ride. Have your friend test you now and then to see whether you are maintaining your most stable position.

      FEEL THE RHYTHM

      Another way to develop better balance and seat is to start thinking in terms of rhythm and beat while riding. Horses are rhythmic creatures, and they seem to appreciate it when we do things using a steady flow, such as grooming them with a steady rhythm of brush strokes and breathing with steady inhales and exhales instead of holding our breath while we’re with them.

      You can take this a step further by riding as if you have a metronome under your saddle horn (there actually are metronomes made for riders) or have a song in your head that has a certain tempo for different gaits. If you are able to play music in your arena, try riding to songs with good, steady beats and see how enjoyable it can be for you and your horse.

      To ride to a certain beat, first get in time with your horse’s gait. The walk has four beats; the jog, two; and the lope, three. Don’t drive with your seat to increase your horse’s speed, which actually makes many horses slow down or stop because the pressure puts their weight on their forehand. Don’t squeeze or kick harder with your legs. Instead, try changing the tempo. For example, if you want to increase the speed of the walk, increase the tempo of the four-beat rhythm in your head. It’s not an obvious change or force of movement; however, it allows your body to move to the new tempo.

      As you’re doing this, keep your hips and knees relaxed because gripping and tightening will just restrict your horse’s movement. Sure, horses can and do learn to move well, even when their riders hinder their natural flowing movement, but it’s easier when you can help facilitate rather than hinder their movements.

      You can also use rhythm and beat to change gaits through upward and downward transitions. Try picking up a nice flowing walk. Notice the definite four-beat movement and count the beat aloud or silently. If your body is soft and not braced in any of your joints, your hips will rotate in a sort of figure-eight pattern: up, forward, down, and back in time with the horse’s walk. Notice that each of your hips moves independently to follow the two halves of your horse’s back, which also move independently.

      Now, to transition to a nice jog, change the four-beat rhythm into two beats in your head, and allow your body to pick up this beat. Horses are so sensitive that they often will change their gait to match your new rhythm. Try it and see. If you don’t get the change of gait to the jog, add a little leg and be sure to release your leg as soon as you feel the increase in energy. Then play with changing your internal beat from two to three beats to ask for a lope.

      Your horse may not immediately change gaits when you change the tempo in your head and in your body; but the more aware you are of rhythm and beat, the more you can use it to become a better rider and a more effective partner with your horse.

      Try changing gaits by changing the rhythm in your head. Here a horse and rider transition from a walk to a jog.

      TAKE A LAP ON THE LONGE

      One proven way to enhance your balance and seat is to take advantage of lessons on the longe (or lunge) line. Riding on the longe is not just for beginners, so take longe-line lessons whenever you can. Even the most advanced riders spend time on the longe line to improve their abilities.

      While your trainer sends your horse out in a circle, you are free to concentrate on how it feels to move with your horse at different gaits and maintain balance and stability while in motion. Without the need for reins to steer or slow your horse, you’ll also discover whether you’re relying on the reins for balance. If you are, this can come as a big surprise, especially if you didn’t previously believe that you were.

      During your longe lessons, focus on keeping your breathing rhythmic and in time with the gait, and breathe into your ribs rather than your chest. See how many strides you get with a single inhale, then a single exhale, and play with increasing this interval.