Strides for Success

Tag: following

  • Following & Allowing in Your Riding

    Following & Allowing in Your Riding

    Following & Allowing in Your Riding

    What this episode is all about & how it can help you:-

    • Stop forcing and be ‘led’
    • Notice how it feels underneath you
    • Notice how you can begin to influence through your seat
    • Are you allowing your horse or are you blocking your horse

    [smart_track_player url=”https://op3.dev/e/traffic.libsyn.com/dailystridespodcast/1065-Following-and-Allowing-in-Your-Riding.mp3″ title=”Following & Allowing in Your Ridin” social_linkedin=”true” social_pinterest=”true” social_email=”true” tweet_text=”Struggling to get started using your seat in the saddle? This episode of the Daily Strides Podcast will help…” hashtag=”equestrian” twitter_username=”strides_success” ]

    I know that you know how important your seat is as a rider.  It is one of the biggest ways we communicate with our horses.  However many riders I meet are a little confused as to how they can get started with really using their seat in their riding.

    In this episode of the Daily Strides Podcast you will learn all about following and allowing with your seat.  I believe this is one of the simplest ways you can begin developing your seat next time you ride.

    Stop Forcing and Digging with Your Seat

    When it comes to your seat as a rider, one of the most important things to understand is that you ‘influence’ with it. Simply put, this means you need to stop forcing with your seat.

    Let go of the idea that you need to push and shove your horse around using your seat

    If you push and shove with your seat, it very often has the opposite effect you are looking for.  Your horse will probably hollow and duck out-of-the-way of your seat.  This is because it is uncomfortable for him; imagine someone applying a huge amount of pressure to specific points on your back!

    Be wary of digging with your seat.  If you find that you are trying to dictate to the horse with this downward and forward motion, you are indeed digging! 

    This happens a lot in lateral work. Riders tend to shove the horse across the arena and you end up losing the relaxation and the rhythm, because the horse is no longer moving at ease.

    Allowing Yourself to Be ‘Led’

    The opposite of forcing is rather allowing yourself to be led. This is difficult for many riders to really do well initially.  Simply put it means that you are going to allow the horse to move you, rather than you moving the horse.

    What feels like ‘doing nothing’ is a difficult thing to do while in the saddle; but is essential to learn in order to really follow your horse

    Sit in the saddle and, simply, allow the horses forward energy and movement to move you. This takes a certain amount of relaxation in the rider’s body, but also takes a certain amount of self carriage.

    Meaning you are not really ‘doing nothing’, you are responsible for carrying yourself and balancing the tension in your body.  Said differently, you are also responsible for maintaining the correct level of relaxation as you ride

    Riders often get into the saddle and just sit there collapsing through their body. Rather think of yourself as ‘standing’ in the saddle. You need to carry your upper body as though you were standing.

    Carrying your upper body frees up your lower body to be led by the horse

    Notice How it Feels Underneath You

    I’m going to be honest with you, if you are used to always trying to ‘move’ your horse with your seat, following will take practice.  However, once you can do this, I want you to then begin noticing how it feels.

    Timing is a big part of the conversation between you and your horse. You need to ask questions at the correct time in order to give the horse enough time to respond to whatever you have asked

    Getting to understand timing comes down to getting to know what is happening underneath you. Notice how each leg is moving in each gait, walk, trot and canter.  I always suggest starting in walk.  It is slower and easier to really ‘feel’ your seat and hips move with your horse.

    If you cannot feel which hoof is where at any given time, work with what you can see. Look at the front legs and use them to figure out where the back legs are at that time. In other words, learn the sequence of your horse’s footfalls. The walk will be a certain sequence, the trot another sequence and the canter as well.

    Knowing where the front legs are will tell you exactly where the back legs are at any given time

    The reason I focus so much on what the back-end is doing is because the horse’s ‘engine’ is at the back. When you are asking a question you want your horse to respond from behind first. Noticing how it feels and what is happening underneath you with the behind section of your horses body, will help you ask at the correct time.

    Notice How You Can Begin to Influence Through Your Seat

    Once you can follow and correctly identify what is moving when, you can begin looking at influencing your horse through your seat.  I believe a lot of influencing is ‘allowing’ when it comes to riding.

    By correctly ‘allowing’ you are going to influence how much energy will be flowing at any given time, and where that energy is flowing to

    You could decide to shut down or restrict the flow a little.  Or you could decide to allow more to flow through. You could ask for a little more bend or flexion with your seat.  You can ask for more energy to be created using your seat.

    It all comes down to asking and then ‘allowing’ your horse to follow through with what you asked

    Begin with Smaller Requests

    I suggest really just getting started.  Many riders wait until the ‘perfect’ time to start using their seat to influence.  There won’t ever be a perfect time, so begin today. Start playing with the seat and how the horse responds to it.

    I suggest starting in the walk and trot first. Remember that your seat on it’s own is not a completely isolated aid.  There is the whole balance of aids working together all the time to communicate with your horse.

    Initially your other aids may have to be stronger, or louder, while you are training your horse to listen to the more subtle and quiet seat aid

    However, as your horse begins to respond to your seat, you can really begin refining your seat.  Keep in mind that consistency is essential.  Especially as your horse begins to listen for those subtle questions that you are asking. In doing this you will get a better conversation happening between you and your horse.

    I suggest starting with your half halt. I have a free audio training you can use for that HERE
    .  Noticing this as you start working on it with your horse is how you can start to ‘allow’ with your horse.

    Are You Allowing Your Horse or Are You Blocking Your Horse

    The final thing I want to touch on is that the opposite of allowing is blocking. Often riders tend to block their horse, even though they want to allow.  An example of this is the length of the active half halt aid.  The split second.

    What sometimes happens with riders is that they stop allowing and begin blocking.  It is often because the aid becomes a long drawn out constant. The engaging or active use of the aid becomes continuous. They tend to dig down deep and get heavy.

    When we ask our horse to do something, what we want is for them to engage their core. In doing this it is almost feels as if they lift their back and lighten

    If you are being heavy and using a more blocking motion with your seat, your horse has no space or room to engage and lighten.

    Another side effect of blocking is that the energy can no longer move forward.  This often occurs just after a transition between gaits.  The rider asks for the transition but then ‘blocks’ the horse from moving forward into the newly requested gait.

    Forwardness is key to everything in riding.  Once you lose forwardness, everything else will fall apart as there is no energy there to maintain the movement

    What to Work on Next Time in the Saddle

    I suggest you start by allowing yourself to be led.   Really feel what is going on underneath you and how one step or foot fall affects the next.  Feel where your hips are in relation to your horses hips.  From here, begin to take more responsibility for how you are sitting in the saddle.   Later, once you can truly ‘follow’ begin working on the ‘allowing’.

    It is a continuous work in progress for all riders and something you can experiment and refine on a daily basis in the saddle.  Understanding your seat is really the beginning of refining your ‘influence’ over your horse while riding.

    Happy Riding

    Lorna

    Links mentioned in the episode:-

  • Controlling Your Hands While Riding

    Controlling Your Hands While Riding

    Do you find that often when you ride, your hands begin to do their own thing?  Waving about, flagging some imaginary air traffic, conducting a symphony, or just bouncing up and down like a jack hammer?!  To make this even more frustrating; it seems like the more you try to ‘quiet’ or ‘still’ your hands the worse the problem becomes…

    [smart_track_player url=”https://op3.dev/e/traffic.libsyn.com/dailystridespodcast/SFA371-Controlling-Your-Arms-and-Hands-While-You-Ride.mp3″ title=”Controlling Your Hands and Arms While You Ride” social_linkedin=”true” social_pinterest=”true” social_email=”true” tweet_text=”Having trouble with controlling your hands in the saddle? This will help…” hashtag=”horseriding” twitter_username=”strides_success” ]

    The uncomfortable truth is that while you might be feeling frustrated about your lack of control, it is often your horse that is taking the brunt of this particular riding challenge. He may begin to fight you for the reins, lean on you or pull you along.

    Or maybe you spend time while riding continuously changing or fiddling with the length of your reins, dropping your hands and straightening your elbows, twisting your wrists so your knuckles are on top.  Or perhaps you are flapping your shoulders and arms in an attempt to ‘relax’ and all the while, that soft, following contact with your horse’s mouth continuously evades you…

    Controlling Your Hands and Arms as you ride

    Steady hands come from a relaxed body that is carrying itself. Relaxed does not mean floppy or loose, but rather supporting yourself without any signs of tension. Relaxation will also allow your body to follow your horses movement, which is the first key to controlling your arms and hands. I realize that it seems almost counter intuitive to focus on your body first when trying to ‘fix’ your hands, however one will not happen without first controlling the other.

    When your body is relaxed, your ‘shock absorbers’ can work optimally, working with the energy from the horse and not against it. Often hands that bounce around are the result of a rigid or tense rider, who is only rigid and tense because they are trying so desperately to control their body! It is a vicious cycle.

    The first thing to do is begin paying attention to your seat and pelvis and how, in walk, they follow your horse. Notice your breathing, and lift your upper body to allow your lungs to fill with air with each breath, to remove any tension from your body. Open your chest, remembering all the while to carry your body, not slouch, and then allow your arms to simply fall from your shoulders.

    Then remember to carry your hands. Don’t just allow gravity and your horses mouth to dicate where your hands are at any given time. In order to become soft through your contact, you must carry your own hands, which means bending your elbows. A good guide line is to try keep your hands around the height of your belly button.

    Once you have your hands where they should be, pay attention to how your shoulders, upper arms, elbows, fore arms, wrists and fingers all work together to follow your horses mouth. If you move your hand forward, move it from the elbow. Supple elbows will allow you to absorb movement and continue to keep a soft contact.

    Pay attention that your fingers are closed on the reins. Also, that you are ‘holding’ the rein with your thumb by pinching the rein between your thumb and index finger, not by squeezing your fingers. This will then free up your fingers to have more subtle ‘conversations’ down the reins to your horses mouth. Holding the reins this way will also prevent your reins becoming long and causing you to drop the contact with your horse.

    Controlling Your Hands adn Arms while you ride

    Begin establishing a following contact by lengthening your reins out, so you initially will have very little connection with your horses mouth. Move your elbows and hands with your pelvis and seat. Think of them being somehow invisibly connected to each other and relaxed enough that the movement of your horse underneath you is enough to quietly influence your body. Don’t force the movement, you must follow your horse, not drive your horse along by pushing with your seat or hands. When you feel that you are now following your horses mouth, you can begin to slowly gather up your reins again and begin establishing a contact with your horses mouth. If you feel any tension coming back, gently lengthen your reins and begin again.

    Another good visualization you can use is to think about carrying cups of hot tea… If your arms are tense, the tea will splash and spill from the cup.  If your arms are floppy, the same thing will happen. Only when your arms are ‘working’ with your moving body, will the tea stay in the cup!

    Remember that you do need to have a contact when riding. However that contact must come from soft, following hands that provide steady, consistent support connection and direction when needed. Sometimes it seems that more emphasis is placed on the leg and getting our horses back end working underneath him while being ridden. And this is true…

    However, there must also be a contact to direct and contain that energy and ask your horse to work in a frame. Be careful not to hang on your horses mouth, but also not to lose the contact either. It is a fine balance, which needs to be continuously re-evaluated and adjusted depending on the work or the results of other aids.

    30 Day Rider Fitness Challenge

    A strong core must be maintained throughout, so you are carrying yourself and are agile enough to follow your horse. When you can begin to confidently carry both your body and your arms, you will find that the tension which was causing the jarring or bouncing will soon dissipate, leaving you with quiet, soft hands from which you can begin direct that wonderful energy.

    Happy Riding
    Lorna