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LATEST NEWS |
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20/06/10
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After so many years of efforts...
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The following article is an excerpt of
'The Code' - HD Encyclopaedia |
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~ The Mystery of the Abominable Sitting Trot Revealed! ~ |
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(from Horse Riding - The Basics ) |
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The following descriptive 'how-to' article regarding muscle independence in the rider, thus acquiring the ability to sit to the trot straightaway, on any horse, on any type of trot (collected, working, medium and extended) requires slow, careful reading (while imagining the 'feel' described) and physical try-out just where you are, sitting in front of the screen right now. Then the whole thing will be more familiar when you'll try it in the saddle (or bareback).
Let me remind you that all that follows is according to RR's method, which means 'the way I ride, the way I teach' and it is not at all what one usually gets when taught, or reading a book about it, for it places the Horse in the spotlight and not the rider. Everything that Horse Deliverance contains is for the benefit of the horse. Developing a balanced, supple, intuitive and intelligent rider IS for the benefit of the horse :)
If the rider rides well, the horse will perform well. The thing that is often misinterpreted is that 'riding well' automatically means that the rider is experienced, has ridden for over twenty years and the like. I found that if any novice rider gets taught with in-depth info, time has little to do with a good, deep seat - which then reduces drastically the time needed to learn the refinements of riding.
A note to all who feel overweight: anyone remember the brilliant international rider Heidi Robbiani? She was extremely overweight, shortish in the leg etc. Yet she was one of the best showjumpers in the world.... Weight, on horseback, is a plus and not a drawback. The heaviest one is, the more influence he/she'll have using the weight as an aid and the subtler the aids will be - and any horse dreams to be ridden so, keeping in mind that the horse in question is proportioned to his rider. In Dressage especially, the heavier you are, the best. I myself are at a disadvantage for my weight is not that effective unless I ride a 15hh horse or less (unlucky for me the ones I ride are all over 17.2hh). A horse hates dead weight, even just a little, like lead at the big showjumping do's. So human, 'live' weight is an asset, as long as said weight is supple. Suppleness on horseback means 'using the right muscles at the right time', and that is simply 'technique'. And of that technique this article is all about.
Personally, I teach sitting trot BEFORE teaching rising trot. Safety is my main concern here, and a good balanced position avoids accidental losses of balance that may develop into a nasty accident. On top of that, all my pupils learn bareback first, with a saddle second. This enables the rider to search for the horse's movement under the saddle and pad and not ride the saddle alone. They also develop a natural balance with the horse extremely rapidly, which brings obviously only benefits for both.
The best way to start is to walk normally with your horse, and while he warms up strolling around you warm 'yourself' up too! All of us are so concerned about him being loosened up before work, but are we ever? Fitness is NOT the issue here - whether you're fit or not it makes no difference. Actually, if you are fit it'll take you even longer to loosen up :)
A couple of fast things one can do (and should) is to position your seat (your hipbones) in the saddle as follows, as the hip region (especially at trot) gets loaded with repetitious concussion shocks deriving from the horse's feet touching the ground. Most riders tend to ignore how the hips are 'placed' in the saddle, which explains why so many topple forward so often. Practically speaking, you want to sit with the left point-of-hip to the left of the centre of the saddle, the right point-of-hip to the right and tilt the whole lot so that if you went a little farther you'd be sitting also on the tip of your tailbone - don't tilt as far as that but you DO want to be placed so that the bottom of your hip area is forward compared to the top part. If you imagine your hips as a flat rectangle, you'd see the base of the rectangle in the deepest, centered part of the saddle whilst the top of the rectangle is slightly tilted towards the cantle. If you look at it sideways, and the horse's head is to the LEFT of the screen, it'd be like a slash "/". As point of interest, we call it the 'triangular radio to the horse'.
(If you place a hand under one of your hip bones now, while you read, you'll feel it very definitely. Try to tilt the top part of the hips backwards a little...)
Sitting in this way allows the top part of the body to remain behind the vertical with ease, makes it almost impossible to grip with the knees and allows the thighs to descend comfortably along the sides of the horse (the 'long' dressagists' leg!) and you may even find that all of a sudden your stirrups are too short! Now, take your feet out of the stirrups (while he walks) and extend your legs toes-down towards the ground - hold for two or three seconds with your legs lengthened tightly and relax again, allowing ALL of your weight to sink in through your seatbones. Do this again four or five times, taking time to relax completely between each stretch. You will see that you'll feel 'heavier' and deeper in the saddle already just after doing so.
Next, try to relax the 'small of the back', that is, at the centre of your back where the belt goes - allow the horse's walk to move you, you don't mechanically do this but simply allow his action to be absorbed by the motion it induces. In two words, relax totally and let him move you. Do it with stirrups on also.
Now comes the 'big' issue - but first I want you to think of the Dressage riders and how they look when riding...Have you noticed they all seem 'tall' in the saddle? You get five foot riders who stick out from up there as if there were strings attached to their ears! How can that be? Well, it's because they 'divide' themselves into two, which is what must be done to sit deeply and glued to the horse, and which is what I invite you to try right now while you're sitting there reading. Oh, I know - you'd never sit on a horse the way you're sitting now! We all 'slump', shoulders crouched in front of the screen, so sit up normally, pull your shoulders back (not UP) and let them go so that your arms fall naturally beside the trunk (and now of course how in the world are you going to move the mouse to read on..!) and place one hand more or less where your stomach is. Now take one HUGE deep breath and you should feel how much the ribcage has lifted from where your hand is. Relax, keep on breathing normally because that's all there is to the sitting trot. What happens is that through the help of deep breaths intake you learn to lift your ribcage as far away as possible from your hip region. That's dividing oneself into 'two' - the bottom part is part of the horse, the top part is the rider. The legs are there for impulsion and direction, the hand is there for guidance and the weight shifting of the rider allows the horse to flow into whatever exercise is required of him.
Take a step back now - in riding, the muscles mostly used are the abdominal and the dorsal muscles. All riders use their abdominal ones (they have to) but few really develop the dorsals. Now, beside the fact that we all care for the welfare of our spinal column, developing the dorsal (back) muscles makes it possible to save it from concussion shocks - thus avoiding backache after riding, yet it does take a little time before development occurs so please don't overdo it at first.
Getting back on the walking horse, take a deep breath and divide yourself into 'two'. Try to hold the ribcage high, relax the 'small' of your back, allow all your weight to relax into the center of the saddle through your slanted hips and please remember to keep on breathing even with your ribcage lifted! You may be able to hold this posture for 5 seconds or forever, it depends, but the more you do this the more your dorsal muscles will develop - the more they develop, the more you'll manage to keep the ribcage lifted, and you should notice a difference already within three or four days. All this still at the walk.
So, you want to connect all these things together: the legs are relaxed, thighs not gripping, weight released onto slightly slanted hips, ribcage lifted, small of the back mobile = DEEP SEAT! (pls do not mistake for the 'active deep seat', which is when movement is induced by the rider and not by the horse).
Having experimented the above at walk, DO NOT try it at trot - not yet. You need one last bridge to it, which is this: please remember, for an instant, the feeling we all get when the horse changes gait from trot to walk. Just before he walks, we KNOW he's about to walk even if he's not walking YET but trotting real slow, yet we relax totally and feel so deep that last step... Remember? It means you've done all I'm talking about forever, it's just that you hadn't noticed it! This will be your bridge then...
Positioned and relaxed as described above, ask the horse to slowly trot on, but immediately ask him to walk again, so all you get is about two strides of slow trot. If every part of your body was placed as described, you shouldn't have bounced at all. Again, a few more steps in slow trot - ribcage lifted, etc. - and walk again (pls pat him, he's being very patient!). Once you can keep your position at a slow trot for more than ten strides you can go onto working-trot, just a few steps amidst the slow trot. Then more.
You're sitting deep, and beside YOU being comfortable, your horse IS! Your soft riding makes it inviting for him to lift his back and work in a rounder shape throughout his topline - making his trots even more comfortable to sit on.
RR
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