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Refine Your Riding

Advanced western riding isn’t about strength, grip, and force. It’s about allowing movement, influencing it without blocking it, and directing that movement and energy into the outcome you want.

You can attain this by improving your balance, seat, aids, and cues. In addition, the more you can refine your timing, breathing, focus, awareness, and other subtle aspects of riding, the deeper the partnership you can build with your horse.

Here are a few areas to explore that will help you increase your riding skills as you continue to advance.

Developing Better Balance and Seat

When you boil it down to its simplest elements, good western riding is about sitting on your horse in a softly supported way, with your skeleton correctly aligned so your bones, instead of your muscles, can do the work of supporting you. You’re secure in the saddle and not gripping with your legs or using your hands for balance. This frees you to give aids independently and to use only the pressure necessary to get a response.

But every rider has certain body idiosyncrasies and habits that can make riding correctly more difficult than it needs to be. Once you become aware of how you move, hold yourself, and use your body, you can start changing patterns for the better.

The postures and body habits you have in your daily life definitely affect how you ride your horse. You are what you practice. If, for example, most of your days are spent in front of a computer, with rounded shoulders and a collapsed back, it will be difficult to ride with good posture when you get on your horse.

Your breathing patterns also affect your riding. If you normally breathe shallowly and into your upper chest, it will be difficult to switch to the low, deep, rhythmic breathing conducive to good riding. (We’ll cover breathing in more detail at the end of this chapter.)

Imagine the effect your head (which weighs about ten pounds—about the same as a bowling ball) has on your posture if it’s not carried in an efficient position so your skeleton can support it. If your neck and shoulder muscles have to carry this weight around all day, that’s a recipe for pain and poor posture in the saddle.

It’s also important to realize that horses often mirror their riders; if a rider has a hollow back, the horse will typically travel with a hollow back as well. Generous creatures that they are, horses often compensate for our imbalances. The more balanced and symmetrical we can be, the better our horses can move. Learning to feel your horse’s rhythm in different gaits can also help you refine your seat and balance.

The good news is that, even if you’re only able to ride a few hours a week, you can practice the posture, alignment, and breathing that you want to bring to your riding during the many hours of your days that you’re not riding.

The first step to developing better balance and a more secure seat is to become aware of your natural patterns and habits. Then, you can work toward letting go of unnecessary muscle tension and play with finding the position that is most secure for you. Here are some suggestions to get you started.

WORK WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

No one has perfect symmetry, alignment, or posture; just like your horse, you have physical issues and quirks. You can, however, work around them and overcome them with awareness and education.

Over a period of a week or two, pay attention to your body movements: Notice how you walk, stand, sit, move, and breathe. (Don’t make judgments about what is right and wrong; just become aware of what is normal for you.) Start noticing other people’s postures and habits, too. It can be an educational experience.

Do you tend to arch your lower back or round your upper back? Where are your shoulders in relation to your hips? Do you walk with your chest leading, your hips leading, or something in between? Do you walk with your head tilted to one side? Do you regularly stand with more weight on one hip than the other? How do you breathe—low, high, deep, shallow? Does your breathing change depending on how much stress you’re under?

Often, these habits are so ingrained that it can be difficult to identify them, and they certainly feel correct because it’s how you’re used to moving and breathing every minute of your day.

All of your habits in your daily life will carry over to your riding. If you notice asymmetries, it can be very helpful to seek the services of a good body worker who specializes in body alignment, such as a Feldenkrais or Alexander Technique practitioner, a chiropractor, a physical therapist, a massage therapist, and so on. A professional may be able to help you reeducate your body and nervous system so you can start carrying your body more efficiently. Eventually, you won’t have to think about moving differently on your horse because the new behaviors will become natural for you.

LET GO OF THE BRACES

The more advanced you become as a rider, the more important it will be to ride with softness, in balance, and giving subtle cues. Becoming aware of your braces—and then letting them go—will help you progress toward this goal. But what is a brace? A brace is any extra muscle power, extra energy, or extra motion used to accomplish a certain task. Let’s use vacuuming as an example.

The next time you’re cleaning a carpet with an upright vacuum, notice what your body does as you pull and push the vacuum over the carpet. When you pull the vacuum back, are you simply swinging your elbow back from your shoulder joint, without raising your arm? Or are you putting in more effort than you need? Are you hiking your shoulder up and back in a circular motion as you pull the vacuum toward you? Are you swinging your whole torso around as you pull the vacuum back? Vacuuming this way uses a lot of unnecessary muscle power. These are braces. Many people develop habits that use more muscle power and energy than is really necessary to complete tasks. Over time, these habits can lead to injury or chronic pain.

To eliminate your braces, start by being aware of them. For example, when you’re driving or sitting at work, be aware of what you do. Notice whether you grip the steering wheel more tightly or hold the mouse with more force than is necessary. Try seeing how little effort you can use to do all the daily tasks in your life.

Use this same awareness to your horse. When you get on your horse, take a moment to scan your body, head to toe, for braces. If you become aware of one, try to let it go. In doing so, be careful that you don’t tense up one area to release another! Make everything easy and comfortable, and have fun with it. You can’t pass or fail. This process, both on and off your horse, really does last a lifetime.

Do you walk with your head down or take longer strides with one leg? Bring awareness to how you use your body and notice how others use theirs.

See whether you ride better when you release your brace, and notice how your horse responds. Try walking your horse while you are relaxed, then brace and tighten one leg, one arm, one hand, or one finger. See what happens. Does she slow down or speed up, flick her ears back and forth, clench her jaw, or swish her tail? Again, there are no right or wrong answers at this point; you’re just becoming aware of how everything you do affects your horse.

FIND YOUR MOST SECURE POSITION

Through her years studying biomechanics and correct body alignment, riding instructor Sally Swift pioneered a new approach to riding that she called “centered riding.” When St. Martin’s Press published her book by the same name in 1985, it revolutionized riding instruction and helped riders find the position that is correct and most stable for their bodies. Wendy Murdoch, a long-time student of Swift, took these ideas to an even higher level in her work. She shares her findings with riders around the world and in her book Simplify Your Riding (Carriage House Publishing, 2004). Other instructors and trainers (such as Peggy Cummings, Mark Rashid, and Dr. Deb Bennett) have also studied biomechanics and how a rider’s position in the saddle helps or hinders the horse.

Riding from a correct position means that your body is aligned so you don’t have to rely on extra muscle power to keep you safely upright on your horse. Not surprisingly, a correct position relates directly to a stable and secure position.

In the saddle, this means all parts of your body are properly aligned. Your ear, elbow, hip, and heel are vertically aligned. Your seat bones are pointed straight down, and your pelvis is in a neutral position. Your back is soft and supported, somewhere between an arched, hollowed position and a rounded, collapsed position. Your breathing expands your lower rib cage and belly rather than lifting your chest. This position doesn’t change drastically from one style of riding to another.

A rider braces against his horse’s movement. Bracing is using more muscle, energy, or motion than necessary, and it can lead to discomfort and pain for horse and rider.

When you are sitting in the saddle in the position that is most stable for your 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.