Having an independent seat means being able to get in time with your horse’s movement; staying out of his way as he runs, moves and turns; not needing to swing on the reins for balance; just going with the flow and flowing with the go. All this with next to no pressure!
An independent seat will afford you greater confidence in riding, a more relaxed body position and posture which will inturn make feeling your horse’s movement and footfalls much easier and allow your horse a far greater range of motion without you getting out of balance and impeding his movement. An independent seat gives you a real sense of freedom and moving as one.
Throughout *Level 1 of the Quantum Savvy programme, we introduced a few ways to get you started on improving your own independent seat. Through your riding programmes; i.e. – follow the rail and direction changes and especially all of the passenger lesson exercises - you may already have felt some improvement coming. In Level 2 we will build onto these with impulsion programmes that have been designed to increase emotional fitness in horse and human.
The best riding teacher of all is your horse and nothing will improve your riding more than just hours in the saddle. Just one hour a week of bareback riding in a safe area, will make all the difference. Using a bareback pad will help give you some more stick and confidence with all the benefits of bareback riding.
We encourage you to get out there and do your ridden programmes, leave your horses head alone as much as possible so that he can learn to carry himself and you can learn to balance and move with him. You will find dramatic improvements in a very short time if you consciously work on developing your independent seat.
*visit the Quantum Savvy Horsemanship Forum to access the Level 1 lesson videos for free.
Read More Road To Horsemanship articles.
- By Meredith Ransley, Quantum Savvy.