Think about it. If your back is tense you will lose movement, particularly in the hips and seat. You will lose rhythm and will not be able to ride as lightly as you should be or feel what the feet are doing. Your seat will hit harder on your horse eventually making his back sore because the two of you are out of time, even if only slightly. If your arms and shoulders are tight, you will have too much tension on the reins, losing feel and causing heaviness. Remember its only natural for your horse to push against pressure.
If your goal is to be able to truly feel the rhythm of your horse, to feel every step and movement he makes and to influence him with just the smallest of cues, your entire body needs to be soft, supple and relaxed. Have you ever experienced some tightness or soreness after riding your horse? Think about which bit was sore; chances are that was the bit that was tight when you rode. Is it possible that your tightness effected your horse’s movement?
So how do we loosen up and what causes us to be tense? Three main keys will influence us in this way. Mental, emotional and physical fitness, or rather a lack of one or more of these. Lack of mental fitness can cause us to not truly trust the horse, so we hang on to him and work much harder than we need to. Lack of emotional fitness affects us similarly. When we get scared or worried, we tighten up and hang on. Lack of emotional fitness also shuts down many of our senses so we can be totally unaware of what our body is doing at the time. And lastly, physical fitness. It stands to reason that if you are out of shape and out of practise, you’ll have to work harder to stay on. You will have plenty to think about already without worrying if your little pinkie is tense or not.
There’s a great little exercise to do in the Level 3 programme to really get you loosened up. Revisit your faithful passenger lessons, only this time with a twist. As you ride, make a conscious effort to loosen up one part of your body at a time. Start with your toes and wiggle them while you ride. Do this for a few minutes until you feel them really let go, then move up to your whole foot. Repeat the process as you progress to your lower leg, upper leg etc and don’t forget to do your head too. Try to isolate as many different parts as possible. This will do wonders for your feel and contact riding and will really improve your independent seat. You can do it with a saddle at first if you like and choose which ever gait to begin with, however we encourage you to build to be able to do the full exercise bareback at all gaits. By Level 3 you should be able to do this.
Read More Road To Horsemanship articles.
- By Meredith Ransley, Quantum Savvy.