"Practice makes perfect, only if you practice perfect!"
By Suzin Daly
Many riders involved with competitions
take lessons on a regular basis to improve their skills. Their choice
of discipline may be dressage, eventing, jumpers or hunters. Many of
these riders take lessons on a weekly basis and then take the information
from these lessons and apply it to their daily riding, returning for
another lesson the following week. This is a good plan; it is important
to be consistent if you want to improve your riding skills. An instructor,
cannot make you a rider, you make yourself a rider. It is important
that you make sense of what your instructor says and then try to make
your own corrections so the instructor does not have to tell you over
and over again. Ideally the rider gets the feel of each correction so
the instructor does not have to be repetitive.
Riding education works by exploring the
suggestions your instructor makes. Sometimes in your training sessions
you will feel awkward. Be patient, you are not there to repeat what
you do wrong, but to improve. Never ride passively, listening to instruction
sheepishly. Make sense of the instructor's comments and act on them.
Try to give your instructor less and less to say. Try to be one step
ahead of the instructor. Remember 'no one cares as much as you do'.
After a training session riders enthusiastically
go home and try to repeat the success they have in lessons. This is
good, but be aware that since there is no ground person, the old habits
will slowly or sometimes very quickly try to creep back. I want my riders
to practice at home, and I want them to do it in a way that maximizes
their learning and minimizes the miscommunication with their horse.
Most riders are so involved in getting
more from their horses that they forget how much their hands, seat and
leg influence the horse. Put aside the horse for the moment, and look
at the possibility that as a rider you might not have communicated as
clearly as you think you have. To give you a way to answer that question,.
I am going to step back and suggest that you to develop a check list
for yourself. I want to help you to help yourself improve, to be more
aware, and to practice in a way that will allow you to get more from
your instruction.
Your Checklist:
The
Seat Bones
I would first recommend the moment you sit
in the saddle, find your seat bones. If you are not sure where your seat
bones are, sit on a flat solid bench and wiggle till you find them. It
does not matter what kind of conformation you have, they are easily located
at the upper inner thigh. If you can find your seat bones 100% equally,
most probably you are evenly distributing your weight in the saddle. Walk
your horse on a long rein being very relaxed allowing the seat bones to
stay equal around the arena or even on the trails. Every time you lose
one seat bone, both, or when one is always heavier than the other you
are off balance, and that is communicated to the horse. Eventually checking
for even seat bones becomes automatic, but until it does, checking for
even seat bones is number one on your checklist.
Thighs
and Calves
Be conscious of the feeling of having both
thighs softly rolled in. Check to see that you are not gripping with your
thighs, this pushes you up out of the saddle. Now be aware of having a
light inner calf on the horse. I use the example that your calf should
be like a wet tissue thrown against the horses side. I will often tell
my students that if they can feel a light ankle on their horse's side
they can be sure that their calf is on.
Practice the checklist so far. Be conscious
of your seat bones, make corrections if you need to. Now check you thighs
and calves. Everything is to be developed in a way where you always feel
balanced and symmetrical. Be careful, what often happens in this exercise
is that riders start to lock up in their hips. When you find yourself
in a locked, non-following mode with your seat, correct it immediately.
Relax and follow the motion of the horse. Locking up your hips causes
the horse to tense his back and can create one of two reactions, rushing
or not wanting to go forward.
Reins
The next step is to be very aware of the
feel of the reins. It is important that the reins are held between thumb
and your pointer finger. The last three fingers are lightly curled around
the reins. You can
then open or close your last three fingers according to the need. Using
the last three fingers correctly usually stops the slight pulling back
of the arms that riders want to do. Most times they do not even realize
they are pulling back. The thumb and pointer finger should have enough
feel so the reins do not slip.
Elbows
Elbows should have enough bend so you do
not ride with straight arms and that the elbow joint does not go behind
your hips. When you feel your elbows moving behind your hips, shorten
the reins.
Shoulders
Take the moment to be conscious of your
shoulders, I make the suggestions to move the shoulders back and down.
Be very aware of any tension in your body and relax that tension. It will
happen, and just keep being aware of it and do something about it.
Now we put it all together. Develop checkpoints
in your arena. For example at A, E, C, B (dressage arena letters) go through
the whole check list As you pass each checkpoint in your arena, ask yourself,
"seat bones, thighs, calves, fingers, elbows, shoulders" and
make corrections. In the beginning you will find yourself at the next
checkpoint by the time you have checked each one and you start all over
again. Over a period of time you will automatically correct yourself without
even thinking. Then, when you have a communication problem with your horse,
run this checklist and you will probably get an answer to your question.
After a while you will develop a sense of
feel, "Where am I?" becomes "I am" and
you will be more effective in your communication to the horse.
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