10 TIPS TO HELP YOU SIT THE TROT

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “Can you give me some tips to help me sit the trot better?”
So here are some quick tips to help you with this all too common challenge.

1. First and foremost, your horse needs to be on the bit. If his back is hollow, stiff, or tight, you’ll find it impossible to sit comfortably. (And, in turn, you’ll make your horse uncomfortable too!)
To put him on the bit, use the “connecting aids”. Start in the posting trot on a circle and do the following:
–Close both legs as if you’re asking for a lengthening.
==As your horse starts to surge forward toward a lengthening, close your outside hand in a fist to capture, contain and recycle the power back to the hind legs.
–Keep giving those aids for about 3 seconds.
==If your horse starts to bend his neck to the outside, give some squeezes and releases with your inside hand to keep his neck straight.
–After 3 seconds, soften back to maintenance contact with your legs and hands.

2. Slow the trot down. Ride “sub-power” and when you can sit easily, increase the impulsion for just a few strides at a time. Then slow down again.

3. Put your horse on the bit in posting trot. Once he’s round, sit for just a couple of strides. Start posting again before you feel like you need to grip with your legs. Reorganize your body, relax your legs, and sit again for just a couple of strides.

4. Cross your stirrups over the front of the saddle. Post without your irons until your legs are tired. If they’re tired, you can’t grip so you’ll sit deeper.

5. Focus on your hips. Notice how they open and close in the walk. Mimic that motion when you’re in sitting trot. You can even exaggerate the motion by pretending you’re sitting on a swing and you’re moving your hips to make the swing go higher.

6. Pretend you’re a belly dancer. As you swing your loose hips, use a buzz phrase like, “Do the hootchie kootchie” or “Swing, swing, swing”.

7. Hold the front of the saddle with your inside hand. (Or use a “grab strap”.) Use that hand to pull you deeper into the saddle so you can learn the feeling of sitting close to your horse and moving “with” him in sitting trot.

8. Attach a small strap (like the bottom strap from a flash noseband) to the outside D ring on the saddle. Pull straight up to pull yourself down deeper into the saddle. This also helps to keep your hands forward in the “work area” so you don’t pull back.

9. Relax your knees and thighs by taking then an inch or so off the saddle for a moment, letting them drop, and then placing them on lightly again.

10. Take longe lessons. This is the best way to develop an independent seat so you can sit the trot easily. Don’t use any reins or stirrups. Let the person longing you handle steering and controlling the speed. Do exercises where you move one part of your body while you keep the rest of your body still. (Arm circles, scissor kicks etc.) Also, just practice sitting deeply on your horse in his traveling gaits as well as through upward and downward transitions.

To learn more about sitting the trot, check out: www.programyourposition.com

Help Your Horse By Sitting Evenly On Your Seatbones

You can help your horse stay in good balance by sitting evenly on your seatbones.

Here’s a cool image to help you make sure you’re part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Imagine you’re sitting on top of a basketball.
If you lean forward, the basketball shoots out the back.
If you lean back, the basketball shoots out in front of you.
If you lean to the right, the basketball pops out to the left.
If you lean to the left, the basketball pops out to the right.

If you’re sitting straight and evenly on your seatbones, you can keep the basketball directly on top of your horse’s back. For more position tips go to www.programyourposition.com

Sit the Trot Better and Don’t Lose Your Stirrups

The Incredible Shrinking Leg (or How To Avoid Losing Your Stirrups!)

Ruth and I have been giving a bunch of seat and leg position riding lessons lately, and we’ve discovered some interesting things about the correlation of the pelvis, lower leg, and losing your stirrups.

Does this ever happen to you?

Do you lose your stirrups in the sitting trot?
Does your horse slow down in the sitting trot or when you work without stirrups?
Does your knee come out over the front of the saddle when you’re in the sitting trot or canter?
Does it seem that the more you use your leg, the slower your horse goes?
Do you lean forward no matter how hard you try to bring your shoulders back?
Is your bum smacking the saddle in the canter rather than sliding along your tack?
Is it hard to get up into a standing or 2-point position and keep your balance?
Is it just impossible to keep your heels down below the stirrup bar?

All of these problems could be related to the following position issues.
1. Your pelvis is not in a neutral position.
2. You’re gripping or pinching with your knee.

Here’s how the cycle unfolds.

When your pelvis is NOT in NEUTRAL, it can’t work as a spring or joint to follow your horse’s movement. Most of the time with the problems described above, the pelvis is in a too closed or tight position. As a result, in order to keep your balance, you feel that you have to pinch with your knees to stay in the saddle.

This causes problems.

When you pinch with your knees, your whole leg actually draws upward away from gravity (the ground) and shortens your contact with the seat in the saddle. (When I say “seat”, I’m not only talking about where you sit, but also I’m including your upper thigh all the way down to the top of your boot.) The less length of leg you have around your horse, the less stable you are.

When you pinch with your knees (which also closes your thighs), you actually give an aid for your horse to slow down. Remember, your upper leg should close for downward transitions, and your lower leg should close for upward transitions. Your horse won’t know what to think when you close your ENTIRE leg! This is why when you grip harder in the sitting trot to try and stay balanced, your horse slows down.

By now it’s a catch 22 because the slower he goes, the more you’re squeezing to try and speed him up. And yet the more you squeeze, the slower he goes! You’re squeezing yourself right off the top of the horse. (Like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube).

Pinching with your knees with a closed pelvis also inhibits your body weight from dropping into your heels where it should be. With a pinched knee, you stop the ability of your weight to actually get to your heels. (It’s like putting a “stopper” at your knee like a stopper in the bath tub. Gravity can’t pull your weight down to your heels. The “stopper” at your knee is blocking the weight from going down to your heels just like the bathtub stopper keeps the water from running out of a bathtub.)

Pinching with your knees also leads to losing your stirrups. When your leg is not as long as possible, your weight can’t drop down to the stirrup bar. When your weight is not down on the stirrup bar, your heel comes up and you lose your stirrup.

So there you have it. When you get your pelvis into neutral and elongate your thighs, you’ll solve many problems. Below are a few pictures and images that you can use to help with this issue.

Pelvis too closed Pelvis in Neutral Pelvis too open

Elongate your thighs by thinking “gardening knees”.

For more information and solutions for improving your riding position so you don’t lose your stirrups go to www.programyourposition.com

Tips To Help Your Put Your Heels Down When Horseback Riding

Can’t get your heels down when horseback riding? The problem may not be your heels!

I’ve been asked a lot recently about why riders have such a hard time keeping their heels down. A heel that is not “down” may not have anything to do with the heel itself, but rather the knee and the calf muscle.

Many times the heel is not down because the calf needs to be stretched. A soft calf allows for the heel to drop below the toe when the foot is resting on the stirrup bar.

When the heel is “down”, it drops just below the stirrup bar. The more important thing, however, is how FLEXIBLE the calf and ankle are and how they absorb the movement of the horse.

The ankle plays an important role in absorbing the movement of the horse under your body. It’s a shock absorber. If you have too much pressure on your toe, your calf muscle and knee are stiff and rigid.

On the other hand, if you force your heel too far down, the back of the calf and knee also becomes stiff. The front and back of your calf as well as your knee should feel soft and springy.

If you feel like your heel is up, chances are you’re gripping with your knee as well. You need to point your kneecap down to lengthen your thigh and drop the whole length of your leg.

The following is a simple exercise that will help stretch your calf to keep it soft and springy. Once you’ve found the correct place for your upper and lower leg around your horse, “anchor” that feeling both mentally and physically. Through anchoring, your muscle memory and subconscious mind take over and automatically make positive position corrections!

Step 1
Stand facing the wall about 3 feet away.

Step 2
Take 1 step forward with your left foot.

Step 3
Place your hands on the wall in front of you. Bend your elbows slightly. Point your shoulders, hips, and feet directly toward the wall.

Step 4
Bend your left knee slowly. Control the amount of stretch you feel in your right calf muscle. Both heels stay on the ground.

Step 5
Keep your right knee (back leg) straight, and hold still for 15 seconds.

Step 6
To stretch the other calf muscle (soleus) in the same leg, slowly bend your right knee, making sure to keep your right heel on the ground. Hold 15 seconds.

Step 7
Slowly push yourself back to starting position.

Step 8
Switch legs. Repeat both the straight knee and bent knee stretches on the other leg to completely stretch your calf.

Attached are a few images that will help you visualize your new position!

Now that the physical side of training your body so you can keep your heels down when horseback riding has begun, it’s time to begin the mental training and conditioning. Look for more information on your mental training at www.programyourposition.com

4 Questions to Ask If Your Dressage Horse Is Struggling in a Movement

If your dressage horse is struggling in a movement or exercise, ask yourself 4 questions:

1. Is he going too fast or too slowly?
2. Is his neck too high or too low?
3. Is his frame too open or too closed?
4. Am I asking too much?

If you’re not sure what the problem is, adjust one of the 4 things above to see if that helps your dressage horse.

Keep Your Hands Forward in the “Work Area” When Riding Your Horse

When riding your horse, it’s important to keep your hands forward in what I call the “work area”.

The work area is just in front of the saddle above the horse’s withers. Put your hands in that position and draw an imaginary box around them. That box is your work area.

No matter what rein aids you’re giving, keep your hands in the work area. If you bring your hands closer to your body, you steal power from the hind legs. If you put your outside hand forward, for example, you lose control of the outside shoulder.

Many riders tend to draw their hands toward their bodies and behind their horse’s withers.

So here’s a simple tip to remind you to keep your hands FORWARD in the work area. Imagine there’s a basketball in front of your stomach. Keep your hands in front of the basketball. You can’t draw your hands closer to your body because the basketball is in the way!

Click here for more tips on position images to improve your equitation on your horse.

3 Simple Tips to Help You Straighten and Center Your Riding Position on Your Horse

Can you tell if your riding position is straight and centered on your horse? Or are you collapsing at your waist and sitting crookedly?

Ask a ground person to stand behind your horse.

1. Is your seat in the center of the dressage saddle so that each seatbone is the same distance from the middle of the saddle?
2. Is the distance between your last rib and your belt equal on both sides?
3. Are your shoulders level (i.e. the same height)?

If your seat isn’t in the middle of the saddle, you’re collapsed at your waist, and your shoulders aren’t level, you’re not balanced correctly.

Here are 3 simple tips to help your riding position to be straight and centered on your horse:

Let’s say you’ve collapsed your left side, your left shoulder is lower, and your seat is off to the right.

1. Bring your right seat bone over and place it on top of an imaginary line that runs down the center of the saddle from the pommel to the cantle.

2. Stretch your left arm straight up so it passes by your ear and your fingers are pointed straight toward the sky.

3. Now to keep your riding position straight, centered, and stretching tall on your horse, pretend you have two sticks of equal length between your last rib and your waistband. If you collapse again, you’ll get jabbed in the ribs by the stick on the left side. And the stick on the right side will end up on the ground.

Go to Program Your Position for more help with your riding position.

Sit Centered and Balanced for Effective Horseback Riding

Horseback riding is all about balance and staying centered. You always want to keep your horse in good balance for his stage of training no matter what your discipline.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a dressage rider, a western pleasure rider, a trail rider, or an event rider. Correct balance is essential to effective riding because the center of your balance directly affects your horse’s balance.

Your goal should be to have an independent seat so you can effectively influence your horse as positively and as harmoniously as possible.

In order to have this independent seat, you need to sit in the saddle properly. By that I mean that the both the placement and the position of your pelvis must be correct. This position will, in large part, determine your level of success.

So in your quest for good balance, here’s a great image to help you keep your pelvis in the desired “neutral” position.

Imagine your pelvis is a big bucket filled with water. If you ride with an arched, tense back, the top of your pelvis tips forward, and the water spills out the front of the bucket. In this closed or tipped pelvis position, your seat bones are actually aimed toward the back of the horse.

If you ride with a rounded lower back, the top of your pelvis tips back and the water spills out the back of the bucket. In this position, your seat bones are aimed forward and down, and can sometimes drive the horse’s balance and back downward.

When your pelvis is in a neutral position, you can keep all the water in the bucket. When your pelvis is neutral, your seat bones point straight down toward the ground.

In this neutral position, your body is balanced over your horse’s center of gravity. When you’re in balance with your horse, all things are possible,

So, help your horse find his balance by riding with your pelvis in a neutral position so you can keep all the water in the bucket!

Click on balanced seat for more help with your position.

How to Find Your Seatbones When Riding Your Horse

Are you unsure of how to put weight onto individual seat bones while riding your horse?

Try this exercise.

Sit up straight in a chair. Keep your shoulders and hips square while you alternately put more weight on your right seatbone and then your left one. You’ll feel each seatbone press down (heavier, deeper) into the chair. Once you can alternately press each seatbone down into the cushion of the chair without leaning left or right, try that same feeling on your horse.

Click on Program Your Position for more tips on correcting your riding position.

Dressage Training by the Mile

Remember that dressage simply means “Training”. You don’t need to work in a regulation dressage arena to “do” dressage. Every second you’re on your horse, you’re either training or “untraining”! So you’re always doing dressage no matter what kind of horse you have or what style of riding you’re doing.

Think about how you can continue to train your horse yet add some fun and variety to his life.

Carla Varasso writes: My friends and I, who like to hilltop with the local hunt club, use the phrase, dressage by the mile, all the time, referring to our rides on the trails. We use leg yielding, and haunches in/out when negotiating trees on the trails, and turns on the forehand when asked to open or close a gate. It’s quite fun, and of course it all comes in handy when negotiating questions on a x-country course.

My friend and I rode today — she on her very tall (16.1) QH — who is not going to run barrels because he is getting too tall. As she was riding around in circles she complained of his right shoulder drifting out — I (to my surprise and delight) was able to demonstrate counter flexion for her, and she tried it, and liked it very much — so did Jet, her 3 year old!!!!

Needless to say, I was proud of Chico for being such a good boy while we demonstrated — I was visualizing you with Moshi in the DVD (on Making Your Horse Straight) the entire time.

I always tell my students, you really know when you understand something when you find that you can teach it to someone else — what fun!

Then we went outside and rode around the big hay field, and did our “dressage by the mile” — shoulder fore, some leg yields, and some upward and downward transitions — what a great day in the saddle it was!

Click on dressage training for more info on training your horse in a systematic program.

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