Although we know we need to ride in alignment and know the importance of good posture, most of us don’t automatically think about our ribs when it comes to riding. We are aware of the importance of our pelvic girdle being level (anyone who has read Sally Swift will be know of her analogy about […]
In this article I thought we would have a look at on the forehand versus engagement. You might think “I’m not doing dressage, I’m only hacking, it doesn’t matter” BUT you couldn’t be further from the truth. It does matter, because if we constantly ride our horse on his forehand, we can cause our horse
Forehand versus Engagement Read More »
So many riders and trainers talk about having the horse “On the Bit” but what do they really mean by this ambiguous statement? Do they mean pull on your horse’s mouth? Do they mean ‘contact’? Or do they mean ‘collection’? Certainly if one goes to a competition one sees all too many riders who think
Whether you compete at dressage, do just a little bit of schooling or are just happy hacking out – bending and circling are a great gymnastic exercise for our horses. Circles, and that includes loops and corners, can really help our horse stretch along his outside, as well as encourage him to flex his inside
To ride transitions well is probably one of the most important (and difficult) things one can learn as a rider. All too often the rider tips forward on a downward transition and tips back on an upward transition. Add in the rider who uses the reins for support on the upward transition, or hauls on
In this article I thought I would take a look at the first of the lateral movements, shoulder-in. I hadn’t realised when I started the article, just how long it was going to become. However, I decided that in order to really understand the true importance of shoulder-in, we needed to have a glance at
In this article I thought we would look at the second of the lateral movements – travers (also known as quarters-in, haunches-in or croup-in). As with my article on shoulder-in, I thought we should start with a quick glimpse of the history of this highly controversial movement before looking at the reasons for doing (or
The trot is a two beat movement with the legs moving in diagonal pairs with a moment of suspension between each pair of legs touching the ground. The trot therefore has four phases: Diagonal pair of legs on the ground, other pair in the air. Moment of suspension – all four feet off the ground.
In this article I look at the importance of being able to feel our horse’s footfall and follow his natural rhythm with our body. We will start off looking at the walk, as what we learn in a walk we can carry over into the trot and subsequently the canter. We all know that the
Biomechanics is the study of the functioning of the body in movement using mechanical principles. It is highly relevant to riding because in riding the human’s body and the horse’s body, each with their own normal way of functioning, come together to influence each other. In order to bring about the right biomechanical dynamic of
Why worry about the rider? Read More »
Anyone who has attended one of my clinics will have heard me talk about vision as one of the key elements for improving our riding. However just how important our vision is, was really brought home to me last month when I attended the International Society of Rider Biomechanics 2015 Symposium in Lexington, Kentucky. One
No one sits on a horse in perfect symmetry. Everyone favours one side over the other to varying degrees, ranging from nearly imperceptible in those who are exceptional, to very obvious in those who aren’t. So everyone sits with one hip lower, further forward or drops one hip more on one side than the other
So why is a correct and independent seat so important? As Bent Branderup wrote in his wonderful book The Academic Art of Riding, the seat is “the only aid you can’t stop using whilst sitting on a horse”. If we are crooked either laterally or vertically it WILL affect the way our horse goes. Firstly,
In the previous article Groundwork 1 we looked at how to achieve forward down and stelling and bending at a halt. In this article I would like to take this a step further and look at how we can teach our horse ‘stick’ cues and then start to get our horse to step forward and under with
As I have mentioned so frequently, neither humans nor horses are symmetrical. We are born left or right handed (hoofed) and become progressively more asymmetrical as we grow older. This isn’t a major problem if the horse is never going to be ridden but in order to carry a rider without undue strain, the horse
In the human, the psoas muscles lie deep inside our body, basically behind our internal organs (stomach, intestines etc) and in front of our spine. The psoas (there are two, one on the left and one on the right) originate along the sides of the vertebral bodies of the 12th thoracic vertebrae and extend down
Like so many instructors, I have asked my students to look up, raise their chests, drop their shoulders, etc. etc. for years, with varying results. I first came across mention of the hyoid bone and the hyoid muscles when I read Tom Nagel’s book “Zen & Horseback Riding”. Feeling the need to know more, I
Hands are so important when we ride. One often hears comments like “oh, she has such lovely hands” or “he has got awful hands” but what is meant by this and what are good hands? Firstly what should our hands do? Well if one looks at the FEI Dressage rules (Article 418), they state “the
Most of us will have heard trainers talking about the importance of core strength, but what do they really mean by this. Very often the expression core strength is taken to mean our rectus abdominal muscles (commonly known as a six pack) but this isn’t really right. Whilst we need to be fit, just having
Everyone knows that tension (as in negative tension) is a bad thing for riders. We all get tense when we are nervous, but tension also frequently occurs when we try and place our body into a position it’s not used to. Sometimes this is because we have forced the position, at other times it’s because