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