wobbly hands

[bluekerry]

hi, can anyone give me any tips on how not to tense up and use my reins to balance me when my speedy sec d decides to pick up the pace in the schooling ring, its almost impossible to slow my rising cos shes so bouncy and ploughs through on the forehand?

[coverblown]

No expert, but Pepsi has this problem too. I try to squash him with my by "bearing down" - see all the threads on the Mary Wanless book in General.

Also I do try to consciously relax (its really hard when you just want to use the "fight or flight" reaction) and it usually works. I usually end up giving the reins away, which does slow him down, but I've got to learn how to do it and keep control - a reasonable contact...

[Skib]

This is not the only way to a good rising trot.
You may find it deals with the symptoms rather than the root of your problem. But specifically for hands, you can used a neck strap.
Less conventional and with no neck strap, my RI explains you can use the horse instead. Rest your hands where the neck strap would be, resting lightly on either side of the horse's neck.
It may be a revelation to you, how little movement there is? How still your hands are? i.e. the movement in the horse's four legs does not effect the head as much as one might think.
Then with your hands resting on each side of the neck, rise by swinging your hips forward between your hands. You'll need to be flexible at the elbows. Don't think of moving your hands. Just swing your moving body between them.
When you have the "feel" of how still they are, raise your hands off the horse's neck a few inches into your normal riding position but continue to keep them just as still as they were before and to rise between them. if you feel you are losing the idea, just lower your hands onto the horse's neck again.

A lot of confusion is caused when we are taught to rise with our hands still, or different teachers argue about when hands are up and when they are down.
Your hands must be still in relation to the mouth of the horse. Your body, moves in rising trot so needs to rise fluidly between your still hands. So in relation to your body and the rising your hands are not still at all.

Doing this has definitely helped me hold my hands with the thumbs on top too, which creates more softness for the horse.

The reason I did this exercise so recently is that I have always done rising trot on a long rein, even on a loopy rein, so as to avoid hurting the horse's mouth. But now I need to learn to ride rising trot and ride forward with proper rein contact. I found this very helpful and hope you will too.
I like riding bareback and touching the neck of the horse gave me the same sense of awareness, of what she was doing.

[bluekerry]

Thanks for that, it sounds really interesting and i'll certainly give it a go!