:)

[CLAUDIA]

I feel a little better now. My lesson yesterday evening went well, and we even had the lesson in the outdoor ring instead of inside. It was my first time riding a horse outside, and my instructor told me that I'm doing much better. She promised me last week we would work it all out, and so far we're doing pretty good. The only problem I really have right now is my confidence and keeping my leg from flying backward, giving the horse a nice goose. I'm sure he appreciates that. The time I have the most problems is when I'm going through a turn. What is the difference at these points and what do I have to do to keep myself together?

[Tikki]

Hi Claudia

[Tikki]

Ooops!! Haven't quite got the hang of this yet!! :-)

Hi Claudia

I'm glad you enjoyed your last lesson.

The most important thing to remember when riding a bend is to look forward to where you want to go. I'm not trying to be funny or cute here (in fact I wish I could practice what I preach - my instructor is always reminding me to "look up and ahead"!!). Looking in the direction you want to go will position your shoulders correctly - they should mirror the angle of the horse's shoulders. Try not to lean in or drop your inside shoulder. Remember that your inside leg should be on the girth and your outside leg should be slightly behind.

Time and practice will help calm down wandering legs but one thing you could try is to wriggle down into the saddle when you first get on. This should make you sit in the deepest part of the saddle. Or if you lift your legs away from the saddle (one at a time) and drop them back down (gently) this should also put you in the deepest part of the saddle. Think about how that feels before you move off and try to maintain it as you ride. Imagine you are trying to lift the horse with your lower legs (don't squeeze too much though) rather than grip with your knees or thighs.

Good luck.

[KarlR]

For what it's worth Tikki...

The BHS says...turn your shoulders in the direction of the turn. This is what (nearly) all the instructors teach.

Heather says...Keep your shoulders square to the horse and move your hips forward and in the direction of the turn so as to shift weight in that direction. (correct me if I'm wrong Heather!)

I prefer the latter, since making a wholesale shift of the shoulders can be a unbalancing and feels a bit crude.

Karl R

[Karin]

Claudia,

It seems I get into the most trouble when I start actively thinking about where my legs "should be" when I am circling the ring. It really helps me to close my eyes (on the horse) when I start trying to hard, (someone recommmended this idea on a previous mssg. re: going over jumps and I've tried it on the flats). It works like a charm.

If you close your eyes around a bend in any pace (I have more luck in a sitting trot) you will 1.) relax 2.) become more attuned to your horses movement and presto! your legs will work with him and fall into place instead of your having to put them into place. It just feels right. One of the biggest mistakes I make is trying to override and overthink. It doesn't have to be that complicated. When you close your eyes you just ride.

Or try this. I might have picked this up in Heather's book, I'm not sure. Visualize what it's like when you ride a bicycle and you move around a bend. Your shoulders and hips naturally stay in line with the handle bars so you are riding as one. When I watch experienced horseback riders they appear to do the same. Their shoulders stay in line with the horses shoulders and legs move slightly forward and back depending upon which direction their turn takes them.

I hope this works for you. Good luck! Karin

[Heather]

Karl is right, I do say this in my book. Trouble is that the good old BHS (and I am going to have a lot more to say about THEM very shortly!) reccommend turning the shoulders to the inside of the bend, so that you are then 'parallel with the horse's shoulders'. Interesting, because funnily enough, I have never seen a horse go round on a circle, say to the right, with his left shoulder pemanently forward. All the horses that I have ever seen move their left shoulder forward and the right back, followed by the right forward and the left back! If this is the case, in order to mirror the horse's shoulders, we should all be riding round shoving one shoulder back as the other goes forward and vice versa, which apart from looking pretty daft, would also unbalance the rider, and the horse.

Sorry Karin, but this also is what thinking of the 'bicycle' handlebars does too. A bicycle wheel, unlike the horse who has two front legs moving independently of each other, attached to the shoulder girdle, does not move from the position around the curve whilst you are following it (apart from the odd involuntary wobble if your balance isn't too good!).

As I explain in the book, the effect of turning the shoulders to the inside is to bring the outside hip forward making it difficult to use the outside leg correctly behind the girth, without drawing up the heel. Worse, it usually transfers weight onto the outside seatbone, which the horse feels and starts to drift in the direction of the weight shift, when the horse 'falls out through the outside shoulder' a term that many of you will hear as your riding progresses, mainly by instructors telling you to stop the horse doing it, without realising that the very aids they have taught you to execute the turn, are the cause of it!

I will try to write a couple more pages on turning for poor Mike to add to the site on my return from the States. I am off on Tuesday to the Equitana, a huge Equine Event in America where I am a guest lecturer.


Heather

[Mike]

I've tried to illustrate the use of the weight aids with some diagrams showing the shifting of weight on the seatbones. You can find it here..
www.newrider.com/html/weight_aids.html (http://www.newrider.com/html/weight_aids.html)