rising trot

[Janette]

I was reading one of Heather's 'gems', about trotting. She says that if you are doing rising trot 'wrong', then you get out of breath. I do, and always thought I was terribly unfit. Why do I get out of breath, and how do I correct it.? the size of arena is directly proportional to amount of wind I have left - has an impact on showing.

[galadriel]

Are you holding your breath in order to post?

When you post, are you tensing up your body in order to leave the saddle? What you should be doing is letting the horse "bump" you up into the air, then sitting gently back down. If this is what you're doing I probably can't help you futher :) I'm not entirely sure what Heather was getting at, but I think it may have been holding your breath or trying too hard.

[Janette]

I don't know if I do hold my breath???? An interesting idea - I'll find out ASAP. I think I do tense up, because Star is a little unbalanced as yet, and the length of her strides can vary, so the amount of 'push' I get from her varies accordingly. I realised in my last lesson, the slowere we are trotting, and the more balsnced she is, the longer I last.:)

[Sue Carnell]

Heather means if you're having to put too much effort into it. Rising trot should be effortless. A lot of the time the problem is in part down to design of the saddle, as well as rising technique. If a rider is rising off the back of the saddle, especially if they're too upright, and having to haul themselves out of it, then they're usually behind the movement and doing most of the work themselves, hence they often get out of breath. Rising trot is easier if the rider folds a little forward from the hips and lets their pelvis swing forward and back in an arc underneath them, rather than up and down. They should return to the saddle on the 'sit' barely touching down, remaining folded forward. We shouldn't see your head bobbing up and down if you're behind a hedge, it should appear to float along. ;) Hope this helps.

Sue
sue@eclipse.co.uk

[galadriel]

Thanks Sue :)

[Em 1]

I too sometimes find myself out of breath and it's invariably because I've forgotten to breathe! I concentrate so hard on everything else I forget the most basic things! I'm most likely to do this if the horse isn't going forward enough - I tend to start throwing myself out of the saddle an attempt to try and 'gee him up' a bit. I know it's pointless, uncomfortable and wrong and I'm slowly training myself out of it. It's amazing how instant the change is when I 'relax'.

By the way, I wonder if someone can explain the 'head bobbing' thing to me? I understand (I think) the stuff about the position of the pelvis etc but surely your head must go up and down a little bit in trot? Is the line your head follows like a series of very shallow 'U' shapes or is it really a flat line?

[eml]

Thanks Sue for your brilliant descrition. Tried the idea of head floating with a group of novice riders yesterday as I had been struggling with a couple who were hell bent on staying too upright and "going up and down". Just to let you know it really helped them to understand when we demonstrated floating heads along a bar in the school as opposed to bobbing heads.