No backside padding for riding!!

[Beth]

I'm quite new to riding. Although I started going once a week from June 1999, I stopped going in October due to illness, but took up riding again from mid-January. My problem is this:

I'm 5'4" but weigh only 95 lbs (I've always been skinny :-( ) Therefore, I have no "padding" for riding. When I am in the correct riding position, I am LITERALLY sitting on 3 bones - my 2 seat bones and my coccyx (tail bone). It's very uncomfortable, and my lessons last 1 hour. Sometimes I'm in pain so much about 1/2 an hour into the lesson that I can't help tensing up, which also doesn't do the poor horse any favours! I have already ended up with bruising either side of my coccyx where the 2 areas had alnost had all the skin rubbed off! (Sorry so graphic!)

Are these "seat savers" any good? I need one that fits all horses as I'm on a different horse every week at the place I go riding. I haven't found any protective padded riding wear to fit me - I checked "Robinsons", but they only do from Size 10-12 up to Size 18-20. Little people need more padding, so why can't I get this padded stuff in my size?! :confused: If it's clothing, I need a Size 6-8 as my waist is a pathetic 22" and my hips a paltry 32".

Please, please! Can anyone help?! :-(

Any advice/help greatly appreciated!!

[Mike]

Hello Beth

It sounds like you'd definitely benefit from one of Heather's seatbone savers. It will protect you from the seams on the saddle which I guess are causing some of the rubbing and sore spots.

If you check back through some of the older messages you'll see it has helped quite a few people with a better and more comfortable position. Like you I ride a school horse each week and it's easy to slip the seatbone saver onto your horse's saddle in a few seconds.

If you go to the page on the saver - http://www.newrider.com/html/kw/seatsaver.html you'll find the contact numbers for ordering.

[This message has been edited by Mike (edited 20 March 2000).]

[ZoeEnglish]

Definitely run right out and get one of Heather's Seat Savers. They are by far the best on the market--I have tried two others and they are nowhere near as good. She had some of the same problems you do which led to her developing it. It will make a huge difference for you! The first day I brought mine to the barn I forgot it in the car and after about half an hour I was sore as usual and suddenly remembered it. I put it on my saddle and rode for another forty-five minutes with NO discomfort. You can use it on any horse you like--it attached simply to the saddle in a minute or two, and molds its shape to yours. You can get them in black or brown.

Good luck with it!

[Beth]

Dear Mike & Zoe

Many many thanks for taking my problem on board and answering my query. :-) I'm saving up for a seat saver and hope to buy one REALLY soon. Luckily, I've been riding on a different horse for the last couple of weeks and his saddle is one of those synthetic ones with a really soft seat on it that you just sink into! Heaven! But, the seat saver is a definite must!

Sorry I took so long to get back to you - college has been keeping me really busy lately. Anyway, thanks for all your help!

Beth

[Heather]

HI Beth,

You will find that the Seatbone Saver will make the comfortable synthetic feel like an ironing board! I developed the product for my own use, after developing bursal enlargements on my seatbones the size of tennis balls so that I couldn't even sit in an armchair comfortably, never mind a saddle. This was cause by trying to sit in the correct balance on sadles which are not designed to permit you to sit correctly. That goes for just about every make on the market- I went through fourteen different makes to try to find a saddle on which I could teach my pupils properly, before ending up designing my own.

I designed the Seatbones saver first, as I needed as a professional, to be able to ride again- I was out of the saddle for six months. The Seatbone Saver enabled me to ride again without the bursae coming back, and with far greater comfort than I had ever imagined possible. Other friends startedto ask me if I could get one made for them, and the rest is history!

Heather

[Beth]

Dear Heather

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my topic! :-)

I have visited the website for all the details and hope to be the proud owner of a seat saver when I've saved enough money. Incidentally, I'd like to add that as a new rider, I find your instructions on how to ride very informative and helpful. You mention things that instructors tend to leave out, maybe because they take things for granted, or simply because they don't think of mentioning it to begin with. If I drop enough hints, I'm hoping someone might also buy me your book as a gift!

Best Wishes

Beth

[Heather]

The sad truth Beth, is that these instructors really don't know. The BHS exams do not teach people how to teach. You are given lesson planes, which are still based on Army type teaching, with no real depth of explanation.

I worked out most of the basics that I teach for myself, when just a young teenager. I was absolutely astonished when I went to do my BHS exams, that I wasn't allowed to use the system that I had developed, which even then, my BHSI teacher admitted produced much faster results. It wasn't that I had developed some strange mystical method of teaching riding, Instead, I had merely worked out precisely how to teach the rider to synchronise thier movements with those of the horse, so that riders learn very quickly how to stay on without gripping up and hanging on to the reins, so that the poor horse suffers in the process.

It has taken me nearly thirty years to get these very simple methods accepted. Now, with my Equisimulator horse movement simulator, I have been able to prove all that I said I could do, in front of big audiences all over the country and in the States.

Even now, although the BHS sels my book,and asked me to demonstrate with the simulator for all three days at the BETA International Trade Fair three years ago, they have never asked me to beocme involved in improving the standard of teaching in this country which is, frankly diabolical.

Just to prove my point, I have included home movie footage in my video, of a pupil who had spent £2000 on lessons in two years, at eight different centres round the country, trying to achieve her BHS stage three exam. I was appalled at the standards of teaching, some of it downright dangerous, and included
footage of lessons at three of hese centres, then further footage of the same rider after just three hours of tuition here. You wouldn't think that she was the same rider.

I don't somehow think that the BHS will be offering to sell my video!

Heather

[fran]

Hi Beth - while you're waiting for your Heather seatsaver to arrive, try Vaseline...having a boney posterior, I too used to skin my tail regularly. I tried all sorts of padding but the one thing that made a difference was a liberal smearing of Vaseline on either side of my cocyx, which immediately reduced the friction between skin and fabric. Good luck!

[Beth]

Dear Maisie

How do you mean using the 'pinch'? I'm not aware of this, could you explain it to me, anyone?! :confused

[Maisie]

Hi Beth. I've got a similar problem to yours - because my tail bone's somewhat long. I use to wince after fifteen minutes in the saddle!
I know this is somewhat contradicting Heather's methods, because if you use the 'pinch' you don't get that pain anymore. Anyhow, good luck - I wish I had access to those savers too, by the way, especially when I go out for hacks!

[Gwenllian]

Dear Beth,
As a disabled rider,who is, incidentally, not short in the padding department, but I've got very stiff hips as my seat is not very flexible in the saddle.I'd say this is definitely a Heather Moffett job.My seat saver goes everywhere with me.It is on my saddle most of the time, then comes to the RDA with me on a Wednesday as ride different horses there.I love it. It has also helped to glue my seat in position for downhill rides.So get those pennies saved.It's worth every one of them!!
Gwenllian & good luck.

[Maisie]

Well the pinch as described in 'Enlightened Equitation', Heather's book, is the act of tightening your buttocks and upper thighs.

[czar]

Also, you could try having half an hour lessons, as this would make it easier as you said it started hurting after half an hour!


Luv,
CZAR

[Beth]

To everyone who kindly replied to my advert and gave me great advice regarding my problem: THANK YOU :)

I am happy to say that whilst I still have bruising from last weeks' lesson (Ow!), I have ordered a Heather Moffett seatbone saver which should arrive within 3 days - in time for next lesson! Yippee! Here's to enjoying my next riding lesson without pain and really looking forward to the May Day hack I've booked which, until now, I was kind of dreading because of the bruising factor!

So, thanks again all! :)