Drop your seat bones??

[nelle]

Now, I've a very cheeky share pony that's in no way nasty but does like to try it on quite a lot.

In my lesson I've been working on halting when I want to not when she feels like it and my RI has told me to drop my seat bones to halt her.

Now, I know they are somewhere in the region of my bottom but where?? All I'm doing is relaxing my back and slumping but that's not right, so can anyone tell me how I can find my seat bones and how I drop them without slumping???

Thanks:p

[Wally]

If you drop your seat bones some horses, sensetive ones, are more likely to run out from under you than stop. If they don't run out they are more likely to stop with their nose poking up and their back hollow.

Instead of dropping your seatbones squeeze your butt muscles and imagine trying to pick the horse up in your thighs, Imagine stopping an attack of squits! it's that kind of feeling. This will lighten your seatbones and the horse is more likely to stop with his nose down and his back end engaged.

Your seat bones are the little lumps in your bottom that you sit on, one in each buttock. As the horse walks you should be rocking forward and back upright on them. As you rock you'll also feel one rise and the other fall as he steps forward with a back leg, He steps forwards your hip drops, practice feeling this.

[Pudding]

If you drop your seat bones you put more pressure on the horses hind bits.....that's makes 'em go faster.........squeeze your cheeks together and relax the contact on your thigh...........feel it.........say "slow" to yourself...........there's no tensing, just a subtle squeezing of those bum muscles and the whole of you saying "slow, stop".....very hard to put into words LOL

X

[R-D]

To drop your seatbones would suggest that you are lowering your wieght onto the horses back in an attempt to slow the back down underneath your seat.

So the idea is that when you trot, you are soft through the lower back and you allow for your seatbones to be lifter up and forward (one at a time) byt he movement of the horses hindquaters, when you want to go into walk you stop your seat from follwing the back and wen you want to halt you keep both seatbones still and allow your weight to sink into the saddle, which acts as an indicator to the horses the degree of mocement you require at that time, when keeping seatbones still the horse is then encouraged to do the same.

In addition to this, you can have the effect of making them go faster if you drive forward with the seat. It can take a while for a horse to understand what to do in response to different things but if you want to persevere then be consistant and you will soon have a horse who will respond to the dropping of your seatbones.

I am agreeing with Pudding inthat its not an easy one to sum up via the keyboard, ask your instructor to talk you through and watch the reactionof your horse to find out how succesful this is.

If you

[R-D]

Forgot to add that while sitting on your saddle put your hand palm DOWN on the saddle and sit down on your knuckles, wiggle your but about and when you find it uncomfortable against your knckles this is most likely to be your seatbone

[hormonalmare]

Forgot to add that while sitting on your saddle put your hand palm DOWN on the saddle and sit down on your knuckles, wiggle your but about and when you find it uncomfortable against your knckles this is most likely to be your seatbone

:) Love the idea that someone at the yard will find me sitting on my hand and wriggling, with the explanation "I'm trying to find my seatbones"!:)

[R-D]

Yes, Best to do it in private

[drookitsheep]

:) Love the idea that someone at the yard will find me sitting on my hand and wriggling, with the explanation "I'm trying to find my seatbones"!:)

I wouldn't worry about that... after a thread I posted about needing a song to think of while cantering and jumping, I got caught this morning by a novice hack while I cantered along singing "Nellie the elephant".

I think Wally's description of picking the horse up in your thighs and stopping an attack of the runs is a pretty accurate description of how it should feel. Instead of moving and absorbing the movement, lightening your seatbones in this way will stop you from moving with the horse (although it's not like a bracing movement if that makes sense), and allow him to use his back and stay round in the transition. Remember to to keep your lower leg on so he moves forward into the transition and not just flopping back into it and soften your hand when he responds.

Re making her halt when you want to, a friend of mine was telling me about an exercise she was doing in a recent lesson, and that was to have a line of poles - walking not trotting distance apart - and when walking down over them, you had to pick a pole you were going to halt over, and then halt so that front legs were in front of the pole and back legs were behind. She said she found this really helpful in terms of finding out how much preparation time she needed to prepare for the halt, and then halt exactly where she wanted to.