I need to learn to relax my muscles!

[arabianlover]

I have been riding for years, and I recently got a new instructor to teach me how to ride western. All she tells me is that my muscles are tense and my new arabian mare Wonder can sense this. I am not too sure how to relax my muscles. I don't think I am nervous, it must be a habit. None of my other instructors told me this, so it is all new to me! Any tips would really be appreciated! I try to relax all my muscles, but apparently I am not because whenever I go into a faster gait, i suppose I expect it to be this "big moment" because I tense up!

[Zer0]

I have the problem, when going into a canter. I've had it ever since I rode a speedy mare who literally jumped into a canter -- jumped as if she were going over a jump! :eek:

I'd try to take deep breaths, and maybe stretch a bit before riding :) I find that stretching helps a lot.

[Skib]

I wrote this for you and did not post it. But since the thread has reappeared without many replies, I will post it now.

I dont know how riders are taught to relax. I was taught "relaxation" as part of natural childbirth training first in the UK and then in Belgium where everyone did it. And later applied it to my riding.

But when I was a girl I was the worst relaxer in our class. At school we girls would lie on the floor and the PE teacher would walk round lifting a hand or foot and it was supposed to be limp and fall back. I am a pretty tense person and sure enough would stiffen up as soon as the teacher got near. I suspect that is what happens to most people when they canter?

First point is that when you relax for riding or childbirth you dont want total relaxation. Instructors tell me anyone who was totally relaxed would fall off the horse.You need to isolate those parts of the body that dont need to be working and relax those parts.
We were taught to lie on the floor and stiffen up one leg. Then let it go. Then the other leg. And let it relax. Then each arm in turn. Then your hand or your neck. Or shoulders.
In other words you learn the feel of relaxing by first stiffening that part of your body, Notice it has nothing to do with how you are feeling mentally. It is a physical exercise.
Once we had the feel of relaxing, we added breathing. Deep slow breathing makes it easier to relax. I dont know why this is. Once you are on a horse, that deep breathing will be the cue for relaxing.

If you sit on a horse, even in walk, and try deep slow breathing, counting the steps that the horse takes, you will find you relax and sit softer. You should be able to feel the movement of the horse's hind legs rising and dropping under your seat bones. The same is true in sitting trot and eventually canter. Slow breathing in canter will relax you and relax your horse. Try breathing in for three or four strides and then out for the same.
This way of learning to ride well (which I have been taught) turns out to be very different from some "correct" riding instruction where the first lesson is to put one's body in the "correct" position, and to keep one's heels down. Riders who have been taught to position their body correctly will try to hold their feet or hands in a certain position and that will tighten them.
Instructors in the BHS are only now beginning to understand the drawbacks of forcing all riders - whose bodies are not all ideal or uniform, to concentrate on one ideal position.
You may find that, if you relax in canter transition, the first result is that you loose your positon. So your knees may grip and your heels may come up and your feet (or one foot) may slip deeper into the stirrup. I found it easier to relax in canter once I started using safety stirrups. As I didnt have to worry about this.
But now it doesnt happen. Complete relaxation in canter leads to ones legs and arms flapping. One learns to weight them using gravity. And I think the long breath out helps in that.
I hope this is of some help.

[RustyMary]

I used to teach the Japanese martial art of Aikido, in which you have to relax in order to make the techniques work, and I think riding is just the same (however listen to what I'm saying here and don't watch what I'm doing as I'm still very tense on a horse!!). Just as skib says, if people completely relax they go all floppy and nothing works at all. There's a state of a kind of alertness, where your body is relaxed and ready to move, to go with the horse or the throw depending on the activity, that is not tense but not floppy either. Imagine a properly tuned guitar string - it's not tense as in tight, but ready to move when you pluck it. I don't know if you can make any sense out of that. It's most important to keep your shoulders relaxed as in most people the first sign of tension is in their shoulders and neck muscles. PM me for an aikido exercise to try to feel what I'm talking about.

[Skib]

Rusty Mary - that is very interesting, because the trainer Mark Rashid does Akido.
I was already using my Natural Childbirth breathing and relaxation to get smooth canter. Then I went to a Mark Rashid demo and the breathing etc he taught riders fitted exactly with what I was doing already.
Some of his students in the UK doAkido. But I always thought I was too old and stiff to go for anything like that.
But if you can PM me the exercise too please that would be lovely.

[RustyMary]

While pm-ing skib about this, I remembered a better analogy than a guitar string. A hosepipe without water in it is floppy - that's what you are like if you just relax completely. But a hosepipe with water flowing through it is still 'relaxed' and bendable but has a kind of 'tone'. Hope that makes a bit more sense!

[Nimbus65]

I think it's a habit from when I was a much more nervous rider, but I fix and tense my hand and forearms when I ride - and I climb up the reins. I'm absolutely fine if I throw the reins away (knot them and either ride no-handed or hold onto a neck strap or the saddle) and rely on my seat and legs, but the second my hands make contact w/ the reins (even on the buckle), I have a tendency to tense and fix.

I really worked hard on this in my lesson on Sunday and what it comes down to is reprogramming my brain. I literally ride chanting out loud "relax hands, relax hands, relax hands" and really focus all my energy on keeping my hands soft and relaxed. As soon as I feel them begin to tense, I come back to walk, shake them out and start again. The odd thing is that the mare I was riding on Sunday is a former driving horse and has a horrible tendency to lean . . . she's also very blocky and cobby but supple with it and evades the bit by wiggling out through her shoulders or hind quarters. I often fight w/ her in downwards transitions. By the end of the lesson focussing entirely on my hands (w/out stirrups for an hour . . . ouch), I could stop her just by closing my fingers and rotating my thigh/using knee and thigh. Soft as butter.

I think the relax thing is really about focus . . . breathing helps too . . . if I'm holding my breath then, by definition, my body is rigid - the opposite of relaxed.

I do want to laugh though when I'm on Maverick and he's tanking off in canter, I'm fixing my hands and my instructor is on the ground shouting "for (insert expletive)sakes RELAX." Oh yeah, THAT's relaxing. The good news is that I'm at least relaxed enough to throw the reins at him in that situation and trust that if I turn him onto a small enough circle using my legs and weight, he'll stop.

N

[Skib]

Nimbus - no one has ever told me to relax my hands. As you say, you would throw away the reins if you did.
I have been told to allow my arms to hang down from my shoulders with the weight underneath the forearms. The force of gravity then holds your arms and you can keep your hands soft and still on the reins.
You do need though to shorten your reins if you use this method and go into forward seat or even rising trot. Because as your shoulders move forward with your arms still hanging down from them, your arms and hands will move forward too.