Steering when cantering

[Rob26]

Such a novice question but when you're cantering how do you steer? I would have thought shifts in body weight would be used much more?

[Rob26]

Wow... no one?

OK, I know I need to use my legs, guessing inside leg on girth, outside just behind... it was more the seat and weight aids I need more info on...

Anyone? where's DavidH when you need him!

[Mehitabel]

well, in theory it is exactly the same as in walk and trot - that is, what you eventually work towards it to do nearly everything with seat and weight, so you look like you are sitting doing nothing at all.
your bodyweight doesn't have any more or less effect in canter than any other pace though.

is there a specific movement you want ot know about the seat adis for in canter?

[teabiscuit]

This is only what i've been told- first RI told me to use my wieght, the result was me swinging my seat to the outside somehow as i tried to put wieght on my inside seatbone. current RI told me to stop being such an effert (politely i might add) and to concentrate on sitting up straight with even weight on each seatbone and just to turn my body in the direction that i wanted to go, thus giving my horse a nicer time. just by turning my upper body (slightly) my weight shifted slightly to the inside seatbone and i didn't have the unfortunate side effect of a listing backside
I'm sure David H and others will give you far better advice when they log on...until then...

[Rob26]

So far in walk and trot, weight and seat aids haven't really been introduced properly and i wish i'd just get told the whole story in the first place!

I'm guessing just turning your head in the direction you want to go and maybe slightly tilting your upper body in that direction would be enough of a weight/seat aid? am i right?

Originally Posted by Mehitabel

is there a specific movement you want ot know about the seat adis for in canter?

All of them please! I just want to get the whole picture!

I need a good riding book!

[Mehitabel]

well, the whole theory of weight and seat aids is a long story!

the basics, though - sit up straight, wherever you are now, and put both feet flat on the floor. you should feel you are sitting on two pressure points in your bum - these are your seatbones. the feel is obviously slightly different in a chair to on a horse, but the principle is the same.

you want the seatbones to be equally weighted, to begin with, so shift about until they are.

then, turn your head and bring your inside shoulder back, as you do when riding a turn and feel what happens - you should feel the 'inside' seatbone go forward. this is the seat aid for turning. you can replicate that by clenching that one bumcheek - this is how you ask for a turn in a more controlled way than turning your head. the harder you clench, the more the seatbone moves and the sharper turn you get.

the art is to only have the seatbone moving.

as you sit, collapse one side - as you might when you slouch to the inside round a turn on a horse. feel the difference doing this and moving the seatbone with your upper body staying upright. it's a very different feel to the change of weight, and that is what will unbalance the horse.

overall, your hips mirror the horse's hips, and your shoulders mirror the horse's shoulders round a turn. so think 'inside shoulder up and back' to stop you collapsing to the inside as you turn, and think 'advance inside hip slightly'. it's not enough of a physical movement to make you visibly twist in the saddle, it';s more of a feeling than anything else.

http://historicalfact.com/~es/pony%2...ackcanter2.jpg

i'm cantering a circle here, and you can just see my outside shoulder, as i've brought my inside one up and back (could be a bit more up).

[Rob26]

would you use that for all gaits? i'm guessing yes?

Would you still use your leg aids at the same time? and what should I be doing with the reins?

It's strange because in walk i'd put pressure on the rein for the direction I wanted to go, but i've read in canter, you'd relax the inside rein while maintaining the outside rein?

Am I confusing myself?

[Mehitabel]

would you use that for all gaits? i'm guessing yes?

yep. practice in walk, it takes a while to get used to your bum being the primary aid.

Would you still use your leg aids at the same time? and what should I be doing with the reins?

yes. both leg and rein become more subtle, refining aids. instead of turning the head and asking the body ro follow, you're directly influencing the body. reins are, at this stage essentially decoration, when you are riding off your seat. you will be using them, long-term, for collection and refinement - degree of bend, precise positioning of the head - but you don't need to think about that at this stage in your riding career. the leg is still important - the legs control the hindquarters. so at the moment, i presume that to ask for a turn, you hold your outside leg back slightly to control the quarters - you still need to do this, and for instance bring the leg back to ask for canter. what you will find is that 'outside leg back' translates into 'inside hip forwards' - so if you are actually controlling the hip, you need less leg back.it still needs to control the turn though, stop the horse's bum swinging out.

i've read in canter, you'd relax the inside rein while maintaining the outside rein?

i think you are reading ahead of yourself. eventually, you use the inside rein for very very little, and the outside rein maintains the outline - this is true in all paces, not just canter. but for the minute, you don't need to think about that -that is for when you are doing more advanced and subtle things.

[Rob26]

I'm one of these people who want all the information now... I love knowing what's what!

That's explained it perfectly, I get it now!

Thank you

[Rob26]

One more thing...

If you're clenching butt cheeks, which one do you clench for going right and which one for left?

[Mehitabel]

right to go right, left to go left! the horse wants you square on top - so will move to go back under you when you shift that seatbone.

[Rob26]

Thank you again... gonna give it a shot next lesson!

[teabiscuit]

just don't over do it else you'll get a listing posterior (like i did) too

[cvb]

rob

be careful you don't interpret the "clench" too literally - this is another of those subjects where we are trying to use words to describe a feel, and its not easy !

so sitting on your chair again (as described before), clench and hold one bum really really tight... now notice what it does to other muscles - to thigh, lower back etc etc

now when you are riding you still need to be able to: use aids, absorb movement, and basically ride !

So if you really clench up, you create a block - a brace - which may result in you bouncing (as unable to absorb the movement) and having trouble using aids.

So - still in the chair - find out what the minimum effort is to get that hip to move - now as you have that "light clench" (for want of a better word), check that you cab still move ! (the opposite leg, that leg, lean forward and back - just check that you haven't "locked up" !)

I personally don't use a "clench" because I find I lock up - but thats my reaction to that particular word. You'd probably find that what Mehitabel and I do is very similar, but we use different verbal cues, different images and so on - to achieve the same result What you need ti do is find the word or image that gives the result and feel - not easy when you are trying to find the feel for the first time !

[Rob26]

If you could see me now, sitting here clenching my butt cheeks!

I see what you mean though, when you clench too much everything else does too... i'll experiment next lesson to see what happens, I have to be careful cos I bounce a lot if i'm not relaxed!

So in theory you should be able to move the horse round the school just using leg/seat/weight aids without reins?

[Mehitabel]

So in theory you should be able to move the horse round the school just using leg/seat/weight aids without reins?

not just in theory, it is eminently doable. one of the first things i make my students do in any lesson is hold reins at the buckle and ride serpentines and trantisions. when i ride, i also often knot my reins or hold them at the buckle to make sure i am not slipping into sloppy habits of using reins for steering.

you won't necessarily have the finesse - your intended 15m circle might be wobbly and not perfectly round, and your serpentine loops may not be dead equal - but you can certainly go roughly where you want and in the pace that you want with no reins.

[Skib]

Rob, I have some thoughts here because I am a novice rider and want to know everything. Though I postponed reading anything for the first two years apart from the Pony Club Handbook. If you do buy a book, like Learn to Ride with the BHS, Getting the Most from Riding Lessons by Michael Smith, or Perry Wood's Real Riding: How to Ride in Harmony with Horses, you will find that there are many different ways of doing most things on a horse.
As you continue you will have different teachers too - and their views may differ as well.
My first teacher taught me to steer by looking where I wanted to go. With no rein. But I did as I was told by my first teacher. And really recommend it to start with. Particularly if it is a matter of doing less than you might expect from the books.
Riding a horse is not very like driving a car. Because you are interacting with an animal. More like taking a dog for a walk (if you have a dog). How you commmunicate with a horse and whether the horse heeds you, may depend on what the horse has been trained to do.
The better trained your horse or dog, and the better your communication skills, the less you need to do. Later, when you ride a horse that has difficulty going easily on one rein, then you may need to draw on a wider repertoire, using additional weight or leg pressure to support the horse.

I've never learned seat aids. Nor clenched my buttocks. Not all teachers use seat. I currently use a combination of rein and leg (calf).
But in the early days, I know that if I was crooked on the horse, he would veer to one side. I needed to make sure I was central and straight, as Mehitabel says. You say you bounce in canter if you are not relaxed. Me too. And bouncing, may shift one off centre on the horse, and then he goes crooked. So the more you try to do and the more you try to steer, the worse it may get. My solution was to stay relaxed and to do as little as possible. My first teacher taught me minimalist riding (which was not user friendly for a beginner) but it has remained the style I like.
So failing to tell you things is not necessarily a bad thing. It may be that, like me, you are being taught in a very modern manner, and that is why it does not include everything you expected or which was learned by people who started riding twenty years ago.

[laura jeanne]

What am I doing wrong? When I turn to look toward the left, my left hip goes back, not forward.

[Mehitabel]

yep - as skib says, there are many many ways to skin this particular cat. looking where you are going does exactly the same thing as my bum-clenching description - as you turn your head it shifts your weight, in the same way as clenching the bum cheek. putting your outside leg back also does the same thing - shifts the pelvis, but instead of bringing the inside forward, it brings the outside backward.

we're all doing the same thing, just explaining it in different ways and with reference to different parts of the body.

[Mehitabel]

Originally Posted by laura jeanne

What am I doing wrong? When I turn to look toward the left, my left hip goes back, not forward.

could be that you are collapsing the ribcage backwards - also, this is one thing that can feel different on a horse to sitting in a chair as your legs are in front of you, not under you as they are on a horse. try on a horse as well.