How to ride the trot bareback?

[Little_Bit]

My horse is pretty responsive to leg pressure, when i first got her I basically had to hold my legs away from her barrel when we rode. I've desensitized her some to it so she's not as responsive. But how do i ride the trot bareback without 'cueing' her when i don't mean to? I read you're supposed to hold on with your lower legs and others say let them hang 'loose'? I basically slide/bounce to the side usually when i try to trot.

 

[popularfurball]

Lean back... a lot... so you feel silly...

And then sit deep, your inner thighs should cuddle but not grip... your lower leg should be relaxed.

The more you relax the more you can ansorb the movement - tensed and gripping will leave you in the sand!

 

[Little_Bit]

Lean back... a lot... so you feel silly...

And then sit deep, your inner thighs should cuddle but not grip... your lower leg should be relaxed.

The more you relax the more you can ansorb the movement - tensed and gripping will leave you in the sand!

This makes so much more sense than other stuff I've been seeing. Thank you!

 

[popularfurball]

My instructor used to tell me to sit on the bones in my bum, sit right back on them.

 

[Jessey]

I ride t exactly the same as if I'm in a saddle. The sliding off thing goes as your balance improves, which it will the more you do it. I hadn't ridden bareback in many years due to owning a boney high withered arab, then when jess was about 6 I was just feeling lazy in the winter so started schooling bareback, to start with I could barely manage more than a few strides of trot, I wobbled, bounced and slid off the side, by the end of it I could walk trot and canter comfortably Jess is goey and I barely have to squeeze to get her forward too

 

[carthorse]

Nothing to add to the bareback advice, but well done for correcting your horse's reaction to the leg. No horse should react to the leg to the degree that you cannot ride correctly, it's not safe. I remember an article by a trainer which said a sharp, reactive horse should be ridden with the leg always there, it was the lazy ones that should be ridden with the leg very light - the reason, and in my eyes it's sound, is that if the leg is always there then there's less shock factor when it's used.

 

[Skib]

It is correct that there are different opinions on this.
Our RI gives bareback lessons. We learned to sit well n walk, then in trot with our weight on our seat bones, and then not having a saddle made little difference.
But I have a book by a Native American bareback rider in which he described one's legs hanging futher forward bareback. It happens naturally that ones legs rest in the groove behind the horses shoulder. Dressage riders sometimes disapprove of this. But it is how I rode bareback, and I relaxed and I dont think it places one's legs in what would be the girth area. In any case it didnt cue the horse forward as I rode bareback on the lunge sometimes without reins too, and tho the horse was on a lunge line, I have no memory at all of every going too fast in a bareback lesson.
Could you get someone to lunge you bareback? If you are slipping sideways, the direction and amount you slip could well depend on the direction of travel. I learned to trot bareback on the right diagonal a week sooner than on the left - and had to concentrate on sitting straight across the horse with my right shoulder back.
My conclusion from my own riding is that riding relaxed (for safety in my case) does cause your legs to brush on the horse and thus signal forwards. Horses go forwards for me without my having to use my legs. This has advantages as well as drawbacks. That the horses I ride a lot will transition just at a thought with no visible cue. So I would value your horse's sensitivity and work with it. And if you are slippnig, work on your balance first. It took me a week or two, but balance in bareback in our lessons had nothing to do with one's legs.

 

[SeeingSpots]

a sharp, reactive horse should be ridden with the leg always there, it was the lazy ones that should be ridden with the leg very light

This is the theory my instructor works by.

For me, bareback isn't something I do often being as I have a 13hh pony and I am 5'6" so me with no saddle or stirrups looks ridiculous lol But in the past when I have done it, I don't lean back, I sit how I would in a saddle, relax my legs and just kind of go with it. And, I know it sounds stupid but I sing a song. If I concentrate on a song, I think less about my seat and I don't bounce as much because my body just goes with the movement.

 

[Jane&Ziggy]

I have quite a reactive pony but I find riding him bareback that I don't inadvertently give him leg aids, perhaps because he has a very wide barrel. I grip with my lower thigh if I want to rise to the trot (which I only do for exercise!) but apart from that I just let him get on with it!

 

[popularfurball]

This is the theory my instructor works by.

For me, bareback isn't something I do often being as I have a 13hh pony and I am 5'6" so me with no saddle or stirrups looks ridiculous lol But in the past when I have done it, I don't lean back, I sit how I would in a saddle, relax my legs and just kind of go with it. And, I know it sounds stupid but I sing a song. If I concentrate on a song, I think less about my seat and I don't bounce as much because my body just goes with the movement.

I think the reason we were taught to sit back is because instinctively you grip and then tip forwards, and it sounds like OP is possibly doing the same. So yes, you end up in the saddle position but it feels further back because if you are tense you too forwards x

 

[SeeingSpots]

Oh I'm not saying don't do that, just that's not what I do but of course different techniques work for different people.