Where should your weight be while leg yielding?

TEmily

TEmily

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Oct 14, 2008
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Sheffield South Yorkshire
Just been reading my new book, 101 schooling excersises (its brill but making me even more depressed that I can't ride!)

I'm a bit confused because it says that, when leg yielding, your weight should be slightly on the inside seat bone. Now, I always thought that your horse always tries to move under your weight, and therefore that when leg yeilding back to the track you should put your weight slightly on your outside seatbone to encourage your horse to move that way? I can see where the contradiction comes in as you would have your weight slightly to the inside on a circle as part of the aids for inside bend, and I suppose your horse assumes a slight inside bend when leg yeilding too. I can't get my head round it at all!

Which is it????
 
Yeah, and when cornering, weight is on the inside seat bone too...

My weigh would be on the inside (although thats more to do with me collapsing through the waist though than p[roper riding style :o:o)
 
I have that book too :D

Yes your weight is slightly on your inside seat bone, though the difference should be minimal. You will sometimes see riders swinging their body from side to side and round and all over the shop and poor ponio is thinking "What on earth are you doing up there!?"
The horse does assume inside bend with leg yield, so if you're leg yielding away from your left leg, you should have slight left bend and vice versa for away from the right leg. :)
 
Its a brill book isn't it. I cant wait to start schooling again I'm going to start at the beginning and pick 2 or 3 excercises to work on per session.

Thanks for clarifying. I find leg yeilding quite hard as I have a tendency to try and physically push charlie over with my leg which results in me nearly falling off the side! I'm planning to work on reminding her she needs to be sharp off my leg and hopefully this will help.
 
I think that's the same book I've just ordered. Rusty and I are getting a bit stale in our schooling! I like your plan of working on a couple of things at a time.

Spoke to my RI today and as long as the weather warms up (this week we're supposed to get highs of -10 or so), we'll resume lessons. Going to try for Monday and Thursday this week.
 
Horses move away from weight and also try to put you back centrally, so depending upon other aids, leg and rein they move under or away from your weight. It is always easier to carry a central weight so horses normally try to keep you central to the direction of movement. The weight shift is minimal and almost in your mind, so the horse gets the gist. The inside seat-bone should move slightly forward rather than lean and think of adding to the weight:)
 
LOL!!!! This made me giggle I have a vision of you getting off and shoving her over
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MA I have been tempted on occasion! :rolleyes:

I bought this book but it's waaaay too advanced for me
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A lot of it is pretty advanced for me - can't ever see me doing flying changes on a serpentine somehow! :confused:
I just like the earlier ones for giving me something to do instead of just riding endless circles.
 
Try moving your inside hip and shoulder back with your inside leg. Use the inside rein against the neck and "vibrate" slightly with your fingers. Make sure you are not blocking the movement with your outside leg. I find horses move towards weight and the above will put a little more weight in the outside seat bone but without you having to think about it. A lesson on a school master would be a great help along with the book.
 
kathyt1 , I agree with you, they follow the weight shift and therefore the weight should be to the outside. Everyone else is saying weight to inside? You move your inside seatbone, hips and shoulders back which automatically puts the weight outside which is correct. Moving and weighting are two different things. On the circle the same, move inside of body back slightly loads the weight onto the outside. You should never lean in or weight the inside!

Either book is wrong or you are interpreting in incorrectly. To check this yourself do it sitting on a relatively hard chair. Move your right seatbone back very slightly, less or about an inch. Your weight should move onto the left seatbone. This proves that movement and weight are different.
 
Oh dear this is confusing!

My understanding was always that, on a circle, your inside seatbone should remain still and central with your inside leg on the girth. Your outside seatbone should move slightly back along with your outside leg, this moves your weight slightly onto the inside seatbone. Your inside SHOULDER moves slightly back. This way your own body mirrors the horse on the bend i.e. inside shoulder back, outside hip back.

I was always sure you shouldn't weight the outside on a circle, as this is what makes your horse drift out through the shoulder.

BUT I always thought that for leg yeild, your inside leg moves slightly back to ask the haunches to move over. I would also put my outside leg more forward on the girth, to avoid blocking the haunches and to help stop horse falling out through the shoulder.

This moves weight onto OUTSIDE seatbone, which I thought was what you wanted in order to encourage the horse to move that way. That is until I read this book, which DEFINITELY says weight slightly on the inside seatbone as part of the aid to leg yeild.

Oh dear :confused:
 
TEmilly I agree with your legyield but disagree with your circle. Maybe it is different teachers and different times.:confused:
 
I thinkk clarification is needed on which way round the arena we are going/which rein are we on, then which way are we asking the horse to bend, then finally are we talking inside and outside according to the arena/rein or according to the bend.

It may be easier to talk leg yielding right and left up the center line with horse either bent like a opening bracket, ( or closing bracket ) then we decide if inside and outside mean according to bend in horse. Meaning outside of curve is outside etc....
 
I was taught that weight should be on the inside seatbone but a few years back I read Heather Moffatt who made a lot of sense to me in so many ways. I experimented but changing to her ways and Joy knew what she was doing without being trained as it seemed to come naturally. :)
 
I think this comes under the term 'feel'.

There is no horse that has read a textbook and very few horses that ride evenly on each rein. You do have to adjust what you are doing to the reponse it is creating, if your horse tends to go out through a shoulder on one rein it may well fall in on the other.

Ride your horse not the textbook!!
 
Try both ways, but make sure you listen to your horse and don't get upset or annoyed if it does not work. You should quickly find out which method suits your horse. I would still recommend a few lessons preferably on a school master to get an idea of what you should feel. At the moment neither you or your horse know "exactly" what you should be doing and this could prove annoying.
 
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I agree with kturner. My dressage RI says to step into the inside stirrup. If your weight is even on your seat, this will put more weight on the outside. She also says to move your outside hip slightly to the center. Keep your hands together and your inside shoulder back and level (don't let it drop down and back (I tend to do this). Then look in the direction you are going. Works perfectly!
 
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