Hello All,
Well, Mrs. Cartwright and I had a wonderful lesson yesterday with our teacher, Audra. She is a really good teacher, fun, and down to earth. We started posting yesterday, which is basically learning to force your body up and down with the horse while it moves while keeping your body in the correct riding position. Seems easy, but yeah, it’s not. Talk about a good workout, and I workout regularly too. It uses muscles that I rarely use, except in Pilates, and works them hard. It was a lot of fun and interesting to see how our seats differed. Mine was too tense and I kept trying to grab for a saddle horn which doesn’t exist in English riding, thank you Western riding for that one. Mrs. Cartwright was a bit on the loose side. So, next week, she will be using a Western saddle to help find her seat. I, on the other hand, will be going…. gulp… bareback. Audra says it’s to keep me from trying to grab the saddle and force my body to hold itself up and back. So, we are super excited for next week’s lesson, especially since I have never ridden bareback before. Well, dear friends, I must be off, hubby has Continuing Education all day long, so the Cartwrights and I are heading to Centrailia for antiquing. I shall leave you with a couple of pictures of Athena, my lesson horse. She’s a doll, and I’m a bit attached, hehehe. God Bless!
Here she is. I snapped this right before I started grooming her.
This picture is a bit blurry, because I took it myself, and neither of us can stay still.
Love,
Lauren
Posts
2 Witty Sentiments:
Once you figure out how to balance your seat, you'll be fine. Movement of the hips is also crucial. The trick is to sort of balance yourself and to focus the core of your weight deep into your seat, curling your spine inwards a bit at the pelvis. Sticking your butt out is not proper--although I see a lot of Americans who ride English doing it.
Let your legs hang like weights keeping your line centered, and move your hips with the movement of the horse.
There is a little strap you can get to attach to the rings on each side of the pommel so you can hold onto something if you really wanted to, but you're best served learning your balance and confidence by doing some bareback work. Western saddles are kind of complacent, it holds you in and doesn't demand any skill of the rider to stay on. You're doing harder work, building up your thigh-strength by posting and sitting at the trot.
The trick to posting is not lifting your body up and down with your thighs, it is basically doing pelvic thrusts (I know, funny) while your body remains erect and vertical.
/lecture (it's been a long time since I taught, but I really enjoy it)
Thanks Steph! Great advice :D
Post a Comment