Bouncing Bottoms

[bornfreenowexpensive]

I guess I will have to just disagree a bit. I’ve also watched a lot of TOP riders who DO sit in Stadium and sit at moments that are NOT just oh crap moments. There are different kinds of sitting and even in some of the videos you posted I see riders sitting and setting up their horses.

I my case it is NOT to be behind to motion to send at all. It is to keep the rhythm and balance the same without using my reins. It is a way of slowing a horse down. BUT not all riders nor all horses should be ridden this way. I’ve helped some people riding my horses and because of what THAT rider did, told them to get up off the horse’s back and into two point…because they had a driving seat that was setting the horse off. Others were getting left behind. And after a time, that instruction might change to now they need to sit more.

It is just there is NOT a black and white rule on this. Bottoms should not be bouncing…that is a given…but there is time for riders to be in the tack more and a time not to be.

Denny Emmerson also just posted on this topic. Pointing out that you seat is an aid, and why would you not use all your aids? It is a more complicated question best suited to understanding the individual horse and rider and timing.

I will say that on my greener horses…I’m off their back more.

[Winding_Down]

:encouragement:

or as we say at 5 pm, bottoms up!

[tbchick84]

Wow, bravo Sharon White. I’d love to bottle and sell that position.

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=tbchick84;7669698]
Wow, bravo Sharon White. I’d love to bottle and sell that position.[/QUOTE]

Yep. She’s awesome on xc. And she’s the one who really taught me to stay light in the saddle. If only I could truly master that!

She’s got the mojo for sure.

[Winding_Down]

@bornfreenowexpensive;7669381

It is just there is NOT a black and white rule on this. Bottoms should not be bouncing…that is a given…but there is time for riders to be in the tack more and a time not to be.

I actually think that if we were to talk about this we’d probably be in agreement. My issue has been with sitting throughout xc on the long stretches etc. along with the closely related bouncing in and out of the saddle. The videos were remarkable insofar as the riders sit so rarely, sometimes even at moments of packaging through combinations. Certainly they sit and sitting isn’t a bad thing, of course. It just seems more rare with these riders, who are obviously effective.

[Huntin_Pony]

I just watched the Sharon White video and it looked like a classic cross country ride to me. When she “touched down” into the saddle, it was a controlled and balanced movement, timed to match the horse’s movement and thereby to influence it. There is a consistent “flow” to Sharon’s riding, never a “stiff” moment.

That’s the issue I have with emphasizing “core strength” without also focussing on flexibility and balance. Too many folks bring the concept of “planking” along with core strength and then they tense up in moments such as landing over drop fences and hammer their horses because they are stiff and not absorbing the shock through their body.

What Sharon and the other exemplary riders can do is place their bodies in a position to be balanced over the horse’s center and allow the forces to disperse through their body and into their stirrups. If they were stiff or tense anywhere in their bodies, it would bottle up the forces somewhere and prevent them from flowing through.

One can only admire these riders’ consistency and keep on visualizing and feeling for this technique!

[Winding_Down]

So, H.P., do you recommend doing more yoga/pilates sorts of exercises? I do know that Sharon has been very diligent about working with a personal trainer so her wonderful riding is obviously supplemented with work outside of all the horses she rides daily.

And to make her riding even more admirable, I will add that Sharon has had two very serious injuries that have probably made flexibility more challenging; yet her riding exudes the “flow” that HP references.

Nothing like watching videos of these riders during a slow time at work, and then switching back to videos of myself, arrgghhh… Time to find a good pilates instructor. Problem in my community is that the great yoga classes are during the day time hours, and the only time I have left is before 7 am on weekdays.

[kerlin]

[QUOTE=Winding Down;7669318]
Oh my word! You got bucked off due to this thread??? :eek:[/QUOTE]

Nah, I got bucked off because my horse - who is 19, and usually the laziest horse in the barn and needs to be pony-kicked into a gallop - had about 5 seconds of idiocy and I was unprepared. I was laughing by the time I hit the ground. It had been a few years, I was due!

[asterix]

WD, pilates rocks as an adjunct to riding - it really does develop both core strength and balance, and it focuses on straightness as well. However, I think you need eyes on (as in a good instructor) and not dvds - it is VERY easy to do the exercises wrong and if you are crooked or using the wrong muscles you won’t even notice…

Been following this discussion with interest. I think we are all on board with the no banging bottoms bit but I have found with my younger horse touching down lightly before the fences helps tremendously, for exactly this reason:
(quote from BFNE, sorry for snipping it):
“With the hot and forward horses, you are actually NOT driving them with your seat but really holding them together more with your seat and waiting for the deeper distance with very soft arms. It keeps them together in a bouncy canter good for jumping bigger fences.”

He’s not jumping big yet and probably doesn’t need my help, but it keeps ME waiting and softer arms, which is key.

[Winding_Down]

Yep, I agree and if I said that one shouldn’t sit, I retract that. Is one allowed to take back stuff said on CoTh? :lol:

I just watched my video from MDHT and my main conclusion is that both my baby horse and I need to get fitter. My guy just got more and more tired as we went, he jumped the first fence with enthusiasm and then dwindled down to a shetland pony jump at the end. He is fat and the fat is all giggly baby fat but I know he can jump crazy big stuff… saw his video from Ireland with some strappin kid tossing him over all kinds of obstacles. But now he is fat and round and totally broke on the flat… and I need to turn into that strappin kid and he needs to regain the lean machine that flew over the pond to land here a year ago or so…

[KayBee]

[QUOTE=asterix;7670551]

“With the hot and forward horses, you are actually NOT driving them with your seat but really holding them together more with your seat and waiting for the deeper distance with very soft arms. It keeps them together in a bouncy canter good for jumping bigger fences.”[/QUOTE]

99% of the time Maresie is lazy and easily regulated in 2-point, but now that she seems to be enjoying her job in stadium more and more, I’m finding I have to sit into the fences – at least to start – to regulate her canter a bit. Had a rail yesterday at a schooling show, in part because I didn’t.

[Winding_Down]

seat with mojo

http://youtu.be/Y9r1Suk2v1U

[GutsNGlory]

[QUOTE=Winding Down;7670873]
seat with mojo

http://youtu.be/Y9r1Suk2v1U[/QUOTE]

Ah! I love that you posted him - Marcus Ehning is who my jumper trainer tells me to watch, study, and emulate! Marcus is just so… soft! Seat, hands, subtle aids, etc. He just makes it look easy and effortless. And you can see the power he produces in his horses, yet he looks like he isn’t doing anything at all. Amazing. Definitely one that all should add to their list to watch :yes:

[Huntin_Pony]

Another rider whose whole body flows with the motion of the horse. Watch how relaxed and following he appears from head to toe. He’s “through” so to speak - nothing blocking the energy.

[Zephyr]

Denny just posted this quote from Bill Steinkraus today … I think it’s safe to say the man is the foremost expert on the topic!

“I’d like to see all our riders learn to alternate comfortably between a full seat at the canter/gallop (with no roiling or posting) and the half-seat (the so-called “two-point position”), and then ease into the full seat during the last few strides of every approach. Reason: Most riders have a mediocre eye for distance if they ride the whole approach in two-point, where, furthermore, they get little feedback and have little influence. All the really good riders I watch are invariably fully seated before their horses are ready to leave the ground, because this lets them “see” where they are, feel what the horse is doing, and do something about it if necessary. I really believe that most riders’ “eye for distance” is in the seat of their pants!”

[west5]

I know I am an ammy nobody, who does not compete at the upper levels, but I don’t really agree with the entire above statement regardless of Denny’s/Steinkraus’s credentials.

Yes, I do think/agree we should all have that skill in our toolbox.
I want every skill in my toolbox!

No, I don’t think everybody’s eye for distance is as bad as he says it is in a half-seat.
No, I don’t think one has so little influence on one’s horse in half-seat.

Obviously some will go better with your seat in the tack, but I’ve known horses where the most subtle shift in my head position alters my body enough to influence my pace/impulsion/take off point.

It also seems to me that this advice is more relevant for the upper levels and in show jumping.

I have this vision of a lot of lower level ammy’s trying to sit “the last few strides” before every xcountry fence, which if their eye for distance is as bad as he is intimating, they won’t know where they should do that anyway.

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=west5;7672744]
I know I am an ammy nobody, who does not compete at the upper levels, but I don’t really agree with the entire above statement regardless of Denny’s/Steinkraus’s credentials.

Yes, I do think/agree we should all have that skill in our toolbox.
I want every skill in my toolbox!

No, I don’t think everybody’s eye for distance is as bad as he says it is in a half-seat.
No, I don’t think one has so little influence on one’s horse in half-seat.

Obviously some will go better with your seat in the tack, but I’ve known horses where the most subtle shift in my head position alters my body enough to influence my pace/impulsion/take off point.

It also seems to me that this advice is more relevant for the upper levels and in show jumping.

I have this vision of a lot of lower level ammy’s trying to sit “the last few strides” before every xcountry fence, which if their eye for distance is as bad as he is intimating, they won’t know where they should do that anyway. :)[/QUOTE]

I agree wholeheartedly and go back to the examples of excellent and successful riders, such as Lauren Kieffer and Sharon White, who do not go into a full seat that often. I think their comments are more relevant to show jumping AND not the show jumping that is more common today. I am betting the Steinkraus quote is not from the past five years or so.

Riding changes, evolves, and hopefully more often for the better than for the worse. There are exceptions (Rolkur would be one, although it is NOT new, just gaining popularity/or maybe just publicity), but overall, I like to think that riding is getting better with time, and not worse. And this assumption is based partly on the fact that jumps are tougher and more technical than they used to be, and partly on the fact that sports typically evolve and becomes better with time. Records are broken every year, people run faster, jump higher, do more spins on the ice, etc etc etc. I am an optimist perhaps? But I like to think that this is the case in our discipline as well.

There are exceptions, everywhere. That is to be expected. But overall, I do think we are getting better… and new ways of riding are being introduced, tested, and proven.

I have heard the very top older trainers state that they would struggle to ride the technical courses of today and that they are no longer the “experts” on how to really ride a 4* course…

[Calamber]

I call it posting at the gallop, up/down, up/down, splat, splat, splat on the horse’s back, they are not either sitting, nor in a two point, they cannot hold themselves in any fixed position. Somewhat like 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer, on the 'ard, 'ard, road, 'urt’s the 'orse’s, 'ooves.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

[QUOTE=Winding Down;7672788]

I have heard the very top older trainers state that they would struggle to ride the technical courses of today and that they are no longer the “experts” on how to really ride a 4* course…[/QUOTE]

I actually don’t agree. People always say this (also about SJ). But then when you go back and look at the old videos of the courses…especially from the 60-early 90s…they were DAMN technical. And HUGE. In both eventing and SJ.

I think the BIG difference with eventing is the quality in all three phases now. It used to be that the good dressage horses couldn’t get around xc. Or the good xc horses always took rails (or couldn’t do dressage) It is not because xc has gotten easier or even more technical…but the quality of horses that are aimed at eventing has gotten better. They really need to be extremely good in all three phases. And the general caliber rider has also gotten a lot better. But many of the great riders/trainers of the past could also kick A$$ today…as many of those great riders/trainers were not specialist in just eventing. They also showed in UL jumpers and dressage…and raced over fences. The horse hasn’t changed that much…and how to ride them well hasn’t changed that much.

[Huntin_Pony]

“The horse hasn’t changed that much…and how to ride them well hasn’t changed that much.”

Amen, bfne.