I call that feeling “sea legs”! I think previous responses covered the fitness aspect but I’ll offer this: give yourself some grace. It will get better! Coming off a break is hard.
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Something that may help is raising your stirrups a half or full hole for a few rides. They dont look “long” but if you’re getting your “sea legs” back and he’s a little unbalanced I think a shorter stirrup and light forward seat can help you find your shock absorbers again. For me, my legs tend to swing when I’m bracing in a joint (hip, knee, ankle) so the motion is going through my legs creating a windshield wiper rather than a spring that softly expands and contracts to absorb the motion. A shorter stirrup that let’s me get out of the tack a bit and play between a two point, half seat, and full seat without feelings like i’m swimming and then subconsciously bracing.
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Yup, this is what I saw too!
Sounds strange, but instead of thinking heels down, think more weight in your big toe. That should help your calf sink and wrap around a bit better, hopefully softening but firming up so your leg can be a little stiller.
To get stronger, try no stirrups even at the walk. Try to stretch your hips out and soften your pelvis. Really think about plugging your sits bones into the saddle. I have also learned to respect what riding with one stirrup (as opposed to dropping both) can do in terms of strengthening and showing which side/leg/ankle is dominating. Try it on a large circle, 20 m or bigger, and see how it feels in each direction.
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I am going to disagree with the wonderful, helpful ladies who recommend what is essentially a leg used for dressage riding, not riding at the freer and more extendable gaits of a hunter.
A few years ago after getting tired of my riding teacher constantly correcting my lower leg which was continuously drifting back. I went to my equitation books. Since my riding teacher took this seriously I went to the source of educated US riding, the US Cavalry manual and the book “Riding and Schooling Horses” by Harry Chamberlin, a high ranking officer in the US Cavalry.
Chamberlin discusses riding in great detail. In two places, p.31 and p. 64 he writes about the rider’s knees. While the rider does not grip with the knees (except in an emergency) IF the knees are completely relaxed “lower legs slip to the rear, and the heels come up.”
I then started experimenting with keeping my knees mostly relaxed. When I did not grip with my knees, my lower leg still went back and I was irritating the horse with my shifting seat. Only when I kept the rectus femoris muscle somewhat tense did my lower legs stop drifting around and my riding teacher stopped yelling at me about this. The rectus femoris is the big muscle that goes down the front of the thigh and the tension is slight, just enough so your lower leg is no longer searching for a firm place to stand.
On the trail the times I experimented with keeping my whole leg relaxed and “draped” around the horse’s barrel my horse would find an excuse, shy by instantly teleporting to the side, and I would go SPLAT on the ground. This mild tension of my rectus femoris muscle often saves me when the horse first starts the teleport, giving me that split second before my other muscles get into gear.
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The principles really are the same, for the most part. You just need a shorter stirrup and to maintain the balance when your butt is off the back. There is a little more reliance on the flexion of the ankle and shock absorption of knees and ankle. A little bit. Honestly some people who think they have a stable, draped leg in dressage just because it is a long leg and are just as unstable as the OP…you see it manifest in lost stirrups or stirrups going “home”, inability to sit the trot without a lot of bouncing. Lack of independence of the hands. The lower leg won’t be stable in 2 point or over a jump if you can’t stabilize it when sitting, when there is a fundamental position flaw. We aren’t talking jockeys who maintain a squat position.
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I feel you on this, and it has taken nearly a year of dressage lessons to begin to break this habit. It’s possibly a similar problem to your leg - you are stiffening up somewhere. Trying to fix my wiggling shoulders just by holding them still caused me to become more stiff too, and trying to ‘sit back/down’ just made me scrunch down into the saddle.
What is working for me is learning to unlock my hip flexors and use my core to stretch up and lift my breastbone. My dressage coach says to imagine being pulled from the top of the helmet to lengthen the spine. Yoga and reading about the Alexander technique in relation to riding/dressage helped too.
But I agree with others, I was expecting worse based on your first post! Often it feels worse than it looks!
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Looks pretty good but I would stand up off his back, deepen your heel, and tighten both your thigh and knee
thiiiss
not enough trainers instruct that you shouldn’t be shoving your heels down - you should be thinking long calves to wrap around and big toe /inner ball of foot weight.
this is easier to do when your toes don’t point as far outward.
many people don’t have the conformation or hyper mobile dorsal flexion to have a super deep heel without tensing and bracing elsewhere in the body. I’ve been going to a doctor of PT for about a year plus now due to a bone malformation in my right leg & this is what they explained to me
I’ve stopped and restarted as an adult 3x now since my first long hiatus of 7 years. It is always a period of about 3-4 months to regain strength and let go of tension every time I take more than 6 months off.
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im not sure what you mean by stand up off his back. i wasnt instructed to be in a half seat but to stay in a normal deep seat (is that what you meant?)
@izzyeq - i dug around for a candid of my “malformed leg” (born missing parts of bones lol but visibly no one can tell)
This is the deepest my heel can get on this leg - i get between 4 and 6 degrees. 12 is normal for dorsal flexion and I get 12 in my other ankle. Makes a lot of sense that I was a dressage junior where the heels are not super forced down like a lot of H/J trainers instruct.
my position doesn’t look amazing here as I gained some weight after a parent passed away and was having a little trouble with my body awareness at my new size, but my lower leg was very stable. note toes are not severely pointed outward.
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Yes–if you want to strengthen and steady your lower leg, you need to get in a half seat, take your weight out of your seat/saddle, and build the thigh muscle. There is no substitute in my opinion to build your strength. In a full seat, your weight wants to go to your seat in order to sit, instead of being distributed down your leg. Stand up and get strong! : )
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I see this also.
Two things that you can do when you ride on your own are play around with two point and with cantering with the reins in one hand.
Bridge the reins in the outside side hand and let your inside arm hang down. Canter a few laps, then switch. Your hips and seat should relax on your own and help you loosen up and follow with your seat.
The other thing is to sit five strides, two point five, and try to keep everything the same, contact, quiet leg, etc. Then play with the numbers. Sit 4, two point 4, then 3, then back to 5, etc. This has helped me so much to relax in my hips and seat.
Strength and relaxation are the keys, I think.
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When I was riding minimally over the summer, due to having no horse to ride at the time, my lower leg was loose once I started up again. While it strengthened with more riding, I think my fitness routine also helped (lotsa squats and lunges, plus a core routine).
