Constantly launched when jumping

Hey guys!
I just wanted to know your opinion on this. So I started leasing a horse in September and I feel myself constantly getting launched whenever we’re jumping. She’s a much bigger horse than what I used to ride so it’s been a change but I just can’t seem to be with her when we jump. When I look at other people jumping there with the horse and most of the time not getting launched what am I doing wrong.
I have tried two pointing more over smaller jumps to get used to doing it when doing bigger jumps but my coach would always tell me to have taller shoulders when I did that.
I attached a video to this just so you could see us jumping and of course it doesn’t help she didn’t land the lead.

I just hate my two point and don’t know how to fix it.

Grab mane so your hands don’t pop up. Also you need to count and get down the line so you aren’t so long and weak. If you pause the video just as the horse is leaving the ground you can see your hands are behind your shoulders, where they should never be, and you can see how far away you took off because you didn’t ride up the line enough.

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It’s just one exercise but I’m seeing your riding ahead of her, letting your leg get loose, and you’re slipping forward anticipating the jump. She loses momentum and jumps a long lazy spot. She seems to be rocking forward and then popping her shoulder up rather than jumping from her haunches.

There’s no magical fix, work on keeping her in front of your leg, working without stirrups to fix your base of support, smaller bounce gymnastics without reins to train yourself to not get in front of the motion. Etc.

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I see a few things happening here.

First, and probably most importantly, your leg is sliding back quite a bit. Going into the crossrail you are popping your heel up and into her side to get her going. So already going into the line, your leg is behind your balance. Over the cross rail, your upper body is pretty nice - not too folded, and appropriate for the fence height. But your leg has slipped back, which makes balancing harder. Then you get a big gappy distance to an oxer out of the line, and you collapse quite a bit on landing. Watch your clip and freeze frame yourself on take off, over the fence, and landing, and look where your leg and heel is. Your heel is up and your leg slipped back, leaving you with no base of support. The first thing I would focus on is strengthening your leg and making sure your horse is listening to you without you having to slide your leg back and dig your heel into her side. Do you have a crop? A tap is a much better option than compromising your lower leg stability to jab her with your heel.

Next, I think you’re “unfolding” too soon. I don’t think you need to fold more, but rather stay down just a touch longer on landing. Even with the crossrail, you’re almost on her back before she hits the ground, and then over the oxer you hit her back during the arc of the jump. It isn’t about two pointing “more” but rather two pointing for longer. Think about holding a little bit of two point for the landing stride.

I agree with grabbing mane - that will help a lot too. Good luck! Your lease horse seems like a great one to learn on.

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It looks like you’re stuck out of sync with the motion, having to shove with your seat to try to get the step and then getting left when she leaves the ground. If I were you I’d be grabbing mane EVERY jump, and working to get her in front of your leg so you aren’t chasing. To me, you look a little stiff and hesitant in your upper body, so working on loosening your elbows and flowing more with her will help a lot!

Edit: the idea of not collapsing “more” but rather just staying in your two point for longer might not be a bad call. You will learn so much with this horse, she looks like a great teacher

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Over the jump you need to fold. So that your backside goes back not forward. This takes strength and won’t happen overnight.

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Shoulders look tall enough and your hand & arm want to follow the horse so that’s good. Where I see room to improve is in your base of support. Try trotting & cantering in 2 pt until you can lift your hands off the neck and still be able to steer and also use your lower leg without! touching the saddle. This will push more weight down into your heel. Relax your ankle, knee and hip to absorb the motion of the horse. Right now that motion is probably causing your leg to clamp, muscles get tight. When you can canter through the line over poles without touching the saddle, then build cross rails and go up from there. Let the horse close your hip and push your seat out behind you with the jump, but keep your focus on your base of support, feet underneath you, ankle-knee-hip flexing. You’ll get there!

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You’ve gotten some good advice here, and I agree that your lower leg needs to be more stable. You might also try shortening your stirrup a hole to see if that helps.

Firstly, I’d lengthen your stirrups a hole or two - they look a bit too short. I’ve ridden a few slab sided horses that I preferred this length of stirrup on, even over tiny fences, but it looks like it’s hindering you more than it’s helping.

Use the arrow keys to go frame by frame of the video, particularly at takeoff of the jump. In an ideal world, you should be able to take the horse out from underneath you and you’d be able to land on your feet. As you can see, you would probably land on your nose. This is happening in part because you throw yourself up her neck in anticipation, and also because it looks like you’re lacking strength, which is causing you to pivot around the horse (heels go back, head goes forward, and vice versa towards the landing). On the landing, your balance is too far forward, but you don’t have enough strength to gracefully dampen impact through your legs, and so you collapse forward onto the neck.

There are all kinds of exercises you can do to improve your strength on the flat:

On the flat, ride in two point at w/t/c, both directions. You should be able to make it around the ring without having to sit down/grab mane/etc.

Post at a walk - you don’t have the horse to help you.

Ride without stirrups for a few minutes every ride.

Set up 4 poles about 2 trot steps apart (~8ft, depending on your horse’s stride) and trot over them in two point. When that’s easy, start slowly lowering down into a deep two point as you go across each pole - the first one will be normal two point, then slightly lower, and lower and lower, sending your hips BACK until you’re as deep as you can go without actually sitting in the tack. Come around and do it in reverse - start deep, then raise up over each pole until you’re in normal two point at the end. You can repeat this with canter bounce poles too.

Post the trot to different variations - sitting two (up-down-down-up-down-down), rising two (up-up-down-up-up-down), or sitting/rising every 3rd step (up-down-up-up-down-up-down-down). You can even do this at a walk while you’re warming up.

If you’re only riding once or twice/week, you can also do basic exercises at home to build strength. I’ve also found (and bear with me, I know it sounds crazy) walking with bent knees while focusing on keeping your upper body totally still and at the same height is a good exercise for body awareness. Try going up stairs, walk quickly, walk slowly, try to deepen your squat position, step up on a box while keeping your upper body at the same starting height, widen your stance so you have to shift your weight from left to right as you walk, etc. The goal isn’t necessarily strength building, but it will really help draw your attention to how your legs must move independently from each other and your torso, but also maintain strength/balance through a wide range of motion.

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@CBoylen is on it when she suggests grabbing mane–that is going to force you to find the “right” position and know what that feels like. It’ll also keep you out of your horse’s way, which typically they appreciate!

Whenever I’m getting loose like this, my stirrups go away for a few a jumps. Never anything higher than 2 ft. I think your case, you’d benefit just from a line of poles.

If you trust your horse enough, I think doing the no stirrups–in combination with grabbing mane–is going to kick your legs into gear so you can kick your horse’s booty into gear so she’ll take you more to the fence vs. lagging behind and popping you up.

Another really simple exercise you can do–switch between balance position (standing straight up in stirrups) to two point while at the walk. See how balanced you actually are moving between the two and not relying on the neck for balance. You have to have a strong core and a still leg to make it happen. FWIW I was utter crud at this for awhile. I think it was like 8 months later when I came to it and was like “oh well this has improved, yay.” So if you’re struggling, don’t sweat it, just keep at it.

Agreed. This is one of your problems right here:

image

If we photoshopped out the horse, it should look like you are standing on the ground. Instead, you’ve got your leg way back behind you. You’re losing all your balance this way.

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All of this. You are not being launched, you are launching yourself. When you look at that single take off frame, every body part above your knee is in front of the pommel and your heel is the farthest back… Nothing below the waist should be in front of the pommel. Think about putting your heels down, your hands forward, and your butt back.

Almost all of these issues can be corrected with a stronger leg. Get this book and do it:

Other exercises that help leg strength and balance are riding with one stirrup, or posting every other step, and riding without stirrups. Since you look like your leg is weak, I would start just riding without stirrups at the walk. Work at holding your leg in the proper place, thinking, “down, back, in.”

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Wanted to chime in again to say to OP - don’t feel bad about this, every single rider who jumps has been exactly where you are at one point. Time, consistency, and building strength (and good coaching/eyes on the ground!), will get you where you want to be!

Do the flat exercises, talk about your concerns to your coach, and video EVERYTHING you can! It’s amazing how something can feel one way, but look completely different. Video your rides, and study them. Watch videos on YouTube of riders known for good basics and position and see if you can get yours to look similar.

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Grabbing mane is something you should be doing whenever you’re unsure of yourself. Keeps you off the horse’s mouth and on their back!

And strength plus balance. As others have said, work without stirrups. Too many people think jump, jump, jump. Decent jumping comes from consistent flatwork.

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Good on you for asking for input. Your lower leg is your base … your pillar. I think you are pinching with your thigh and knee and letting your base slide backwards while balancing on your hands. Think hips back. Think elbows in and hands forward. Absolutely grab mane when in doubt. Show your feet to the fence sink down in your heel and tighten your core. Not your knees.

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Everyone has already said everything I would mention – as a former dressage junior who didn’t jump for 12+ years, I know how it is to feel your body not cooperate with what you “want to do”.

Practicing the tips everyone else said will help immensely. I changed my stability, position, and balance dramatically riding 3-4x a week within a few months.

One thing - when you show this video to your trainer - what do they say?

Not to be a negative nancy, but personally I like coaches that are a bit “hard” on me and work to “nip” things like lower leg stability, jumping ahead etc. in the bud.

Most recent trainer I was with got me after another 2 year hiatus and I was in strength and stability bootcamp of cantering poles, two point without irons, the cantering cross over toe touch exercise, and “double ups (holy cow lower leg stability)” - which is where you post up for 2 beats instead of 1 in trot. I didn’t jump for for like a couple of months + despite having been cruising around .90 jumpers previously.

Granted, horse is new to you and larger - trainer could just be trying to keep you safe and happy while you are transitioning to a larger animal. But your stability SHOULD translate over small fences - she’s jumping politely and not over jumping / no kick from backend. That’s why I ask about your trainer’s input.

You are NOT getting launched. You are being left behind.

Your biggest problem is that your leg is sliding back before you even leave the ground, your upper body is too far forward, and you are opening up/sitting down WAY to early, with you feet still back.

You need to focus on keeping your feet down, and slightly forward, all the way from the take off until well after the landing. And grab mane or a neck strap to keep your body from falling back too soon, until you develop the strength to do it on your own.

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Thanks for this tip. I was just moving the little dot by hand but the arrows are much easier!

OP, I don’t have much to add, but I also struggle with “unfolding” too soon over jumps. My old coach used to tell me to imagine my horse was jumping through a hoop slightly after the jump. That mental image helps keep me from popping up too soon.

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I think everyone gave really great feedback, but just wanted to mention it also looks like you might be fighting this saddle to stay secure. Tough angles on a short video, but it looks like your knee is over the flap and the saddle might be somewhat low in front. Switching saddles to something that fits better won’t magically fix everything and you’ll still have to work with getting your weight down through your leg and also learn to better follow the horses motion, but it does make learning a bit easier.

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Do you feel like you always get launched, or only when your horse takes long spots like this? Because to me, in this video, it just looks like you are getting left behind, and your horse switches leads because you took a long spot. It’s very hard to stay with the motion from a bad distance. You can grab mane, fold more, land in your stirrups and stay out of the saddle, but it will never feel or look as pretty as a jump taken from a good distance. I wouldn’t necessarily nit pick your eq, sure you could do more to disguise that you got a bad spot, but I bet anything your eq will miraculously look much better if you get the right track and pace and hit these jumps at a more appropriate spot. Try cantering grids, even just poles on the ground, and do lots of trot jumps, and you might be surprised how your position suddenly just feels right with no conscious effort to fix it.

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