I have been working with a great new trainer, purchased an amazing 3rd level schoolmaster and am seeing my riding faults clearly with him lol.
Can anyone suggest some good exercises for not giving up the elbow/outside contact? I have gone from a very opinionated chestnut mare who was an unbelievably sensitive soul to this happy go lucky guy who only does what’s asked correctly. I keep the contact, but in my moments of him being round, back up and active with the inside hind, the overly sensitive mare rider in me gives the contact away briefly. Any good tips or exercises to help these elbows glue to my sides?
Get an Equicube! I have the same problem, and the Equicube makes me bend my elbows and lift my hands. It is hard to adjust your reins though, so if you also have open hands it causes some difficulty 😆
Hold your whip in your outside hand and keep it touching the point of your hip. Also try to feel that the “elasticism” of your outside rein contact comes from relaxing your tricep on the back of your upper arm. Your forearm is just an extension of the rein.
It is not just your outside elbow, you have to keep your outside shoulder back as well as looking at the horizon. It all starts from your lower body so start with heels and work up to your head.
Nope, you are not alone. I’m ok on my right arm, (the stronger) and less good on the left. Part of this is driven by the beast, whose preference is to want to lay on that rein…When he does, I tend to give instead of a brisk half halt to get him up and under, and/or also get pulled forward if my core is not engaged. (SQN above is correct!!) I’m old, lol and it is taking 10 million repetitions to cure.
I could have written this post! Struggle to “lock in” my elbow and not have a floppy outside rein, and also struggle to keep my fingers closed in the reins. Apparently I unconsciously open and close my fingers all the time. Will try the glove under the arm trick.
I also struggle to use my elbow independently from the rest of my body. So for example when doing a circle to the right, my chest and shoulders often swivel left as I focus on keeping my left elbow back for a steady outside rein, which makes my exceptionally well trained and patient horse assume she should be going to the left, not right. How do you keep your right shoulder back and your left elbow back at the same time? I literally practice this while standing in front of the mirror lol
This sounds like your hips and your shoulders are “disconnected”… when you circle right, your outside thigh comes on and inside lower leg maintains the bend. Your shoulders should follow this very subtle repositioning of the hips, so yes, the left elbow comes forward-- a fraction of an inch.
I don’t love the idea of forcing yourself to hold something under your elbow or your armpit because you don’t want to encourage yourself to carry tension in your arm. Your arms are somewhat relaxed and gravity keeps your elbow “glued” to your hip. Hence why I like the whip trick. It forces you to keep your thumbs on top and wrists straight so the “tension” must come from a relaxed tricep.
This does a better job of explaining than I can. Thinking of Sally Swift’s Centered Riding:
The shoulder girdle is comprised of the hands, arms, shoulder joints, shoulder blades and collar bones. It may surprise you to know that the bones of the entire shoulder only connect bone-to-bone on the skeleton in one place, and that is in the front where the collarbones join the sternum or breastbone. This means that the shoulder girdle is an extremely free moving system of engineering that allows us almost unlimited range of motion with our arms.
In riding, we all work to have good hands, the mark of all good riders. But good hands have little to do with the hands themselves. Good hands come from good arms and shoulders. […]The wrist joints should be softly aligned with the rest of the forearm and should have little motion, as they serve as a soft connection to the rest of the arm.
The elbows are joints often forgotten. The elbows must open and close as the horse moves to follow the head and neck movement of the horse. Even in trot, when the horse’s head is relatively still, this opening and closing of the elbows allows the rider’s body to post without the motion passing down through the hands and reins to the horse’s mouth. When a rider locks her elbows, all the motion must come from the shoulders; stiff, bouncy hands and back and shoulder strain are the results.
The shoulder joints also follow and allow the horse to move, as the shoulder blades slide across the back of the rider’s ribs. […] Freeing the shoulder girdle, correct breathing, and finding how all the joints of the shoulder girdle move and work together will go a long way to achieving a balanced, upright posture and quiet, independent hands.
This sounds wrong to me. I think you are overthinking it. You go where you look. Look at the ground and you will end up there!
You turn your head which turns your shoulders and your hips. Your horse should turn with the turn of your head.
Your shoulder back shouldn’t be tense, roll your shoulders backwards to release tension. Your shoulder back does not mean don’t turn your shoulders. If you are going down the long side towards A, to go down the centreline to C, then heading towards the corner you should be looking at c.
Always listen to your horse, you saying horse is well trained, gets confused and wants to turn the other way, reminds me of hubby coming in and commenting that Sim always overreacts to the canter transition.
My thoughts are how long would he have continued to do this without my intervention? How long has this been happening.
For him the answer was change your canter aids. Use as little an aid as possible. OMG the whole horse took a whole sigh of relief. His whole canter changed, so much so my instructor said he had never seen him canter like that before.
My thoughts for you are how long are you going to ride like that before changing what you are doing? so the trained and knows how it should be done horse knows where you want to go?
I hope you notice as big a change in your horse as we did with Sim.
