Horse goes low/behind - which hand(s) to raise the head? *video downthread*

[SuzieQNutter]

I have never heard of an advanced rider rising incorrectly to the speed of the horse. Even Mannie above said she likes your tempo. You would not get a good tempo if you were rising incorrectly.

If you are out with your rising you will land on the back of the saddle or on the cantle. Beginners start off rising too high.

You are landing softly in the middle of the saddle and I do not see anything wrong with it.

Yes you can speed a horse up by rising faster, you can slow your rising to slow a horse. Advanced riders do not need to do this, they ask for the trot with tempo and go straight into the trot they want from the first step…

You do need to be sitting up a bit straighter to influence with your rising. At the moment when you lean forward you are actually pushing backwards when you don’t mean to. Leaning back you push the horse forward without meaning to. Just like Goldilocks you want to be in the middle so you can push either way when you choose to.

I will say again look up and sit on your butt.

If you are fighting a jump saddle, a well fitting for you and your mare, dressage saddle will help.

[CanteringCarrot]

Really enjoying this thread. It’s refreshingly constructive

I do find that “hand problems” don’t always come from the hands themselves. It can often come from a stiff shoulder or elbow. Being strong in your core, relaxing the shoulder and elbow can lead to a soft, steady, but following hand. So pay attention to how other parts of your body can influence your hands.

[weixiao]

Haven’t read through the whole thread yet, finding it very educational, but I did a quick search and found this video which does show him at the posting trot because I was also curious, and I didn’t see where video had been shared of that:

Sönke Rothenberger Training mit Luna Sosti on Tour

Back to reading!

[endlessclimb]

It must be my rose colored glasses (lol, just kidding, I know I have so so many areas needing improvement), but his hands are moving too. Am I seeing things?

Can anyone find one of those young dressage stallion exhibitions from Europe? I remember those riders were exceptionally quiet, riding young hot stallions in small arenas surrounded closely by spectators. When watching, I would watch the rider more than the horse! I’d love to re-watch those videos and see them ride again.

[Jackie_Cochran]

One thing I have noticed with some experienced riders (hunt seat and dressage) is that they do not open their elbows when rising while posting. These riders had NO IDEA that their elbows were not opening until I gently, diplomatically and quietly pointed it out to them, and I got some resistance at first since these riders did not want to look like beginners again.

I solved my problem with this by concentrating opening/straightening my elbows as much as I opened my KNEES while rising in my posts. So when I rise my knees become straighter for a moment, and when I sit back down my knee angle closes and I match this with my elbows.

When I started doing this my riding teacher’s objections to my hands at the trot ended, until I forgot and got back in that old, bad habit.

When I make sure to open and close my elbows as I post the trot the horses get steadier in contact, they stop fussing as much at the bit, and everybody is much happier. The horses are also more willing to let their head go up (to the proper position) since I do not bump their mouth with the bit every time I rise to the trot.

I do not let the horses I ride go behind the vertical, and opening and closing my elbows is key to this at the posting trot.

[endlessclimb]

@Jackie_Cochran

I solved my problem with this by concentrating opening/straightening my elbows as much as I opened my KNEES while rising in my posts. So when I rise my knees become straighter for a moment, and when I sit back down my knee angle closes and I match this with my elbows.

What a great visual, thank you!

[fordtraktor]

Since you put yourself out here, endless climb, I will too – here is a video of my young horse at her first show last year. she is still a bit inconsistent in the contact but I do think my hands are rather steady and it is a posting video. Please ignore center line, she was convinced the judge might bite so we had some, ahem, swerving issues! lol.

I think the issue might be a touch of stiffness in your elbows, and not necessarily in your actual hands.

[sportyspicepony]

I’m not very good at seeing what riders are doing from a video but I recognize the problem that people are pointing out of your posting being too fast because I do the exact same thing. It’s not even something that I would necessarily be able to point out from a video but I feel the difference when I’m on the horse… which is why I’m not a riding instructor But I’ll try to articulate how I try to fix it in my own riding.

I visualize relaxing my entire lower body and being a little bit jello-y and then the motion of the trot posts my body for me instead of me posting the trot - even letting it slow down a little bit to basically allow me to get in sync and then we can fix the tempo once we’re together. My mare is SUPER sensitive to me pinching at all with my knees / thighs, clenching my butt, etc., and when i am able to free her back up by moving with her it makes a huge difference in her movement. I come from the hunter world too and am guilty of getting extremely stiff and rigid when I’m trying to have a perfect position.

My trainer has been having us do this lil stretch before all of my rides where I take my feet out of the stirrups at the walk and literally just hold my legs straight off of the saddle with like 2 inches of clearance at the knee - it’s really REALLY hard and hurts a bit but then your hip is super stretched out and your body is a lot more jello-y from the waist down, allowing you to move WITH the horse. Sometimes even when I’m trotting around and realize I’m being stiff and rigid I’ll just visualize taking my leg off the saddle for a moment so that my seat can sink down and be fully “plugged in” - and I often find I end up needing to lengthen my stirrups a hole once I find that correct seat that’s IN her back instead of on top of it. It requires a lot of core strength and also hip flexibility to stay in that correct trotting position, so if you’re sore that’s how you know it’s working!!

And I also struggle with my hands but I’ve found that focusing on other parts of my body like my shoulders and seat help my hands to stay correct on their own naturally, because you’re riding from your seat and leg instead of worrying about where your hands even are. However your position is overall very beautiful and better than mine!!!

[foggythistle]

On the reitbommel theme, I have an extra-long grab-strap (about twice as long as the regular grab-straps, made of braided baling twine) attached to the d-rings on my saddle. If I think my hands are moving up and down too much when posting, or even just for a double-check, I will hook a pinkie or two through the ‘strap’ and see if my elbows get pulled open. If they do, I need to think about relaxing my elbow a bit.

If your horse has a long mane, you could grab a little hank of that near the pommel, but I usually find the mane is in the wrong place for my hands.

For chicken wings, make sure your thumbs are pointing to the ceiling. Sally Swift, I think, likens it to holding a couple ice cream cones, or holding a couple of birds in your hands. You don’t want the ice cream to fall off or to be able to bonk the little birdies heads together.

[theresak]

It’s hard for me to see, but are your hands a little flat/piano hands, especially the left hand? Keeping your thumbs up on top will help you follow a little bit more and use your back/shoulders for stability rather than your forearms and biceps.

I’d also experiment with speeding her up and slowing her down with your post by staying a bit higher longer or accenting the up of the post. That should help both of you sync up the rhythm. I’m not sure how to describe it and I don’t think your rhythm is bad, but maybe you aren’t controlling your post/the rhythm every stride? I feel like you are being a little “delicate” at the bottom and top of the post rather than using your core to control it all.

My trick for downwards transitions is to add an exhale. My trainer always says “close thigh, hold hand, add leg.” And I include an exhale with that too. With my young horse, if he’s really motoring at the canter and I don’t think I can stay with him in the downwards transition, I’ll hover over the saddle to ride him through it so my seat doesn’t disrupt his balance.

[endlessclimb]

I was wondering when someone was going to rip me for my broken left wrist, but maybe the resolution of the video is too poor. I wear a wrist brace sometimes as a reminder to keep it straight (makes my hands cramp when I do!), but it’s a habit that creeps back in often. Good reminder!

[endlessclimb]

I like the baling twine idea, and thumbs up is two-fold - for the hands, and for the bock bock habit. I don’t notice the chicken wings as much on the flat, but over fences I have to concentrate. I’m sure it creeps in! Thanks!

[endlessclimb]

I unfortunately had to watch this on my phone (someone else’s post did this too, where the video was only viewable on apple equipment), so I can’t see too well, but your hands do look very steady and you and your horse look great together. Thank you!

[endlessclimb]

Oooo doing that legs away from the saddle thing makes me cramp in a jiffy, but I do feel the difference after. Great reminder for a quick “body check”!

[endlessclimb]

Lots of un-useful crap in this one, but towards the end some shots of riding a young horse. I think her hands look pretty good?

THE NEXT TOP DRESSAGE STALLION?!?!

[theresak]

I would just be cautious looking at pics/videos of the young horse/stallion riders in Europe. They often are pushing those horses into a ton of contact/weight in the hand to get the extravagant gaits. If your horse is lighter in the contact, I think your hands will have to move more in order to keep a connection, especially with young and green horses.

[endlessclimb]

That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

[Manni01]

Ok, Sönke Rothenbergers hands are not very quiet in this video which is kind of sad because he does have the ability to keep them quiet and I am sure he would ride even better.

But there are a lot of things which you can look at in this video and I think it’s extremly educational. I used to watch it fairly often when my young mare was younger.

I think this horse (Luna) was very very good unfortunately it got injured in the horrible fire at his barn and I have not heard from her since…
if you watch the video you can really see that he is not rushing the mare. I think she is rather hot but he manages to prevent her speeding up. Probably one reason why he is a bit busy with his hands to prevent her from getting to fast and loosing the rythm… For me it was impressive to watch how calm he was giving her exactly the right tempo to let her loosen up.
her whole body is loose and you can see nearly every part moving… I love it when a horse goes like that and being this loose she also uses her back very nicely to go over the back… And he gets her to do this by simply keeping the right rythm…
I played around with my young mare to find out her rythm because she is very eager to go and would rush as well if ai let her. I had a beautiful lesson with my trainer this week and she also directed me into the right tempo with her which resulted in an amazing feeling for me … And Luna and SR are a beautiful example for finding the right tempo for loosening up as well!!

[Manni01]

I would not recommend her as a role model… Young stallion riders are not riding for future dressage horses but only for fast money… this horse is rushed and tight… I would prefer Luna and Sönke Rothenberger over this because he was training his future GP horse… but this is only my personal opinion…

[Manni01]

And another try for quiet hands… my mare with my trainer again, This was a couple of months ago and you can see in the beginning that she was a bit pushy still and tried to take the reins, then she was nice… we do this always at the end of the lesson and she knows exactly that she is done afterwards . The hands are not perfectly quiet but I think the position is pretty good https://youtu.be/caK5y2lsngo. And it’s very annoying for me that there are only videos of my trainer, but she is busy giving me advice when I ride and doesn’t record my riding . I really need a pivo…