i have ridden so many years bareback that pretty much sitting a trot is more natural for me than posting. How i do it is basically balance, like an egg on a spoon…
So my hips are very open, legs not clenching anywhere and my spine moves (curls and unfurls) along with the horse.
So i don’t know if this is ‘right’ for dressage, but i can sit a normal horse’s trot without a saddle
2 Likes
It’s easier to sit trot bareback than with a saddle I find. There is NO WAY Im riding this horse bareback though for real work lol I grew up riding bareback too but it sadly didn’t help me with this ahha look at her withers. She’s almost a full hand taller at the wither than her back lol
9 Likes
looks kinda perfect to me. flat fat muleback is what’s hardest for me. gimme a dip anyday
(love your mare in that color)
When your saddle is literally bouncing off your horse’s back at every step of sitting trot there is no possible way for you to sit well. I’m sure when you attend to that you will find all of the other suggestions far more effective.
6 Likes
I’m pretty sure I’m the one pulling it up. She’s had her saddle fit by one of the best of the business imo. That being said I watched some GP tests and some of their saddles come up in the medium and extensions too.
1 Like
LOL yes flat and no wither is hard too! She has a wide flat back otherwise which is nice.
This is the LeMieux sage, and it’s one of my favs. Thanks 
1 Like
Agreed, and easier to sit without stirrups. EDIT: I think, personally, this is because both bareback and without stirrups allows me to sit too far on my bum (chair seat) without “telling on me” like trying to keep stirrups does.
4 Likes
Two sides of the same coin 
your lower abs are crunching up every stride while your upper abs and obliques are kind of pushing out to stabilize, and your seat stays softly down. Who knew you had to do so much to look like you’re doing nothing?
3 Likes
Can you elaborate on this? I agree my sitting trot improved when I started to think right/left with every stride instead of just up/down and forward/back.
Do you drop each seat one individually, left then right? Depending on which hind leg is grounded, the horse’s pelvis tips laterally, so I think the riders pelvis needs to tip laterally with each diagonal step.
I don’t think my pelvis actually moves side to side, but perhaps tips side to side.
Could you explain the ellipse idea?
Thanks. I sort of suspected your up, up, up was the same as my down, down, down.
1 Like
And some riders look SO smooth in the upper body while sitting, while others look like they’re visibly crunching up with each stride, or have a bobble head look. When you look at their seats though, both are quiet in the bum and leg. I aspire to be the ultra quiet one, though I’m not sure anatomically I’ll ever be as good as someone who is a foot taller than me and all leg.
1 Like
I hate the bobble head. If you can get your pelvis to absorb the motion, and have the core strength to not let the pelvis motion whiplash through your body, your hands and head should be steady.
3 Likes
It’s core strength and mobility though - some people just will not ever have the flexibility to take it all in without some of it coming up.
Or maybe I’m full of crap? Who knows at any given moment, lol
1 Like
I agree that the hard part is the combination of relaxing some muscles, using others in an “actively passive” way, and at the same time really engaging others. I’ve seen some people, even pros, turn into an elegant sitting statue, probably also holding with the leg, and it sort of works, but they’re not as super smooth as the ones who can both loosen some muscles and engage others. The sitting statue can’t be as comfortable as the horse, either.
3 Likes
OK I finally got a chance to see these on my computer, not phone.
The slow motion is distracting. However what I’m seeing is:
Leg too far forward, a slight chair seat, which puts you behind the motion. So kind of similar lifting/thumping at trot and canter, and pumping upper body at the canter. Lower leg is very unstable, flopping back and forth a lot. On the other hand, you look confident and secure and you are making things happen 
I have not ridden a huge gait much but I have felt progress over the past 5 years in sitting medium to larger trots on more modest horses. I couldn’t do it at all at the start, but it developed. I think it is all in abs. You have to have the abs engaged and torso stretch up to do anything in dressage. And then the thigh dropped down and back. It means opening the front of the hip. Then try to get the lower leg stable, as stable as if you were jumping. Then try to carry all the motion in your hips which might be back and forth or side to side. Like at a walk where your hips swing side to side.
Try to catch all the movement in the thighs and hips so the calf and the torso don’t move as much. Actually gripping with the thigh will bounce you out of the tack even on my Paint it’s more a dropping into the saddle. But you do have the thighs active, just not gripping.
It’s always useful too to have a run past a physiotherapist and see if anything is getting in your way like a pelvic imbalance, or scoliosis, or uneven hips. The riding position effects of these are unpredictable and not always obvious.
My own position flaw on my big barrel Paint is chair seat, I have to deliberately reposition myself and pull up my core when I am schooling. My position flaw however on the half Andy schoolmaster I was riding daily a few years ago was tilting forward, just very slightly, like hunt seat. She had a tendency to dive onto the forehand until she was warmed up and collected. Also if I had my abs engaged and upright, I could reliably get a square halt from her, and if I didn’t, she actually flopped off the center line. That was a real eye opener about core!
If I have a good hard ride schooling dressage, I feel it in my abs. If I do a conditioning ride in the jump saddle, lots of two point, I feel it in my thighs.
Sorry the slo mo is really the only sitting trot videos I have posted. One is from a show the other is a just fun video I did so not the greatest representation. I really don’t see this though, I think my leg looks solid?
I do go to the chiro biweekly. I think a lot of it is that; I’m not strong enough yet, not familiar enough with it yet, need more practice, rode horribly for decades and undoing all the bad things.
My abs are always sore after I ride so I guess that’s a good thing lol
1 Like
I was also told almost side to side feeling. I find if I close my eyes it helps.
I rode bareback a lot as a kid, and watched lots of other kids ride bareback. We didn’t get lessons but we sure had balance.
My observation of trot bareback is that a Western jog trot or a dressage collected trot is very easy to sit. But either a raw “racing” trot or an educated medium or extended trot is a challenge or even impossible to sit effectively bareback on almost all horses. I will stand corrected if I see video of someone schooling extended trot bareback with effective position. It might be possible on some horses, maybe baroque horses. I would be interested seeing it on a warmblood!
7 Likes
4 Likes
Very nice! But even she is staying in more collected gaits. No full on extension.
7 Likes
