This is a re-post of a perspective I provided for someone asking for a critique on the Hunter Jumper Forum.
RE: Developing independent, elastic, soft, effective contact.
I’d suggest beginning with this starting exercise…
Get a spare set of reins, and then find a volunteer to help you.
You and your volunteer each sit facing each other (no horses required), as you hold the buckle end of the reins as though you are riding, and your volunteer holds the bit ends of the reins and plays the part of the horse.
Your volunteer then moves the reins back and forth as though they are the horse, while you practice following the movement of the reins with your hands.
The key to this exercise is to instruct your volunteer to try to “fool you”. That is they should move both rhythmically then erratically, and suddenly, with lots of variation in the range of motion, and the speed with which they move the reins.
Your job in this exercise is to maintain five pounds of contact on those reins “NO MATTER WHAT YOUR VOLUNTEER DOES AT THEIR END”.
[B]NOTE: I think five pounds is a good starting point for this particular exercise because it may make it easier to follow what the “volunteer” does when learning how to create elasticity.
But if less contact (weight) works better for you, then by all means use less contact.
Also keep in mind that when actually riding your horse, you may only need to average around one to three pounds of contact (depending on the horse).
[/B]
What you’re going to find is that you’ll need to relearn how to use your arms and back to maintain that supple continuous contact.
How to develop contact…
(While remembering to breath and remaining relaxed)
Try this… sit in a chair (or the edge of a bed), relaxed and upright (no slumping, and hold your forearms horizontal yet let those elbows be as relaxed as possible without letting them fall down from the horizontal position.
Make two relaxed fists as though you are holding reins (fists 8 inches apart). Now slowly move your relaxed fists straight forwards as far as they will go (without straining) . Stay upright and balanced in your chair as you do this, and keep those forearms relaxed and horizontal (and breath!)!
You now have your two arms stretched out in front of you, hold them for a moment in that position and feel them relax.
Now reverse the movement, and bring your fists straight back as far as you can move them (forearms relaxed, horizontal, while you stay upright and balanced in you chair).
Notice that as you bring your hands close to your belly, you won’t be able to keep your relaxed fists 8 inches apart any longer… that’s ok… let your fists go wider as they get closer to your belly so you can get your fists to go as far back as you can, without straining (stay relaxed!)
You now have your two fist by your sides, your elbows are stretched out behind you, hold your arms in this position for a moment and feel them relax (forearms still horizontal!), once you feel relaxed as possible with your arms held back, then do this…
Try to move your arms back a little more, but NOT by rotating the shoulder joint any further back. You will find that you have to move your shoulders back to do this, and as you move your shoulders back, notice how you can feel the muscles between your shoulder blades working!
In doing this, you may likely have just identified the muscle groups in your back that will allow you to develop a soft and supple contact with your horse.
Repeat the entire motion of stretching your arms all the way forwards and back, fists drifting from 8 inches apart, to widening by your sides, in a smooth motion as your arms move with relaxation, and the forearms horizontal.
Now pretend you are on a horse while sitting in your chair. Imaging your horse is stretching his bit far forwards, and then bringing his bit behind the vertical, and imagine keeping your forearms aligned in a straight line with the horses bit as you sit in your chair moving you fists all the way forwards and all the way back.
Notice how far the distance is that your hands can move from being all the way forwards, to being all the way back.
You have just discovered a riders working range of motion for maintaining contact with their horse. Note that throughout this chair exercise, your upper arms only swing forwards and back and are by your sides, and not ever held up and out like “little bird wings”.
With all of this is still fresh in you memory, find something you can grab hold of with your fingers (like the edge of a table (one that wont fall over!), and now create five pound of contact with whatever it is you are holding onto. As you do this feel those muscles that you just became aware of between your shoulder blades. keep your arms relaxed and experiment with how it feels to use the muscles that rotate your shoulders, with the support of those muscles between your shoulder blades, to create that five pounds of contact.
But do it without feeling like your stiff, straining, or locking anywhere in your body. Notice how you can do this and keep your elbows completely relaxed. In fact you might now see how those relaxed forearms and elbows are completely free to flex to remain in straight alignment with your reins to your horse bit. That’s all because you are now creating your contact from your shoulders and your back.
Interesting, isen’t it!
You’ve just sampled how you can develop a contact from your core that allows your arms to remain independent.
The next step is to do the seated (you can do it standing too, but seated is better) exercise with your volunteer, with all of this in mind. Use this knowledge to try maintain that five pounds of contact no mater what your volunteer does with those reins (within reason of course).
Also, have your volunteer intermittently completely let go of the reins on occasion, as this is a good test to see if you are thinking elastically, allow your arms spring all of the way back to that “furthest back” arm position that you practiced in the chair exercise.
Keep in mind that all of the above are just “basic” learning exercises that can help riders learn how to develop elastic contact and independent hands. They are not hard fast rules, but rather a starting point to build upon as you progress in your abilities.
Many professional riders do all sorts of creative arm movements to apply aids that will fall outside the scope of what was discussed above.
If a rein breaks while riding, you may not want your arm to automatically go to that furthest back position, as you may need that hand to grab some mane!
See my point… When learning you start with a foundation, and then build all different kinds of techniques that allow you to become a more flexible rider, upon that foundation.
Hope you might find the above helpful.
Also, regarding your question about riding with shorter reins…
Yes, as you may have just discovered, your range of motion includes the ability to have arms stretched far forwards as needed, but that shouldn’t necessarily mean continuously.
Part of what you’ll experience as you redevelop your style of riding to include a more supple contact, is that your horse will also need to readjust to how he remembers you “did” ride him. Don’t expect it all to come together at once, it may, but it may also take some time for both you and your horse.
As I just mentioned above, there is no hard fast rules in riding, just foundations and starting points. You are allowed to adjust your rein length continuously as you ride when necessary.
In fact many professional riders continuously change their rein length throughout a ride. Methods to learn… how to properly “walk up” a rein with the fingers of one hand, and how to let reins slide through fingers as needed. How to use each hand to adjust the reins of the other hand as you ride… and of coarse there’s the quick emergency spread your hands far apart to slide hands up the reins to take up the slack as my horse begins to bolts technique. :eek:
Undoubtedly learning new riding skills may necessitate abandoning old habits so you can advance to the next level. This may feel awkward at first, and may take some time to get used to, and that’s all perfectly normal in the process of learning.
