I have read so many descriptions for “using your seat” and I am utterly lost. What part of your thighs and or butt are you using and in what way?
It’s a loose term for everything you do that isn’t hands or calves.
If my mare is feeling cooperative I can ride loops and circles with the reins on the buckle. I look the directiin I want to go which makes my hips swivel and my outside thigh press slightly. She turns away from thigh.
When I do shoulder in most of the cue I’d to swivel my pelvis. When I want to collect or half halt or halt a big part is raising my ribcage and sitting in.
In order for this to work your seat needs to be stable enough that the horse learns that your weight shift is deliberate and means something.
I’m not sure where pinching knees come in. That tends to be a fault of beginner h/j riders who get pushed into jumping before they have enough core strength to stay out of the tack. It isn’t such an issue in dressage.
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I mean using your seat to slow and halt. I have heard this described from several sources as “closing your knee”.
Using your seat to slow and halt is more referring to how you slow the motion of your hips and butt to signal to the horse transitioning down. As in the canter, the same way you’d ask for a longer or more collected stride by influencing the horse with the motion or lack thereof of your seat, you’d do the same to signal transitioning downward/halting.
You want to close your leg, not so much your knee. I am very short, and watched an invaluable lesson the other day with a much taller rider. She has a bad habit of pinching with her knee because of her long (to die for) legs, and she’s taken quite a few tumbles out the front or side door because of it because a pinched knee will act like a fulcrum you pivot forward on if you’re unseated. You definitely don’t want to pinch your knee, but more just gently close your leg as a whole and slow the motion of your seat to support your horse in to a downward transition. Versus just pulling back on the reins and letting them fall downward in to it.
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Pinching your knee is like a clothes pin. You actually force your way out of the saddle. Do not do this.
Using your seat starts with the core muscles in your stomach. You drop your weight for downward transitions. This has nothing to do with how much you weigh and you have to be careful not to use it too much or you will ground the horse which you don’t want to do.
In collected trot always think, keep the bounce.
Closing the knee has nothing to do with pinching the knee. Closing the knee slows the horse. Opening the knee is for more forward.
By this point the rider is not using the reins for downward transitions. Canter to trot, stop your back moving. Collected canter lift your seat and close your knee. Medium canter sit down and forward and open the knee.
There is no rein for canter walk transitions. You collect up with your seat then drop your weight. No rein for transitions does not mean the reins are thrown away. They are still asking for contact, bend, flexion, etc.
Halt walk. I open knees and think forward with stomach.
Halt trot. I open knees and think up and forward with stomach.
All of this should be invisible to an observer, it is not the same as shoving a kitchen chair across the floor.
It all starts the day your instructor says isn’t it about time you stop using your legs for forward, when previously they have had you using your legs for forward.
Sorry I have to go and feed and unrug and get ready and leave for work.
I got lost starting the Woman Shot at Barisone thread. My bad.
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I’ve found that when I close my knees, I end up “clothes pinning” myself right up out of the saddle. Basically, the exact opposite of using my seat.
What works for me is to sit “heavy” to slow the horse down. To halt, I use a driving seat and legs into a closed hand.
YMMV
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Great minds typing at the same time!
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LOL I thought the same thing when I read your post!
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What is the difference between closing the knee and pinching the knee?
I hope this isn’t wrong lol but I’ve found actually to use my seat better it has helped to literally almost take my leg and knee away from the saddle so that I’m more rocked forward onto my pelvis instead of like pushing my hips forward in a weird thrusting position. You can try pulling your whole leg away from the saddle for a few seconds at a time to strengthen and stretch your hips, and then you’re a lil more like “plugged in” to the horses back and your legs are just resting on the horse’s sides, kinda not doing anything until you need them.
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As you can see, OP, people do very different things! It ultimately depends on what your horse understands with your aids.
Pinching the knees, to me, means your leg is not relaxed and you’re “hanging on” by your knees. It’s not uncommon in less experienced hunter/jumper people. The problem with this in dressage is that it can block your seat and thighs and calves and heels from aiding properly. What I mean is that your contracted muscles that contract your knees aren’t available for more subtle aids.
OK, to understand your seat, sit on a barstool or something similar with your legs in position like you are riding a horse. Drop your left seatbone into the stool. Feel that seat bone IN the flat part of the barstool? Feel how your whole leg dropped a bit to accomplish this correctly but raising your leg up accomplishes this by “cheating”? That is how to use your left seatbone. It may take practice, don’t despair!! Do the same with your right. Don’t be worried if it doesn’t feel the same, many people are unequal in their ability to drop their seatbones the same. I noticed this greatly when I took ballet as a younger person - I couldn’t do things to the left as well as I could do them to the right and that was all about using my hips. It is stuff to work on. Then, move your hips together scrunching under your body and forward while keeping concavity in you back and good posture. Do that for a half a second and then release your body. It helps if you’re sitting squarely on your crotch and not leaning back. This is the stuff of half-halts or lengthened/extended gaits, depending on what else your body is doing. You can do this without much happening in your thighs, knees, calves or heels depending on what you are asking.
For example, WITH MY HORSES, I train them to listen to my thighs for some things. I gently squeeze my thighs for a transition to a lower gait or a half halt while my knees and calves are unchanged in terms of pressure. I also lessen the movement in my hips to tell the horse “We’re not moving so big now, something is coming up, please pay attention”. The instant the transition within or between the gaits happens, I loosen my hips.
The exercise on teh stool can help you learn what your seat does during shoulder-in, hanches in, collection and extension. Remember to sit up and look ahead!!! Remember, your horse can feel your seatbones through the saddle and many will hollow their backs if you are “hard” with your seatbones. Just try to go with the flow. Your horse may not get it at first (none do, we train them to move away from pressure) but keep moving on. You are the teacher.
Oh, don’t forget that swiveling your shoulders can be felt by your horse because it naturally changes your balance, and looking down also changes your balance. They are such sensitive creatures.
Good luck!!
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Think more of “closing the thigh” rather than the knee. You want to make sure the inside of the thigh is making contact with the saddle too, not the back of the thigh. Depending on your build and musculature of your thighs, before you try this you might want to lift your leg off the saddle, grab the muscle at the back of the thigh, and move it out of the way as you set your leg back against the saddle. Then you’ll feel full contact with your inner thigh against the saddle and hopefully closing the thigh will make sense.
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One is controlled (closing), the other one is not (gripping/pinching).
Closing or opening your thigh and knee is an aid you can use to control the direction, the rhythm and the tempo.
Gripping can/will have the same effect, but the rider is not consciously doing it - doing so more out of stiffness and by being unbalanced, the result is a horse blocking its back and dropping at the base of its neck.
When a rider is gripping, he cannot « ungrip » at will. Or cannot ungrip in increments. It’s all or nothing. When a rider is closing or opening, he decides the amount of pressure needed for the right aid.
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I’ll add my two cents that when I hear “close the knee”, I think many trainers say that because it’s an actionable thing that helps riders reach a different goal. Sort of like when gymnastics teachers tell little kids to “look at their belly button” when they’re doing handstands. They don’t say that because looking at your belly is what you’re supposed to do, but because it’s an actionable way for kids to learn to not arch their back, whereas just saying “don’t arch your back” isn’t as easy for kids to understand how to fix.
Next time, sit on your horse at a halt and rotate your toes out, removing pressure from your upper thigh and focusing your contact at the back of your calf. Then rotate your toes forward, thinking about hugging your horse with your legs, from your thighs all the way down to your calves, and pay attention to what movement happened. If you’re like me, the most noticeable movement is in the toes and the knees. You can rotate your toes (to an extent) independently from your leg, but you cannot rotate your knee independent of your leg which is why trainers focus on that rather than just turning your feet forward. As you rotate your leg more forward (thus increasing your contact with your upper thighs and seat), the distance between your knee and the saddle closes. This isn’t because you’re gripping with your knee, but because you just rotated your leg forward and increased contact all down the inside of your leg.
Thank you so much for your help everyone, this is making more sense now. I was practicing last night and noticed that when I try to squeeze with my thighs I end up using my butt muscles quite a bit too.
Obviously clenching the butt muscles drives you farther out of the saddle and hinders the use of the seat bones. Should I be trying to isolate the thighs from the butt, or do most of you end up using your butt as well?
Close your hands, DO NOT PULL, and push your seat toward your closed hand, keeping a light leg on that the horse goes FORWARD into the halt or downward transition. Leave your knees out of it to the extent physically possible.
You need to be loose in dressage. Not floppy loose. But your muscle groups need to be isolated.
I found a lot came together for me when I finally started to follow my coaches instruction to drop my thigh under me. Longer leg, no chair seat. I feel like my half halt aid involves dropping the thigh as I keep my butt soft and sit in.
It’s very different from hunt seat where you are often up and out of the tack with your glutes engaged.
With all my particular position errors, pinching with the knees just isn’t one of them. I think it’s from so long riding Western as a kid. I am more likely to flop into chair seat like a cowboy, at least on my big bodied mare. I have tried to pinch with my knees to see what everyone is talking about but I can’t figure out how to do it. I have seen people do it, though.
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If we’re talking seat we NEED to discuss internally rotating your thigh starting in your hip socket, right?
To me it’s like finding the holy grail. It prevents pinching with the knee and also remedies your knee being too open. And suddenly you FEEL your seat starting at your knee.
It helps lift you up a wee bit so the horse can lift its back.
You gotta start slow and easy with it because you’re stretching soft tissue and you can be a bit sore.
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Pinching the knee is when your knee is permanently locked against the saddle which impedes the motion of the pelvis. It can also lead to a swinging lower leg in canter.
A closed knee is when your knee and lower leg are pressed inwards for a short and purposeful time. This also inhibits motion of the pelvis which makes the horse go, “Huh? My rider stopped (or shortened the motion of) her pelvis, I guess I had better follow because that will be the most comfortable thing to do!” And, voila, a lovely halt ensues at which point the rider returns to a relaxed, draped leg that is not asking for anything.
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Pinching your knee is trying to stay on the horse by pressing the knees in. This acts like a clothes pin and you are forced up out of the saddle.
Closing the knee and above you could say closing the thigh is an aide to the horse and the rider is no longer top heavy and in the saddle.
Remember a horse only needs an aide as strong as a fly sitting on their side.
Eg clothes pinned knees on the horse shies. The rider is left in mid air and parts company.
In the saddle comes with hours in the saddle and especially being lunged without stirrups. The horse shies and the rider goes with the horse and does not part company, even in ejector seat dressage saddles.
When you read about applying leg, remember that the leg starts at the hip.
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