I agree with everyone else! You should practice without stirrups so you can relearn the feel of posting!
Also you need to stop thinking of posting like squatting up and down and think of it more as a situp. Posting should come from your hips and abs, not the legs 
Good luck!
Would 1 more opinion help or hinder
Posting trot is definitely hard to perfect. Its easy to lift your butt out and into the saddle and when learning people will say things like “stand up” or ‘up and down’. As you progress, its a feeling, your leg will be ‘draped’ around the horse (and even harder, is that it will be the inner front of your thigh that should be contacting the saddle)
For me, posting is letting the motion push my hips forward and gently placing myself back in the saddle (it all comes from core muscle) Im just getting the hang of ‘swing’ in the trot. more so its really relaxing the hip and harnessing the energy!
All the while, the leg must stay soft and its own entity (thigh on and leg relaxed so you can still use your legs independently for bend and pillar) .
without stirrups you’ll definitely be able to feel it better!
clear.as.mud haha
One of my students was given a physical therapy after a hip replacement to specifically help with posting. Kneel down, knees and toes flat on the ground. “Sit” on your heels, then raise your upper body up until your thigh and torso are straight up and down, then lower yourself slowly back to your heels, keep the lower leg against the ground.
It can help isolate the feeling of lifting from your abs
This is opposite of what pinching the knee means to me. I’ve always heard it used to mean when the bony part of the knee–the inside-front–is gripping the saddle tightly. Usually resulting in the thigh and calf both being off of the horse. Since the rider is then only really in contact at one point, if the horse roots, the rider spins right around their knee, with the upper body and upper leg going forward and the lower leg going backwards. I don’t have a good picture of this personally (although it’s definitely one of my sins), but if you search for people who have their lower leg swing back when jumping you can get some good pictures of people who have their whole body just rotated around their knee, with very obviously the knee being the only point in real contact with the horse.
In my experience it actually comes from too much devotion to “toes must point forward” without any consideration for what the actual goal is (whole leg in contact with the horse), so some people end up basically like a pair of straight lines on tangents to a circle.
This is why many of us have suggested a good biomechanics clinician who will, in real time, watch someone ride, and when she has it correct, will ask her to create her own label for the feeling (be it drape, pinch, noodle, etc.) and continue to use that word to recreate the imagery when the position changes in order to restore correct position/use of the body.
And its also also why people should refrain from “correcting” other commenters’ posts :).
1 - You don’t need a biomechanics clinician… you need a new instructor. An instructor should build your confidence and leave you feeling empowered, not tear you down and make riding no fun at all. You need an instructor who understands how the upper body and the hip influence the leg, because I would guess that the underlying issue is not with your leg at all. Almost no one sticks with the same trainer/instructor for 20 years - it’s natural to move on as things develop and change, and if you are this frustrated, IMO it is time.
2 - Read Centered Riding by Sally Swift. Ah. May. Zing. And cheap.
3 - You aren’t alone!!! We all have things like this that are just so tough to master. Hang in there!
From the one picture I saw, your stirrups look a bit short to me. When I first started, I had trouble getting my heels down. When I teach beginners, one of the first things I tell them is that your heels are your roots, they are extremely important to keep balance and to not grip with your knee. I found that if I put my toes on the bottom stair, and then flex my ankles, it really helped to train my ankles to be more flexible and therefore it was more natural to put my heels down.
You dont want to geip with your knee, but you want your calf to be solid around the barrel of your horse. With riding only once a week, it will be difficult for you to strengthen your leg but it can be done! Don’t get discouraged, we all learn every single day!
At the walk or even the standstill at first, hold on to horse mane (instead of the reins - no need to accidentally punish the horse and pull on the mouth) and push yourself up until you are standing, like you would be at the top of your post. Stay up for as long as possible, and allow yourself to make little adjustments until you are comfortable and secure. This should be a “safety zone” for you, as you are stretching your legs and forcing yourself to drop your weight so you don’t topple forward.
Every time you lose your balance or get tired and sit, push yourself back up and try again. Do this for 5-10 minutes over and over again, until you have a “home” in your rising stance.
When you start to trot, all you are doing is trying to get back to that comfortable, secure and stable spot, and then CONTROL your sitting (instead of falling down).
If you are secure, comfortable and happy in your stand, then you are fine. Instructors are (or should be) just trying to keep you safe and comfortable in unison with your horse.
You will never be able to post correctly and sit up straight in that saddle at the same time. It was designed for two-point. The stirrup bar is too far forward of the deepest part of the seat for you to ever have a proper dressage position in it no matter how much you lengthen the stirrups. Try a few different saddles. Eventually you will find one in which posting becomes easy because your leg is aligned with your body, and you will relax your knees and your leg will drape, and it will be easy. Fighting the saddle is futile.
That is not to say that you can’t continue dressage lessons in that saddle. Jumpers also need to collect and are generally well schooled in lateral movements, and of course flying changes, so those things certainly can be done in a jump saddle. All disciplines need to ride the horse straight, and bend, etc. You just won’t have a classical dressage position while doing it, and your instructor shouldn’t expect it of you.
Hi, I agree that your stirrups look short-ish, but… Your position looks good, your heel is down, you have good angles, not in a chair seat. So much to like, I can’t figure out why you are so discouraged! And try not to focus on sitting trot so much as your overall ride and influence on the horse. Posting trot is just a tool and should not be a point of obsessing! Most people on the Dressage forum are obsessing over sitting trot, and for good reason.
I’m learning myself after a lot longer than you’ve been riding. You might want to take a look at this article – the posture does the riding: http://www.dressagetechnique.com/PostureDTRiding.pdf
Good luck!
Ok that makes sense.
I actually don’t see much emphasis on toes forward in beginner lessons around here to the extent that when my sister came to watch a schooling show at our barn, she asked “so is riding with toes pointing forward not really done anymore?”
So when I see people struggling with seat or posting it is invariably also with the toes pointing out.
I think it depends on how old your trainer is… :lol: Definitely the younger ones seem to be more accepting of the idea that different people have different positions in which they are most effective, vs old skool “everyone must be at exactly the same angles at all times”.
You’ve had some great advice here, especially about saddle type and stirrup length.
Im no expert but one of the best pieces of advice I can give is to stop trying so hard and don’t overthink the whole thing. Focus on your upper body posture, not the posting itself. If you keep yourself in correct ear/shoulder/hip/heel alignment, you can’t be tipping forward and sitting on your crotch.
Instead of trying to force your heels down (which makes you grip with your legs) think about just letting your weight fall into your heels and keeping the stirrup on the ball of your foot when you post. You can do heel stretches like standing on the edge of a stair and let your heels hang down and that may help, but some people just aren’t conformationalky suited to have that extreme bend in the ankles.
When you do post, think of it as a forward movement with your abs / hips, rather than an upwards one, letting horse gently push you.
While you do want to keep your legs relaxed, you need a bit of tone in your upper leg / inner thigh to control the downward phase of the post, rather than thumping back in the saddle. If you focus more on landing softly than on riding out of the saddle, you may find it helps you too.
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