Had a long tiring weekend at work. Last Thursday when I was going to ride, it was freakishly windy.My friend got bucked off of her horse. We spent all afternoon, before I had to go to work, in the emergency room. Luckily, nothing’s broken, and she is fine.
Then it was work all weekend…today was the first time in the saddle since Wednesday…
Your post seems to have helped me, with time I’m hoping it’ll get better. Now that I’ve watched video my friend recorded today, I’m more confused. More on that later.
[QUOTE=mvp;6967953]
More on what I meant:
I’m guessing that the reason you could sit in the deep 15" but not the shallow one is because that seat held you in one place— so if you were stiff in the knee and hip, the saddle didn’t let you move around enough to know it. Now the shallow one lets you move-- which should come from your pelvis-- and it’s revealed that you don’t follow from that part of your body. D’oh!–It felt as if there was more room to move in the old saddle, even if it held me in place. My pelvis was usually very fluid with Zeph’s motion, but definitely sitting on the edge of my seat bones…My interpretation of when someone says “ride your pockets”.That tends to want to round my lower back though.While my hip and knee were stiff, there was room.The new one feels as if my butt is pushed up against and almost over what little cantle there is. In a trot,it feels like I’m going to ride the upper edge of the cantle. So maybe that is confusing me?
Also, it’s rare that the person “bracing in the stirrups” feels the most pressure on the balls of their feet. I think they are holding their leg straight from the hip to the knee; the ankle moves some. They might have sore sitting bones in a hard-seat saddle and if they are bracing badly.That’s correct, I am bracing, and rarely feel any pressure on the balls of the feet.Funny, my seat bones do hurt usually, when they did not before. This is starting to convince me.
So you need to relearn follow. IMO, bareback will get you only so far. If I were standing in the ring with you, we’d talk about what you feel in this saddle while you are walking: If you are following with your seat, how would you describe what you are doing with your body? What can you feel? Any images that capture it for you?Today just walking in the arena, I found myself trying to brace, so took my feet out of the stirrups, but kept my knees bent and heels down to get a feel for as you say “leg melting around the horse”. I pictured my legs to be like the legs of a plastic indian molded to fit on a toy horse! It felt as if my seat bone on one side would come up against his back on the same side as he’s stepping with that rear leg.It would push me up and forward on that side.Once my feet were back in the stirrups,I found that instead of moving my legs forward or back to give a cue, I had to just rotate my hips in their sockets to apply the pressure. This was the only thing that worked without tightening up my inner thigh and thus lifting my seat out of the saddle.It took a lot of concentration, and remembering to relax!
For me, this means I can feel both sitting bones and my pubic bone. I stretch out the front of my body-- from my belt buckle up, but I try to notice if I can feel it stretching down, too. (I have been told that I ride like a guy–crotch anchored right down there on the front of the saddle so that no soft parts pre-arranged to be out of the way could get caught. It’s also how you engage your core, which is the only basis for sitting some fugly trots). Also, I feel like my leg is melting around the horse. You could tie a parachute hanging low behind the horse to each of my ankles, and I’d be pulled down, around the horse— but without any muscular effort from me.Funny this made a lot of sense! I basically tried to picture it like this: Forgive me if this sounds crass, but I tried to picture a suction cup of sorts in the space from my pubic bone to the seat bones. It causes me to arch my back more and sit up more straight in the saddle, but if I stay relaxed and go with the horse, I don’t bounce. Makes it hard to relax the back. Each time my legs would try and tighten or move forward to brace today, it was a conscious effort to relax my legs stretching down around him.
In any case, pick what works for you at the walk-- when you look tall and drapped around the horse. And then! Pick up a jog. Recheck to see if you can reproduce the feelings in your body that you had when you were that tall, elegant equitation rider at the walk. When you lose it, walk again. When you get better at this, you’ll start to lose it “take your inventory” and then be able to recapture what you had with your seat at the walk. Think I may have moved too fast today, and tried too much trotting and some loping.Trying to make up for lost time over the weekend:) Steering,transitions, and stopping are terrible but it will come in time.At least today I’m not red black and blue from gripping the sides of the saddle with my knees! Hopefully that’s a positive sign.
That’s all. Sitting well does take some fitness. IMO, it’s better to do it right for short stretches than to do it wrong for any amount of time. You will get better at it! And when you do, the size/shape of the saddle won’t make so much difference.[/QUOTE]
Thanks so much! I will just keep trying! I also started doing the circles with no inside stirrup, and can feel why it will help.
And I did what people are suggesting - went back to the bare basic position check/trot/position check and correction/trot, repeat ad nauseum until I reprogrammed my muscle memory.
