Working on a new jump seat and hating it...

[LadyB]

I’ve been riding with this coach for two years-ish now, she’s fixing all the holes in my training that I had from the last 6 years. I’m absolutely loving riding with her. She gives me confidence, she’s made us quite the team in such a short period of time. I can’t believe how much we’ve progressed as a team on cross country.

The problem is, she wants me to have a lighter seat. For song long I thought I was riding with my leg, to find out I wasn’t. I’ve been pinching and driving with my seat. Inverting my horse at times and hollowing him out. I always thought that was just his way or going. I know he’ll never be a round horse when jumping, he will always be head up, but with this new style he will be more through. So I try to keep a light seat, but I feel tipped and less reactive. I’m falling off. I’m finding it easy to be unseated in this position. Maybe I’m being too light, I tend to be a rider that is extreme, when you tell me to give I let go, bad haha but it’s how I work for some dumb reason.

I’m ticked at myself that I can’t for the life of me get this. Yesterday we were show jumping at a show. The first fence was spooky, I came in light, but felt I needed to react, sat down, clucked and he leaped lovely over the fence. That is the reaction I need. Came into a one stride line, and came in under paced, and had nothing to the out, and instead of reacting, I did nothing and came off. Because I was staying light, and not behind.

So I am looking for other ideas to help me understand this seat and get better at it. I understand what she wants, but I’m struggling with it. I hate trying it at shows, but it needs to happen. It’s not a hunter seat, its not my butt out of the saddle. I just need to be lighter with my tush. I tend to sit heavy and drive. With my butt. But I’ve learned that your legs can do a lot! Who knew! It’s a wonderful feeling when you actually use your legs, but I can’t be light. I feel wrong, and hate how easily unseated I am with it. I know you have to keep practicing, and I do try, but I’m wondering if there are exercised out there that can help me?

I am normally a very balanced rider, and I try to stick any unseated-ness, but it’s near impossible lately. I don’t fall often, but have a lot this year. I hate it.

My horse is not dirty, and will go if you say it’s ok to go. He will question it, but you apply leg and he’s great. He’s not nasty, just looky. But if you aren’t certain, he’s not either. We have successfully been going training level, and attempted Prelim again this past weekend. We rocked this prelim event last year, so was super excited to go cross country there again this year. We felt ready, I was not nervous and felt this was the right course for us. But this light position I feel is holding me back.

Thoughts, tips, help me? Give me ideas on how to better myself and improve this position.

TIA!

[Hilary]

How secure do you feel out conditioning in 2 points? How about at the trot? Changing a lifetime habit is hard! Also, your saddle may be contributing. There are jump saddles that encourage a lighter seat and those that make you feel like you could tackle Beecher’s Brook. Trying to sit deep in the first or light in the second is really really hard.

If you feel you are strong but not secure, try a different saddle. My example of each are that the Prestige eventer and Amerigo Deep Jump allow your leg to be underneath you and your seat light, and the Ainsley Chester, and Barnsby Diablo have more of a ‘backseat’ sort of balance. For one horse I used the Prestige for SJ and the Chester for XC because I needed the different balances.

If you feel balanced but weak, you may just need more miles out of the saddle - trotting in 2 point is much harder than cantering so when you do your conditioning work, be up and out of the tack unless you’re walking.

[Jealoushe]

The course was really tough, so that was probably not helping. This is the way my jumping coach teaches too. He gives me some sayings that helps be a reminder. The thing is, it is really hard, especially if you aren’t used to riding that way. Takes time to get used to it and also for your body to become accustomed. The more practice the easier it will become!

One thing he has told me, was imagine there is a table in front of you and there are books on the end, and you use your belly button or belt buckle to push those books back onto the table.

You have to feel the front of your saddle in your thigh. Every canter stride, you should feel the saddle connecting there. We practice a lot in trot, sitting, and just feel the saddle, bump bump bump in the thigh. Another term he uses is “over your stirrup”. So I get up out of the saddle and feel the fronts in my thigh, and have your legs under you wrapped around the horses barrel.

[findeight]

There are ways to stay on the pace without sitting into the horse, I’m guessing you haven’t broken the code on using your legs in tne lighter seat, leading me to believe you are leading with the shoulder and standing up to lighten the seat. It’s a hip angle thing, light seat only needs to be and inch or two out of the seat and shoulder stays back.

Its a very common issue over in Hunterland. Think about closing your hip angle, bend slightly forward at the waist, flatten your back without changing the weight in your irons. That takes the weight off the saddle. You might find looking at videos helpful, especially the Bg Eq riders. Not to look like them but to study how they use their hip angle to regulate weight in the tack and the pace/balance of the horse.

Sounds a little complicated, really not.

[LadyB]

@Hilary I have a Prestige Passion D, it’s a medium deep seat, but doesn’t hold me in, but it doesn’t encourage the lighter seat, so I do think I’m having to fight it.

When I think lighter seat, I automatically think tipped. This is wrong, I know it’s wrong, but it’s how my body moves to create the light seat. Maybe I need to think more standing?

It’s definitely hard trying to teach yourself all new stuff, but I feel the improvement when I start to naturally do the new way of riding. It’s just getting to that, just the consequences with this lately sucks. And is costly. Since it’s happening at shows, or wasting air canisters lol.

I have barely done fitness sets this season due to the exceptional amount of rain, the field I go in has been sop, and my back trail has been barely usable. So yes I could go around my 20x40 ring, but even that that’s not doing the job. The trot IS harder in my two point for sure.

[Marigold]

@LadyB

I’ve been riding with this coach for two years-ish now, she’s fixing all the holes in my training that I had from the last 6 years. I’m absolutely loving riding with her. She gives me confidence, she’s made us quite the team in such a short period of time. I can’t believe how much we’ve progressed as a team on cross country.

…I try to keep a light seat, but I feel tipped and less reactive. I’m falling off. I’m finding it easy to be unseated in this position.

…So I am looking for other ideas to help me understand this seat and get better at it. I understand what she wants, but I’m struggling with it. I hate trying it at shows, but it needs to happen. …I know you have to keep practicing, and I do try, but I’m wondering if there are exercised out there that can help me?

I am normally a very balanced rider, and I try to stick any unseated-ness, but it’s near impossible lately. I don’t fall often, but have a lot this year. I hate it.

The bold - you hit the nail on the head. That’s really all it is, unfortunately. There’s no magic answer that I know of!

I did the same thing a few years ago. Switched coaches, and basically got told that what I was doing was fine for the level I was competing at the time, but if I wanted to get past that we’d need to do some serious rebuilding of my position. It. Took. Forever. Just jumping the tiniest little fences, barely more than a cavaletti (about a quarter of the height I’d been regularly jumping in coursework previously). This went on for well over a year. And then one day, the jumps slowly started to go up again, and now I’m starting to notice options I have in my riding that I didn’t have before. But this took well, well over a year! (You could probably do it faster taking lessons more often, all depends on your schedule).

You just have to do the work where the jumps are so small that your brain can be entirely dedicated to whatever you are trying to adjust. You have no muscle memory yet (or rather, you have the WRONG muscle memory), so you have to use your actual brain until your muscles internalize what your brain is saying. They don’t call it the 10,000 hour rule for nothing, unfortunately.

That said, stick with it! If you really trust the coach and like the direction she’s taking you in, have faith and commit to the long game. Or, if you thought where you were was enough for you to accomplish your riding goals, there’s no shame in sticking with that. We don’t all need to be Phillip Dutton.

[LadyB]

@Marigold Thank you. I only do about one lesson every 2 weeks, because it’s all I can afford. I have set up jumps at home, half the height I feel comfortable with when I’m with a coach. I’ve been working on my eye, and letting go, but not so much on the lighter seat. I guess I’ll keep trekking and hoping it’ll click. The letting go is starting to happen more naturally, but I still like ti sit. I squeeze and sit, but I need to squeeze and be lighter, but not tipped, so hopefully I can work at that going forward. I know it won’t happen over night, but I hate that I can’t seem to get my sh*t together.

[Saskatoonian]

It feels like it takes forever to incorporate fundamental changes enough that they’re automatic in the moment - so much sympathy in that dept! Sounds like it’s coming though - just needs to be a little more ingrained to apply at shows?

Second the saddle possibility. Sitting light in my Stackhouse is a totally different game than sitting light in my Beval. One thing that helps me is to alternate between two point and sitting every 5 strides or so and to make sure the canter doesn’t change. And hmm, what about posting the canter - would that help? Because when I do that I automatically sit lighter.

Good luck!

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Your seat doesn’t make your horse go. If you are falling off…it has to do with balance and likely your your leg potision not your seat. First…make sure you are strong in your core. That you can switch from posting to two point to a half seat easily. But I would suspect that your balance is lacking in correct leg position and that is why you come off. If your leg is not solid (slipping back or forward), then it doesn’t take much to come off. You should be able to make your horse stop and go without EVER touching the saddle…and in a light two point, even if your horse stops…if your balance is right, you shouldn’t be falling off no matter how quick stop your horse may be. If your balance and position is not strong enough, that is why you are falling back into the saddle (which is easier).

And it can be your saddle…if the balance point is not right for you in the saddle…this is where it shows the most.

ETA: changing is never easy but this sounds like in the end, it will really help your riding. I spent a winter (20 years ago) jumping with a stick behind my back (it fixes your lower leg not back). And it fixed my leg position…for good…it was NOT easy!

[Blugal]

I had to learn this a few years ago, and it was really hard! I was with one of those old-school nasty trainers that just forced me to practice even if I was/until I was falling off. I would trot around the ring for 20 minutes of warm-up in 2-point but also standing straight in the stirrups but with no contact on the mouth. This was terribly difficult at first and my legs would just burn. I kept falling forward and grabbing mane. However, after a few weeks of doing this, I was able to do this out hacking, up and down hills, and go from standing up to 2-point to light seat to full seat, and everything in between.

At the time I was trying to learn to ride in a hunter style as I had some horses that were more suited to be sold in the H/J world. There was a LOT of loping around 2’3" courses while I tried to “get it”!!!

Once I did get it, I was then able to go to a SJ coach who finally made show jumping make sense for me. I was able to use that lighter position, and then extend the front of my body (hips to chest) and hold my core steady, so that my body was under control and my hands felt separate from it. From there, I finally had the independent seat allowing me to ride in a light seat, use my legs to my hands, and not be falling all over the place out of balance whenever the slightest thing happened.

And the craziest thing… I started having clear SJ rounds! And I wasn’t so nervous because I could now put together a connected, balanced canter and keep it that way, so all my distances were coming to me!

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[McGurk]

Every time you rise out of your saddle in a two point or half seat, think “hips back” or “close your hip angle” Your balance should NOT change when you move into two point, but if you just stand up in your stirrups you will tip forward and weight the horse’s neck. Think of your head, neck and torso as a lever - if the top of the lever is pulled forward, the bottom of the lever must go back.

You can practice an exercise called the ‘rider’s pushup’. Start at the halt. Find a balanced two point that you can maintain without support from the neck. Slowly close your hip, staying out of the saddle, leg on, eyes focused up, until your chest touches the horses neck, and slowly come back up to your two point. Your hip will HAVE to go back for you stay in balance, if it doesn’t you’ll fall forward onto the neck. Once your comfortable with that at that the halt, progress to doing it at the walk and trot. Once you’ve got it solid at w/t practice at the canter, along with shortening and lengthening the canter and gallop stride: more hip angle = longer stride; less hip angle = shorter stride.

You should be able to gallop your entire cross country course regulating stride by opening and closing your hip angle, and only taking a full seat when you need to ride defensively.

Here’s another tip - if your pubic bone bumps the pommel of the saddle, you’re too far forward - push your hips back until your crotch is over the middle of the saddle, not bumping the pommel.

Remember the old adage about practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect? Make sure you’re practicing the right thing. 20 minutes trotting in two point won’t help if the two point isn’t balanced; you’re just reinforcing a different bad habit. 5 minutes of correct two point, balanced over your stirrups, no support from the neck, is better.

[Marigold]

@LadyB

@Marigold Thank you. I only do about one lesson every 2 weeks, because it’s all I can afford. I have set up jumps at home, half the height I feel comfortable with when I’m with a coach. I’ve been working on my eye, and letting go, but not so much on the lighter seat. I guess I’ll keep trekking and hoping it’ll click. The letting go is starting to happen more naturally, but I still like ti sit. I squeeze and sit, but I need to squeeze and be lighter, but not tipped, so hopefully I can work at that going forward. I know it won’t happen over night, but I hate that I can’t seem to get my sh*t together.

No problem I’ve been there, I know the struggle! It will definitely help to focus on the “new skill” every single time you jump. Going back and forth will just make it take longer to build the muscle memory. It’s definitely tough doing it mid-season (I was between horses when I went through this process, so not showing).

It sounds like you trust your coach and want to implement this change in yourself - as long as all of that is true and you commit to the process, your sh*t will come together eventually. I promise

[pony_grandma]

@LadyB

@Hilary

When I think lighter seat, I automatically think tipped. This is wrong, I know it’s wrong, but it’s how my body moves to create the light seat. Maybe I need to think more standing?

Try thinking ‘sink.’ Shoulder over hips, sink hips, over heel, using the alignment there and from your lower leg to carry your seat - balanced.

[Blugal]

Another thing you can try is doing 2-point without stirrups. It’s almost impossible to be too far out of the saddle.

[Sticky_Situation]

I agree with BFNE … it sounds like the problem is not what your butt or shoulders are doing, but that you need to work on strengthening the base of support in your leg. That is what keeps you on the horse when things get hairy … not so much the position of your butt or shoulders. Rather than thinking of keeping your seat up out of the saddle, it might help to focus on keeping you weight distributed down along your leg and ‘around’ the horse … then even when you are sitting in the saddle, you’re light, not heavy and driving and causing him to hollow out and lose his connection.

I went through a similar situation when I was a teenager … I was initially largely “self-taught” when it came to my equitation over fences, and I rode a pony with a tendency to stop so I learned to sit back and drive as well, and equated a light seat with the ‘hunter perch.’ It was a lot of work to fix, and changing my way of thinking, to realize that by sitting heavily and driving I was interfering with my horse’s jump rather than staying light and allowing him to do his job… and learning to feel when a horse is in front of the leg and establish that, because having him in front of the leg from the get go is much more effective than trying to drive him over a fence with your seat!

[LadyB]

Thanks everyone for even sharing the difficulty of the same situation. Nice to not feel alone.

So far from this thread, I need to sink more into my heels, and do two point work.

Is there anything else I could do to improve? I ride so much in my dressage saddle, it looks like I’ll start doing more flat work in my jump to get more used to it.

[Saskatoonian]

I bet just riding more in your jump saddle will help a lot. I spent 6 weeks riding exclusively in my jump saddle - dressage lessons, no stirrups and all - and it did wonders for my position. For me it was really a question of being comfortable sitting in it, since I’d spent most of the winter in my dressage saddle.

[LadyB]

@Saskatoonian I used to love riding in my jump, but then I started really getting the dressage and really enjoying it and thriving at it, so I barely break out the jump saddle. Looks like I have to make it mandatory. I love my jump, but I don’t flat in it as nicely as I could, but I also don’t drop my stirrups when flatting in it, maybe I shall do that as well.

[findeight]

@McGurk

?..

You can practice an exercise called the ‘rider’s pushup’. Start at the halt. Find a balanced two point that you can maintain without support from the neck. Slowly close your hip, staying out of the saddle, leg on, eyes focused up, until your chest touches the horses neck, and slowly come back up to your two point. Your hip will HAVE to go back for you stay in balance, if it doesn’t you’ll fall forward onto the neck. Once your comfortable with that at that the halt, progress to doing it at the walk and trot. Once you’ve got it solid at w/t practice at the canter, along with shortening and lengthening the canter and gallop stride: more hip angle = longer stride; less hip angle = shorter stride.

…

That is the single, most difficult exercise I ever struggled to master and it’s the one that made the lightbulb go on about hip angle and the subtle ways it manages your secuirity and the horses pace while staying out of the horses way over fences. It also engaged my core and got my weight going down into the heels via the hamstring, like it’s supposed to, lost the swing back leg p, grippy knee and standing in irons too. And stopped coming off. My Hunter quit having so many rubs behind and had much cleaner changes.

Just start it at the halt and don’t rush moving into the gaits…its harder then you think. Much harder. You’ll be sore in your abs and hammies, not so much inside of the thigh.

Many lessons as I’ve had or watched and other riders I’ve watched doing the same, almost never hear " hip angle" from the trainers…and that’s a shame since that’s how you get from full to half seat to numerous variations all the way to letting the horse fold you off the ground. Pity. Its easier to understand then changing your seat.

[PaperPony]

I have been struggling with this exact same thing for the past 1-2 years.

I have recently switched from riding my prelim horse to a young OTTB. Although it isn’t technically “correct,” I basically give myself a free pass at events/shows to do whatever it takes to stay on the horse. Last weekend, I went to a jumper show and for the first round I just did whatever I needed to to stay on the horse and make it over all the jumps in the right order. The next few rounds I played with my position a little. This may be making it take longer for me to fix my problems, but I feel like sometimes its more important to just stay on the dang horse and finish the round (for both my confidence and my horses) even at the sake of having a slightly incorrect position. At home, I have a really reliable, rhythmic, slow horse to practice on, which helps.

Riding with a local hunter/jumper coach has given me some new exercises: Jumping with one hand on reins & the other pointing at the horse’s ears/out to the side. Half seat with my hands UP --no weight in hands --hands at nearly chest height. I’ve also been riding and jumping bareback --this is supposed to help, but I find that I can jump rather decent courses extremely well bareback, but can’t replicate it the same way while in a “light seat” in the saddle.