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

[runNjump86]

@findeight

Im thinking OP is locked up in the hips…maybe thinking bend over at the waist instead of close hip angle? Flexibility too, especially in the hamstrings and lower back. That was the root of my difficulty with this. It got easier once I was aware.

After watching video of OP I am saying she’s locked in her hips and back, because that’s what happens to me. We have a VERY similar style of riding and my low back and hips always tense up, causing me to drive with my seat even when I don’t realize it, which causes my horse to change right before a jump. This is literally what I have been working on for months now. :lol:

OP I know you think you’re light, but you’re driving. What helped me was to just think “sit still”. When I forced myself to be “still”, I stopped driving. Breathing into your core, yoga-style, helps with the lower back. Do the rider’s push up, tie your stirrups, and sit “still”. Or better yet, sit chilly. That’s what I’ve been told and have done and it truly helps. It’s something I still struggle with, but I feel that if I was in a regular once a week lesson program I would have made much more progress.

[Jealoushe]

Watching the video, it looks like you just need to come over your stirrup a bit more. Like I had mentioned before with your thighs hitting the top of your saddle flaps in every stride. It’s hard to explain, and if you are defensive it is a really hard position to be in. I know a jumper coach who could help you with this in one or two lessons, if you are interested.

[CindyCRNA]

I tried the riders pushup today. I think this will be a useful exercise! It took me a few attempts at the walk to get it right.

[lecoeurtriste]

A million years ago when I was a kid, I had a coach who would have us practice riding with our stirrups on the back of our heels (versus slipping our toes through like normal). While this was primarily to get us to feel the weight coming down the leg into the heel, it had secondary effects of keeping your leg under you and making it impossible to pinch with your knee. It’s not very comfortable, but maybe give it a try on the flat? If your leg drifts back or you begin to pinch at the knee, the stirrup will fall off. Eventually, we also got to do small gymnastics like this too.

[rennyben]

Another great exercise to fix 2point that my trainer has me do is “up, up, downs” – you post but stay up for 2 beats, sit one, up two - or up up down. You can’t do them if your balance isn’t in your leg.

I’m not a trainer but it looks like you’re behind the motion then have to make a giant move at the jump. Maybe when you fall you are lightening your seat or closing you hip on the approach but still making that big move bc it’s a habit. That would throw you way up out of balance.

I’m having to unlearn a habit now and it stinks. I open my hip on landing (defensive XC riding) but in show jumping it drops your horses back over the jump and can affect striding in a line so it needs to go. But years of jumping that way is hard to undo. Sigh.

[leheath]

It’s hard to tell from the video, but I would look carefully at the balance of your saddle. It looks like when you sit before the jumps, you are too slightly tipped back so you have to make a big move to stay with your horse over the jumps. Is your saddle really level, or slightly higher at the front? I had somewhat similar problems to what I see in your video and it turned out I was (unsuccessfully) fighting the balance of the saddle. I started by trying a rear riser pad and it was a big improvement. Ultimately, I got a different saddle with the correct balance for me and suddenly I had no problem riding the way instructors kept asking me to and many of my position problems disappeared. I no longer had to make big moves with my upper body at the jump, my leg was more easily and naturally in the correct position to support my position, and my horse and I were much happier!

[Ryde_XC]

Lots of good exercises you’ve been given and I’ll add another. I think a key point is also being able to move between positions. It’s not that you want one position or another, you want a whole range that you can smoothly adapt to a situation. So being able to smoothly go from a light seat to a deeper seat and back again without disrupting. I’d practice going 10 steps 2pt, 10 steps posting, 10 steps sitting (or however many steps you want) and you can do it at the canter as well. A key point is to maintain the same rythmn as you change, and when comfortable lapping the arena like that start adding in arena figures and how you have to maintain the position even in different turns etc.

[subk]

@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.

^^^ This is a version of a squat. Strengthening your posterior chain will go a long, long way to making you feel more secure and nothing does it better or more efficiently than squats. Get thee to a gym and throw in some dead lifts and you will be amazed at how quickly you start feeling more secure.

[RedHorses]

Something that might give you an idea of the degree of difference between full and light seat is this little exercise.

Stand up. Feel your weight evenly spread over both feet. Feel your straight body. Without lifting your heels put your weight in your toes. Feel how your body shifts forward slightly. Without lifting your toes, put your weight in your heels. Feel how your body shifts back slightly. Go back and forth until you have a sense of how your body moves forward and back, then take that feeling to the horse.

On horseback you will be shifting your weight in your seat, not feet, but the degree of motion is similar (not much). Shift forward. Shift back - feel how this puts you in position to drive with your seat. Shift forward - feel how this lightens the drive.

This is not a strengthening exercise. It is a proprioception exercise to help you learn the feel. Strength exercises will help you keep that feel in motion.

[tbchick84]

@CindyCRNA

I tried the riders pushup today. I think this will be a useful exercise! It took me a few attempts at the walk to get it right.

I tried it today. Love this exercise!

[RockstarPony]

OP, is your coach thinking of a light seat like the big show jumping & equitation riders do? I had a similar problem, where my coach was always telling me to be “lighter.” I can’t remember what made it click, but eventually I realized that she wanted a much more open, upright position than I was used to.

I tended to either go low and forward in a proper galloping position, or I’d sit super deep and drop my shoulders back and drive. I found that thinking about basically standing straight up helped a lot. At first I had a hell of a time trying to stay in that spot. It felt super awkward to stay up without any help from my seat or my seat, and if I went much lower than just plain standing, I’d pretty much topple back into that deep seat.

I ended up doing a lot of, like, holding the stand for a minute, then dropping, or holding for one side of the arena but letting myself sit around turns. I still struggle with it if I’m getting tired or freaked out, but it has gotten a lot easier to control and to sit softly without unnecessary whomping.

A big thing that helped me learn to hold the lighter seat was just doing dryland drills in the gym. It takes some weird muscles that I really wasn’t used to using, and the balance felt really different for a while. I ended up doing a lot of squats, using weight machines for certain muscles, and practicing controlling the deepness of my two-point on a balance board.

Another thing that might be screwing you up is just your horse’s confidence in your position. I haven’t trained a horse out of this, but I have met some in the past who’d sort of been taught (accidentally or on purpose) to wait for that driving seat cue. It sounds like you’ve done most of the training on him, and maybe he’s just a bit thrown off by the new cues and unsure of how he’s supposed to respond.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

I think you guys may be making things more complicated than needed. To have a lighter seat…stretch up, engaging your core, and just close your hip angle slightly. So instead of an open hip angle like you want for dressage (with your shoulders directly over you hips and seat bones in the saddle)…it is slightly closed like two point. Your shoulders will come slightly in front of your hips when riding but not too much (and why you have to stretch up—you don’t want your top tipping fwd) but the slight close of your hip angle will rotate your pelvis a bit forward and lift up your seat. Sit in a chair and try it…you should feel how you can change your “seat” just by changing your hip angle.

Watch some hunter riders in a hack class…more like that then a dressage rider.

Years of riding hot sensitive horses and this is my default position.

when you are “locked” in your lower back…this is hard. So practice off the horse. Some Latin dancing…loosen your hips and back!! But feel off the saddle how you can move those different body parts…it will then help you in the saddle.

[Jackie_Cochran]

I have been doing the rider’s push-ups for the last two weeks. My riding teacher told me during my last lesson that it was helping my side-to-side balance in the saddle after I sat down.

Today I noticed that when I sat back down I was sitting really deep in the saddle, like doing the rider’s push-ups had unlocked something in my hip joints that had prevented me from sitting deeper into the saddle. I had not been able to sit as deep in the saddle for decades!

[Marigold]

@Jackie Cochran

I have been doing the rider’s push-ups for the last two weeks. My riding teacher told me during my last lesson that it was helping my side-to-side balance in the saddle after I sat down.

Today I noticed that when I sat back down I was sitting really deep in the saddle, like doing the rider’s push-ups had unlocked something in my hip joints that had prevented me from sitting deeper into the saddle. I had not been able to sit as deep in the saddle for decades!

I’ve been doing them too since I read about them here, and I’m loving it! By going slowly, I realized there is a specific point as I lower my chest where my heel would rather lift than allow my hips to give. I can do it correctly, but it requires brainpower. This is explaining some things… Thank you so much for sharing @McGurk!

[bornfreenowexpensive]

See the rider push-ups do nothing for me and are VERY easy. But I think I’m very flexible in my hips and have been told that I have a soft lower back (in a good way).

But if those Rider push-up help you feel how you can open and close your hips…then I think that is great! I suspect you can get the same feel off the horse too in a squat position and then making a similar move as the rider push up on the horse.

[tbchick84]

I am love love loving the rider push-ups. I just learned about them from this thread and already I am more plugged into my horse and my muscle memory is already being reset for jumping. Instead of jumping ahead, my hips are going back like they should be. The very first one I did, I realized I had to pretty much kiss my horse’s withers in order to stay balanced and not falling down. It was very eye opening how far my hips needed to go back to fold correctly. Awesome exercise!!

[McGurk]

BFNE,

It doesn’t surprise at all that you find them easy.

It is more of a “create the correct muscle memory” exercise than a strength exercise, and I suspect your muscle memory is already correct and well established.

The difference between this exercise and doing a modified squat in the gym is the that on the ground, your lower leg is planted on the ground and fixed. So while there may be some value off the horse, the real value is on the horse. What a lot of people find out doing the exercise is that at a certain point of hip flexion, their heel or lower leg moves (as Marigold described above.) Or that they bend at the waist, not the hip. Or that they’re pushed forward when the horse jumps on their locked knee, rather than allowing their hip to work.

Combined with tying stirrups to the girth, it can be eye opening. I’ve had students (competent students who were jumping courses and showing) realize that they had NEVER been over the middle of the saddle in the air, or that their hip was sticky at a certain point or that the lower leg that they thought was secure was loosened at some point when they correctly followed the motion.

It’s not the be all and end all, but it’s a good tool. And as always, your mileage may vary.

Thanks to the folks that shared positive comments - it’s tough sometimes online, wondering whether it’s worth typing out a long explanation. Glad it helped!