*Note: It's quite natural and common to have to learn to develop correct leg position, as it would be unnatural to automatically have perfect leg position when you are learning to ride.
If your legs are away from the horse's sides, you won't feel it when he takes a step. The horse will actually have to walk into your leg before you feel him.
Here is an easy exercise you can do to improve your leg strength, position, and feel:
- Take your feet out of the stirrups.
- Keep your heels down with your toes pointed slightly out.
- Wrap your legs around your horse with your entire leg all the way down to your heel (depending on the length of your leg, some tall riders legs may extend past the horse's sides and won't be able to keep the heel next to the horse) while maintaining complete contact with your horse's sides.
- Hold your legs in that position and focus on feeling each step the horse takes.
After a while, if you are doing it correctly your legs should begin to burn. If your legs don't burn, you probably are not doing the exercise correctly.
There are of course times that your leg will be away from your horse's sides, but if you never put your leg next to your horse's side you won't be able to feel him.
It's kind of like looking a piece of fabric, pointing at it and not touching it and then expecting to know what it feels like. It's impossible to feel what you don't touch.
Deanna
3 comments:
This is one of the reasons I like to ride bareback. It increases the communication between the horse and I. Horses are so sensitive to changes in posture, leg pressure, etc. I tell people to remember that they can feel a fly land on the hair on their back, they can certainly feel you shift your weight or press with a leg and to make sure that the signals you send are not confusing.
I know what you mean about teaching 'the feel'...I make it my first aim with all beginners!
However, I don't allow any squeezing etc I tell them to sit softly with their legs just down from hip joints and out of the stirrups. We then take each leg away and turn the thighs inwards ever so slightly then replace the leg flat by the horse's side.
I then move the horse into walk and ask the rider to try to feel their seat bones moving on the saddle - one down-forwards the other one up-backwards as the horse's back dips and rises on both sides of the spine.
If they cannot feel that I ask them to put their legs in front of the saddle so the seat bones really can be felt and I haven't had a single person yet not getting it after this exercise ;)
Once they can feel the seat bones moving I ask them to gently keep the legs around the horse's ribcage, as if just to feel the hair (no pressure applied though!) and feel the ribcage swaying from left to right in the rhythm of the horse's hind legs stepping under the belly and pushing against the ground.
I ask them to imagine their legs breathing with the horse so they allow one hip joint to open when the ribcage bulges out and the other close gently when the ribcage hollows away.
I find that this method teaches the rider to really feel the steps/horse's leg action and later makes them use their driving aids in a synchronised manner instead of random kicks/taps/squeezes which only achieve random responses.
:)
I am going to try that wiola :) I appreciate the info for the exercise and I'm excited to try it!
You are so right, bareback is a huge help to teach feel cindys. It's so nice to have instructors comment, I think there should be some type of instructor forum where we could share our ideas and exercises. It's great having additional perspectives.
Deanna
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