Thanks to my sister-in-law, I'm reading Hunter Seat Equitation by George Morris. It was first written in the early 70's and is an excellent learning tool as far as the details and rationale behind hunt seat riding. I've already learned a lot, and I've just begun the book. The first important improvement was my stirrup length. George Morris points out that while a shorter stirrup length is very helpful as far as being light on the horses back over fences, dropping them down by a hole will make for a more stable leg. He recommends a middle length (dressage riders usually have longer stirrups, while jumpers have shorter stirrups) in the beginning while you're developing your leg strength.
Huge difference. I felt way more stable yesterday and rode deeper, consequently controlling my horse better. Because I wasn't worrying about why my leg was flopping about, I had the time and concentration to work on sitting up straight and keeping my hands soft, yet maintaining contact. It yielded great results.
We also started working on turning on the forehand and turning on the backhand (hind end). The former is pretty simple for me to understand, but the latter is much harder. If you're not using your legs correctly as aids exactly when you need to in perfect coordination with your rein aids, this move turns into a small circle, which is not the exercise at all.
All this good information makes me wonder, with all my years of riding as a kid and teenager, why didn't someone recommend this book to me before? Why weren't my instructors informing me as to why "inside leg, outside rein"? Why was I just told "do this" instead of "you do this so that the horse will do x. If you do another thing, the horse will do y"?
I think this is the difference between having a trainer who shows on the C and B circuits and a trainer who goes to the Maclay finals.
Not that George Morris is my trainer or anything, but what he says is perfectly supporting everything my current trainer has been saying, so I'm going with it. Clearly she was taught by someone who knew the same fundamentals as Mr. Morris. I'm becoming such a better rider than I was when I was young, despite not having a horse / pony of my own and riding every day. I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd had a better instructor from the beginning. Would I have gone to a college where I could have gotten a riding scholarship? Would I have competed at top shows across the country? Would I have driven my poor father into early poverty by begging (and getting) a horse that cost more than the cost of the cars we drove combined?
Maybe. Or maybe this information is sinking in with me now, as an adult, because I care about it more and am coming back to this sport. And, as I'm paying for it myself, I want to get the most out of my money.
In other news, my summer pony is doing well. He's gotten a bit of a bite on his haunches, which we're treating, and his hives got worse yesterday. But, with a bit of exercise and a cooling rinse, they were diminished by half, so I'm happy. I'm looking forward to trying out Mr. Morris' "no stirrup" exercises with him on Wednesday.
Oh, my poor legs.
No comments:
Post a Comment