Advanced Western Riding. Kara L Stewart
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Название: Advanced Western Riding
Автор: Kara L Stewart
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Спорт, фитнес
Серия: Horse Illustrated Guide
isbn: 9781937049416
isbn:
To eliminate your braces, start by being aware of them. For example, when you’re driving or sitting at work, be aware of what you do. Notice whether you grip the steering wheel more tightly or hold the mouse with more force than is necessary. Try seeing how little effort you can use to do all the daily tasks in your life.
Use this same awareness to your horse. When you get on your horse, take a moment to scan your body, head to toe, for braces. If you become aware of one, try to let it go. In doing so, be careful that you don’t tense up one area to release another! Make everything easy and comfortable, and have fun with it. You can’t pass or fail. This process, both on and off your horse, really does last a lifetime.
Do you walk with your head down or take longer strides with one leg? Bring awareness to how you use your body and notice how others use theirs.
See whether you ride better when you release your brace, and notice how your horse responds. Try walking your horse while you are relaxed, then brace and tighten one leg, one arm, one hand, or one finger. See what happens. Does she slow down or speed up, flick her ears back and forth, clench her jaw, or swish her tail? Again, there are no right or wrong answers at this point; you’re just becoming aware of how everything you do affects your horse.
FIND YOUR MOST SECURE POSITION
Through her years studying biomechanics and correct body alignment, riding instructor Sally Swift pioneered a new approach to riding that she called “centered riding.” When St. Martin’s Press published her book by the same name in 1985, it revolutionized riding instruction and helped riders find the position that is correct and most stable for their bodies. Wendy Murdoch, a long-time student of Swift, took these ideas to an even higher level in her work. She shares her findings with riders around the world and in her book Simplify Your Riding (Carriage House Publishing, 2004). Other instructors and trainers (such as Peggy Cummings, Mark Rashid, and Dr. Deb Bennett) have also studied biomechanics and how a rider’s position in the saddle helps or hinders the horse.
Riding from a correct position means that your body is aligned so you don’t have to rely on extra muscle power to keep you safely upright on your horse. Not surprisingly, a correct position relates directly to a stable and secure position.
In the saddle, this means all parts of your body are properly aligned. Your ear, elbow, hip, and heel are vertically aligned. Your seat bones are pointed straight down, and your pelvis is in a neutral position. Your back is soft and supported, somewhere between an arched, hollowed position and a rounded, collapsed position. Your breathing expands your lower rib cage and belly rather than lifting your chest. This position doesn’t change drastically from one style of riding to another.
A rider braces against his horse’s movement. Bracing is using more muscle, energy, or motion than necessary, and it can lead to discomfort and pain for horse and rider.
When you are sitting in the saddle in the position that is most stable for your conformation, your body is free to move in any direction to match the movement of your horse. You can influence her movement and speed because your aids are independent of each other. Because you aren’t relying on grip or using unnecessary muscle power, you can use your aids to softly and effectively influence your horse.
To find the position that is best for you, start by sitting on the edge of a hard chair. This allows you to feel your seat bones. Locate the top of your pelvis by putting your hands at the sides of your waist, then moving them down until you feel bone. Play with how rotating your pelvis affects the position of your seat bones.
While on the chair, sit the way you normally ride. Notice whether your back is hollowed (the top of your pelvis is rotated forward) or whether your back is rounded (the top of your pelvis is rotated backward). Every rider will have a different position in which his or her body is the most balanced and stable. Play with rotating your pelvis—first with rather exaggerated movements, then with smaller and smaller movements. Find the place where your pelvis is softly centered between an arched back and a hollowed back, and try to remember how this feels.
Next, take your experiment to your horse. How do changes in your position affect her? Start at the walk. Does she go faster? Slower? Stop altogether?
If you have trouble finding the position that is most secure for your body type and individual characteristics, seek out the educated eyes of a trainer or expert who’s acutely attuned to body position and the biomechanics behind it. This person will help you learn to refine your position based on what’s mechanically correct rather than on what is popular in the show pen or is used in a certain discipline at the moment.
This rider relaxes his foot outside the stirrup. As you ride, scan your body for any braces and release them.
Have a friend check your saddle position if necessary.
Frequently, an additional benefit of learning to ride correctly from a strong and stable position is a reduction of pain. Riding in good alignment, without excess muscular exertion, can make a big difference in your comfort and future riding enjoyment.
Keep in mind, too, that your saddle will have an effect on your position. If you continually struggle with keeping your legs underneath you or if you always feel that you’re being left behind the motion of your horse, it very well could be because of the geometry of your saddle. (See Chapter 4 for more about basic saddle fitting for performance.)
To test whether you have attained your own position of balance and stability, ask for a friend’s help and mount up. Hold a rein in each hand and have your friend stand on the ground just in front of your horse. Sit and breathe as you normally do. Then ask your friend to hold the reins about six inches from the bit and apply steady pressure to the reins in a straight line from your hands toward the bit, not up or down. If your alignment and breathing are correct, your friend’s pressure on the reins will only pull you deeper into the saddle. If you’re not sitting correctly (with a good alignment of your head, elbow, hip, and heel and with your breathing correct), your friend will easily pull you up and out of the saddle!
If this is what happens, play around with adjusting your pelvis slightly in one direction and then in the other, to see whether this prevents you from being pulled out of the saddle when your friend pulls on the reins. Try altering your arm position, as well, to see how this changes your secure position. Try changing your breathing from high in your chest to lower in your ribs. Does this change the outcome?
Once you find a solid position, be aware of it, and try to replicate it every time you ride. Have your friend test you now and then to see whether you are maintaining your most stable position.
FEEL THE RHYTHM
Another way to develop better balance and seat is to start thinking in terms of rhythm and beat while riding. Horses are rhythmic creatures, and they seem to appreciate it when we do things using a steady flow, such as grooming them with a steady rhythm of brush strokes and breathing with steady inhales and exhales instead of holding our breath while we’re with them.
You can take this a step further by riding as if you have a metronome under your saddle horn (there actually are metronomes made for riders) or have a song in your head that has a certain tempo for different gaits. If you СКАЧАТЬ