Self Carriage for the Rider - part two

In last week's blog, we looked at how the horse carries his own body weight, and then how our weight in the middle of his spine will affect him.

This week, we delve into how the rider needs to organise their body so as not to squash their horse! So having established our shoulder-hip-heel alignment, stability, and balance, (see previous blogs!) we need to focus on supporting our own body weight as much as possible.

For this to happen, we need to use our thighs much more actively. Our thigh muscles are an important but less well-discussed part of our core stabilisation system. Think of the inside of your thighs as becoming a weight-bearing surface.

A good analogy for this is to picture how the panels of the saddle have been designed to distribute the weight of the rider as evenly as possible over as much surface area as possible.

You need to apply this same principle to yourself – and instead of all of your body weight being concentrated under your seat and into the stirrups (which then transfer back to the horse’s spine), can you use the entire area of your sitting surface and inside of your thighs to share your weight evenly over your horse's back and ribcage?

To do this, visualise that you could kneel while on your horse’s back as if you had knee stirrups instead of foot stirrups. The knee stirrups would be placed so that you had to reach your knees down to them, and your thigh bone needs to be at 45 degrees to the ground. To do this effectively, your thigh needs to be inwardly rotated, so that your kneecaps are facing forwards and your thigh has an even and consistent contact with the saddle.

You also need to take your weight out of the stirrup, and just let your foot rest gently in the stirrup. Another good image to have in mind is of an ergonomic posture stool where you sit in an active kneeling position.

This allows you to reach your thighbone out of its hip socket (creating space and suppleness in the joint) and activate the muscles of your thigh so that they start to act as a lever to counterbalance the weight of your upper body. It means there will be a lot more tone in your thigh.

To understand what this feels like, imagine (if you can) the last time you sat on someone’s lap. Did you surrender your whole weight to that person, or, in fear of squashing them, did you engage your thigh muscles and support yourself so they didn’t feel the full weight of your relaxed body? Or maybe that moment as you hover above a cold toilet seat?

It is not possible to make yourself lighter by ‘growing tall’ or pushing yourself up from the stirrups. Neither can this be achieved by tensing your butt muscles and popping up. (In fact, if your butt muscles join in, then you are trying too hard).

Also, this kneeling sensation is not gripping. Gripping is an inward adduction. But it IS necessary to have the inside of your thigh in contact with the horse’s ribcage, with an even contact from the top inside edge of your thigh right down to the knee.

Ask yourself, what percentage of my weight is being borne down through my seat directly onto the horse's back, and what percentage is being borne by my thighs across the horse’s ribcage? The ideal ratio is 30% butt, 70% thighs, with your foot resting gently in the stirrup!

This is a big shock to a lot of riders, but the payoff is worth it. You will no longer be squashing your horse down, and he will be encouraged to lift his back underneath you, and start to carry himself in a much better way.

What would it feel like if you had little suction caps on the insides of your thighs that could draw the horses back and sides up and out?

This is the first step towards creating a horse that reaches forwards into the bridle and is
able to transmit energy along his back in an efficient way.

Talented riders appear to draw the horses back up underneath them, as if they themselves were a suction device. In this dichotomy, they look as if they are sat both deeply but lightly, with an equal application of down-ness and up-ness. It may sound like hard work, but it is a very learnable and essential for the welfare of our skill backs.

Learn about breathing for you and your horse with my free download, Five Powerful Breathing Exercises to Connect You and Your Horse. Get your free download here!

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