Horseback riding instructions for the literal-minded
February 23, 2024 10:56 AM Subscribe
For the last few years, I've been taking riding lessons. Riding teachers like to say things that can't be true ("Make yourself heavier") or that are too vague for me to interpret ("Use your leg like a wall"). I am apparently too literal-minded for this — it doesn't offend me or anything, I just never seem to find it as clear or helpful as other students do. Is there something I can watch/read that puts this stuff in literal terms? Not to replace my lessons, just to help me out a little when I'm confused.
Examples of things that would be helpful:
Examples of things that would be helpful:
- "Put pressure on this part of her body with this part of your leg."
- "If I put a scale between your toe and the stirrup, here's what you'd see."
- "Relax these muscles and engage these ones."
- "At this moment, this joint should be bent/straight."
- "The horse will apply force in this direction to that part of your body; do/don't resist it."
- "When we say leg, we mostly just mean the inner part of your calf."
- "When we say weight, we mostly mean [I'm still not sure of this one]."
I’m not sure if there’s an interpreter that would be universal. I’ve had a dozen riding instructors over my life, and they often don’t use the same terminology so it’s always a learning curve deciphering what each instructor means. Best thing to do is have this convo with your instructor and see if they can’t be more literal in what they need you to do. And then, when they say something that you don’t understand, tell them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said “what does that even mean!?” For some reason (maybe I’m slow), it took me forever to realize that inside leg, outside rein meant using my leg that was toward the center of the arena and my outside rein, that is the rein that is on the rail.i should have straight up asked what they meant the first time instead of pretending like I did.
posted by Sassyfras at 11:24 AM on February 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Sassyfras at 11:24 AM on February 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
Honestly, I would simply take the teacher aside and explain the difficulty you're having, and ask them to be more direct when giving you instruction.
They're your teachers, they want you to learn. You're giving them advice about how they can help you learn. I couldn't imagine them being upset about that (and if they are, they suck as a teacher).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:33 PM on February 23, 2024 [9 favorites]
They're your teachers, they want you to learn. You're giving them advice about how they can help you learn. I couldn't imagine them being upset about that (and if they are, they suck as a teacher).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:33 PM on February 23, 2024 [9 favorites]
Best answer: For "make yourself heavier": Sit on a chair and imagine the chair is really rickety and old and you're worried that it won't hold your weight. Now imagine that the chair is a big sturdy comfortable armchair that you want to relax fully into. Maybe go back and forth between those two imaginings until you can sense how you're likely tensing your muscles (for me, it's stomach, butt, and back muscles, shoulders and chest a bit too) to avoid putting your full weight on the imaginary rickety chair, and then releasing them into the sturdier chair. Obviously your full weight is on the chair in both scenarios, but you're likely trusting the chair with your weight in one but not the other.
posted by lapis at 12:36 PM on February 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by lapis at 12:36 PM on February 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Anatomy of Dressage was written by some doctor dressage riders who shared this frustration, and breaks down the body parts used in dressage riding. I found it very helpful even when I wasn't coming from a dressage background. It is translated from German and could use more illustrations, but still one of my favorite riding books.
A lot of the imagination-based comments you are hearing likely came from Centered Riding. They also used to drive me slightly nuts, until I started reading the book, which is excellent. They clicked a lot better for me, I think because the book explains in much more detail and instructors then use the images as a sort of shorthand reminder. But if you haven't had the full explanation the shorthand can have little meaning.
I've also heard good things about Mary Wanless' books but haven't read any myself.
posted by sepviva at 1:07 PM on February 23, 2024 [9 favorites]
A lot of the imagination-based comments you are hearing likely came from Centered Riding. They also used to drive me slightly nuts, until I started reading the book, which is excellent. They clicked a lot better for me, I think because the book explains in much more detail and instructors then use the images as a sort of shorthand reminder. But if you haven't had the full explanation the shorthand can have little meaning.
I've also heard good things about Mary Wanless' books but haven't read any myself.
posted by sepviva at 1:07 PM on February 23, 2024 [9 favorites]
Best answer: Oddly, I was just now reading some of my notes from when my daughter was competing in dressage, so all of this Is front of mind today.
There are several schools of thought within dressage, and as an old person, I don't agree with all the modern concepts. I could find trainers for my daughter who agreed with me and were still modern, so there's that. But the things you are struggling with are not that, they are basic horse-riding skills.
Ideally, you need to use your weight and your legs to direct the horse, rather than the reins. The reins serve several purposes, but in the best of all worlds this comes later in your education. In real life, it is mostly the opposite.
What does using your weight mean? It means that you sit in the saddle and follow the horse's movements completely, rather than "standing" in the stirrups. This is very hard, so most people do use the stirrups for support quite a bit, sometimes without even knowing it. That is where the trainer will ask you to make yourself heavier, meaning you have to sit down and follow all the horse's movements. It might do you good to ride through a whole lesson without stirrups. When you do follow the horse's movements, you use most of all of your muscles intensively, and for a beginner, this is completely exhausting.
When you are deep in the saddle, following the horse's movements, you can use very slight shifts in weight to move the horse to one side or the other, or to change pace. With your weight, you also bring the horses hind quarters in under it, which makes it more taut and bouncy (and harder to sit on). You need to combine this with flexibility, see below, otherwise you won't have any control, just a bundle of explosive energy with no direction.
You support this use of your weight with the actions of your legs. Each part of your leg has a different function. This is very specific and I can't put it all in writing in this post, it would even take more than a book. Bending your horse, and starting a canter are very similar movements with subtle differences, but when you figure it out through practice, it seems intuitive. Your trainer is trying to help you through this practice by using images.
I'm focusing on bending, because the two examples you use are about this very issue. When a horse has been standing in the stable for a while, it is stiff and needs loosening up, just like we do after a day at a desk job. So every training session should start with a lot of riding in circles, snakes and figures of eight to bend the horse both ways. First in a walk, then at a trot and then at a canter, then in all the movements interchanging, because the transitions in themselves are loosening up the horse, and you, too. Only after at least 20-30 minutes of this, you will get to the experience of wholeness and communication with the horse you are looking for, simply because you both need to warm up. For most people, it takes years to get past this stage. This is where the leg-action comes in.
If you look at a horse and rider from above, riding in a circle, the horse's shape should ideally follow the line of the circle. But when it is still cold and stiff from the stable, and you are not sitting heavily in the saddle because you need loosening up too, the horse will not follow the circle but will be chugging along in little straight segments, where you use the reins to pull it into place every few seconds. This is uncomfortable for both of you. By sitting in the saddle, very slightly weighing inward, and pressing your inner, lower leg to the front, and your outer leg "like a wall" ever so slightly to the back, you help the horse to obtain a natural bend. Overdo this and you get a canter, so don't. These are very subtle communications, through and through.
I mean, this is just the beginning of the beginning, but it is a good place to start.
posted by mumimor at 1:13 AM on February 24, 2024 [5 favorites]
There are several schools of thought within dressage, and as an old person, I don't agree with all the modern concepts. I could find trainers for my daughter who agreed with me and were still modern, so there's that. But the things you are struggling with are not that, they are basic horse-riding skills.
Ideally, you need to use your weight and your legs to direct the horse, rather than the reins. The reins serve several purposes, but in the best of all worlds this comes later in your education. In real life, it is mostly the opposite.
What does using your weight mean? It means that you sit in the saddle and follow the horse's movements completely, rather than "standing" in the stirrups. This is very hard, so most people do use the stirrups for support quite a bit, sometimes without even knowing it. That is where the trainer will ask you to make yourself heavier, meaning you have to sit down and follow all the horse's movements. It might do you good to ride through a whole lesson without stirrups. When you do follow the horse's movements, you use most of all of your muscles intensively, and for a beginner, this is completely exhausting.
When you are deep in the saddle, following the horse's movements, you can use very slight shifts in weight to move the horse to one side or the other, or to change pace. With your weight, you also bring the horses hind quarters in under it, which makes it more taut and bouncy (and harder to sit on). You need to combine this with flexibility, see below, otherwise you won't have any control, just a bundle of explosive energy with no direction.
You support this use of your weight with the actions of your legs. Each part of your leg has a different function. This is very specific and I can't put it all in writing in this post, it would even take more than a book. Bending your horse, and starting a canter are very similar movements with subtle differences, but when you figure it out through practice, it seems intuitive. Your trainer is trying to help you through this practice by using images.
I'm focusing on bending, because the two examples you use are about this very issue. When a horse has been standing in the stable for a while, it is stiff and needs loosening up, just like we do after a day at a desk job. So every training session should start with a lot of riding in circles, snakes and figures of eight to bend the horse both ways. First in a walk, then at a trot and then at a canter, then in all the movements interchanging, because the transitions in themselves are loosening up the horse, and you, too. Only after at least 20-30 minutes of this, you will get to the experience of wholeness and communication with the horse you are looking for, simply because you both need to warm up. For most people, it takes years to get past this stage. This is where the leg-action comes in.
If you look at a horse and rider from above, riding in a circle, the horse's shape should ideally follow the line of the circle. But when it is still cold and stiff from the stable, and you are not sitting heavily in the saddle because you need loosening up too, the horse will not follow the circle but will be chugging along in little straight segments, where you use the reins to pull it into place every few seconds. This is uncomfortable for both of you. By sitting in the saddle, very slightly weighing inward, and pressing your inner, lower leg to the front, and your outer leg "like a wall" ever so slightly to the back, you help the horse to obtain a natural bend. Overdo this and you get a canter, so don't. These are very subtle communications, through and through.
I mean, this is just the beginning of the beginning, but it is a good place to start.
posted by mumimor at 1:13 AM on February 24, 2024 [5 favorites]
I rode while growing up, and I keenly remember the instructors who spun poetry instead of just telling me what to do with my flipping arms. I found out later that a lot of the other kids also had no idea what the instructor was going on about, we were all just blobbing onwards, confused and goofy.
I'd take the instructor aside and say that you would prefer more concrete instructions. "What do I do with my flipping arms?"
Ultimately, you're paying for these lessons. The instructor should be working with you.
posted by champers at 2:46 AM on February 24, 2024
I'd take the instructor aside and say that you would prefer more concrete instructions. "What do I do with my flipping arms?"
Ultimately, you're paying for these lessons. The instructor should be working with you.
posted by champers at 2:46 AM on February 24, 2024
Response by poster: Honestly, I would simply take the teacher aside and explain the difficulty you're having, and ask them to be more direct when giving you instruction.
We've talked, and her response was "Yeah, you're more technical than me. I don't really know what my muscles are doing, I just know how it feels, and it feels like being heavy/being a wall/etc."
Which is super fair! And I think fairly common — my partner, who's ridden from a young age, says they also wouldn't know how to express this stuff more technically.
posted by Birds, snakes, and aeroplanes at 8:02 AM on February 24, 2024
We've talked, and her response was "Yeah, you're more technical than me. I don't really know what my muscles are doing, I just know how it feels, and it feels like being heavy/being a wall/etc."
Which is super fair! And I think fairly common — my partner, who's ridden from a young age, says they also wouldn't know how to express this stuff more technically.
posted by Birds, snakes, and aeroplanes at 8:02 AM on February 24, 2024
So, I have no experience riding horses, but I want to comment on your experience with your teacher. While every new activity has a vocabulary that sounds like nonsense to a novice (I'm looking at you, yoga!), if you really have been doing it for "the last few years", you should not be a novice to the vocabulary, and these phrases should mean something by now. Your teacher's response is also worrying - a good teacher should have a variety of phrases and ways of explaining things that will encompass a wide range of ways people relate to their bodies.
posted by Dotty at 5:59 AM on February 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Dotty at 5:59 AM on February 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
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I "make myself heavier" in the saddle by relaxing my legs and letting my seat bones sink into the saddle. Again, dressage.
posted by Dolley at 11:22 AM on February 23, 2024 [5 favorites]