Riding Posture vs. Riding Mindset

Rider on Aspire training course learning about the amount of tension she has in her upper body and shoulders even when just lunging her horse. Increasing body awareness is fun and allows the rider to address their effectiveness not only in lesson environment but most of all, when they ride on their own or compete. Photo credit: Jon Smith

A really insightful comment left under my Riding Emotions.. post has made me think about expanding on the subject of riding posture vs rider’s mindset…The comment said:

What I’m learning more and more is that rider’s emotions quite often tie hand in hand with their posture and body language in the saddle. Improve their mindset, and their position improves- and sometimes even vice versa- as many frustrations can be caused by those pesky bad habits. Horses can no doubt read our minds- but they can for sure read our bodies. Position biomechanics, thought process, and resulting performance are all within the same dynamic process.

By Kathma of www.katmah.wordpress.com/training

Controlling the controllable 

You see, the reason I focus 80% of my teaching efforts on the rider and about 20% on the horse is that, from my experience and observations of thousands of grassroots riders out there, it is the second relation (improved posture = improved mindset = improved performance) that provides the key to sustainable improvement.

As discussed in the comments to the other post, every person comes to this sport/recreation with own set of prejudices, worries, beliefs etc and to address them well might not be possible. Posture or rider’s seat on the other hand, is what all good instructors can teach and control. Sometimes it takes a long time – many years – to achieve lasting postural changes in the saddle but I learnt to never underestimate what effective, balanced, sympathetic seat skill can do to rider’s confidence and emotional control in and out of the saddle…

Understanding movement

It is a well known fact that both adults and children learn best when having fun. It doesn’t have to be a laugh-out-loud type of fun but when something makes you smile, you are bound to remember how it made you feel…Riding training that focuses on improving understanding of the rider’s and horse’s movement rather than just “making moves happen” builds rider’s confidence almost imperceptibly.

Understanding meaning of posture and crookedness in rider and horse…simple but very effective exercises that make you think and never forget 🙂 Riders at Aspire Grassroots clinics at Charlton Village Stables, London (left) and Lindrick Livery, North Yorks (right). Photo credits: Bella Giles Smith (left) and Pure Essence Photography (right)

Understanding posture

Could it really be that by sitting in a certain way we can become more confident riders? Could it be that simply the way we sit instils confidence and quality of movement in our horse? And if so, how much focus on our own training need we have alongside our focus on our horse’s way of going?

From my experience, I could describe the answers like this: if I sit on a horse and correct him by 80%, his rider can correct/improve themselves and the horse by 20% (not always in absence of trainer). However, if I establish a 20% correction in the rider, they themselves can achieve a much more positive mindset and the relative 80% improvement in the horse…(also when riding independently).

Do you teach grassroots (non-professional) riders? What are your experiences? How much attention do you pay to rider’s technical and feel abilities vs horse’s way of going? Are you a rider taking lessons? How much of your lesson content with your trainer(s) is focused on you and how much on your horse? Do you think it matters?

Click on image below to watch an interesting talk 🙂

The Many Stages Of A Rider and the “I’m Not Good Enough” dilemma

Let’s start with saying this is not going to be a sports psychology advice…Just a simple story…

Raw coffee beans (seeds)

I’m sitting here with a cup of aromatic coffee next to me ready to write some of my thoughts on the above subject and you know ,that coffee I just made myself, it made me think . I love stories behind the end products and every good rider as well as every good coffee cup have a hell of a story to tell…

This particular hot, delicious, perfect  drink of mine started somewhere in east Africa as a vulnerable, green/white, tasteless seed, planted carefully in a large bed in a shaded nursery. A lot of effort then went into making sure the conditions were as perfect as possible for the growth to happen.

The right amount of moisture in the soil, right amount of natural light, not too much not too little…

Isn’t it a little like the first contact we have with a horse? Before we even sit on one, before we even start seeing ourselves as riders, we simply fall in love with a horse. Or not. The seed is planted. Or doesn’t take.

Kingsley with friend’s daughter – first encounter…

Those first encounters matter and our perception of riding can be formed at that time.

Back to my coffee. Once the little tree sprouted it was moved to an individual pot and given all the necessary conditions to develop into a strong little plant that can grow independently. It then took its time to grow roots in the well prepared soil until it sat firmly in it and was ready for more growing adventures to come.

Seedlings growing in pots (from http://sfd-alison.blogspot.com/)

Whatever age we start riding at we can’t skip our “seedlings” stage. We need the right conditions, right teachers, right horses at this stage when our roots are still weak and underdeveloped, where smallest changes affect us…

It’s our first lessons at a riding school stage, first walk on a beach donkey or just watching horses in the neighbour’s paddock stage. Spider web thin bodies up into the welcoming air of something exciting.

It took my coffee seed 3 to 4 years of carefully monitored growth to start bearing the fruit…How very coincidental isn’t it? Good few years of basic training, having fun, loving horses, learning about them is what it takes to start seeing the fruit of it all. And that’s still nowhere near that coffee cup of mine.

Once cherries are ready, the harvest starts. Labour intensive and in most coffee countries done by hand.

Harvest

Every coffee maker knows those steps. Nobody would try to harvest immature plants or make coffee out of seedlings. Every stage of coffee has it’s significance and time especially for it. The finished product is nothing without each and every step.

I find that in riding education we have this very same principle. Even our awkward, uncoordinated, sometimes frustrating phase is supremely important. We can be a very good learner-rider at each of these stages like each coffee plant can grow healthily into a supreme cherry barer. This doesn’t mean we are a great horseperson yet but we can derive pride and joy from taking part in the process.

In the life of immediate pleasures required to be right under our noses at the snap of the fingers it might be difficult to be in peace with slow growth of abilities. It’s important therefore that we remind ourselves about it for the good of the horses we ride and for our own enjoyment of the sport.

Where were we? Ah yes, the cherries. Most of the fruit are picked all-in-one-go in a step called strip picking but some finest arabica cherries are picked selectively i.e. only the ripe fruit are harvested by the pickers who rotate every 8 to 10 days. Long job, costly and time consuming.

Once harvested, the coffee cherries need to be processed…it’s a multi-step process in itself, again time and labour intensive…a bit like seat training…

Almost alike seat training…:)

Proud Moments…

Let me tell you a little story 🙂

29 September 2013

 

Rewind

Almost 4 years ago I took a phone call from a mum desperately seeking someone would teach her daughter. After many bad experiences in various riding schools she was looking for someone who would treat her daughter’s ambitions and riding dreams seriously even though she had no own horse at the time and was only able to ride once a week at best.

At the time I didn’t take on children on Aspire Programmes because I didn’t feel they were suitable for youngsters. Before I amended the teaching structure in late 2011 my cut off age was 13 but I agreed for the girl to come for an assessment lesson. I reckoned that if her mum made an effort to read through my site, understand the difference my approach provided and call me I ought to meet the girl at least!

February 2011. Hall-Place Equestrian Centre. Anne patiently and regularly letting me drill her basics. She was all about jumping but never complained on number of lunge lessons in her training plan. Superior own balance is a corner stone of every good rider’s seat.

We met shortly after that phone call and a few years of great training adventures followed. To this day I have not met such a committed, focused, intuitive teenage rider and it’s been such a pleasure to be part of Anne’s riding education. I am usually hesitant to say I am proud of someone’s progress because it seems as if I was somehow increasing my own importance in the process. The truth is, 80% of the progress is down to the rider, their mentality, their willingness to learn, to try and to believe in my system. The other 20% are many people involved in training, the silent supporters: parents, friends. And horses.

But hell, I am very proud of Anne nevertheless 🙂 She put hours and hours of practice into the ABC of her riding education juggling it with highly academically demanding school and she continues to do so. It makes me smile to watch her compete now and develop further into an always aspiring rider she wishes to be.

Aspire Intensive Training Day at Cullinghood Equestrian Centre. Anne learning how to influence shifts in weight (balance) in an unknown horse. Work In-Hand. June 2013

Aspire Intensive Training Day March 2012 at Checkendon Equestrian Centre. Anne (in burgundy) and Emma (in green; another rider who made superb progress over the years) after their jump training.

 

Keep training guys. Amateur riders rule 😉