Horse
Savvy
Ranch
Cindy Schleuss, Owner
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Rider to Horse Body Balance
In the photo on the right, I drew a white vertical line perpendicular to Pirate's spine. My seat is evenly balanced on both sides of the line. The horizontal lines show that my hips and shoulders are level. How I am turning Pirate is thru my core. I am pushing the left side of my core forward toward Pirate's left ear along with my left shoulder. As I do this, Pirate pushes his left shoulder around and we turn. The misconception that you must keep your shoulders level and straight is only missing the words "to your horses". In this picture, my shoulders are level and straight to my horses because we are both turning. Manolo Mendez teaches "keep your shoulders parallel to your horses shoulders".
To check how truly balanced Pirate and I are, I drew one yellow line across Pirate's shoulders. I then copied that line to his ears, my hands, my shoulders and his croup. Not bad in the balance department, however, there is one part of me that is out of balance in the picture. Can you find the imbalance?
To blatantly reveal the imbalance I drew a red line to show how balanced Pirate's eyes are and how out of balance mine are. The blue line shows my eye balance, or better, my head imbalance. What I am doing is not uncommon. When a person concentrates they tend to cock their head. Here, I am riding, listening to Claus Bergener as he instructs me in what to do next. What I should be doing is keeping my head straight and balanced to my body, and, in perfect sync with Pirate's position.
Below, I show two more pictures of myself riding. The picture on the left shows a nicely balanced head where the picture on the right shows a whole different picture.
All Photos on this page by Julie Colt
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To give an overall assessment of the picture on the right, my left shoulder is dropped, my left ribcage is collapsed, and my left hand is pushing into Vinnie's withers. All Vinnie would have to do with me in this position, is duck out to the right and I would fall toward the place I am looking.
The picture on the left tells a whole different story. At first it looks like my right shoulder is dropped, but if you look closer, Vinnie's right front is forward and dropped. So, at this moment in time I am following his motion and the posture is correct. My shirt is more wrinkled on the right side of my body, but that too shows that I am following his motion because his right side is lower than his left side at this moment in time. And as for my hands, my fingers are open only because I am in the process of gathering up the reins, so this is not incorrect.
To have body balance is not only for the well being of your horse, it is for your own safety. If you as a rider keep falling off the same side or just fall off frequently, test out the ideas I am presenting to you and see if your rides become more successful. Remember though, this is only the beginning. We will all be forever learning. I have been studying and riding my whole life and look at what I am doing in the picture on the right. It is that posture that Vinnie took advantage of the one time I fell off of him a couple of years back. But now because of what I know and what I have changed, even if I have bad posture for a moment in time, I have balance and the core power to keep me in the saddle where I love to be.
The more I teach, the more I learn. As I educate my eye, I realize how important it is for a rider to stay balanced over their horse. More often than not, I find riders leaning or sitting heavier on one side of their horse. Part of this can be dealt with by changing the stirrup lengths as shown in the previous article, Balanced Stirrups. Another is by making sure the riders spine stays perpendicular to the horses spine. From this place of balance, the rider will have an easier time moving their body parts to better communicate to their horse. In other words, once your mind acknowledges that your body is balanced, it will allow your legs and arms to be free from "hanging on" and they can start to direct your horse's movement. This balanced posture also gives the rider the ability to use their core power to rotate for a turn, do endless crunches to control the rate of speed, collect and lengthen the stride, etc. How does a rider look like they are doing nothing? Core Power.
Rotation of the Spine
A Balanced Picture?
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