April Adventures Recap: The Take Away

If my recaps (1 & 2) came across negatively, that was not my intent. I was actually thrilled with the results of Pig and I's first show of the season. Sure he was difficult, but there was a lot to like about the way we handled the situation and the way we milked points out of an otherwise difficult test.


"What do you mean I 'was difficult?' I have to deal with your difficulties everyday!" -- Pig

On top of that, looking at the photos and video from the weekend clued me in to some changes I can make in my own riding to improve our communication and harmony. Luckily, I think both issues are related and easily solved through awareness and slight changes.

First? I'm constantly sitting right. When I try to sit left, my body ends up twisted in a strange way, and my right hip is stuck back. This shoves me in the back seat of my saddle and doesn't actually allow me to sink deeply onto my left seatbone.

Second? My right leg is constantly buried in Pig's side, while my left is usually floating somewhere off the side of him. This is partially because I have no weight on my left seatbone, and partially this is keeping me from being able to weight the seatbone. In addition, Guinness tunes out my right leg. That makes me feel I need to have it on constantly to keep his right haunch corralled. That's not acceptable.

Left leg somewhere off the side of my horse. Or, as my trainer would remind me, "you look like a dog peeing on a hydrant." Sigh. Yes. I do. My weight is also right, my right hip is back, and my body is twisted.

My right leg is buried. My right seat is ON. My thigh has contact. This is a very active position, and has its place, but every photo looks like this. Oops.

My biggest problem is that my left leg seems to have a magnet for the girth. The moment I get on, it finds the girth and never leaves. That throws my balance off, and confuses my horse. It makes simple changes and maintaining bend super hard. My weight being right also forces Pig to bring his haunches right, which I am trying to stop with my right leg. It's a big cycle of bad.

Well, Lady? Get to your fixin'!

Over the last few rides, I've been focusing hard on fixing these issues. First I've been working on loosening up my legs and ensuring that I have a reaction to my right leg. I've been doing that through use of turns on the forehand whenever Pig started to feel sticky to my right leg.

Once he is listening, I make sure to have both lower legs in the right active position. I worked on shifting back my left leg, lengthening it and making sure it could come on when needed. Lengthening my left leg helped my left seatbone come back in contact with the saddle.

Finally, I put all of this to work in simple changes and collecting the canter. These exercises are where a deficient seat and inactive legs are most obvious. The work has been hard, but getting better. The best thing is that Pig is starting to really recognize my legs shifting position as a cue. That is exciting because it brings us to...

That moment when you realize your trainer is back from Florida, and you've got embarrassing things to fix before she sees you...

Ch-ch-chaaaanges are on the horizon! We have two weeks to solidify our, admittedly pretty good, collected canter and our, admittedly somewhat awful, simple changes. I need to get the depart more off my seat, and changing my legs and deepening my left seat is helping immensely with that. We're close. We're so close!

(Now, back to writing my thesis papers...)