Page 6 - CR NEWS Summer 2020

By Sue Hughes
GROUNDING
Grounding results in better balance, security, and stability, through increased awareness of your connection to your horse and the ground through your seat bones and feet.
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By Regina Liberatore
Developing Leg Position — Long Legs in Place
Even when there is no instructor available, here’s a way to develop a correct leg position using techniques gleaned from Sally Swift. This exercise will help the rider achieve a stable, long leg position that is useful in cuing the horse to go forward from your lower leg.
First, make sure you are on a horse who will stand quietly, even as you wiggle around or remove your foot from the stirrup.
Now, take one foot out of the stirrup (for safety, keep the other foot in the stirrup). Lean forward from your hip joints at about a 30- to 35-degree angle. Swing your free leg straight back, and stretch your inner thigh long as well as back. As you hold your leg back, sit down again so your seat bones point straight down. Do not stretch until it hurts.
Gradually and firmly, slide your thigh forward until your knee is directed almost straight down. You have now achieved the long leg many riders so desire. It's all about the upper leg.
With the upper leg stabilized, slowly slide the lower leg along the side of the horse until you feel your calf muscle meet the curve of the horse’s rib muscles. With your long leg in place, raise your toe toward your shin and slide your foot into the stirrup. As Sally would say: “Remember that the stirrup is a place to rest your foot.” If you do that and simply glue your calf to your horse’s side, you will not lose your stirrups. It may seem as if pushing down and trying too hard should work, but they don't!
As Sally explained it, to make a horse go forward from your lower leg, your calf muscle goes down, under and then “up,” against the direction the hairs grow on the horse’s side. Those hairs slope down and back, to let the rain run off. To give a for- ward aid, use your calf against that “grain of growth.” The horse has to engage his belly muscles to pick up his leg. Try it for yourself: “firm up” your belly muscles, shift your weight slightly to one side, and then take a step with your free leg. n
Sue Hughes is a Level III Centered Riding clinician living in Plymouth, Michigan.
Seat Bone Self-Awareness Bodywork
Do this exercise mounted, at the halt. Have the rider put their hand underneath one seat bone and take time to feel the shape of it, and how there is a rocker effect. Then do this with the other seat bone. Have them take their hand away and notice whether the seat
bones feel different, having activated their balance receptors and increased awareness.
Ask them to find the place where their center is balanced, and when it is not balanced, then finding balance again.
More options:
What happens to your seat bones when you have hard eyes? What happens to your seat bones when you hold your breath? What happens when you lose your building blocks?
You can take this further with walk in the following seat, with a hand under their seat bone. Then proceed with added options at walk (as long as the horse is safe to ride with one hand on the reins). n
Regina is a Level III Centered Riding Clinician living in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.