Building a Better Seat Part 1, From AdagioDressage.com

A good seat means a seat that can rest on the horse’s back, feel the horse’s movement, and tells the rider when to time their aids. A good seat is neutral: receives the horse’s movement and follows it as opposed to trying to create movement from the seat (shoving or driving before the forward energy arrives to the horse’s back and rider’s seat. Next I’m going to describe the working components of a good seat…I recommend practicing this

on a lunge line
at the walk
in front of a mirror
If those options are not available to you, use a quiet horse and practice this on the buckle as opposed to on contact. A good seat is independent from the rider’s legs and arms. When you think of a rider’s seat, you generally picture pelvis and “seat-bones” that rest in the saddle but the seat is more complex than that. In order to have a seat that follows the horse’s movement, you must first have an excellent but not forced posture in the saddle. Bring your chin in to stretch your spine and as the horse steps under your seat and moves you, draw yourself up by the top of your head, sternum, base of the rib cage, and belly button. This is referred to as your “front-line” and it draws the seat-bones through the hips as the horse moves. To FEEL the seat resting in the saddle and drawn forward by the front-line, CAREFULLY pick up your legs so they are not laying against the horse’s sides and ask the horse to walk. If your back and thighs are weak, this will be difficult. In order to develop a good seat, you will need to strengthen them. This is possible through practicing this very exercise as well as through yoga, ballet, and other sports that use precise movement to strengthen abductors and abductors. If you can hold them up to the side without bracing yourself for even three strides, you can make progress. You should feel like a weeble-wobble that is moving in the same direction as the horse.

So let’s summarize: You are balancing in the saddle on ONLY your seat-bones. If your legs are not strong enough to lift up and out, then you may rest them on the front of the saddle. You are folded slightly at the waist to keep your upper body in line with the horse’s center of gravity. As the horse moves, your seat-bones are drawn forward by your front-line (belly button, base of rib cage, sternum, top of head).

Be patient with yourself as you strengthen your leg, back and stomach muscles through this difficult exercise. We’re shooting a photo session of this exercise so that you can follow more easily- this will be up Sunday evening at the latest (tricky snowstorm)!!

Ask me your questions, let me know your concerns and roadblocks. I have seen this exercise help many riders learn how to isolate their seat from their legs and unite their front-line with their seat-bones so don’t forget to share your breakthrough stories, too!

New Series on adagiodressage.com

Hi, friends, hope all is well! I am in the middle of a new series on http://adagiodressage.com/blog/building-a-better-seat-part-1-how-to-carry-yourself/ re: How to Build a Better Seat. Shoot me a message if you have a video or photo you would like critiqued and take a look at http://adagiodressage.com/ so see the new video library!

<3 Rachel

Adagio Dressage is the new home for Muck!

Hi friends! I took advantage of the time off my feet the last couple of years to start my own training company and have moved the muck blog to my new homepage at http://adagiodressage.com/ . I hope you will join me there for horse world musings, practical horse care tips, and horse training/riding advice.

Love Kisses and Horses (BR shout-out)

Rachel

Where is the Center of the Horse World?

I am finally settled back in Michigan and schooling has been going famously. Jenny has been graciously letting me help with her pretty mare, Tonka, so I have been spending afternoons and evenings riding one mare and then another.

Oxbow is almost exactly the way I left it. Which is eerie for me.
Remember, it was a pole barn; 30 acres and a chain-linked fence when Kim and I first began back in 2005 so over the years when we established it, I shed pieces of my old skins all over the place.
My dad's filing cabinet from Kelly Office Machines,
my childhood plastic ponies with their little wooden barn,
the first polo wraps I ever owned (which was well before I owned a horse,
the huge barn doors with the logo Casey painted that first fall every evening while the sun went down and Tom and I had a beer and discussed figures.
And all of those things are still there. Except for myself and the figures and Casey. Of course, when you have gone from a place and then return, it is not so much the discovery of the things you left behind that is unsettling as it is the life that has gone on around them. The fact that the office is swept and the bridles are hung. Who does that? It is no longer me.

But Oxbow is still there. And red and expansive and awkwardly offering itself.

Jenny and I meet up. We discuss our goals ("...I feel like when I compared this week's videos to last week's videos, I benefited from lifting up more...so today, I am going to try to find consistency through that..."), prepare Skye or Tonka or Angus, and ride in shifts. We use the camera she bought when we first moved to Maryland and tape one another. We capture still frames, ride to music, ride to silence.
We comfortably accuse each other of every visible mistake.
We sweat.
We are always thinking: Forward. Straight. Forward. Refresh. Open Up. Relax. Forward. Straight.
And our bodies are sore from- believe it or not- the rigorous relaxation required to allow the horse- and it is with good intention. Misguided premises still join us for a circle or two until we slow down, feel the horse, ingest and regurgitate the process.
She doesn't ride Skye; I don't ride Angus.
Each horse is the absolute best at something.
Each has her or his physical shortcoming.

At the end of each ride, there is no exchange of money. We walk our pretty ponies over to pick out some apples and then slowly break everything down until it is all put away. Neat and ready to tick-on; its gears as steady as when we left it for Maryland in 2007.

Seeing Oxbow this way reminded me that the Horse World, as it is dubbed, is not a Place. It is what you do with horses in your life.
I used to think that the center of the Horse World was a place. A concrete location. Like Karlruh, Germany or Lexington, Kentucky. But it is not. Horse World in the distilled sense is your network of horses and horse people around you and the the horsemanship tools you use to navigate this network is the key to the impact that you have on and in the coveted childhood utopia of the Horse World. It does not matter where you are, just what you do.

Horse Hiatus

I am on a horse hiatus right now- still home post surgery. I am reading Reina's cache of dressage books. She has a fantastic job as a writer/translator for Dressage Today which is the creme de la creme of industry publications. So she is always getting books in the mail with fantastically inscribed messages like, "...Reina, darling,could you just glance at my work and jot a comment or two for my publicist? xoxo -Anky," etc. So she popped over a couple weeks ago with a shopping bag full of books and excellent training videos. And that is how I have occupied my time. That and:

planned the holiday open house w/Carey
wrote script for parade of breeds show
designing summer camp programs
playing phone tag with the fire marshal re:property inspection
Creating/Editing ads (for January)
Updating Calendar of Events for publication
Editing materials for Crofton Printing.

So the work continues even without the horses. I stopped by Skye's cottage last night and gave her a good ear rub.

Thankful

My first Thanksgiving as a horse owner, I did not want Red Wing to dine alone. My mom took me to Big Acre where I purchased a brand new blue water bucket (he was in need of a new one anyways), a bounty of treats, and a salt lick. At home, I scrounged the pantry for anything a horse might like for a Thanksgiving feast. I filled the bucket with carrots, granola cereal, apples, oats, and tootsie roll pops.

After dishes were done and our guests were sitting around fat and happy, my mom and I ducked out and headed to Milford where I boarded Red Wing. We groomed him and gave him an obscene (unhealthy) amount of treats. The barn was dimly lit and empty of other visitors. I felt like I was getting away with something: stealing this quiet time with my mom and my horse on a holiday with no interruptions or other obligations.

We were back on time to serve pie.

couch cave

Knee surgery was Thursday. I'm going to hide out for a little longer.