Books with Spirit - Horse Riding

At first I called this article “practising crap only makes perfect crap”.  But that doesn’t work for the website search engines!

This article is a riding lesson that will produce quite amazing and fast results, from Jenny Pearce, the co-author of the life changing electronic book “Bobby’s Diaires - Straight From the Horse’s Mouth to You”.  And believe me, you will want this book and, like other readers, you’ll probably read it again and again. 

The way our brain works, once we have reacted a certain way in the past, once we have carried our body in a certain way while we are riding, we continue to ride like that, usually without even noticing.

Once the brain-body pattern is established, once the body’s reaction to discomfort’s and tensions have been established with tightness and stiffness, it can be difficult to change.

And these tightnesses and stiffnesses  are exactly the opposite of what we want in our riding – they are not useful to us!  I’ve noticed that even some fabulous, top riders can have some of these tight or stuck spots.

So that as we practise our riding, if we practise the same way we did last time, that is not useful to us either – because little or nothing changes.

So …. want to make some reeee…ally fast progress to improve your riding?

Do this exercise in a space where you feel safe to start working on the buckle of a long loose rein.  It’s OK if that’s in a yard to start off with.

You need to walk around on a loose rein for this exercise to work, otherwise you can brace against the rein, which is really bad for you and really uncomfortable for your horse.

Your horse’s job is to just walk around on the buckle of a loose rein.  For him to do that, you have to actually give it to him.  So give it to him!  Give him a nice rub on the neck to reassure him if he’s unused to a long rein and a bit anxious.

When you’re comfortable with a loose rein, then I want you to start moving around in the saddle a little, sagging your spine, sagging it to the left and to the right, maybe even letting your shoulders slump forwards until you find a “tight spot” or a “stuck spot” in your back where it feels a little uncomfortable.

It’s important not to do this into pain – the idea is to spend most of your time in your comfort zone and just use the rhythm of your horse walking to GENTLY stretch into this tight spot for a few seconds at a time – it’s important not to allow the discomfort of the stretch to become a habit. 

Then you sit up, straighten up to your normal riding position for a minute or so.  Then do it again.  Until there is no tight spot there anymore.  The really bad tight spots can take some time to work out permanently, but each day, you stretch it out until one day you notice that it’s simply not there anymore.

On the first day that you do this, it is probably wise just to work on getting rid of one tight spot.  Some of these tight spots can be really quite emotional and some of them can have quite a lot of toxins locked up in the tight muscle that your body needs to get rid of as you let it go.  So if you normally have a lot of back pain, doing too much at once can be overdoing it.

When you’ve cleared all the stuck spots in your back, go looking for the ones in your shoulders, your arms, your hands, your jaw, your legs, your ankles, your feet.  Explore your whole body looking for tight spots that are getting in the road of your being a better rider.

And when that’s been done thoroughly at a walk, do it at the trot, then at the canter, and then maybe even at the gallop.

Remember, because this is an important key to this exercise.  You use the rhythm of your horse’s movement to stretch GENTLY – pain is not productive.  When you feel pain, your body defends itself against the pain in other ways, so pain is NOT USEFUL to us when our goal is a fluid and relaxed body.

And you only stretch for a few seconds at a time and then go back to your comfortable  riding position because what we practise becomes our habit and we do not want discomfort to become a habit.  Practising crap only produces perfect crap!  We want a fluid and relaxed body to become the habit!

Most horses enjoy helping you out like this.  However, short rides are better than long ones while you are doing this as it can put more strain on his back than a normal ride.  If I’m working on this excercise, I will usually only ride every second day.  That seems to work better for me and better for my horse.

You can also do similar things in transitions, checking for a brace or braces in your own body as your horse moves up or down a gait.  When I did this one, I discovered some whopping braces in my own body that were getting in the way of my horse staying rounded and in self carriage for his transition.

When you do these excercises in combination with listening to your horse, you will find that unevenness’es in your posture will improve automatically, probably  without even focusing on it. 

Add these excercises to the ones with the cycling hands and ankles exercise on Page 157 of Bobby’s Diaries and the moving around and rope twirling ones in the chapter starting on Page 116 and adjust your stirrups so that you sitting bones are easily “flat” like in the riding lesson that I put up on the website, you’ll have a beautiful natural seat, very quickly. 

What does twirling a rope and other moving around in the saddle have to do a really good, natural seat?  For two reasons, it works on extending you and your horses comfort zone, so YOUR body too is softer and more easily goes with the absolute rhythm and beautiful self carriage of your horse.   …  I’ve been sitting here trying to describe this.  The movement loosens up your body, kind of like pre riding excercises, before you start asking anything.  Because you do these excercises while your horse is on  a loose rein and going wherever he wants to, with you just controlling the speed, it also acts as a loosening up for your horse with no pressure of any asking, too.

Enjoy the stunning natural seat that these excercises will give you for any style of riding or…

If the collected work of the dressage rider is your goal (which needs longer stirrups),when you have your natural seat and your horse in self carriage, you can start working on lengthening your stirrups and doing all these excercises to get at any stuck spots that arise when you do that. 

I usually teach a really good natural seat first, before the lengthening of the stirrups for collection, because for most people, working on the longer stirrups straight away is too big a step to achieve the combination of good seating bone position and a fluid relaxed body. 

Information like this is only the tip of the iceberg in “Bobby’s Diaries - Straight From the Horse’s Mouth to You - How your horse can give YOU the results of the confident and gifted rider”   It contains lesson after joyful and easy lesson.  This electronic book contains the secrets of the great horsemen and women that they don’t tell you.  Have a look around the website at People’s Stories for heart warming stories from people whose lives with their horses have been changed by this book. 

Or just get it and make up your own mind with the no risk guarantee, love this book or get your money back.  Click here to go to the shop now.

Enjoy your horse!   Jenny