Now after several years in and out of physical therapy for back problems (from a fall off of Myth), I’ve come to the somewhat painful realization that my back will never be exactly as it was. This carries over into every aspect of my life, but especially into riding. When your horse also has had back problems (first when he was nine and had an accident in training, and then again last summer when playing on his own he bucked his own back out of alignment) it makes for a very delicate balance when trying to find harmony.
One positive for my ongoing relationship with Drummer has been that he now trusts me enough to know that if he’s tight when he starts and I make him work through it, he knows he can. He used to explode when in pain, or knot up into an immovable rocking horse overflowing with petulance. Today’s ride saw both sides of our relationship, him willing to work through his own tension and me working on my own to try and help him out. However, I found that after some loose rein walk, trot, and canter, that I still wasn’t giving him the aides he was looking for.
I won’t lie, I rode bareback most of my childhood bareback because I couldn’t tack up my horses in a western saddle, especially not my 17 hand standardbred mare, Tani. However, there is truly nothing to compare to bareback when it comes to finding out what messages I’m sending my horse as a rider. In fact, the one and only time I had previously tried riding Drummer bareback was as a last resort after trying out all sorts of different saddles and pads. It was also when I realized just how much pain his petulance stemmed from when a simple rotation of my right hip resulted in NRHA levels of bucking.
Today was the day I decided to try riding bareback again, after six years of not even considering it. And here, in a nutshell is what I learned:
As riders, we are told to open our hips. What can be missed, though, in this rather simple movement, is how if we don’t adjust the angle of our thigh, our hip can pinch. Today’s solution was to drop down my seat bone before opening the hip. This relaxed my knee back into a more natural line, releasing the tension starting up in my lower back.
Of course there are at least a dozen other things to keep in mind at any given point – shoulders, core, ankles, hands, chin, etc – but this simple fix of making sure I was dropping my seat bone before asking Drum for a more balanced curve made for a near instant fix, or at least as instant as anything can be when it comes to dressage.
There are countless books written about how to achieve harmony in horseback riding. But there is just something about realizing the problem on your own that makes the advice of books pale in comparison. For those of us who are not endeavoring to set the world on fire with our horses, but simply to better harmonize with our 1200 pound companions, the process of better understanding them and ourselves in a lifelong endeavor. The process with Drum has been a long one, often fraught with miscommunication, frustration, and the occasional blow up from us both. However, if the last six plus years have taught me anything, it’s that there is always an answer. But the basics can’t be forgotten. I still have to breathe, take my time, listen, and stop to reconsider when things don’t always go according to plan.
At least I learned two things today, not only do I need to work on my seat bones before I worry about the rest of my leg, but I can now go back to that part of riding that has always helped the most. I can now go back to riding bareback, and I can start to listen at the most basic level to what my horse is telling me.
The process is a lifelong one, but we’re making progress.
Until the next lesson.
Here are a few more articles for those who have had a similar epiphany:
https://dressagetoday.com/instruction/dressage-position-balance-hip-angle-explained-judy-allmeling
I particularly like the last paragraph:
http://www.meredithmanor.edu/features/articles/nancy/following_the_motion_walk.asp
Haute Ecole* 