Welcome back to another edition of “Train your Eye with Amelia Newcomb” the quick 2-4 minute read with a submitted photo from a REAL rider in my community. These articles are designed to help train your eye for dressage, rider position, and more while also giving you associated feedback to help the rider (and you if you have the same habits!).
Today, the lovely Claudia from my Patreon Community is our rider. I’ve actually worked with Claudia one-on-one before in some virtual lessons- she’s a good rider and I’m excited to dive into this Train You Eye to help her. Thank you Claudia for submitting your photo!
What I see:
This looks like a nice pair that works well together. The rider appears relaxed and is looking up and ahead with a clear destination in mind (I like that!). As we look deeper at the photo though, a few little things stick out to me that once corrected, will really help the rider be more secure in the saddle.
–Rotating hands or Piano hands. “Thumbs up, thumbs up!” I remember coaches telling me this growing up- would have helped if they had told me WHY. Our thumbs need to be in the upright position so that we have full use of our wrists and don’t create tension in our forearms.
Interestingly though, this is one of those things that riders struggle to fix, Why? Because the core of the problem isn’t the hands, but the elbows. If we look at her elbow, we see them wide and out, preventing that nice following arm we need in the walk and canter. How do we fix that? We go to the shoulders. They need to be rolled to the back of their sockets, so that the elbows can hang soft beside the rider’s ribcage, so that the wrists can be turned up and have full mobility.
Isn’t it fascinating how our body is all interconnected like that? So to fix the piano hands, first look at the shoulders of the rider. After this, she will be able to have more following hands and be less stiff in the saddle (which I go into in my next point!).
–Loose seat. From this image, I would suspect that the rider is fairly stiff in the saddle and doesn’t feel very secure in the canter. Which is understandable! The Canter is one of the hardest gaits to master! She’s a bit tipped forward on her pubic bone, her knee is out and loose, and her lower leg has swung behind her and out, thus isn’t providing her with much support.
Essentially, she isn’t using her weight and seat aids. She needs to readjust her seat bones to be straight up and down under her, disconnect her hips from her upper body to swing with the movement of the horse and be able to have her leg in a position where she can use it to influence the horse (which we will need on my next point!)
–4 beat canter. You might ask “Amelia, it’s a still photo- how can you tell if it’s a 4 beat canter?!?” I simply look to the legs, all the same. In the canter, we should have a clear 3 beat rhythm starting with the 1) outside hind, then the 2) diagonal pair of inside hind to outside fore, and then 3) inside fore. With this horse, we can see that the outside hind is on the ground for beat one, then the outside front is either on the ground/just touching for the second beat, and the inside hind will be slightly behind it for 3, and then the inside front is on the 4th beat.
How do you fix this? Working on the first two position points will really help this because it will allow the horse to move more freely under her but after that, the rider needs to get the horse more through over it’s back by riding forward with more activity and incorporating lateral work to encourage the horse to step under themselves and use their body properly!
How to improve/exercise to try:
To work on this, our rider has to be a bit brave to adjust her body to a new way of sitting. It might be easier to be put on a lunge line (if her horse is comfortable and safe with that) to work on the position points first.
- For her arms, I suggest she take a peek at this video: https://youtu.be/oHgfJJFRzkM
- For her canter seat, she needs to learn to follow the motion better to be more stable. try these videos: https://youtu.be/_58ismElsMk
https://youtu.be/4n8RE5Ybqv0 - And for her 4 beat canter, working on lateral work will help. Think a little leg yield like to get the horse rounder and over their back. Check out this video on the leg-yield: https://youtu.be/5d2pkCzzmlw
