Bad Riding Doing Good

Recently, I read a post on FHOTD, or maybe Snarkyrider, where the readers were having a gay old time making fun of a rider on a sale video. Yeah, I know, it's a nasty addiction, reading those comments, like picking at a half-healed scab.

Thing is, I watched the video, immediately dismissed the rider, and enjoyed watching a very nice horse toodle around the arena. The rider wasn't very good, but she had the gelding moving along and showed how patient and clean-limbed he was. My thought was the video was supposed to show a horse someone might want to buy and it did.

It got me thinking about the importance of riding well, vs. the importance of well, riding. The horse in the video was motoring along pretty well, there was some head tossing and tail snapping, but nothing too out of line. It was like he was saying, "Hey there Missy, watch those hands!" Not a big show of pain or temper.

There is a good sized population of riders who spend every second of every minute they are with their horses being correct. From clothes, to grooming, to saddles, to their instructor, to the footing in the arena, everything is always correct.

This isn't discipline specific BTW, it's a mindset a person is sometimes born with, but is often trained into. Ir's easy enough to get there, horses are great, big, snorty critters, and lots of things can go wrong while we're trying to sort out how to go forward, turn left, turn right, and the ever important STOP.

In addition, there's so much to learn. It never stops, the learning, and there is always a better rider in the arena with you, no matter how far up the food chain you crawl.

Becky asked me once how I would define a beginning, intermediate and advanced rider.

This is what I came up with.

Beginning rider: Horse spooks, rider falls off.

Intermediate rider: Horse spooks, rider stays on, wonders what the hell just happened.

Advanced rider: Rider feels the spook coming, assesses the situation while settling in the saddle and handles the oncoming reaction as needed.

The bottom line here is when we begin with horses, we start with the mechanics. How to sort out all the buckles and straps. What a well shod foot looks like. What does a thin or fat horse look like. How to sit, how to steer, how to use our body as communication.

Eventually we get those things sorted out (one would hope) and need to move onto the next level of horsemanship, perception. The ever elusive ability to feel and read your horse. Just as important, to get your horse to feel and read you.

We need to ride well enough to keep ourselves mounted when stuff happens, so we can get lost in thought and sensation. During this period of time, none of us are riding really well. Our seat is secure enough, our hands are no longer using the reins as a balance point, our legs do more than flail around, but we haven't acquired the ease  you see in the riders you wish you were.

This is an important cross roads in becoming a rider. How do we get through it and onto the next level? By heading back to the arena, our instructor, our trainer? By forcing ourselves to step up and conquer the next step in learning? Some do, but I think they've just stuck a big mental roadblock in front of themselves, because what they've done is gone back to the mechanics instead of starting on their perception.

We're sucked into thinking the placement of our heels and how much our elbows flap are the reason we don't look like the better riders. But the fact is, lots of riding and feeling, without much thought, is how you will get your body in the right spot because that's where it works, when you can feel the nuance of your horse through the saddle, when the rhythms between you and your horse become almost indiscernible, then your elbows will settle, your heels will drop, and you will begin to really ride.

Guess how this comes about? By riding. Just getting on and going. Not getting shouted reminders and criticism, not dwelling on posture, where your feet are or which seat bone is doing what, but losing yourself into the horse and the ride, and trusting your training and muscle memory to take care of the mechanics.

I went on a beautiful, long trail ride on Odin with a good friend this past weekend. I wasn't working on anything more than having fun and exposing my colt to a little more of the world. We walked the first few miles, than picked up a long trot, walk, long trot way of going for the next six miles or so. Any time we were travelling uphill and Odin wanted to lope, I let him. It's my way of getting a youngster comfortable with loping on the trail.

When we came to the last couple miles, we were crossing some beautiful open fields and we had a nice long gallop. I wasn't thinking about my seat, my hands, nothing but the bottomless blue sky, the sound of the grass and weeds crackling and the feel of my steady little colt, when all of a sudden, there it was. So clear, so solid, so different than things have been the last few months, I couldn't help but, "Yip!"

You see, my seat has been off. Not terribly, but enough to bother me. I blame it on not being able to ride enough. I also blame it on being crooked, getting old, turning into a cry-baby-sissy-pants, the usual wah-wahs. All of these things are true, to a point.

 I've been working on it too. Trying to balance my seat bones, messing with my leg position, my shoulders, you name it. I was better, but not fixed.

Here I was, dinking along on a ride and playing, not thinking for even a second about impending horse shows  or people noticing how my riding has slacked off, and BAM! my seat was back. It felt great, wonderful, fantastic. Odin flicked an ear and smoothed out a bit, so he felt it too.

None of my tinkering in the arena was ever going to help. Because the mechanics can get in the way of our feel. I had mixed up the two, and was oiling the wrong parts.

During my visit with Tim this year, he wasn't worried about my horse or my riding.

"It's all there, you just have to tighten the screws. Don't go all obsessive on it (who,me?) just keep it in mind while you ride."

Great, I thought, here he goes, getting all esoteric on me, and I, as usual, have to pick out the meaning behind these two short sentences.

Of course, as usual, Tim meant  just what he said, nothing more or less. It took letting my horse go across a field to sort it out. I needed to ride until things fell back into place.

The key here is balance. Knowing when we need to work on mechanics and when to move on to perception. When we start out there are going to be big city block sizes of each to work through. As our experience increases we'll shift back and forth by the week, the day, the hour, the minute.

My trail ride reminded me how important it is to keep both in balance, and to know when to let go and just go ride -- no matter how I think I look. By the end of the ride everything felt right.

Now I can go back to the mechanics and start tightening some of those screws.