Welcome to Trainer Tuesday! Each week, we ask trainers a question and gather their answers for you. These trainers have a range of experience, backgrounds, and focus points of their programs, so the answers have as much variation as you would expect, and also probably much more similarity.
This week’s question is: What is something riders tend to overcomplicate?
Here are their answers:
“Something that I feel riders tend to overcomplicate – coming through the turn. The most important thing to remember is to have your horse’s nose pointed at the jump.” – Staisha Connors
“All riders, especially adult amateurs, tend to overthink everything! We are struggling so hard to be good. To do good. To be perfect. To do the best by our horses. It is our nature to want to do better. But often that leads us to overwork at what we are trying to achieve, and in the end, the overworking can hinder what it is we actually want to do.
I often see this in rider position. We are generally taught to sit up straight, pinch our shoulders back and lift our chest and chin to create a ‘look’ of good posture on a horse. While this is ‘kind of’ a look we want to see in a rider, all of these instructions actually lead to overdoing it, which may create a ‘look’, but usually ends up in stiffness and tension cause by trying too hard.
Instead of following these directions we are given while on the horse, I would advise riders to first find their riding posture before mounting. To do that, find the closest wall. Then standing with your back against the wall, feet slightly away from the wall in a bent knee riding position, find your core abdominal muscle. Do this by pulling the belly button to the backbone and flattening the waistline and rib cage against the wall. Allow the head to come forward off the wall as needed to feel a lengthened spine from the waistline up. Hold this position for about 30 seconds. Try to relax the back, neck and shoulders while engaging the core. Do this several times before you mount the horse, focusing on engaging your core with relaxation in your limbs and back muscles.
Once up on the horse, try to recreate the feeling of your spine back against a wall and being held just by your core. Relax your legs and shoulders. You may feel rounded, but do this enough times to train yourself that you need your core muscle to do the work to hold you up with suppleness rather than pinching shoulders together with tension.” – Janice Dulak
