Satori Center

Resources

Tidbit

Tangled, not Twirled 
(er, not good)

Unlike 'Shaken Not Stirred,' 'Tangled, not twirled' is not good.   We want 'Twirled not tangled.'

Recently, though, I saw a rather high level clinician coach someone to become tangled.  I thought she was coaching them about what not to do, but she was actually telling them that was what they should do.  (Oops)

The Visual

The visual for this is a stack of 'hockey pucks.'   Or a stack of saucers.  Or a stack of lazy Susan's.  Or a tower of beads.  You want something that spins around a central axis and stands in a column.  The axis is the plumb line and should never change shape.  You spin the hockey pucks, saucers, lazy Susan's, or beads while maintaining the plumb line and the column.  (Even in light seat and jumping seat!)

What could go wrong?

A very typical thing that goes wrong is the instructor says 'Look where you're going!' and the rider whips her head around to look where she's going but absolutely nothing else spirals or twirls, the instructor is quiet, the rider assumes this is all good.  Or maybe the instructor even hollers at the rider if she gets her shoulders out of whack or if her hands move or her legs do something funny -- at which point the rider freezes with everything facing forward and her head looking over her shoulder or something similar.

If this rider managed to keep everything in the column and on the plumb line, the picture immediately to the right shows how her subconscious would relay this information to her if she were using the visual's I use and she asked for feedback from her body.

The red shading shows that everything is still stacked in the column, not too far left/right or front/back, and everything is still parallel to the ground.  It's like the top two beads (C1 & C2) have simply been spun sideways on the plumb line.

The result of this is that the joint between C2 & C3 is doing all of the work that ideally the entire spine would be doing.  Instead of that joint spinning sideways 24º, ideally each joint would spin 1º and no one joint would be overtaxed.  If each joint spun 1º the rider's gaze would still end up looking in the correct direction and the rider's spine would be aligned and flexibly moving with and absorbing the motion of the horse.

The result for the horse of the incorrect spine usage in the rider is undue pounding of the horse's spin because the rider's body is misaligned with the horse's spine.  There is also a training issue in that the rider is unwittingly asking for the horse to freeze and hold itself stiff and straight while also asking it to bend.

C1 and C2 turn as a unit -- because C1 doesn't turn.  And neither will your head turn from C1.  C2, C1, and your head all turn together.  That's the way your bones are made to work.

Typically, when they're the 'only thing turning,' this isn't the only thing that happens.  Usually when a rider flings their head sideways, other body parts go the other way to compensate for this.  When that happens, the plumb line is broken and now the hockey pucks aren't parallel to the ground any more.  You get something similar to the far right picture.

Life has just gotten monumentally worse.  There will be pain involved, probably in the lower back, shoulders, and neck, and as for the ride, the horse will not make its corners, won't canter properly, may fall on it's shoulder or run out on an approach to the fence...  

Or...  (here's what the clinician was advocating)

This starts out the same way, or it may also actually incorporate a correct twirl, but then there's a bending that happens.  

For a left turn, it's like you fling you head the the left and then follow that up by leaning over to the left bending the plumb line (so now every vertebra in your spine is tipped towards the ground, ie not parallel to the ground) and then lift your head.  (putting a kink in your neck for good measure.)

As I tried to make the picture for this, I'm reminded of those silly cactus things you see in front of car lots.  Picture one of these things falling over to the side and that's what was being taught in this clinic.

When a person does this it reminds me of how kids pretend to be airplanes.  Instead of swooping down to the ground, though, you want to be flying level.

If the rider were to hold their arms out like airplane wings, it would be easy to see whether they are swooping or staying parallel to the ground.  So while we don't ride around on horse with our arms out in the air like that, you can mentally ask yourself, "where would my arms be if I lifted them like that?  Would the whole thing be parallel to the ground?  Would I be in the center of the saddle still?"

Again, doing this kind of thing, bending the plumb line and tipping over, sends mixed messages to the horse.  When the rider bends the plumb line, the request to the horse is to misalign its spine.  In this case, you're asking the horse to dig into the ground with its front end.  That may be helpful if the horse is rearing, but it may not be so helpful when you want lofty movement.  You'll find the horse 'heavy in your hands' and sluggish.  You may also find, if you're doing this, that you're sore and gripping and that both you and your horse are getting stiff.

Of course, there's more, but I've decided it's better to keep things short.

'til next time, 

L

ps If you're wondering what's going on in your specific situation, I've got over 20 years of experience seeing these things and can give you accurate feedback and tailored direction about what to do differently.

Books: Amazon Assoc. / Old Favs

Links

  Books 

"The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities." 

~ James Allen