Quick Tip Tuesday: The Arms.

Another Unit

The rider's torso rides the horse's spine up and down forward, the rider's legs ride the horse's torso rotating left and right up and down.  Want to guess what gathers the horse in and releases them out?  ie front-to-back.  It's the arms.  The are ridden by the horse's mouth.

The hand rotates round the elbow; the elbow rotates around the shoulder; as the hand goes forward, the elbow opens; as the hand floats back, the elbow closes.

I prefer to have my elbows move in front of and behind the vertical.  Some folks prefer to keep the elbow oscillating ahead of the vertical.  

The easiest way to accomplish all this is to allow the horse to move your hands.  (Oh, sure.)

The primary motions of the arms are gathering back and releasing forward with the forearm aligned between the elbow and the horse's mouth.  There is also a slight downward and upward motion as well as a slight side to side motion.

There is a rotation along the spine, left shoulder forward then right shoulder forward, then left, then right, etc.

Find it on your horse ...

I recommend the walk.

As your horse is walking, notice your hands go forward.  This is because the horses mouth is going forward.  If you're riding English, both hands will go forward.  

Pretend you've got some rubber bands on your elbows that stretch when the horse takes your hands forward and then shrink as the horse's mouth comes backward, allowing your elbows to return to the starting position.

Notice there is a slide of hands forward to the mouth and then hands backward to the elbow (which is moving backward bringing the hand with it), then to the mouth, then to the elbow.  This backward sensation is similar to swimming the crawl when you lift your elbow out of the water first.  Together, it's a little bit like 'push-me-pull-you' -- elbow to hand to mouth goes as a unit.  The elbow has to open and close to let this happen.

Once you've tapped into the rhythm of the hands, notice (if using two reins) that every other step, one hand comes farther back than the other.  The hand that comes farther back is the hand on the side where the hip is going forward.  So there is a left side right side left side right side continuation.

The closeness is achieved by the slight rotation of the shoulders around the spine.  As the shoulders rotate to the left, the hips are rotating to the right.  These rotations continue in all movements.

So now you have 'hips' and 'hands' (Okay, waist and elbow?) meeting left side right side left side right side and so on.

Find this.

When you've found this, keep it up and then notice it's very much seems like it's your seat that swings forward between 'stationary' hands, up to the left, up to the right, up to the left, up to the right.

Lynn

6/06/23