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Virtually Horses |
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The Rider |
Learning to Ride - Mechanics versus 'Feel' |
     
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One of the great problems with learning to ride is the
quality of the instruction. In books, at clinics or with an
instructor the greatest obstacle you will face is the language used and
the ability of the teacher to translate what they know to what you need
to do and know.
Riding a horse is a physical skill that requires practice
and usually instruction but why is it so hard to learn? Why are so many
books and instructors so hard to gain any useful instructions from, is
it simply a lack of communication skills?
While some of the problem is the use of language there is
a deeper problem - what to communicate? You see one of the really
big problems is that riding is both 'mechanics' - what to do with
various bits of your body - and 'feel' - what the 'doing' feels
like to you and how that in turn can affect what your body does.
What is mechanical learning?
For the beginner all riding instruction should be
mechanics - how to place your legs, what to do with your lower back,
hips etc for each gait Unfortunately, many riders and instructors
do not understand the mechanics themselves and can therefore only
describe what they themselves feel when riding. This is why you
get such unhelpful instructions as 'sit up', 'let your legs stretch
around the horse' or 'sit deep' which may as well be Swahili for most
beginners. These instructions don't really mean anything
Sometimes it is not that instructor does not understand
the mechanics but simply that they have an 'instinctive' learning
pattern themselves - they ride by feel and haven't had to break down the
learning experience into its component parts, into the mechanical
pattern.
A good teacher should be able to give you specific information about how
to ride each movement. For example; when first attempting a trot,
they should be able to tell you about the way that your hips must move
both forwad and up and down in order to stay on the horse. If in
doubt, they should be able to return to mechanical language at any time
to check that you understand what is required. If necessary they
should be able to physically move your body into the correct position so
that you can feel where your body and limbs need to be.
What is feel?
Learning true feel for yourself is both
difficult and personal. 'Feel' in riding refers to both how you
feel or picture your body but also how the horse is moving. As you
advance this interaction is vital to improving your riding as your
greatest critic will be your horse. Every move you make is felt by
your horse, who gives you feedback with his own movement. It is
this continuous loop that is most often referred to as 'feel'.
Within this loop, there is also the 'feel' within your
own body. You must be aware of the most subtle changes within your
body position; the weight in your feet, the position of your knee, the
elasticity of your elbows.
When an instructor uses 'feel' to teach you to ride they may talk about
how your knee points downward or you have weight in your heels.
Neither of these two instructions mean that you physically move your
knee or push your feet down - they are descriptions of the feeling
provided by a subtle change in your muscles. If you don't know
how to change your body then you will not understand what the
feeling is like.
To add to the confusion for learners there is also the issue of time and experience. Even if they have been teaching for many years there is no guarantee
that their results are because of the excellence of their teaching
methods and communications skills or just through the perseverance of
their pupils. For an instructor who has spent many years riding themselves it is
very difficult to remember what learning to ride is like. In order to
discuss with pupils how to correct faults or improve position it is
important that the teacher understand what it is that the pupil is
feeling, or not feeling, and be able to give the steps to get from A to
B.
Analogies and Imagination
Analogies and Imagery are often used when teaching via 'feel'.
An analogy is when your instructor tells you "move your hips as if you
are riding a bicycle" or "pretend that your arms and reins are hoses
and water is gushing out them "...
While there is a whole section of people who do indeed learn most
efficiently by the use of analogies, they are only useful if they are
meaningful. For instance, if you are
teaching a skill and make a comparison to driving a car this can only
help if the person is competent at driving a car, if you are teaching
to a group of people who have never seen a car let alone driven one
the analogy is completely useless. For my personal learning I
often find analogies worse than useless. I am often so mystified
by the analogy itself, that I forget about what I am supposed to be
attempting entirely and my brain sets itself to trying to work out
what the heck the analogy could mean!! Sally Swift is a teacher who
provides instruction almost entirely by analogies and some imagery.
Visualisation is slightly different and can be used in numerous sports
and to improve performance. You use your brain as if it were a
video camera to playback or imagine a position or exercise or
performance in your head. By visualising how you want to look
and behave in your head frequently you can change the way that your
body behaves subconsciously. For instance you may picture in your head
your favourite rider from a photo and as you do so you will attempt to
emulate that rider with your own body holistically rather than
consciously thinking about individual requirements - leg back,
shoulders back etc etc etc
So which is better?
Well, neither and both. In the beginning you will need to learn in a
mechanical fashion - 'put your feet in the stirrups like this, Hold your hands
like this'. As you get past the initial phases and begin to understand
what is required to ride a horse you will find that you have a preference for
one learning style over another. However, in addition to this you may find
that you need to incorporate all of the different styles in order to understand
the nuances of riding a particular movement. For example: when you are
learning to ride canter, your instructor may tell you about placement of your
legs and arms and how to move with the horse through your back and belly, as you
progress you may need more feedback and it may be most helpful to compare 'feel'
with your trainer or fellow riders, do you feel tall? do you feel like you are
sitting in the horse's centre of gravity - perhaps you will even use an analogy
'when its good I feel like I am the pole for a carousel horse, I am still and
tall and the horse moves up and down in front and behind me but I am sitting
relaxed in the middle'.
Why do I need to know this?
Because in order to learn to ride, most of us need all the tools that are
available. If you've only ever had one instructor, who only speaks in
terms of feel or mechanics or analogies, you may not be making the progress you
could. Not because you have a 'bad' teacher but because you aren't
connecting to his\her language or because you need to receive different types of
instruction at different times.
Its also important to understand why there can be such different descriptions
for the same thing. If you can grasp onto every instruction, no matter how
strange it seems and try to understand where it fits you may make some amazing
discoveries. Sometimes you can be riding entirely 'wrongly' for a very
long time and only when you hear or read something that makes no sense at all do
you pick up on this 'wrongness'. Because many changes in your riding
position are very subtle, often involving internal muscle structures only, you
instructor may not be able to pick up on exactly what you are doing wrong.
But as you begin to put together all the pieces of the puzzle - fitting
mechanics and feel together - you will gain a much better understanding of the
whole picture.
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