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The Rider |
What is a 'seat'? |
     
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If you are new to riding you may find this constant talk
of your seat confusing. It is rare indeed that an instructor will
explain what they mean by your seat and how they will proceed to develop
it. Partly this is for practical reasons; people start lessons for
a variety of reasons, so there's not a lot of incentive to discuss
theory with those not really interested because they're just going on a
couple of treks or want to just be proficient enough to know the head
from the tail of the horse. But there is also the problem of
teaching in which any student can only take on board a limited number of
new ideas, so instructors tend to dive in with the basics of making sure
you don't fall off and some of the theory gets put aside and often
simply not brought up again, leaving the novice-intermediate student a
little confused.
So here it is. When referring to your seat this
means both to the entire mechanism by which you are attached to the
horse and specifically to your backside. To be more particular
your seat refers to any part of your bum, pelvis and upper thighs that
connects directly with the saddle. To be ultra correct there is a
specific area of your pelvis\bum known as the 'triangle of the seat' and
this is in itself a subject of some argument amongst purists. For
many the triangle is your seatbones and the upper thigh bones creating a
sort of tripod upon which you sit, for others this triangle is the two seatbones and the
coccyx\tailbone (which doesn't actually sit on the saddle at all) and
yet others from the 'classical' school the seat is formed from the two
seatbones and the pubic bones.
So you can see why an instructor would avoid the topic with novices,
particularly if they are not sure of the topic themselves.
Suffice it to say that the seat bones are the two core
points of contact for your body on the saddle and when referring to your
seat your instructor is talking about how your pelvis is connecting with
the horse and the overall picture of how you are sitting on the
horse. When you get instructions like 'sit deeper'*, which
frankly are so unhelpful as to be laughable, what is usually meant is to
open your hips wider, relax your legs\knees more to enable your pelvic
floor to have more contact with the saddle and perhaps even
sit back a little more (bring your ear-hip-heel back into alignment).
The most important aspect of the seat is that you
understand where your seat bones are and the ear-hip-heel alignment.
*As you progress to more advanced
levels some of these instructions will have different meanings, in
advanced dressage for example you can indeed sit deep or light or
forward etc as you master weight aids but this page is intended for
beginners to intermediate riders. There are many books which will
explain the riders seat for the more advanced rider.
Finding your seat bones is easy and important.
Everything about your seat requires you to know where your seat bones
are and later to feel connected to your horse through them. So
lets perform a simple exercise to find them. First off the horse -
find a chair or stool with a firm seat or better yet the arm of the sofa
to sit on. You want to be sitting as if in the saddle if possible.
With a firm object simply sit upright and wiggle your bottom a little -
you'll feel two bones almost directly under your hips. If you
can't, stay seated but lift up your legs as far as you can in front of
you as if you are a jockey - you should now feel them. If you have
ever ridden a bicycle you should be well aware of these bones, as these
are the bones that rest on the bicycle seat.
Take care that you understand the difference between your
seat bones, which are located in alignment with your spine and your
pubic bones which are at the front fork of your pelvis and will hit the
saddle if you tip forward. These are not intended to take weight
and will cause you a great deal of pain if you are continually hitting
them, this is a fault known as riding on the fork, and you will find
your instructor constantly telling you to sit back. Next time you
are in the saddle, find your seat bones again before beginning your
lesson - if you can't clearly feel them, ask your instructor to hold
your horse while you again bring your legs up and forward into the
jockey position until you can feel them under you - then lower your legs
without moving your pelvis to ensure that you remain sitting on your
seat bones.
If you are receiving lessons your instructor will at
first physically put you into this alignment and later give you clues
regading which 'bits' of your anatomy are breaking out of formation.
Often this is a simple - heels back, shoulders back type of instruction
and although this is sufficient for starters, there are significant
problems with this type of instruction. The problem being that if
you don't know how to feel when your alignment is correct anytime your
instructor does not correct you, you'll think you're ok and this may
lead to bad habits. Additionally, while they may point out your
biggest fault, others may go unnoticed and again form bad habits that
are hard to break later on.
First lets clarify that 'hip' means approx the point of
your hip bone - this is because your seatbones are in the same alignment
and that's what we really want as your centre of gravity. Second
the alignment should be vertical, just having them in a line isn't right
- don't be fooled by the many photos of top level riders you see leaning
back - its not ideal and their instructors would probably be trying to
correct this fault.
So lets look at the simplest way to check your alignment.
Sit on your horse in your 'best' position, seat bones firmly sitting on
the saddle. Now for starters where is your head? Can you turn your
head and is it directly over your shoulder? or is your neck making it
stick out over your chest? OK, so bring your neck up and back so
that your head is balanced correctly over your neck and now your ear and
shoulder should be in correct alignment - you'll probably find that this
automatically corrects your shoulder\chest too!
So lets try that again, with your head correctly balanced
on your neck (back, up and chin tucked in a little) so that your ear and
shoulder are aligned - use your eyes to look down to your feet.
Try to use your eyes only, rather than tilting your body over to one
side or the other. You should be able to directly confirm your
ear\shoulder\hip\heel alignment for yourself and what's more doing this
exercise tends to help you correct yourself since your upper body must
grow taller in order for you to look down over your shoulder. Do
it 2 or 3 times on both sides and adjust your legs by letting them hang
down (try pushing your knee down from your hips) and back.
Once you're happy, walk on and repeat the exercise at the
walk. Now have someone from the ground check you. If you're
cheating and moving as your look, retry the exercise with a spotter from
the ground - try to fix in your mind the exact feel of sitting correctly
and what you need to do to check your alignment. Once you have
this down correctly you can use it at anytime to check your position
with or without your instructor - if you are corrected with a 'heels
back' or other simple instruction, take the opportunity to check that
the rest of your alignment is correct - often one piece of the puzzle is
pushed out by something seemingly unrelated. Your instructor may
see your leg creeping forward but you should know that it is your
shoulders slumped or whatever and correct the cause not the symptom.
Here you can see me pretty close to
the correct alignment, If I perform my little exercise and bring my neck
back in order to look down over my shoulder it will bring my upper body
up a little taller and let my leg stretch down and back a little more.
You can tell that I am sitting back on my seat bones because my rather
large backside is tucked under me.
The trick of course is to maintain
your alignment in all paces (photo below shows the trot)
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| On This Page | |
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Finding your seat bones
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| Legs | |
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When riding in the correct position
you should feel a stretch through the front of the hips and down the
thigh itself. Your knees and ankles will also be placed into new
positions and have considerable strain put on them to be supple.
But don't fall into the trap of thinking that you are performing ballet,
although your legs are stretching out around the horse, your toes should
be pointing forwards not out. This means that your legs are also
twisting inwards a little, as if pigeon toed but the turn starts at the
hip. To prove this, try sitting cross-legged on the floor after
you have dismounted next time - your knees will feel the stretch in a
totally different direction. Although you will be tempted to
concentrate on your lower legs, it is the hip and knee that allows your
legs to hang correctly, particularly your hips.
Practice your position off the horse by performing little 'squats'. Bend your knees a little, feet approx. 2 feet wide knees point downwards. Let your pelvis drop and rotate so that your butt tucks under you and your lower belly rotates upward. Your hips should be loose and wide, your stomach should push down slightly (meeting the upward rotation of your pelvis). Let your upper body float above your pelvis, your shoulders aligned directly above your hips, your arms hang loosely from your shoulder and let your hands sit in front of your belly button.
More important than the leg
contortions, which will come with time and practice, try to make sure
that your seat (your hips, upper thighs and bum) remain in the saddle
when you apply your leg aids. By this I mean that normally when
you attempt to squeeze with your lower leg or 'slap'', you may find that
your upper thigh and especially your seat muscles will also tense up and
your seat bones will pop off the saddle. The movement should
instead come from the lower leg alone.
As the horse walks you will feel the
body sway from side to side. If your lower back or stomach are tensed
you will be stopping this movement and therefore stopping your horse!
Make sure that you relax and feel that swinging movement.
This swing happens because as each
hind leg in turn is lifted by the horse and moved forward that side of
the horse becomes higher. The same as your hips swing when you
walk. By feeling the sway of the horse's body from side to side
you can tell which back leg is being lifted and is moving forward.
This is a very important lesson to learn and will be invaluable for you
to be able to perform correct halts and transitions later on. You
should be able to call out which hind leg is off the ground.
At the same time practice feeling what is happenning to
your seat bones and check your alignment frequently. When the
horse's back legs are in motion your hips\pelvis need to move in the
same way to ensure that your seat bones remain in contact with the
saddle. Experiment with all of this to really understand what you
need to do to ride in harmony with your horse.
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