Balance of the horse rider is vital in all horse sports, and
improving the rider's balance is not only essential for success it
can also be a lot of fun
The
fastest way to improve the horse's performance is to improve the
rider's balance. This leads to the ability for the rider to move
any part of their body - with ease (the famous 'independent seat').
Any
exercise, either on or off the horse that will improve the seat
balance and posture of the horse rider is worth practicing.
Just think the surf board rider.
It's not actually a horse rider's independent seat...but it really
is the same thing rider balance! This time board rider
balance...on
Hawaii’s north shore those waves can get up to 75ft high. The
thought of dropping 75 FEET onto the reef below is enough to make
ANYONE practice their rider balance skills!
You know we now have AMAZING sports
coverage on television. Just go and have a look for yourself, at
sports like MOTOR CYCLE RACING. That is the ultimate in
the independent seat: the hands and legs, knees and backsides going
in totally different directions!
No matter how many years I study the
biomechanics of the athlete I will ALWAYS be astounded at the motor
cycle rider. Have a look for yourself…on the turns their inside
knee is only inches from the ground as they ROAR around the track at
HUNDREDS of kilometres an hour. I don’t even want to THINK about
what would happen if they made even the TINIEST mistake with their
balance.
Just think about the balance of the
Olympic diver standing up there on the platform ready to dive, or
the gymnast on the balance beam…
In those sports Balance could be the
difference between Olympic Gold and disaster.
What about the AMAZING story of Yurik
Sarkisian. 22 years after he received his first medal for
weightlifting, this amazing athlete, won all three competitions at
the Commonwealth Games. To win all three competitions, the snatch,
the clean and jerk and the overall , he won the “grand slam”: at 41
years of age. He is an amazing example of how good balance
continues to keep the athlete winning, year after year.
Imagine the BALANCE you
would need to lift seven bags of barley above your head!
It doesn’t matter what sport you think
of balance is one of the key elements to success. In dressage…one
of the major things that the judge is looking for, especially at the
higher levels, is the horse’s balance, and with jumping, we all know
what it feels like to be out of balance. To be “left behind”, or
to be in front of the movement.
It doesn’t matter if you are a complete
beginner, or an FEI professional, balance is something we have to
work on and practice all the time. If a horse rider has bad balance
they’ll fall off. But it’s not only the immediate threat like
falling that we need to think about as coaches.
We also need to think about what’s
going to happen in the LONG term. You know the professional athlete
spends MOST of their time working on their technique, their balance
and their posture.
If an athlete has GOOD balance, their
career could continue for YEARS, injury-free. But say for example a
runner leans on their right foot heavier than their left. With
years and years of pounding up the track, it doesn’t take a
mechanical specialist to figure out which foot, or which knee or hip
is going to give out first. Any athlete’s career could easily be
CUT SHORT because of poor balance.
And most riders have felt this for
themselves at one time or another. When riders tell me about ankle
pain, 9 times out of 10 it is pain in only ONE ankle…just like the
runner.
The
fastest exercise to improve your riding is to learn to stand up –
FULLY (but that's just exercise No. 1...)
With GOOD balance, and good mechanical
use of our bodies, our careers should continue on track for YEARS.
The fastest way to improve
your riding is to learn to stand.
There is absolutely no
doubt in my mind about this. It has so many benefits, it is just
incredible.
AND THE GOOD NEWS? It
doesn’t take long. Seriously! Most people, especially adults, find
this an extremely difficult exercise in the beginning, often
impossible. However with only a few week’s practice, even injured
or older more nervous riders find they really can learn how to do
it.
When we talking about
standing, it’s NOT “jumping position”, or 2 or 3 point position or
“light seat”. It is standing FULLY, just like you would if you were
standing on the ground with no horse underneath you.
Obviously the initial
benefit is a massive improvement in balance, but learning to stand
also improves:
1.
The rider’s heels. (If
they are still up once the rider really has mastered this exercise,
then the stirrups are probably too long)[1].
2.
Strength and co-ordination
3.
Ability to track the
straightness of the rising (posting) phase of the rising trot[2].
4.
Ability to feel if one stirrup is carrying
more weight than the other.[3]
5.
Improves the rising (posting) trot generally
Learning to stand up fully in the stirrups is
JUST THE BEGINNING.
If you find it hard, start
at halt, but as I said, this is JUST THE BEGINNING, and it is done
in trot or canter, or even more difficult is downhill. You can use
it to encourage the “baby” shoulder in, in fact the entire dressage
test, and jumping if you were game enough could theoretically be
done standing.
The fastest way to improve
your riding is to practice the standing, and advanced standing
exercises.
Your balance has to be
SUPERB for Olympic level competition, and this is only the first
step to getting there. If you think it is difficult, actually
standing is only a basic exercise in a lot of major schools around
the world, and NOTHING compared to what a vaulter needs to do!
