hello everyone so today i have a question from my facebook club amelia's dressage club if you're not
a member yet check out the link below and go to facebook and be sure to join the club we have like
an amazing community of supportive and positive riders where you can ask questions and get help
and help others so it's really fun but anyways a girl named lauren asked a question about how
she can keep her ankles still when she rides and i definitely have a lot of empathy for her because
i have the same problem like i feel like my lower leg is not still enough and it flops around a lot
so there are a lot of good suggestions and i'm going to give you a few today
so your ankles should move some when you ride because your ankles are a shock absorber so your
ankle should have some natural movement as they absorb the motion of the horse so that your seat
and your hips and everything can take up that shock as well if you're like super braced and
locked up in your ankles you're not going to be able to use your leg properly so you should have
some motion in your ankles just not excessive motion now the second thing to consider is that
if you have a long leg like i do and especially on a smaller horse like this where your leg hangs
below the horse it's going to be a lot more likely that your ankles are going to move as opposed to
if you're super short and your ankles are like here on the side of the horse they're not really
going to be able to move around so much so ankles moving is definitely a function of
when you have a little bit of a smaller horse and a longer leg like the situation here
but also watch a lot of the top riders like if you watch stefan peters
he has a lot of motion in his ankles and in his lower leg so it's not necessarily a bad thing so
let me get started here with the jock and we're just going to start off in the posting trot and so
when what's the difference between good motion and bad motion in your ankles if
i am let me get him going so if i feel like i have to kick him every step so if i'm going
kick kick kick kick kick kick kick kick then that's what i would consider to be
bad motion like this is definitely too much because you see how i'm really like kicking him
every step to try to get him going so if your horse is behind the leg and you're kicking every
step then that's definitely not good motion okay so what is a reasonable amount of motion is that
as i'm rising the trot here you'll notice there is a little bit of a bob in my ankle
um as i'm rising the trot but it's important that i'm not i don't have my spur in him
so as long as you're not spurring your horse every stride but there's a little bit of bob
in your ankles that's okay like here see there's a little bit of bob in my ankles because i'm
absorbing the motion if i keep my ankle stiff like it locks my hips and my horse stops let
me try and demonstrate that again so if i don't let there be any motion in my ankles it locks up
my hips like if i just try and really hold my legs perfectly still and i'm not letting my ankles move
it makes my seat stiff so there is some natural motion that you need to have in your ankles and
that's okay as long as your horse is in front of the leg and same thing at the canner so
when i'm cantering my horse and my hips are swinging from back to front
you'll notice that my heel is going down down down down and if i need to kick my horse or give him a
little activation from my leg i'll use my leg and then i'll push my heel back down again good boy
good boy
so hopefully that helps another thing though that if you if you want to improve your leg position
that i'm really aware of is that i try to think about you know having a little pressure in my calf
keeping my leg a little bit near and making sure that i don't feel my leg swinging back
and forth so that's the kind of motion that you don't want you don't want your leg to
be swinging back and forth that's a bad kind of motion and if i feel like that's happening
then i will try to like close my calf and keep my lower leg a little more still
so let me show you what i mean by that it happens a lot in the canter that's where i find like a
lot of times like with my inside leg like it's really easy to just kind of let the motion of
your canner and your leg starts going like that so if that's the case then you need to
kind of think about wrapping your legs around your horse putting your calf a little bit more steady
and just i try to feel like underneath my boot and make sure that i don't feel
like my calf is swinging around so like now it's a little bit more still good boy
good boy
good boy so that's my two cents on ankles let me know if this helps you guys um you know like i
said you should have some motion in your ankles because they are a shock absorber just like
like all of the hinges in your legs need to move so like your hips need to move a little your knees
need to be able to move your ankles need to be able to move your feet need to be able to move
but you don't want to have excessive motion where you feel like you're just banging your your ankles
against the horse so that's kind of the difference and like i said it's easier to keep your legs
still if you're a little shorter or if your horse is bigger like on some of my other horses
like my young horse kensington he has a much bigger body and so he takes up my leg
and with him it's a lot easier for my ankles to stay still so hopefully this helps be sure to join
our facebook group if you have any other questions that you want to ask and i do try to select some
questions from there and then make a video so be sure to like my channel give me a thumbs up and
share my videos with your friends it really helps me out and i hope you enjoyed this one the end
bye