Hi there today I'm going to do position review from photographs that someone has
sent in to me. So, let's get started. Hi there my name is Laura and welcome to
another video. If it's your first time here thank you so much for being here
and if it's not your first time here thank you so much for being here! If
you'd like to improve your riding and training win more ribbons at your next
horse show or just like other "horsey" related stuff then remember to subscribe,
hit the bell icon, so you don't miss any new videos coming out. Today I've got
some pictures that someone sent in to me Sydney thank you so much, Sydney for
sending in these photographs and I've been getting a lot of requests to do
some position reviews and if you would like to have your own position review
done then send in some photos to ThistleRidge @ hotmail.com and I'll get
right to it. Thank you so much Sydney for sending in these photographs. She's
sending three lovely photos. Here they are and we're gonna have to do this on
the computer. Here's the first photograph you can see that looks like
she's in a kind of a show situation a
really good it's always great to see that people are taking the time, taking
the opportunity, to go to these training shows, so that you can get some
experience in the show. Another photograph that she sent in and the
third photograph that she's sent in.
thank you so much and you can see that they're really good they're from the
side so I can see your leg position and they're all over jumps so thank you so
much. Now, what I did was as I got them a little bit, made them a little bit bigger
so I could see them and let's take this first photograph
she's looking up you can see here in this photograph that Sydney's looking
out looking forward looking to our next job it's really important when you're
riding just like riding a bike or driving a car that you look up look
forward and look straight ahead it's not only important for safety so that you
could see what's going on and where are you going but also it helps to keep you
in balance and it helps the horse understand where it is you going and if
you take the time right now to look and just shift your weight and look to
another direction look left in the other and really concentrate you can feel how
that shifts your weight in the seat that you're sitting in in the car that you're
driving or it in and the bicycle that you're riding on and the horse can feel
that shift of weight of your head and that's another reason why it's so
important that you look up and look where you're going because that
Telegraph's to the horse where you're going looking out looking forward is
really important great job looking forward also when you're riding looking
out looking forward also helps to keep the rest of your body in balance this
means that if you look down and pulls your head down and forward it pulls your
shoulders forward into a rounded position and puts more weight onto the
horse's shoulders you want to make sure your head is up looking forward to keep
your balance in the saddle properly great job keeping your eyes up would
also like to draw your attention to Sidney's hands on the reins and honor
horse's neck really lovely position love the way that you have your hands
securely on the horse's neck so that you're not getting left behind and also
I love seeing the loop and your rein and this shows that you know what you have
got a really lovely release you're not interfering with the horse and that's
something that's very important if you interfere with the horse that's been to
make the horse jump not in a very good fashion it's going to be hollow through
as look but there was back and start hanging his legs and if you continue to
interfere with your horse overtop of the jumps by pulling on back on the reins
and not allowing him to stretch his head and neck he's gonna start to stop not
going over jumps he's gonna start refusing great job with the release love
that you can see the reins are looped in he looks really happy going forward over
his jumps we also can see here that Sydney has her heels down great job
putting your heels down Sydney you have your heels down but unfortunately it
looks like you're pinching with your knee and your entire lower leg has
slipped back heels are down but it looks like your whole leg is slipped back so
this is one of the major things that we see with your position is your leg
asleep back and you're pinching with your knee tipping forward with your
upper body you're gonna have to keep your upper body more over the center of
the saddle rather than having the seat of your pants over the pommel of the
saddle think of keeping the seat of your seat of your pants over the seat of this
saddle seat of your pants over the seat of the saddle say that 10 times real
fast here we just put an arrow where it looked to me that
where your weight was it looks like your weight is over top of this front of the
saddle over top of the horses Withers rather than down around the horse's body
and down into your heels having a secure lower leg with the weight coming down
into your heels is going to keep you under that saddle if you pinch with your
knees what's going to happen is what you see
here is that your seat is gonna come more over the prom all of the saddle and
your leg is gonna slip back pinching with your knee is going to make your
lower leg swing back because you're tipping forward and when your body upper
body goes forward your leg is going to swing backwards and that's what this I
have this here you can see you're like you swung back your the upper body's
going forward putting more weight onto the horses withers and you lower like
slipping back between an unbalanced position
and makes the horse work a little bit harder because he's got to lift your
weight as well as his only through his shoulders if you're over top of the
center of gravity of the horse which is just around where your knee is keeping
your seat closer to the saddle closer to the seat of the saddle and closing your
hip angle like crouching in the south that will help get your body in line
with the energy of the horse so that you can stay with the horse better if you
look at the other photographs that she sent it's pretty much in the same
position great photos by the way because they're all at the same time in the
sequence of your horses jump so we can analyze each picture the same way
because it's at the same time of the phase of the jump so most people would
say well our heels aren't down let's just put our you stirrups up well that's
one thing you can do but the big thing you have to do is close your hip angle
and get our seat closer to the saddle and think of pushing your bum more
towards the back of the saddle so that your seat is more over the middle of the
saddle I'd like to have your seat closer to the middle of the saddle so your seat
is over top of the seat of the saddle rather than over top of the pommel of
the saddle so the red line is the shoulder hip knee ankle so shoulder hip
knees one angle hip knee ankle is another angle and then I took what I did
was I took those lines so I took the length of the line from the shoulder to
the hip and I just moved it back and this and the angle from the and the line
from the hip to the knee and then move that back and so I thought well this is
where your seat should be so if you can imagine moving your
shoulders back and your hip more towards the back of the saddle how that will
close that hip angle so you'd be in balance with divorce and not standing
over top of the pommel of the side and I took the rider and popped her off of her
horse and then I just put her horse and made it look like it's doing a bigger
jump and and you can see that if I put her horse at a higher jump it looks like
she's in better balance because the horses it puts her in better balance
when she's over top of the horse so for you to be in balance with your horse
over top of this jump you have to make your seat closer to the back of the
saddle over top of the seat of the saddle rather than over the pommel of
the saddle and I got some exercises for you didn't when I dadís I took Sidney
and I just kind of repositioned so that she is more in balance with her horse so
again I took her off that horse I didn't change her position at all I just took
her off that horse and then I was able to rotate her a little bit so that she
was in more imbalance with the horse and you can see here I've just brought her
shoulders up a little bit more and moved her more towards the back of the saddle
and if you look closely you can see there's where her leg was but I just
kind of tipped her back and to me this looks more like she's better in balance
with her horse her seat is more in the middle of the saddle rather than
launching yourself up or toes and then to onto her knees
so what do you think about that to me that looks better
you know subtle difference but you can see the difference of how much this one
looks like she's perching on her knees and on her toes and onto the horse's
neck if you like to get some more position Corrections take a look at
these videos right here lots of videos there that you can watch so how are you
gonna fix the really good exercises that you can do to help keep yourself
balanced overtop of your horse and this is one of my favorite exercises is to
point position and it's called two point position by the way some people don't
know this is because your left leg is in contact with the horse and your right
leg is in contact with the horse your regular riding position is called
three-point position because there's three points of contact left leg right
leg and your seat so practice your two-point position at the walk at the
trot and even at the halt and when you do your two-point you don't need to rise
out of the saddle so that you're standing up out of the stirrup we don't
want to interfere with the horse yeah that's true we don't want to interfere
with the horse but what we do want to do is stay in balance with the horse and we
only need to rise up out of the saddle just enough so the crotch of our Passard
just clearing the saddles just so the crotch of your pants are brushing on the
saddle so the way just down into your stirrups and your seat is just hovering
over top of the saddle you don't need to stand up with your seat over top of the
palm of the saddle cuz that just opens up your hip angle too much you want to
think of it as the rising part of the rising trot where you're just hovering
over top of the saddle and the weight is pushed down into your legs practice this
exercise and I call this the up up-down exercise standing your start for two
beats down in the saddle for one up up up down up up down and that is one of
my favorite exercises to do so that you can stay in balance with your horse. When
you go on your two-point take a look do you have a straight line shoulder knee
toe when you go on your two-point you have a straight line shoulder knee toe
that was one way one checkmark that you can do to see make sure that you were
just in balance with your horse prevent your lower leg from slipping back to do
this when you go in your to point think of pushing your heel down forward relax
your knee let the weight come around into your calf and into your stirrup not
pinching with your knee when you pinch with your knee and you tip forward your
leg is just automatically gonna swing back before you even get started let's
make sure that your saddles fitting you and fitting your horse sometimes saddles
are and fit in correctly and it forces you into that chair seats you have to
pinch with your knees so make sure your saddle is fitting properly as well when
you go near to point make sure you're bending at your hips that you're
bringing your shoulders closer to your knees and you're sticking your bum out
towards the back of the saddle if you just lean forward to stay with your
horse you put the weight onto your knee and onto your stirrup and onto your toes
we want the weight to be kept into the center of the saddle keep your weight
Center in the saddle and let the weight come down through your leg even grip
throughout your entire leg when into the heels make sure that your
stirrup is the correct length how do you tell if your stirrup just to the correct
length when you take your foot out of the stirrup the top of the stirrup tread
should hit the bottom of your ankle bone now when you're jumping top the strip
tread should hit the top of your ankle bone this is particularly important that
you adjust your strip for your own body type depending on your body type you may
have to adjust it a little bit one way or the other
here's a professional tip that I recommend that you do on a regular basis
switch your stirrup leathers from left side to right side you know we mount
from the left-hand side of the horse right so that means every time you get
on you're putting extra weight on to that stirrup even if you're mounting
from a mounting block that stirrup leathers gonna stretch a little bit more
than the other one so at the beginning of every month the switz whap over your
stirrup leathers so that they stretch evenly this avoids those uneven stirrup
leather holes and punching holes in between already made hole
one of the hardest exercises you can do is to point at the walk lift your seat
off at the horses back by pushing the weight down into your feet without
pushing heels down and forwards or down them back keep your legs still and just
raise up your seat out of the saddle so the crotch of your pants is just
brushing the saddle a little bit another really good exercise is a two point
position at the trot and trot over poles there's one of another one of my
favorite exercises to keep your leg still and balanced and secure around the
horse my name is Laura and if you'd like to improve your riding and training win
more ribbons at your next horse show or generally like other horsey related
stuff then remember to subscribe hit the bell icon so you don't miss anything my
name is Laura and if you like to win more ribbons at your next horse show
improve your riding and training then stick around and watch more videos
because there's lots of videos here so that you can improve your riding