hi it's josie and today i would like to give you my three top tips for developing good hands
my hands were always an issue for me they were forever moving going all over the place
my coach was forever telling me i was doing one thing and i never believed her because as
far as i was concerned i wouldn't and one day somebody videoed me and i watched it
and i was i was actually horrified i'd be honest with you i was horrified with
what my hands were doing if you don't have nice still elastic hands and arms
you cannot ride your horse on the bit it is not possible the horse cannot go there because it
would be like having a piece of metal in your mouth and somebody banging it against it just
imagine what that feels like it would not be very nice so if your hands aren't the best that's fine
you can get good hands trust me i work on my hands every single ride every single day
it does require you to do some exercises and to think about getting your hands how they need to be
once you've done the exercises and you have embedded them into your psyche your body will take
over and keep them there for you while you then go on and do other things horse riding is all about
developing good habits as a rider so let's get on with it so by the end of this video you will have
three tips that will definitely without a doubt help you to develop good hands if you put the
work in i can't do it for you you have to do it your horse will thank you i'll do the first
two because they're i'm sure they're ones you've already heard but then the third one i don't know
if you will have and the third tip that i'm going to give you has been a game changer for me an
absolute game changer in all of my riding so the first tip i have to help you develop good hands
is you must be in the habit of having closed hands so they're not closed tight your fingertips just
touch the palm of your hand they're not squished in there they're just touching
the palm of your hand if you don't have closed hands what your horse is getting from your reins
is a bit of a conversation that goes like this spi but i would can you there's a whole pile of
the message that's not getting through because the with closed with open hands i'm going ek ek ek
whereas with closed hands it's very subtle and you've always got a communication with
your horse's mouth so it's a little bit like your mobile phone's dropping out when you can't
understand a word someone's telling you so you need to develop the habit of having closed fingers
and i love sally swift's analogy of how tight should those closed fingers be
if you've ever held a baby bird or a chick you have your fingers closed enough that the chick
cannot get away from you but you don't squash it and kill it or even hurt it so that
is the perfect pressure to have with your closed fist and then when you want to give your horse a
rein aid you literally close your finger a little more as if you're squeezing a sponge and
when he gives you the response you want which should actually really just be a softening on
the rein like spider just did then i'll do that again i'm going to just close my ring
my hand on the inside rein closed see i don't know go back and look i'll see if i can do it
again watch his nose it actually tips in and i'll say now as i do it now see that was just
from a closed finger not or a closed fist not from pulling on the rein - tip number one
tip number two to have good hands you need to have elastic contact and the elastic goes
all the way from the horse's mouth to your elbow and literally down into your
back and spine your brace you brace those but you need to have an elastic contact
and that elastic contact starts here i want you just to while you're sitting there watching this
good boy spider turn your wrist over like piano hands or pram hands they're called
now i want you to do this and feel if it feels soft or tight or sup or nice and supple
and elastic now i want you to turn your hand up and you feel the difference and if you can't feel
that i'll go he because it changes everything so while you're moving backwards and forwards
there turn your hand over and you can feel it actually locks your wrist your wrist has a lot
of little bones in there which allow it to make that sort of movement and give it a really good
shock absorbing capacity which is what takes up some of the shock absorption so you've got a nice
elastic contact for your horse to be happy to go to you will never get your horse on the bit
correctly if you can't do this you may have him in a frame but i'm telling you that's correct now one
it's this is a really old-fashioned exercise but it's a fabulous one actually we'll just face you
except you can't have your head in the way Spides can you just drop your head a little bit for me
good boy a little bit lower thank you is to take your whip put your thumbs over it and you're going
to ride your horse don't drop your reins if you don't trust your horse i'm i'm pretty happy with
spider and you hold your hands because it stops you from rolling your wrist over into a piano hand
and ride like this for a little bit it does have the potential to make you a bit stiff through the
um through the hand because you're trying to hold your whip there so just be aware of
that but it's to try and see if you roll your hands over now i'm going to tell you that my
right hand is pretty good at sitting upright my left hand has a tendency to want to roll over
so i know my own faults and i always work on them as i tell you no one's perfect we've all got them
i if i'm turning to the left on a circle i will tend to drop my left hand and i will tend
to roll it over so let's see how this looks so you get the reins in your fingers first
then you put the um whip where you need it
and then you've got your thumbs on top here and then just go off now guys do this in walk
do this in trot don't care where your horse's head is at the moment you're doing your own
training you're not training your horse as such and yes i know that we don't want to let horses
learn bad habits etc but until we've got this down so that we can do it we need to work on us
and and we are very important because at the end of the day we are supposed to be the pilot
not the passenger okay so i'll let spider go off in trot good boy and i will ride like this
with my um with my whip here telling me turn the corner mate telling me what my hands are doing
so get your horse trotting don't worry about whether he goes around like a giraffe spider's
going around a bit like a giraffe he's the right color for one and just see how you go
do your hands want to roll now i can still it feels really good in my right hand but i can
still feel my whip really pushing on that part of my left hand and why is that because my left hand
wants to roll over my hand wants to roll over and so it's pushing against that bit of my hand so the
third tip i want to give you and the one that was a game changer for me was to learn to attach your
elbow to your hip elbow to your hip because if you ride with straight arms now go and
have a look at some video of yourself and if your arms are always straight and not bent
and you can't work out how to bend them a lot of people and and i will tell my students this as
well to pick their hands up but quite often they just do that they don't actually bend the elbow
so if you remember to put your elbow attached to your hip it has to bend doesn't it has to bend
this one will help you with turning your horse stopping falling out stopping him reefing the
reins out of your hands there are so many good ways that this actually works in the
beginning you may feel that you get really stiff because you're trying to keep your elbow there
but as you work on it your elbow should just hang and stick with your hip now i always think
i've got a little bungee cord there because it is allowed to go a little bit forward and then come
but it always comes back to home base forward and back to home base let's see how this one
works so my elbows should always hang down next to my hip my upper arm hangs from the shoulder
my hands are upright my fingers are closed
and therefore i can have a nice soft supple connection for my horse how does this help riding
through a corner my outside elbow attached to my hip it means that i don't steer him
through the corner like i'm on a push bike which that hand goes forward
and then that hand goes forward and this one comes back
sorry spider he doesn't mind this one goes forward and this one comes back that's not the
way we steer our horse we steer our horse really with our body our weight our legs and indication
from the rein so if my elbows are at my side i don't over bend him i don't pull back
good boy
and also allows you to know if you've got some problems in your steering
if your horse is a reefer by that i mean he pulls the reins out of your hands
how you stop that so this is a little extra bonus for those of you that waited till the
end here this is how i do it and it doesn't always look pretty but it's very effective
if my horse starts to reef i sit down in my saddle lock my elbows at my hip
engage my core muscle usually wrap my legs around my horse a little bit and
grip with them there's no two ways because at 700 kilos he could pull me out of the saddle easy
so i sit here lock my elbows close my fingers grip and set my core and now he can pull as much as he
likes against that i'm not pulling because my elbows are here if you don't put your elbows in
more than likely you are pulling he is pulling if he gives you don't release the split second
he gives which is how the horse learns what you want him to do so elbows are tucked in at your hip
really firmly and i when the horse is reefing mine is squished in and i am stiff without a
doubt but i do not want to pull he can pull as much as he likes he's doing the pulling not me
i hope that helps you please go and practice that developing good hands is the best thing you will
ever do in your horse riding but you must have good balance as well okay because you're never
going to good have good hands if you don't have good balance okay guys thanks for watching