Hey everyone Amelia Newcomb here, Thanks for watching. I put out new dressage training videos
every Wednesday, so subscribe and hit the bell if you want to get notified when I put out a new
video. Sign up for my email list I have I send out great emails about dressage training and
riding if you're interested in learning more about dressage. So today I'm giving you five quick fixes
for a rider position to improve your dressage riding position, so comment below let me know
what your biggest rider position flaw is and maybe I can come up with a trick for you. This is my bag
of tricks! Okay so my first trick is for your hand position. So a lot of riders tend to either
tilt their hand this way or tilt their hand this way instead of keeping their thumb on top. So I
always tell people to imagine that they have a mug of hot cocoa if it's cold or maybe some lemonade
if it's hot and you don't want to spill that out. So that means that you've got to keep your thumb
up and you also need to keep your hand relatively still so that it doesn't all spill out. So this
is a good visual to think about I also have my little friendly horse here so I'll show you at
the trot is really you know it helps it like maybe you can even put some water or something in here
while you're riding and see if you can keep your hand still and keep the water from spilling out
onto your horse. So that's a good just a good visual to have in your mind when you're riding
is thinking about keeping that little mug full of liquid so you have some to drink when you're
done riding. Okay my second trick a lot of you guys have probably read on Sally Swift's book
centered riding, I'll link it below but that's such a good book let me know if you've read it ,
but she talks about that you should feel like you have a baby bird in your hand. So I have a missus
pastures little horse here which is just as good. So when you're holding your reins you don't want
to kill your baby horse so you wanna you should have pressure between your thumb and your pointer
finger, that's how you keep the reins from sliding out but then your hand should be able your fish
should be able to squeeze and kind of massage the rein and give rather than just clamping and
squeezing the guts out of your horse that's trick number two. Okay so my third trick is for, if you
have trouble with keeping your legs still, which I definitely have problem with that, so I have some
little bungee cords, you can also use like a piece of twine or a spur strap, basically anything you
can find around the barn. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna go around the stirrup leather and
the back billet on your girth. This isn't like the safest thing so if you have an unsafe horse
make sure that you have something that'll break away if your horse like freaks out while you're
riding it. So what this is gonna do is that it's going to limit how much you can move your legs.
So so it you basically you see how it's going to limit that I'm like a lot of people they end
up with their spur back here on the corner their saddle pad which is where your foot should never
have to go that far back. So this is going to help just you find that that steadiness with your leg
at the girth. I'm gonna do one on the other side and then I'm going to try and ride her with them.
So this if anything else is just gonna make you more aware of your leg position and how much, you
know, if you tend to want to like really draw your legs back it's gonna make you really feel that.
I actually I tried this on a horse for the tempi changes because in the tempi changes when I watch
the video was like my leg was like swinging way back here. So I tied my legs to the girth and then
I tried to do the tempi changes and it was a very enlightening experience. So I'll pickup the trot,
see how this feels on her, but you'll find like even on her, you know like when I asked her to
trot I could feel myself want to draw my leg back instead of just keep my leg at the girth, have an
invisible aid. Let's see if I can pick up the caner I'll do it in front of you guys so when I
go to pick up the canter again I can't put my leg quite so far back I've got it you know I can put
my leg a little back but with these little straps on it's forcing my legs to stay at the girth
where they belong. So again you can see it just kind of limits like I can move my leg a little
so I can move my leg some but basically here's your leg at the girth here's your leg behind
the girth it doesn't really allow me to, or I start to feel it pull on me if I try to move my
leg farther back so give that one a try let me know if it helps you. Trick number four I think
we're on number four is a trick to keep your hands still I think a lot of riders struggle
with the feeling that their hands are all over the place and also you know you always hear this
like "oh you need to have forward feeling hands forward feeling hands" and you think okay well
that's great but I don't really know how to get that. So what you're gonna do is find a piece
of like a lead rope or any kind of rope this is a pair of draw reins what you do is you're
gonna put it around your horse's neck like this and then you're gonna hold your extra strap in
addition to your reins and what you're gonna, so when your reins like can influence can move your
horse's head around but this this strap around your horse's neck like you really can't move
your horse's neck that much so let's give this a try it's a little tricky to figure out how
to hold all this stuff but what this is going to prevent you from doing is from pulling your hands
backwards so you want to feel like a little bit of get your hands in the position that you want
them to be in and then you want to feel a little tension on that rope that's around your horse's
neck and then we're gonna try and ride. And it's going to be interesting because you're not going
to be able to do so much maneuvering with your fingers, and like you're not going to be able to
do so much pulling with your horses on your horses head. So it just it gives you a really different
feel for how still your hands need to be, and that you can all the time be pulling backwards,
especially if you have the tendency to pull backwards when you ask for a canter. This is a
great exercise because I can't pull backwards because I'm just pulling on my horse's neck.
Okay hack number four or five I forget what we're on Iran a lot of people do this with their elbows
that the chicken arm not a good look for writing so this is going to fix that what you're gonna
do this is just like a workout band you can order them online or you can get a thera-band and tie it
you're gonna put it around your wrist and then you're gonna pick up your reins and ride with
this around your wrist and what what you you don't want it to be a super strong band you this one's
actually a little bit too strong you want it to be a little softer than this one and what you want to
try to do is kind of pin your elbows to your side and open your hands apart from each other so that
that you feel that feeling through your chest and through your wrist
of how to correctly use your arms and that you also feel that your
elbows at your side and that your hands can go apart from each other
and this is gonna really give you a correct feeling of how your back and your armpits and
your elbow should feel so you can probably see immediately out when I have this on like my chest
is open my shoulder blades are back in together my elbows are really bent and this is gonna make
you tired like already I can feel my chest is a little tired I'm not used to holding this
position. See if I can canter and do it. You'll also feel that you have to kind of do more subtle
aids with your hands because you've got this thing tying your hands together so it's really
an exercise in awareness to find that correct hand position that you want (good girl fabbi)
kay my last hack I don't I forgot the prop four so my fifth hack which I like to make people do
if I'm feeling very mean is I put their cell phone underneath their knee to get their leg
position correct so when you're riding dressage you don't want to have floppy knees like you know
your knees you shouldn't see daylight between your knee and the saddle a lot of people kind
of ride like this like on their off of their spur and their heel and in dressage your upper
leg your inner thigh and your knee are really important to support your seat so you can put
a cell phone a piece of paper I'm going to put this right here under my knee and then you can
put a hundred dollar bill and if you still have the hundred dollar bill by the end of your ride
you can buy yourself dinner. So I'm going to put that under my knee and then I'm going to test
and see if I'm supporting my horse with my knees you don't want to be gripping but there should be
contact between your knee and the saddle. So let's see if I can hang on to this thing and ride around
if you have your cellphone there you can feel it it gets a little uncomfortable but again it's just
this, these are all tricks of becoming aware. So I'm trying to feel that band under my knee
and making sure that I'm not going to lose it I'm going to keep my leg long I'm gonna keep my knee
in the saddle and I'm not gonna lose that band now let me show you if my knee starts flopping out of
the saddle like that okay there goes my band fell down so that's why that's a good little girl fatty
that's a good awareness thing is to put something under your knee and see if you can keep hold of it
while you're riding you're a good girl so comment below let me know what other tricks do you guys
use to improve your riding position and try some of these out let me know if they help you the end