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- Today we're gonna be talking about correct leg position.
I'm here with Meg and we're gonna be going over
what is the leg position that gives you
the most ability when you're riding
so you can really feel secure and confident in the saddle.
I'm gonna be talking about toes straight versus toes out.
And which one of these positions is gonna work the best
when it comes to securing you in the saddle.
And teaching riders of all different levels,
there's two main leg positions that I've encountered.
The first one is toe straight and the leg flat.
And the second one is toes out and the leg turned.
In both of these positions
I'm riding off of my core as my main stability.
I've got a nice long leg
and I've got my toes up and my heels down.
So the big difference between these two
is first off, in the toes,
we can see one, the toe is straight
and the other one, the toe is out.
And then the other difference
is in the thigh position here.
So in the one with the toe straight,
the thigh is flat against the saddle.
And when the one with the toe out,
the thigh is turned out away from the saddle.
Now let's talk about the pros and cons
of these two different leg positions.
So we've talked about the similarities and the differences.
What are the pros and cons?
When we're looking at our leg position,
there's two things that I always think about for my leg.
The first one is that my leg is helping
to stabilize me along with my core.
The second one is that my leg,
so it's working in stabilization,
specifically as a shock absorber.
And then secondly,
my leg is offering communication to my horse.
So a lot of my cues are through my seat
and through my legs.
Here, I have a video of me mimicking the posting trot
with my toes straight.
As we look at this video,
we're looking to see how my leg is stabilizing me.
So is it really, does it look quiet?
Does it look like it's able to absorb the shock well
as we work on the posting trot?
In this other clip,
I'm looking at the same thing,
mimicking a posting trot with my toes out.
And again, I'm looking for that stability.
How is this lake helping you to stabilize in the saddle
and how is it helping to absorb the shock?
So here they are side by side
and we're looking to see which one is most stable.
The toe straight,
we can see the leg is a lot quieter
and more stable than when we have our toes out.
Now we looked at toe straight versus toes out and stability,
let's talk about how this influences
our communication with our horse.
Is toe straight or toes out better for communication?
Well, toe straight, in my opinion,
is better for communication with your horse.
And I'll explain to you why.
When our toes are straight,
our leg is relaxed against the horse.
But our back of our calf here in our heel is off the horse.
And when we're riding, like I explained earlier,
using our legs and our seat as our main communicators.
And when our leg is, to use our leg,
we are turning the toe out.
And when my leg is straight,
this is kind of my neutral position.
So I'm allowing my horse to go along,
doing whatever they were doing before.
When I asked them to change the subject,
maybe make a turn or make a transition,
I have to turn my toes slightly out
to get my calf and my heel against him,
and then relax it to straight again.
So this really clarifies for the horse when I'm asking
and when I'm not asking.
This is especially important
if you're wearing spurs,
as you advance in your training with your horses,
if you're wearing spurs and your toes are always out,
you can accidentally be hitting your horse
with your spur or just not have that sharpness
and that clarification when it comes to using your leg aid.
So keeping those toes straight
are gonna keep your spurs off your horse
and really allow your communication to stay a lot clearer.
Now, let's talk about how do we find a correct leg position.
If we're used to riding with our toes out,
how do we get to a place where we can ride
with our toes straight?
When I was working on correcting my leg position,
improving on, getting my toes straight,
the most common mistake that's made
that I've seen students made
and I made myself is trying to grip in
with the knee or trying to hold the leg
in the straight position.
When you try to fix your leg position
by gripping in with your thigh,
it puts a lot of pressure on your knees,
on your ankles, and specifically on your low back.
It creates this inward rotation of the pelvis,
putting a lot of pressure on the back.
So we don't wanna grip with our thighs.
That's really the most important thing
to take away when you're working on
improving your leg position.
What we wanna do instead is just go
through this little exercise with me.
You're gonna take your leg.
You're gonna grab the back of your thigh
and you're gonna roll it so that it's flat
so that the, it's falling straight out of your joint.
And then you're just gonna bend your knees.
So your knee is slightly ahead of your hips,
and you're gonna find your stirrup.
Check that you've got some nice swing in your leg here.
Your lower leg is nice and relaxed.
You've got a little bit of weight
on the outside of your foot,
but your foot is resting pretty level in the stirrup.
And that you've got that nice open knee.
As you work your way up your leg,
you wanna keep your main stability here in your lower abs.
So you're engaging a little bit in your lower abdominal,
which is supporting your seat bones down
and that's helping to fill in this low back
and really give you a feeling of stability in the saddle,
and also a place where your leg
is just totally comfortable there.
So as you practice this,
just go through that exercise one more time.
You are gonna take your leg.
We're gonna roll it back.
We're gonna find our stirrup.
Check that we got some nice swing.
If you're feeling a little bit of soreness up here,
high up, that's pretty normal.
It's just this hip flexor opening up
and stretching a bit.
And when we finished with our leg position,
we want a nice open knee.
We want our support to be in our core here.
And we want our angle from our hip to our knee
to be nice and open.
I hope this video was a help to you
as you work on improving your stability
in your leg and your communication with your horse.
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If you have anything further to add to this video,
you can leave a comment below
or let me know of any topics
that you might want covered on this channel.
Keep enjoying your horses.
Keep growing and learning
and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.
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