foreign
hello everyone i'm amelia and today i'm going to give you a few basic riding tips some things
that are really important to do when you first get in the saddle regardless of your discipline
or level of riding so first and foremost what i always do when i first get in the saddle is that
i really just check in with my seat and my pelvis because when you're in the saddle your seat is
where you have the most contact and communication with your horse
so when i first get on my horse the first thing is i always kind of check and make sure that the
saddle is straight in the middle of my horse and then i check in with my seat and i want to feel
two seat bones even so i want to feel like my left seat bone is on the left side of my horse's spine
i want to feel like my right seat bone is on the right side of the horse's spine and i want to feel
like my seat bones are kind of pointing straight down into the saddle so um that i'm not if you're
sitting too far back like this your seat bones are going to be pointing too far forward if you're
tipping and leaning forward then your seat bones are poking out the back so the first thing is
that you really just want to get your seat bones glued in the saddle and pointing straight down
i'm going to give you two other two or three other exercises that you can do while you're riding
be sure to give my channel a thumbs up and like and also check out in the description box i have
a free mini course on confidence so if you feel like you're lacking in confidence sign
up for that course and you'll get some emails and some tips to help you improve your confidence so
let's get started with three tips that you should do when you first get on your horse
so the first thing to do is to just kind of start walking and really just feel the motion of your
horse and focus on your breathing so while i'm walking around here i just really start to try
to feel in my seat like i just checked in with my seat and i really want to feel that my seat
is absorbing the motion of my horse's back so in the walk the walk is a 4b gate and you'll see
how my seat kind of swings from the back to the front of the saddle so that i'm really absorbing
that motion and that i feel like my pelvis and my spine are supple and loose because if you
sit on your horse and you're stiff it's going to make your horse not want to walk so for example
if i tighten up and i don't move my spine you see what happens how my horse comes to a halt
so the first thing to do is just really start to feel and absorb your horse's motion and while
you're doing that think about your breathing so take some really nice deep breaths all the way in
and all the way back out often when we first get on we're maybe a little nervous or tense and so we
hold our breath so really just start breathing now the second thing that you can do and only do this
if you're on a horse that you feel really safe on is to just drop your stirrups and what this
does is when you drop your stirrups it puts more weight on your seat bones because when you have
your stirrups i would say about twenty percent of your weight is in your stirrups and eighty percent
is in your seat bones but now i have a hundred percent of the weight going into my seat bones
so what this does is it really gets your seat deeper in the saddle
it also really helps to lengthen your legs so that you really try to get like as much
length as possible and really kind of bring your thighs a little back away from the knee block
and try to keep your horse walking while you do this and just kind of play around with like
sometimes just point your toes down and let your legs hang like this and then you can bring your
toes up you can do some little ankle circles in both directions so all these exercises are just
really good to kind of start getting your seat again a little deeper into the saddle
and then another exercise that i like to do is to do a little bit of two points so
take your stirrups back up and then what you're going to do is you're going to kind of stand
out of the saddle and lean a little forward
you can hold on to your horse's mane if you need to again you want to be sure that you
have a horse that's safe to do this and really keep walking buddy really think about dropping
your heels down so making your heels go down as much as possible when you're in this balance two
point so again now you're trying to make sure that you can stretch your legs out with your syrups
good boy and then when you sit back in the saddle try to have
that same feeling in your seat that you're sitting really nice and deep in the saddle
and then the final thing that i like to think about is my upper body so it's really important
when you're riding like that you're sitting up really tall and and opening in your chest
especially when you take the contact and your horse gets maybe a little bit
strong you really want to think about that when you feel that pressure in the rain that you really
take it in your upper back that you think about widening your collarbones and a little bit kind
of bringing your elbows into your side so this is really important because the second that you hunch
forward or tip forward it makes you very unstable and so whenever you're going to use your rain or
use the contact you really want to make sure that that's supported by your seat and your upper back
so just really get that feeling that you're stretching up tall your elbows are by your
side your palms are facing each other you're someone's zipping up the front of you so your
your chest is open and then whenever there is pressure in your rain you want to maintain
that feeling through your collarbone staying open and your chest staying tall and your seat bones
connected into the saddle good boy so those are just some exercises that you can do when you first
get on your horse and it's really important to just take some time at the beginning of your ride
to set the intention for your ride and get your seat and your body in the correct position
that they need to be in so that you can have a productive ride so let me know in the comments
if this is helpful and what other things you do when you first get in the saddle just to kind of
get yourself ready and get your body stretched out so that you can have a productive ride
foreign