(upbeat uplifting music)
- Hey guys.
Today, I'm gonna be sharing an exercise with you
that is going to strengthen your legs, improve your balance,
helping you to have a more secure seat in the saddle,
and it's also gonna help you to be able to work
with the motion of the horse and follow the motion better.
And that exercise is, you guessed it,
posting the trot with no stirrups.
(upbeat music)
Hey, Crosby.
So this is Crosby, and he's going to be helping us out
with this video today.
This may be something that you guys
already are familiar with.
Maybe your trainer has had you suffer through
posting the trot with no stirrups,
or maybe it's something that you've just heard about
and you're wondering, why on earth would we ever do this?
Well, I'm gonna be taking Crosby out and tack him up,
and I'm gonna go over this in more detail.
(soft music)
before we take our stirrups away in the posting trot.
before we take our stirrups away in the posting track.
I've got Crosby ready to take him out into the ring,
and the first thing I wanna consider
is what is his state of mind for today?
I want him to be in a relaxed, focused state of mind
before I take those stirrups away.
So if you're having a day like this,
probably not the best day to ride without stirrups.
So make sure you're safe when you practice this.
The second thing to consider is making sure
that you're warmed up and comfortable
posting with your stirrups.
So the better your form is with your stirrups in,
the easier it's gonna be to take the stirrups away
and feel like you have success.
Lastly, you wanna warm up your horse
before taking the stirrups away.
This gives you the opportunity to get their focus on you.
Make sure their back is warmed up.
And then when you take those stirrups away,
you guys are both ready as a team for it.
So here we are in the arena and we're ready to start
posting the trot without our stirrups.
The first thing we need to do is take our stirrups
if we're in an English saddle, and cross them up here
in front of our saddle so they're out of the way.
Now, if you're in a Western saddle,
you can just kick your feet out of the stirrups.
So let's take a look at our goal.
Our goal is to post around without our stirrups,
just as if we had them in.
So you can see my toes are up
and I'm posting around as normal.
Now, when I'm doing this,
I am using my core strength a little bit,
and I'm mostly using my quadriceps here
and my hamstrings to help me out.
So I'm engaging in my quads here and my hamstrings
to help lift me up out of the saddle,
which is much harder to do at a stand still
because you don't have any momentum.
Now, when you do this, you are gonna feel like
there's some contact here in the back of your knee.
But what you don't wanna do,
is I'm not thinking about twisting my knee in to hold on,
or twisting my thighs in to hold on.
What I'm doing is I'm thinking more about
keeping my knee pointed down like this
and keeping my toe lifted,
and when I stand up like this,
I'm gonna feel that there's some engagement
here in my groin,
and then there's some engagement in my quads here
and a little bit in my hamstring.
And that's helping to lift me up in the post.
So it's important that when we do this,
obviously we have to use a lot more strength in our legs
when we post without stirrups than when we have the stirrup,
'cause there's nothing that's helping
to lift us out of the saddle
other than our own leg strength.
So we're gonna be going to this place
where we engage a little bit and then we relax.
And this is a great way to start developing
a more supportive leg.
And to me, there's a difference between
supporting with your leg versus gripping.
So I've got my little handy ball here to show you this.
So here I'm holding my ball, and my hand is relaxed
and it's just wrapped around it.
To grip this, I would be squeezing.
So here I'm gripping the ball.
Here, I'm just supporting with the ball.
So to me, the big difference
between gripping and supporting,
is supporting starts with relaxation.
So I'm first letting my leg relax,
and I'm first just draped around the horse.
And then I'm controlling the tension.
So I'm controlling it and I'm able to relax it
and control it again.
So when I sit, I relax.
When I go up, I engage.
Sit, I relax again.
So there's this give and take of tension.
And that's the most important thing,
and that's such a valuable thing as a rider
to know how to do is change the level of tension
so that you can utilize your legs
to communicate with your horse,
and you have enough control to do that.
So now let's talk about some tips
to help us improve our posting trot without our stirrups.
The first tip is to do short distances.
This is gonna help you to build
the leg strength necessary
to feel more secure in the saddle,
and just allow you to really feel confident
as you're first learning this.
So I'm just walking a few strides, trotting a few strides,
and coming back to the walk again.
Once you feel confident doing these short distances,
you can progress to a longer distance.
And when you do this at the beginning,
you can feel like your horse
has kind of some inconsistency in his speeds.
He's either going too fast, or he's going too slow.
But as you build your strength and you get more comfortable
with your posting without stirrups,
you wanna get to this place where you can
control your speed just as if you had your stirrups in,
and go around nice and confidently.
There you go, boy.
So Crosby did a great job with me today.
He's able to hang out there with his friends now
back out in the field.
When you guys are practicing this,
remember that it takes time to build that strength.
So be patient with yourselves.
Remember that if you're struggling,
you can always go back to posting with the stirrups
and make sure your form is good.
And that's gonna help you when you take them away.
So good luck practicing.
I hope you have a wonderful week,
and I'll see you in the next video.
(soft uplifting music)