today I'm going to do a position review from a photograph that someone sent in
to me. So let's get started. If it's your first time here thank you so much for
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videos coming up. So I got this picture um
Maya or Mia I'm not quite sure how she pronounces her name and I'm gonna show
you the picture and I want you to tell me what your first impression is of this
writing if you just what's your first impression when you take a look at this
photograph Mine was Wow way to go! Looks like you're
in a horse show, You're beautifully turned out, you've got a lovely jacket breeches
boots. Your horses braided and the mane tail is braided nicely.Beautiful
photograph. It looks like a really professional photograph. He's moving
nicely and it's a really nice photo Excellent job! so what's your first
impression of this and and think of it as if you're in a horse show and the
judge sees you for the first time it's their first look at you what would you
think of this really well put together it looks like they have a plan looks
like they've been practicing they spent some time on turnout and they look
fantastic Wow your eyes are up looking forward excellent with your eyes and
when you keep your eyes up like that helps keep your head which weighs about
10 to 15 pounds, in line with your body and balanced correctly in your riding
position. If you're not looking up that's ten pounds that's out of place and your
horse has to carry that. They notice that so after you look at your eyes up you're
thinking oh wow look at her heels heels are down they're down nicely I'd like to
see a little bit more weight in your heels and your heels push down just a
little bit more but it's a lovely leg position and then we look at straight
line ear at shoulder hip heel you it looks like you're riding in perfect
balance with your horse moving the horse forward nicely now it's
hard to really comment on your riding only because that's just a brief second
of yourriding just a snapshot a moment and if your trot it could be a
sitting trot and maybe it's a posting posting trot the sitting part of your
rising trot if you understand what I mean, that she's sitting on the correct
diagonal. This moment you're in perfect balance with your horse it looks
really good I thought I'd just dig a little bit deeper in your position and
when I look at your leg position it's a lovely leg position you have a straight
line ear shoulder hip and heel but it looks like you're pinching with your
knees a little bit and that's preventing your heels from really coming down and
the weight coming right down into your heels so you'd like to have your weight
down into your heels more without pinching with your knees to do this
exercise a really good exercise to do to help get the weight down into your heels
is a two point position or jumping type position this lets the weight come off
your seat off your knees and right into your heel so you can balance over top of
your horse in a balance but just from looking at this photograph you look a
little bit mechanical by mechanical I mean it's you're sitting up your eyes
are up your heels are down your hands are in the correct position and you're
not allowing you're holding yourself in this position and not allowing them to
yourself to feel the horse and feel the horse move you as well generally
speaking what a beautiful position thank you so much for sending in this photo so
one of the important things that we look at is the rider staying in balance with
the horse and you know you've got a lovely straight line ear shoulder hip
heel you just and this is the foundation for you to make sure that you are
sitting in the correct position sitting in balance so that if we took that horse
out from underneath you you would still be able to land on the ground in balance
without your horse so it's important that you're in balance on top of your
horse and important that you're in balance even without your horse so if we
took this horse away from out underneath you you would be in balance and land on
your feet and be in balance with yourself and really important to have a
great communication with your horse you should have a straight line elbow han
horse's mouth and here you can see that there's a lovely
straight line elbow han horse's mouth giving you a good elastic contact with
the horse I'm being really picky here but trying to keep the strip right on
the ball of your foot looks like it slipped back a bit keep the outer branch
of the stirrup iron right next to your baby toe and the inner branch of the
stirrup iron on the ball of your foot so it's kind of at an angle on your foot
you can see it this picture here have I highlighted that you're pinching
slightly with your knee it could be that you're doing the rising trot or posting
trot but you're still pinching with your knee a little bit and that's restricting
the amount of weight that's coming down into your heels relax your knee let the
weight come right down to your heels and that'll give you a really secure lower
leg position keep you secure on top of that horse if you're looking for
exercises that you can do in your next writing session take a look at these
videos right here excellent exercises that you can do when you're going to
your next riding session ok let's talk a little bit about your horse what a
lovely kind horse he looks like he's moving forward nicely just trekking up
like to see him just going a little bit more for it so he is fully tracking up
and I'm highlighted his legs here so that you can see you can see that he's
using himself nicely and the angle of his legs his front legs it's the same
angle on his back legs and that means that he's using his front legs and his
back legs nicely we would like to have him stepping up a little bit more
underneath him so his hind leg is stepping up underneath the seat your
seat and your center of weight like to see him tracking up a little bit more
and that means his hind leg is stepping into the hoofprint that his front foot
has made you can see he's just barely tracking up like to see moving a little
bit more forward so he's using his hind legs a little bit more but it certainly
gives a lovely picture of the horse moving forward
for me I like to see his head at least level with his withers I've highlighted
that here you can see that if I draw a line from his withers straight on the
horizontal that his head is pole is slightly below his withers for me I like
to see his head just a little bit higher so that he's not so heavy on his front
end it looks like he's carrying himself nicely but I personally like to have the
horse's head at least at the wither height my name is Laura - if you like to
win more ribbons at your next horse show improve your riding and training or
generally like other horse you related stuff then stay tuned because there's
lots of other videos that you can enjoy and get insider information on how to
improve your riding position now go use this stuff go hug your horse go use this
stuff thanks now bye