hi it's josie and today i'd like to talk to you about sitting trot i'm going to share with you
the one thing that turned my sitting trot from bouncing all over the place to something that
looked a little bit more elegant it worked for me and i really hope it works for you
and i'm also going to share with you three things you need to keep in mind when you're trying to get
your sitting trot to look more elegant if you like this video i'd love it if you gave me a thumbs up
and if you haven't subscribed to the channel so that you can see the videos when i pop them out
every friday and what is that one thing well it's that we actively move in sitting trot we
do not sit still sit still on a horse is the worst piece of advice anyone can give you we
actively move on our horses but when we move in time with them we give the illusion that we're
not actually moving and we're sitting still so what does that mean what it means is when the
horse trots his back goes up and forwards up and forwards and so we need to do that with our seat
i'll show you on the ground for those of you that are visual learners like me once you understand
the how and the why then you understand how you can practice it and put it all together
we'll do this off the horse and you can see how it happens with me standing on the ground it's
not quite accurate because my feet are attached to the ground here whereas on the horse i'm actually
suspended around something that's moving but it'll give you an idea so remember i said the
horse's back comes up and forward up and forward up and forward you have to follow that with your
seat you don't just sit there you don't sit still so what you see i'm going to just show
you a very basic idea and then we'll get a little bit more in depth so what your seat
should be doing as the horse trots really in sit trot is forward forward forward forward so
you're sitting on and the horse's back is going up up and forward up and forward up and forward
so you go from the neutral bit here there's never any backwards in rising trot either so it's
up neutral up forward neutral up forward neutral now just to complicate it a little bit more
obviously the horse trots in diagonal pairs so as one hind leg comes under it'll push your
bottom and your hip up and forward a little bit and then the other one with the other leg so it
really is a little bit up forward right up forward left up full so it's it happens very quickly on
the horse and sort of that is what you might need to actively do to find the rhythm on the horse so
the whole pelvis moves underneath the upper body is stacked on top the arms are just hanging from
the shoulders and all the action happens from the waist your belly button through down so the top
bit should sit still if the top bit's going we'll get to that in a bit but that's and actual symptom
of something else going on so all your action is from the bottom so one hip is slightly in advance
of the other hip as the diagonal pairs come through so you can think like that to start with
but to be really accurate and when you really want to hone your skill it's one two one two one two
one two one two one two as the horse trots now as you can see i've got a green dot
on the front of my belt here i know when i was trying to work out how people sat so beautifully
in sit trot i started watching the good riders and i'd watch their belt buckles because to me
they were doing something that i wasn't able to work out and from their belt buckle i tried to
work through how my pelvis should go so one little exercise to help you get the feel of what your
pelvis needs to do in sit trot is to get a little bit behind the vertical i don't want you to ride
your sit trot like this as a general rule this is like a a learning thing so sit back a little bit
and you'll feel how your pelvis will move and then ask your horse just up into a little jog
and you can see what my belt buckle's doing if i just sit there gently and
allow my seat to be carried forward by him stepping through so we do that again
up up up up up right left right left now remember how i said that when i was on the
ground the hips go a little bit right left as well as up up so you need to practice that in
little amounts that's to give you the feel and then you want to take that feeling into sit trot
be kind to yourself you have to practice if you don't practice you don't get anywhere
so what i would do and what i did do obviously horses are easier to sit on when they're round
and their back's soft but i have to say when i was learning this in the very early days
i didn't know how to get a horse round or soft i just wanted to practice my sit trot
but you go from walk and just go up into some nice slow trot steps when you run out of balance
come back down to walk don't sit there and bounce all over the place why would you teach yourself
bad habits just tuck my belt loop in here sorry so i want you to watch my belt buckle
and see what my hips are doing okay so i'm going to go from walk up into a nice soft trot
up up up right left right left right left right left right left so that's
the one thing that helped me the most do not sit still in the saddle you might need to
actively do some really horrible like this in the beginning and be like i'm really um
exaggerating that movement but if you can do that and then you find yourself actually
finding the timing with the horse as well you'll know when you get it
it feels good you might get one step you might get two steps and then you lose your balance
go back to walk if you're if you're um falling off your horse and start again
so if you're going to go sit trot from rising you're going to need to double down on it
so just pick a nice slow-ish tempo for yourself while you're finding
your balance and when you sit you might go sit sit sit rise
i did i actually did this sit sit sit rise don't stress about your diagonals Rebel is just falling
on the forehand so he can just get underneath himself a bit more thank you sit sit sit rise
sit sit sit rise and then you just make your rise progression a little bit longer
i'm going to ride towards you a little bit so you can watch my belt buckle up up up up up up up up
i'll share with you the three things now that you need to try and keep in mind when you're
trying to work on your sit trot seat but i'll just link up here another video i did
on seat exercises which will help you find your balance to then be able to do the sit trot okay
three things that you need to remember when you're trying to work on this
so the first of those three things i want to share with you that you need to remember
when you're trying to practice your sit trot is that you need to have tone in your body
so there's lots of different types of tone so you have to have the right tone in your body
if you have the tone of a piece of wood think of a stick of wood this is what happens when you
try to sit trot sorry rebel so you don't have stiff tone if you think about a plate of jelly
i'll see if i can do this you don't have that either because you're everywhere the tone i like
to think of is the tone a dancer has when they're dancing they carry their own body do they not they
move with grace and elegance and they carry their own body you should be carrying your own body the
entire time you're on a horse not sitting there like this but sitting i'm not sitting up stiff
because that's what i did a lot of so nice and a tone of a dancer one of the ways you can work
particularly core tone one of the ways i found to learn to find my core tone was to breathe out
through pursed lips okay so if you want to get your horse trotting quietly and then breathe out
so as you purse your lips and blow out through them you actually engage your core you do not
want to hold your breath if you hold your breath you're actually rigid through your entire torso
and you need to actually not be rigid it needs to be movable but remember most of the movement
happens from the waist down so an exercise you can do is just go from being a piece of wood
to a pile of jelly to a piece of wood to a pile of jelly and then sit up nice and tall without
stretching too much it's like a marinette puppy you know a puppet sorry one of those puppets on a
string that's what i used to think of there was a string coming from here and it was just holding me
all in alignment and all of my pieces could move around on top of each other without tumbling over
number two you need to have a soft leg your leg is not clamped on your horse you don't hang on with
your thighs you don't hang on with your calves as much as you'd like to and i tried it trust me
you actually have to find your balance on the horse so do those balance exercises but your
leg needs to be softly draped around your horse even if you take it away like this and allow it
to drop back what you'll find if you take both away at once is that your pelvis settles in on the
saddle you don't stand in your stirrup irons but you definitely have weight on them okay if
you're losing your stirrups in sitting trot your stirrups either too long or you're tensing all of
your muscles here you're popping up on top of the saddle and lifting your feet out of the stirrups
you can try sort of stepping a little bit in your stirrups when you're trotting left right
left right left right but just be very gentle because that's actually um stirrup stepping and
that's an aid for the horse which you can learn about later but you don't want to be doing that
as a general rule when you're sitting trot but it might help you just to feel the fact that you need
to have some weight in your stirrups and your ankles actually flex to take some of the jolt
of the um sit trot so you should yep so my weight is in my stirrups but i'm not standing in them
but i definitely have weight in them i'm sitting here and my pelvis is just going
up up up watch the belt buckle up up up up up up up so no i'm i don't have legs hanging on sorry
we don't like it when i bang around a bit but you can see i don't have legs hanging on
the third thing is you need to have a nice upright upper body waist up you don't lean forward
in rise trot we lean slightly forward to keep up with the movement of the horse if you want
to look at that video i'll link that here but in sit trot we sit upright you see a lot of people
sitting behind the vertical in sit trot but that's not it actually should just be sitting upright
and in a lot in your whole body in alignment don't forget to breathe holding your breath
makes your whole torso rigid and if you really need to have find some stability in your torso
breathe out gently through pursed lips sitting trot was one of the
most difficult things that i found to teach myself
and this to this day i still feel i could certainly improve a lot more
so give yourself permission to be a beginner give yourself permission to look ugly because
i'm telling you if you don't try and you don't put any work into it even just five minutes every ride
you won't get any better if i can do it you can do it i promise you that but you have to do the work
i hope they help you if you've got any questions put them below i'll try to answer them if i can
thanks for watching