Grounding Feet Affects Position

As this is the clinic/riding lesson weekend here, I thought I'd share the video and information from the cross country jump lesson with Merri and her anglo-arab, Magic.  We started with a warmup in the arena, then adjusting her two point position.

Next Merri got a chance to play with the new position and its adjustments, while walking around the arena and testing how it changed both her and Magic's balance.

Once we had made those adjustments I grounded Merri's feet by tapping on them where the nerve bundle in her foot was located.  I placed the stirrup on her foot just beneath this nerve bundle so she had more stability and her body was more aware of where her foot was in space.

 I grounded her left foot as well, so we could keep her body as balanced side-to-side as possible.

Here is a brief clip of how to self-ground your feet.  It's helpful to do this yourself before you ride, so you know both where to put the stirrup on your foot as well as making your brain more aware of your foot in space.

 

Once her feet were grounded I had her take a walk so her brain could adjust to the changes we'd made.  During this walk Merri steered Magic through what she was calling "scary alley", a section of the arena with lots of toys all over.  In the interest of keeping our minds occupied with positive things rather than focusing on what might go wrong, I jokingly called it "fun alley" to change how we were perceiving it.

Once her body had "ridden in" the bodywork of having her feet grounded, I had Merri pick up the trot and play with the new sensation at the faster gait.

Also done to the right.

 

 

Next was trotting over ground poles with the new sensation of truly having her feet beneath her.

Merri noticed that she was weighting the outsides of her feet, so the weight wasn't distributed evenly across her feet.  To address this I had her wiggle her toes, and then if that didn't take care of it, point her toes out away from the horse.  This gave her calf better contact with the horse's side, which is important because her lower leg is her stability over fences.  That stability allowed her lower leg to relax and fall into place, as well as let the weight distribute evenly across her foot.

 

 

Jumping a couple small verticals was next in the training progression of the lesson.  Merri became a little tense in anticipation of Magic going faster, which then resulted in Magic going faster.  You can see how it played out here:

We discussed the difference between trying to slow the horse down by standing in the stirrups and bracing on the reins, versus keeping the rider's lower leg and body soft and low.  The water-skiing position (standing up in the stirrups, leaning back on the reins) is actually a position that creates significant tension in the rider. 

Since the horse will do with his body whatever the rider does with hers, it worked much better to have Merri stay low, soft, and with her shock absorbers loose (ankles/knees/hips) to create softness in her body.  That transferred to Magic and he slowed down when Merri wasn't so tense.

Then it was time to take the new skills for a spin outside the arena.  We adjourned to the front cross country field and did a little work over the log.

 

After getting used to how it felt to hop over the log going uphill, we added in a simple bending line with a vertical to the log.  Magic is an older eventing schoolmaster, and he knew the line should be done in four strides, so he automatically lengthened his stride to accommodate the distance correctly.  This made sense to Magic, but Merri interpreted it as "rushing", and consequently got tense herself.

After we discussed why Magic was lengthening his stride, we addressed how Merri could rate his speed.  Again, avoiding the water-skiing position by staying in her new two point position.  Softening the rider's body is not the same thing as throwing away the reins and stopping riding.  Taking a deep breath, wiggling her toes, and keeping her ankles/knees/hips mobile all soften the rider's body and release tension, which then gets the horse to relax and slow down.  The horse needs the rider's support and direction, but the rider can support and direct in a soft way that doesn't create tension or speed.

 

This last time through the lines was really nice.  Merri has great control over her body and was able to do all the things Magic needed to have a quiet go in the jumping field.  It was a pleasure working with both of them and I look forward to seeing what they're going to do together going forward!