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Steering a horse using your seat
As I have written in previous posts, I can’t get why I need to try to push a 600kg beast with my lower leg and pull the reign towards the same direction. I can’t do it and it feels abnormal to me. At home, I began to learn to use my body, in general, to make the horse go where I want him to go.And if I needed to use my leg as well, I would use it when I wanted to steer a bit sharply. The sharper the turn, the sharper the push, which would be made with the leg which is on the side I want to travel towards.…
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Studying jumping
Yeap! After a year of riding, now I learn how to jump! Well, don’t expect miracles, I have not made a successful jump yet. There is a difference between learning to jump and jumping successfully. I’m in the former situation for now. And it’s OK, given the fact that it took me a year to learn how to trot. Since I like studying very much, I thought I should first understand the mechanics of a jump, that is how the horse’s body works on a jump and how the human body must be positioned. I found what I needed on the Jumping page of Wikipedia. The author of the article explains each of the four…
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How to stay balanced in the canter
I observed last week that while I was cantering, my butt was going here and there and I thought I was going to fall off. It wasn’t the front or the back, it was the side that I was concerned with. I had a thought about it, and I remembered Yannis telling me that there’s a problem with my balance. So today I searched on YouTube for videos focusing on keeping oneself balanced while cantering. And I found the one that follows: The lovely lady here says that stomach is very important. The problem is that, I have never taken my stomach into account when it comes to riding!
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Rising trot tutorials
Who has watched me riding knows it well; my sitting trot needs improvement. Desperately. And I know it well; I go mad every time I think about this. And my instructors both in Crete and England are often frustrated. Why? Why can’t I trot like other beginners who also ride just once a week? So, my instructors have reached the following conclusions: My legs need to get stronger. I think too much when I trot. More thinking than feeling. I rise up to the sky, which means that it takes me ages to return to the saddle (here’s some difference. It took me ages to rise from the saddle in…