Straightness
I have crazy hands. I can will them to do something, but they do something else. I will them back, they stay in the appropriate place, but then they are back doing some weird gyration in a strange locale. Every instructor I’ve ever worked with has honed in on my crazy hands. They are partly due to my years of riding arabian show horses – bumpbumpbumpjigglejiggle pitch the reins – and they are partly due to the fact I am incredibly one-sided.
I’ve in recent lessons been working on keeping my hands where they belong especially when tracking left. I wonder why my contact is faltering but then I look at my hands. I wonder why Sid’s head is cocked with the inside ear pointing groundward and then I look at my hands. I try to cross my inside hand over his withers, my outside rein may be steady but it’s out away from his neck and allowing him to scoot that direction. Yeah, he’s bent, but it’s all neck bend with shoulders and whatnot escaping to the hinterlands.
So, lately I’ve been told to keep my outside rein steady and my hand near his neck, think of putting my pinky at the side of his mane/withers and that keeps the hand upright. Then ride him into that rein with inside leg and make sure when he is bending and moving laterally away from the inside, that the outside catches it and he isn’t running out to the outside.
When I get it right, I can go around the arena just like I do to the right. In self-carriage. I can give the inside, or even BOTH reins and he carries himself through until contact is re-established. He has power. He has carrying ability when moving laterally.
I’m watching an online video over lunch right now, of Laura Bechtolsheimer (Great Britain) giving a miniclinic on lateral work. Her horse is super straight. She is riding him super straight. I want to be that straight.
(if you want to see the video, visit: http://www.horsehero.com/5201/5214/6162)
The connection is elastic and she can change his flexion and bend with no drop in contact and no change in his carriage.
My winter goal is to control my crazy hands and ride Sid like that. Both directions. My left hand is decidedly more crazy. I have a hard time opening it up. I read some yesterday and had an a-ha. I have scoliosis. I have since I was a pre-teen. I was given, when I was diagnosed, a series of exercises to perform twice daily, which were one-sided exercises designed to develop my left side and strengthen it to match my right. It was to strengthen and raise my shoulder and hip. And develop those muscles enough to help pull my spine into alignment. I know that scoliosis very rarely completely goes away, and I’ve been told by two instructors this year that I’m collapsing my left hip. Well duh! I am going to locate that old exercise sheet – I think I know exactly where it is – and start them up again. And see where I end up with that left side, and that crazy left hand that I suspect is crazy because my body on the left doesn’t do what it should.
It’s as easy as this – keep the horse straight between your legs and hands. I tend to keep my thoughts too complex – but that is as about as simple as it gets – and causes me to produce a correct result every time I remember it while riding!
