Your Seat is One of Your Most Important Aids
by Jennifer Stinebaugh - student
The first time I ever rode a horse, I got the basic lesson of "Kick to make him go, pull on the reins to make him stop or turn." And that's pretty much what I did - for years! I never thought much about how I was actually sitting on the horse or how my position and movement in the saddle affected how he moved. Of course, I was only about five and spent most of my time galloping down the ditch banks or through large, open fields. Through time in the saddle, I learned how to stay on and how to stay put.
When I began showing at the age of 11, any and all focus on my seat was purely for aesthetic reasons. If you could sit in the saddle and not bounce, it meant you had a good seat and you made the horse look good. I still didn't make a connection between my horse's movement and how I was using my seat. I knew that when I was running barrels that I needed to plant myself deep in the saddle when we were going around the barrels, and to stand up and forward when I was asking for speed, but that was the extent of it.
Now that I've began riding again as an adult, I'm taking a different approach and really trying to learn how to do what is best for my horse. I have begun to realize that having a proper seat is not only going to make my ride more comfortable, but it is the most consistent and reliable aid I have when I'm in the saddle. When I'm riding Gwen (see success stories to learn more about how I'm working with her), my seat is always in contact with her body and not just in a trivial way. It's where all my weight is balanced. So throughout our ride, my 145 pounds is always balanced right on top of her so that any movement I make is going to be transferred from me to her through this contact. I am not always in contact with her mouth and my legs are not always in contact with her sides.
Because the contact provided through your seat is consistent and non-trivial, it is important to understand what a proper seat really is. An excellent book to read about this is "Centered Riding," by Sally Swift. In this book, Ms. Swift teaches how to center your body and your seat. There is much too much information to convey here, but suffice it to say that if you're sitting properly, you should be balanced and heavy in the saddle. Your legs should feel like roots of a tree growing down from your seat, while your upper body feels like the branches of the tree growing up from your seat. Your head should be balanced on your neck and you should look ahead. Don't fall into the trap of looking through your horse's ears by having your head pointed downward! Your head weighs a LOT and to be properly balanced you need to keep it up, just like when you're walking or driving.
One thing to note here is the use of chaps. They can help immensely because they help you "stick" to the saddle. I noticed a significant increase in my ability to stay in the saddle with chaps.
Once you get the feeling for a proper, centered seat, it is amazing how much you can do to alter your horse's movement by changing the way you sit. Because this is a complicated subject on which many books have been written, I'm going to finish up by giving a few examples of how I've used my seat to get some fantastic results with my horse Gwen.
When Gwen gets a little anxious (she is a young Arabian after all), she tends to want to trot fast. I want her to be in a nice slow jog so I use my heavy seat to slow her down. A heavy seat means that I try to feel like I am going to shove my pelvis bones right through the saddle to the ground. I have had to work very hard to NOT move my pelvis forward but to concentrate on a straight up and down feeling and to land very heavily on my pelvis bones. After a few strides of my heavy seat, Gwen slows down and occasionally gives an audible sigh of relief. Of course there are times when she doesn't respond this well and I use my second aid, the reins, to check her. However, I always use my seat first.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I was having problems getting Gwen to walk out after her whoas. I'd say walk, then nudge her a little with my leg. She'd just stand there. I'd nudge her again, to no avail. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks! My seat was saying "whoa" and my legs and voice were saying "walk." So, I started with a verbal walk and then started rocking my pelvis back and forth, just like it does when she's walking, only more exaggerated, and lo and behold she started to walk. You'll learn that as you get better and better with your seat, your horse can't ignore it when you move in the saddle!
Occasionally, Gwen will get nervous about the arena drag or the jumps near the fence outside the arena. When we're loping, she'll almost want to break into a trot when we come up on one of these things. At first I was making the kissing noise to her to keep her going, but then Chris said to just move and push her through it. At first I was doing huge movements with my whole upper body. This did help Gwen to keep going, but it was fairly difficult to do. Then one day I decided to just slightly move my pelvis as soon as it felt like she might break stride and it worked!!! The movement is so subtle that I doubt many people could tell I'm doing anything at all, but Gwen can feel it and she keeps moving smoothly.
Last but not least, I check my seat after every gait, especially the lope. To get Gwen to lope, I start by moving my pelvis ever so slightly and then give the kissing sound and she falls into it very gracefully. However, I have a tendency to forget to relax and re-center my seat once we're done. I begin to walk her and she wants to lope again after a few strides. So, I've really started concentrating on my seat after we lope and of course, she responds wonderfully. I realized, once I took stock of what I was doing, that I was not using my heavy seat when we started to walk. I was still in lope mode and Gwen was simply responding to my seat.
Next time you ride, think of how you're sitting and work on centering your body and using your seat to move or slow your horse down. It can take a while to get the hang of it, but it is definitely worth it!