Getting Started in the Saddle

From the beginning of a ride the rider must gain composure. What does this feel like? It is a quiet ease where the breathing is low and natural, the hands are not trying to do something right away with the reins but are relaxed, soft, open and close to the body as though holding a good book on a Sunday afternoon. It is a time for collecting your thoughts, separating yourself from the outside world and realizing your horse as the subject of your undivided attention. Many years ago I had a lesson in England from a student teacher who had the most interesting things to say at the beginning of the ride. She asked us to smell the horse's mane, to feel his warmth and the softness of his coat, to admire his beauty, listen to the clip clop sound of his footsteps and tell him how good he is and how much you like him. Each time I think of Sabina's words I am reminded of the nice way square dancers greet their partners at the beginning of their dance together. This is the proper way to start out a ride....to acknowledge the horse.
The fingers should be held a little fingernails upward toward the sky, with rein just taut between thumb and forefinger, draped softly over the other fingers. Francois LeMaire suggests 'combing' the reins at the beginning of the ride....like combing hair. The first time I did this with him I really wasn't sure what this was supposed to feel like. The more I did it the more the horse would let go and sigh. It later occurred to me that this was the opportunity to start loosening the rider's natural tendency to clutch at the reins, to start opening the joints in the arms and hands and begin the task of helping the horse to gain interest in the rein and feel the vibrations from the body of his rider. It has a soothing effect on the horse much like running the fingers through a child's long locks, like stroking the strings of a harp. It is like petting the soft tongue of the horse.
Never hold the hands with closed fists. This only makes for tension which the horse will become defensive of and blocks energy from moving through the arms out to the fingertips. The wrists should remain flat, not curled or turned or twisted, but parallel to the two arm bones. The elbows rest beside the torso, upper arm hanging straight down as though heavy down into the elbows. I like to say that we retain the elbows for ourselves and lend the lower arm to the horse. The lower arm is concerned with yielding all the time and needs to develop a sense all of its own in this department! It is a vital conduit of energy which must spark from the hip bones to the elbows and travel down the lower arms through liquid-like wrists, butter soft palms to the fingers which are nimble to open and close with great speed and delicacy.
Imagine in this quiet composed posture that you are more or less standing up with bent knees but with no actual weight in the stirrups. Turn the toes inward so that the thighs and knees roll inward as well and the leg lays parallel to the horse's barrel. This is also useful training for the very minimal lower leg aids to be discussed later and will allow the spur to be steady and away from the horse's side, poised for a light touch but only when needed. Narrow the upper thigh in toward the top of the saddle and feel that you can create an even, soft muscle tone in the thigh between knee and groin. Usually the rider will have one side that has more even draping of the thigh than the other. The upper thigh is supreme in riding. It nestles close to the saddle to pulse and direct energy to important nerve endings under the saddle which serve to enliven the horse. The lower leg should be used minimally....never squeezing either to stabilize the rider or to maintain motion. Apply a touch and leave the horse alone. Be happy with his effort and feel the beat of whichever pace you take with him and apply energetic pulses from the whole of your moving body into this beat. Not pushing or shoving but moving with the beat....a sort of dance like following of a ripple of water in such a way that you will for it to continue on and on. If you were to close the eyes and imagine a rolling ball of light or fire deep inside the lower abdomen below the waist and attempt to spin the ball of fire in various ways, spinning it to gather more fire, and with each ripple of the wave of motion you send this ball of fire forward toward the withers and drop it down into a chamber which sends it back around through the horse, feeding up into the hindquarters and springing forth from just behind the saddle up into the abdomen of the rider for more churning and spinning. This spot inside the abdomen the Chinese call the dan tien. This is the area from which you breath, from which you send energy to the horse for 'recycling', and the place where you settle your inner parts....as though lowering the diaphragm and spreading the organs out on a vast plain.
I tell students to make their bellies seem larger and the effect is that they will seem slimmer. Doing this creates a tone in and around the torso which stabilizes it to help it remain centralized over the middle of the saddle. It keeps energy down in the churning box....the dan tien....rather than climbing up into the shoulders and out into the atmosphere to be wasted and effectively de-stabilizing the rider and all his efforts. I sometimes suggest the rider imagine the shoulders to settle down like lead and lend support to the seat below. The rider should not shimmy his hips like a hula dancer but should act as though he is sitting on a large ball, trying to get the entire ball to bounce without the body moving. The rider's body will move more in relationship to the horse and less with respect to itself. The motion with respect to itself will be primarily in the vertical compression and release of the natural body curves of the human frame. The head remains erect and does not bob but softly moves with the wave of motion.
The hips are level and the angle between thigh and groin is open. This angle opens and closes to collect and send energy. The lower back has a soft natural curve and the buttocks have a controlled tone. This tone is special and will be discussed later as it is necessary for centralizing the body against the centrifugal and centripetal forces, for creating positions that encourage lift and mounting of the back of the horse, for facilitating turns and lateral movements and creating an interplay of energy between horse and rider.
The thigh is closed and soft from knee to groin with a horizontal component that is useful for connecting the energies of the back end to those of the front end of the horse. The thigh is a vital conduit for energy flow to the knee which releases a powerful spray to enliven and move forth the shoulders of the horse. If the rider drops the knee low down on the horse's side, the effect of connecting back to front is lost. Without a free open thigh with knee reaching forward.....no saddle knee roll obstructing the knee in any way.....no pressing of the kneecap against the knee roll....the thigh cannot assist with the forward flow of energy to the front of the horse. The result is that the horse will lose momentum and his 'fires' will need to be re-ignited over and over again. I advocate saddles with no knee or thigh roll. The rider must ride from his own body tone and not from wedging against the saddle. Saddles should never put a rider into a position.....they should allow the rider to sit naturally....plain and simple. If saddle makers could only understand the value of complete freedom in a saddle they would not be designing them the way they are at this time. The efforts being made to understand what the horse needs for comfort in his saddle are admirable. Unfortunately, what is not understood is how the rider communicates through energetic phrases that cannot be interrupted by leather! If it is a goal to become a good rider then it should be a goal to take the care necessary to trim and tone the body gently and seek adequate suppleness to maintain superior self-control.
The foot of the rider should rest gently on the stirrup and not brace against it which will stiffen the joints above it. When the motion of the horse becomes exuberant the foot touches and pulses energy into the platform of the stirrup with the toe sending a backward pulse toward the hind feet of the horse. Thinking 'toe down' rather than 'heel down' helps accomplish this later on. The visual effect when this is done right is that the foot will appear level to the ground and the stirrup and lower leg will remain stiller and steadier.
The head of the rider is quite heavy and needs to sit central over the neck and face forward with the shoulders but with a sense that it is suspended from the sky. If the shoulder caps are rolled back and down and the shoulder blades are brought closer together behind as though attempting to wrap around a long ponytail(!), while the breastbone drops down, the torso of the rider will stay firm and steady and help the horse to feel less encumbered by the uprightness of the rider above his back. Essentially, sitting 'shorter and fatter'(!) will feel taller and slimmer when the head is properly suspended. The torso presses down and compacts energy to be projected like lightning when required. It also acts like an armor against unseen forces that might frighten the horse and wayward energy in a lively horse.
The face of the rider should be as though he is sleeping, dropped and at ease, the eyes dreamy and never fixed, the mouth slightly open and jaw relaxed.
Now that I have summarized a lot of SHOULDS, I am sure that I will contradict myself later on. I tell all my students to be careful that they don't hold fast to every word I say today because tomorrow I may say something different! They laugh but after a month or so they know exactly why I said this. The horse is changing constantly. He is never the same from moment to moment. Just when we got one part of ourselves to behave a certain way, rest assured the horse will have changed and will need us to adjust in an entirely different way. This is the way of riding! Change, change, change. My suggestion.....get the basics above settled and start feeling your way from there, forming your own sense of a neutral posture from which ease and the fullness of energy can flow forth. The actual process of sending the energy will be expounded upon later.