It isn’t riding in ‘mistake prevention mode’ and keeping the horse’s head down by whatever means. But it is the ‘human trump card’ in the ‘got it/lost it’ game that each rider learns (we hope) to play with her horse. This concept suggests a viable ‘it’ that the rider wants to get back to - but this is not a foregone conclusion. This involves water going through the horse’s hoses (from his hind legs over his top line) without being dissipated, deadened or deviated, and a rider who does not fall into the traps of leaning back, growing tall, lifting her chest, pushing in her stirrups and pulling ..read more

In riding, negative expectations so often become the reality (as in ‘I hope we don’t stop at the ditch!…’). When things are going well you have to ‘make it again, make it again’ - not stop doing it - and you can’t even afford to take time out and congratulate yourself! Hoping something good will happen is very different to expecting it to happen, and when it comes to impulsion, many riders set themselves up to ensure that it won’t happen. Naive teachers feed this rider lots of energy, and end up exhausted. There are other ways to encourage someone who is probably constrained by fear to step ou ..read more

Half halts are an emergent property of good biomechanics. The rider. needs firstly to realise that she needs to intervene to ‘lead the dance’ and not just get carried away on the horse’s ‘magical mystery tour’. This won’t happen until she has a ‘reference feeling’ and makes comparisons  between that and the feeling she’s actually getting. This involves the TOTE model - Test, Operation, Test, Exit. With more skills, she makes smaller interventions more often. Also, it helps to have a horse with high ‘ridability’ who agrees that his rider can influence and, effectively, interrupt him. There ..read more

'More!', and muscle tone (alias 'stuffing') which men have 35% more of than women. The 80/20 of how much of your attention should ideally be where, and the biggest task that probably faces you in learning. Being a rider who wants to be picked up vs. being a 'sack of potatoes ..read more

 On noseblowing, spacehoppers (hippity-hops), and forces that act either from the back to the front or from the front to the back. The physics of 'an independent seat', and how stability, not relaxation, is the key to skilled riding.  ..read more

The best ever story about stirrup length, and how in other sports, it’s all about angles. You cannot not influence your horse - he is constantly reading your ability to support your own body weight (or not), your asymmetry, how wibbly-wobbly you are, how ‘shovey’ you are, wether you can match the forces of his movement etc. He knows more about you than you know about yourself! The possible effects of being given the wrong map, and how communication in riding arenas goes awry ..read more

It is a challenge to create an equally snug and symmetrical ‘A frame’ with your thighs, and it’s important to ride with your stirrups level. The only exception is if you have a difference in leg length that is structural (eg. a break that was badly set) rather than functional. Horses’s can have an uneven bulge to their rib cage, and this means that you have to have a fool-proof way of measuring your stirrup length. Hopefully suggesting an unusual and profound stretch that you can easily do in a stable (using the stable door) will encourage you to actually do it ..read more

The brain is like a manual camera lens, and all of us have to learn how to ‘tune’ our brain into a state of clear focus. As skill develops it’s as if you’re given a more powerful miscoscope lens, becoming able to observe detail that you could not have previously imagined. But all learning requires the willingness to feel weird - and here is an exercise in weirdness that I invite you to take to your riding ..read more

Hopefully the stretch from last time leaves you feeling that you can fill out your concave side and rotate it forward, making it more sturdy. We add to this effect, and explore wether one side of your pelvis rotates back more easily than the other, and wether one point of hip aims more in towards your midline. These explorations can lead to discoveries that suggest viable solutions to the asymmetry and steering issues that all riders face. The golden rule, as ever, is ‘get to know your starting point ..read more

Research on mental rehearsal has encompassed dart throwing, piano playing, and many other skills, often reporting improvements in skill that surpass actual practice. Focussing in the effect of a movement works better than focussing on the movement itself, and the level of detail you can produce in your rehearsal says a lot about your actual skill level. There are a few ‘health warnings’ about ways of (perhaps inadvertantly) doing rehearsals that are not helpful ..read more