How to Ride Bareback with Balance, Confidence and Fluidity

hi I'm Caroline writer writer horsemanship today's smokey and I are going to be presenting holistic horses next video for April and this video is about how to develop a balanced independent seat when riding I'm going to go through a few core or key areas I'm going to list them first that I want you to identify and then I'm going to go and explain them in further detail as well as demonstrate first of all I want to talk about core strength that's going to be the one key area is core strength when you want to develop balance within your seat any time you lose your balance you should always focus on your stomach your pelvis don't focus on tightening up in the rest of your body think about your core and I'll talk a little bit more about that as the video goes on the second is going to be the level of relaxation in your body do you feel relaxed are you breathing are you filling up your diaphragm and exhaling and relaxing your spine or are you tight the third is going to be flexibility and what that really means is can your body parts move independently a lot of riders when they first come to me to learn this way of riding bareback and to get a feel confident and fluid with their horse bareback they ride really tight hands are really low to low they've got to lock in their arm they've got to lock in their ankle a lock in their knee and all of this brace will create bounce so you have to think of the flexibility mostly is going to be in your pelvis and I like to use this will really date me growing up we played with Weeble wobbles my brothers and I so if any of you are familiar with the old Weeble wobbles I don't even know if they make them still but it's an egg shape character that has a like an outfit on and the weeble wobble would wobble but it would not fall down and it wouldn't fall down because it had a little flat point at the base of its egg shape and that's what kept it from falling so think of that is your balance point and the balance point on a person is going to be right at the base of your seat right here and when you're on the horse and I'll further explain this when I get on smokey you're going to be feeling your left and right seat bone so you've got your left seat bone in your right seat bone underneath your seat here there bones not your tailbone your seat bone and not your pubic bone so it's not your pubic bone and it's not your tailbone you don't want to be sitting too far forward you don't want to be sitting too far back so you do not want to feel your tailbone or your pubic bone you want to open your pelvis and your legs that you feel the seat bones in between your crotch on either side of your crotch basically once you have your left in your right seat bone you're now going to have like a triangle an upside-down triangle to your balance point which is your seat back here and that's your weeble wobble area that's where you're going to be riding all the time so that's flexibility how relaxed is your body does your body move with the movement and we're going to talk about correct rider position when I mount we're going to talk about the horses center of gravity especially when you get on and with this bareback pad so horses center of gravity is right where the girth is this is the heaviest part of the horse and of course it is behind the drive line so if when you're sitting and I'll explain this and demonstrate this when I get on smokey when you're sitting you don't want to be sitting up here or leaning forward because you're going to be adding more weight your weight to the horse's heaviest part of his body which is going to throw him more forward and you'll lose your balance because you'll be thrust forward you're going to want to sit back here and I'll show you when I get on and the beauty of these bareback pads is they can sit way up here on the drive line in the withers because they don't impede movement nothing's going to get in the way of movement if you don't ever want to move a saddle this far forward because the saddles gullet will get in the way of a horse being able to move his shoulder so I'm bringing all of this up because all of this affects the horses balance and it affects your balance one of the key things the camera is going to capture is how this bareback pad starts up here tie and then it scoops down so when I'm sitting on here it's what look at my hand it's tilting my pelvis back that's really important that's absolutely important that's like the number one thing when you first get on you need to feel like you're you're sitting back on your balance point not being thrown forward so make sure your saddle is shaped like this I don't care what kind of saddle it is it doesn't matter that when you get when you look at it on your horses back of course it's not going to be this fitting because this is a bareback pad but you still should see that the pummel or the horn is the highest part and then that it scoops down so that you sit back on your pelvis that is so key and then of course where is the saddle positioned on the horse because you don't want to get him off balance or you don't want your horse to be irritated by an improper saddle fit so understanding writer position and again I'm going to demonstrate a lot more is really key and what I tell my students in the beginning and this is in my riding is 1 DVD volume 1 and I also have the biomechanics DVD out there that will further explain this as far as educational materials they tell my students when you first get on you want to not only have your horse trained to come pick you up at the mounting block like you'll see smokey do later you want them to stand there quietly while you do a body scan and the body scan is to make sure that you're relaxed make sure that you're in a correct alignment make sure that you feel your balance point your seat bones and that you're relaxed yet poised you're not here you can see the muscles you're not tight and tense any brace in your body creates resistance and opposition to movement we must remember that so I tell my students over and over again you first get on check yourself where are you and then we're going to work on softening the horse to our contact in our hands and I'll show you what that's all about because I need his mind on me I don't need to be fighting with him well I'm trying to learn how to ride bareback this is a very vulnerable position you don't have a saddle that's built and designed to hold your seat and your legs in place you don't have that so I don't ride any horses that come to me for training until we've developed this really great groundwork that I'm going to show you and I've demonstrated this groundwork in many of my free training videos on YouTube my free lunch to my lunge online for balance and self carriage so I'm not going to get into detail about that but I'm just going to show you the important qualities of this ground work which is the last key note here thanks Mia you can put it down the importance of the ground work is to get you to and sink you both that you learn how to embody the tempo the person horse already understands that every new horse that comes to me once they're tuned in and they trust me they will automatically tune in to my tempo they all do that's a horse they are just so tuned in like that to energy and intention so what do I mean by that we have the walk trot and canter so we have three specific gates but there are transitions within each gate there's slow medium and fast within the walk slow medium fast within the trot and within the canter I recommend always to my students that you guys learn this on the ground and how to ask intentionally and through your body everything I teach you on the ground is how I prepare you to ride so when you watch me I want you to watch how I bring up my spine and I get taller I don't get taller here I get taller here or I relax my spine and again all of this is about the key points of flexibility of relaxation in your body that helps you maintain in rider position that helps you maintain that balance point these are so important if I go to lose my balance when I'm riding bareback I might tighten up my core and my thighs and then relax again so it's just like a split second a split second of tightening and regaining my balance but you won't see me clinging to the horse I won't use my calves and cling to him and I won't sit there and get tight and nervous how do you help students get confident with this especially riding bareback you go really slow and I'll demonstrate this when I'm riding and what I mean by that is we're going to work on the transitions within each gate and you won't try it until you can master the walk the slow walk the medium walk and the fast energetic walk soon as you can master that with your horse on the ground and under saddle then you've created enough engagement mental and physical with your horse and enough confidence that you can control that movement with your body in your seat that the trots going to be what a slow trot you're going to work yourself from a nice energetic walk where the horses got a good work ethic he's responsive you've really opened up your pelvis and I'll demonstrate that with smokey and into a really small collective trot and back down to a walk again and that's how I teach writing you're going to learn this movement in a synchronicity with your horse on the ground so you can move as one and be in rhythm and to net in and embody that learn to embody it you really this is all about self awareness and be really aware of how you're moving and it takes time it takes practice this isn't learned overnight maybe more natural for some people than it is for others so I want to set you up for success I'm going to start to demonstrate the lunge real quick I'm not going to get into detail because there's other videos and DVDs that will further explain it I really want to focus more on the rider position when I get on and my seat all right so let's back smokey up I've got a lunge whip so I always back my horse up to focus him and if he is oppositional or resistant you'll see it in the back up he won't he just won't back up or he'll be really tight notice how when smokey backed up he kept his head pretty level he didn't raise it so anytime a horse raises their head in to movement any movement there's resistance embrace in opposition and you're going to feel that through the body so just because this video is on you developing a balanced independent seat how are you going to develop that if you have a tight resistant horse the movement is going to be tight and you can't help but end up carrying that tightness in your own body so it's not just so much about the horse or you we've got to prepare the horse then again that's what my lunge is all about that's what my self carriage articles and DVDs and videos are all about getting our horses so that they are is balanced mentally and physically as possible so that when we want to learn how to ride correctly with a balanced seat it's easier much easier it's impossible to ride that tight movement it's hard on you it's hard on me so I've got them backed up good boy I'm going to send them off to the right so this is energy notice how my whip is quiet and in neutral right now and horizontal to him the important thing is that I get the energy in front of me and the energy in front of me means his shoulder is in front of my hip so if you look at the girth or the leather strap that goes over his withers and connects to the girth it's in front of my hip so that's his driveline anything behind the drive line naturally pushes a horse forward if I step in front of his shoulder I stop them that's natural position this is no different than free lunge in round pen work so I'm really helping you guys become more aware of where you need to be not just when you ride but on the ground with energy and using your pelvis the camera can pan in and just watch how I'm going to push him out with my pelvis I'm act to actively engaging my pelvis and I'm pivoting off my outside left leg so I don't get dizzy and I'm going to step in and push again so I'm really using this muscle right here and I'm exercising these muscles so that they can move they have a lot of flexibility because they're going to be the shock absorber when we get moving you know your pelvis and your seat is the captain it's what tells the horse where to go it's not your reins it shouldn't be arranged your reins are just there to guide and reinforce and they do a great job moving the shoulder and your leg is just there as another aid but the major aid is your seat and especially if you follow classical dressage it's your seat good boy so how do I embody movement I'm listening 1 2 3 4 1 and then I'll pick up the trot so how did that happen I changed the tempo within me and look at my head I'm doing this on purpose so that you can see how the movement comes up the seat of my spine as if I was riding up and out why because that's the trot that's what the trot feels like it's this kind of movement the walk is this kind of movement and the canter is this kind of movement it's really that simple but not easy so when you're on the ground start thinking start to think walk fast walk embody that energy faster walk all I want you to slow it down and body that get your horse tuned in use your body to communicate but that doesn't mean you're reckless it doesn't mean like I've got some students go will trot let's do this you don't ride like that though so I don't allow it you ride from the base of your spine up so any kind of movement you're going to do with your horse on the ground must be quiet in your legs quiet in the rest of your body and very open and expressive from your seat up and outward because that is how movement flows through your body when you're riding let's take a look at that again so camera can just focus on me I'm going to ask for the trot one two one two one two push them forward a little bit little more motivation there a little bigger I didn't ask for a lope thank you so if I want a bigger trot Snookie's not the best horse for this because he really gets set in his little pattern of the jog okay that's what he's bred for so I'm just going to one two one two one two one two two one two one two count it and then if I want to get slower I'm going to go one two one two one two one two what happened not only did my voice slowed down my breathing slowed down my energy level slowed down my body reflected that that's important Plus you must feel this because this is the way you're going to ride at least if you want to ride safely and with confidence in a true balanced independent seat why do I bring up safety my method may be complex and tough to start but I know what safety is and that's when that horse is completely tuned into you and protecting you and taking care of you as if you were a herd member I know that because smokey used to be the craziest horse I ever worked with he busted me up in the beginning then he taught me a lot so watch how I'm going to get him around the camera and then I'm going to ask him in to the canter the lope to see my body to see my seat see where I am I am back here on my balance point so again I'm not going to get into any more detail about how I develop this lunge method because I have other materials out there that will help you I just want to show you how important it is to get you to synchronize so that you can ride as one and then we're going to go and get on thank you buddy now my bibs you can leave it on okay Mia yeah I can't emphasize enough how important it is for our horses to come pick us up for us not to have to drag them over to the mounting block or hold them there and I don't fix the mounting block at the mounting block because it's a symptom of a deeper cause so if your horse can't come to the mounting block and can't stand still there's a huge level of distrust there and confidence and you've got to take care of that first before you start focusing on the mounting block mounting block is just information about how your horse feels about the ride so what's important about this pick-me-up is that he's focused on me and that he wants me he's offering his back again I'm not making this happen I might ask him to do a better job to get me usually I don't even have to ask I just get up here and they follow like he is right now and he gives me his back I didn't even have to ask sometimes I do and it's just a you know come-come here but this is the way I want it and again this is about his mind this is about safety he's tuned in to me he wants me so let me bring him around this way come here and then we're going to get on and I want to adjust myself so I want it what that means is I'm going to fix you know my pants my belt I'm going to do a body scan now while I'm on him am i breathing do I feel relaxed not tight I'm going to come closer to the camera and show you how the many many ways or many areas I want you just so many areas that I want to to focus on when you first get on I also want to show you at the bareback pad where I'm positioned so this is really important I'd mentioned it on the ground let me fix this sorry smoke I know I'm sorry buddy so right now you can see this this leather piece here right in front of my crotch okay again this is his center of gravity this is where he is at his heaviest in his body you must make sure you're sitting behind this alright so let's talk about bareback pads can sit way up here on the withers why again they don't impede movement there's nothing restricting him his shoulders right now so it's designed to fit up here and designed to throw you back on your balance point when I'm sitting I want to make sure that my leg is is long and stretched out as possible because when you do this and stretch you're going to feel the length of your leg pull your body down into his back so you feel more snug meaning I don't want your riding like this this is danger or tight like this look at my ankle and my lower leg if you ride with any brace in your body you're going to bounce and possibly fall off and you make your horse nervous and you create brace in their body because they're off balance so it's just a lose-lose for everyone so make sure you breathe and you stretch your legs out and I always tell my clients to just rock their legs back and forth bend at the knee let's see how loose your knee is does your toe point down you know don't get me wrong if I lose my balance I'm going to do this I'm going to tighten up my my ankle point my toes up in my body tighten my core and sit back but it's only going to last about a second or two it's just to rebalance myself that's the key thing so there's nothing wrong with tightening I mean you've got to realize you don't have a saddle here to keep your seat or your leg in place you're on your own it's all about your seat right now in your balance there's nothing to hold on or keep you secure but you so if I do lose my balance I will do this and then relax in release so it's just a quick freeze regain my balance and it's here in the core but it affects the rest of my body and then I go back and this takes practice and lots of awareness so I'm giving you an idea of where your body position is I'm also going to talk about what we talked about on the ground where your seat bones are and your balance point so your leg is long if we had a pole from my if I was in a saddle I would be turning my knee in a little bit my my feet would be pointing straight with the horse not out straight I do dressage and even Western reining Western pleasure Western dressage so your your toes just are straight right now my heel you'd have a straight line from my heel to my hip to my elbow to my shoulder so that would make your body straight another thing I want you to so you want to pay attention to how relaxed and inflexible your arms are they're not here they're not here they're here so how do your body scan how relaxed are you are you poised yet relaxed the other thing with your body position is make sure that your spine is lined up with his spine so that means I'm not off to the left I'm not off to the right I'm not twisted I'm always riding straight always keep yourself balanced so when you're riding straight there's three points in your seat that I want you to feel not all the time but you need to be aware of your left seat bone your right seat bone and your seat back here so how do you feel all of this at one time these three points well if I lean forward I feel my pubic bone and now I'm off I'm out of balance I am on top of his center of gravity which makes him heavier and want to go forward so if you lean like that you're going to actually make your horse go faster and lose his balance so that's the pubic bone now if i push my belly button down i round my small back and I sit back on the balance point so here I go again I'm going to be forward like I see so many riders and now I'm going to take my finger and push my belly button in and down so I round I don't hollow out my small back smell with my back I round it and that puts me back on my derriere on my buttocks now if I lean if I lean back I don't want you to lean if I lean back I feel my tailbone so you don't want to feel your tailbone by leaning back you don't want to feel your pubic bone by leaning forward they're good smokey again you want to sit back so notice how when I sit back and straight and back and straight and back and straight and back and straight my legs in my upper body stay quiet don't they so flexibility is in that the body can move independently that the bot my upper body doesn't rely on my pelvis or my legs to keep it where it needs to be and the most important thing with balance is your core your pelvis I recommend to my students to either take yoga or pilates and use a yoga ball and again and you're going to use the ball to move your hips around and to start to get core strength I can't say enough about a collected trot bareback a slow collected trot which smokey and I will demonstrate will be like a jog because that really works I mean when you think about the cha remember when I was on the ground the walk feels like this in your hips pay attention to that get in a rhythm with that get in rhythm to the way it sounds in looks on the ground now getting rhythm to the way he takes your body it is forwards not side-to-side the walk is a shuffle almost the trot is an upward movement it comes up through your spine comes up through your spine he's already being affected by that and the canter is a leap into movement a leap into movement and a proper collected canter will happen from the hind end your horse will not pull themselves forward so again I can't emphasize that your horse must be equally prepared to ride with balance or in balance because of your horses rushing and forward and quick and nervous he's going to totally make you nervous make you tight because you constantly feel like you're losing your balance and you've got to regain it you don't want that so the best thing I can advise which is in a lot of my free videos and again my DVDs is prepare your horse prepare him emotionally mentally to be collected and physically and then that's going to make your ride that much easier your ability to focus on your balance so to help strengthen this core I recommend martial arts and I recommend Pilates or yoga in you know specific exercises that focus my biomechanics DVD has some specific exercises that will further explain and help you right now again when I first get on I want to talk about when I first get on my horse after I've done my body scan and I've brought awareness to the relaxation in my body to my breathing to my center to feeling my Center to feeling like I'm sitting deep in my seat not back not forward that's all about me right now now I'm going to focus on him I want to see where he is in my fingertips how soft is he and how light is he and this is key why is this key because in order to ride with balance it's not just about you your horse has got to brake at the pole and be open in the shoulder and that's going to be the next DVD that I do that will further explain how do I help my horse not be resistant why is it so important to brake at the pole and is so important to break at the shoulder and open up the shoulder because when you get your horse his top-line open and relaxed like that not resistant he's got to use his hind end in order to stay open and relaxed through his top-line and when he uses his hind end his movement becomes more fluid and when he starts to use his hind end he starts to create self carriage and balance and this is where collection takes place when the horse is collected into that movement and again I want you guys to ride safely I want the mind of your horse on you and I want his body with you so it's a lot of responsibility I understand and it is how I teach dressage and how I teach this oneness with your horse if smokey doesn't give to just the slightest fingertip or my squeezing of the rein squeezing not pulling just squeeze see how light my hands are if he doesn't respond to that and flex a little from right to left without moving then I know he's got resistance whether it's mental or physical and that's your information because that's going to affect your ride so let's just obviously he's fine and he's soft so we're going to move on and I'm going to show you with my hips I'm going to encourage again I'm going to sit back sit back a little and scoop him up scoop him up so how that has just keeps sitting back make sure that you can feel your seat bones and make sure that you can feel that your seat is connecting with him so I'm not leaning back here and I'm not here I'm sitting back remember just push your belly button down and in and it'll sit you right back on your balance point make sure that you are behind his center of gravity make sure that your saddle or your bareback pad is allowing you to sit back that it's not pushing you forward that is so key to helping you achieve this independence seat in balance so right now I'm going to ask him for a bigger walk with my hips forward right left right left and then his job is to maintain that that's his responsibility in this partnership I'm going to tell him how fast I want him to walk and his job is to maintain that until I tell him different so you'll notice that I'm going to have contact in my reins it's casual it's a little light but that's the and that is good that's the way I want him to be trained I want him soft and responsive to light contact I don't want to have to hold him and I want him to be able to move freely so again when he can break at the pole like he is and the neck then I can feel his back underneath of me open up which means he has more freedom of movement it also means he has to use his hind end more than his front end so therefore he's going to learn to carry himself correctly now my leg is loose if you'll notice number my leg is loose if you see my leg get like this it's for the shoulder in and my push the inside leg might push a little but other than that my leg is going to hang really loose from the knee down if he were to spook all of a sudden and and shy I would now face the camera I would sit back it takes training I would sit back and squeeze my thighs and just lock up and then I would regain my balance and he all these horses here are taught that as soon as you take movement away from your body add resistance to your body that means slow down that's the cue obviously you're against movement you're opposing movement so it tells the horse they've got to slow down and match that and just about every horse here through the training if you lose your balance they'll stop because you're not with them in the movement so your legs should be long and loose if you need to regain a but you're balanced because you fell forward then sit back and just bring your legs up a little and tighten your thighs only and then release again and breathe and make sure you're sitting back so if I want to ask right now he's got a medium walk I'm going to ask him into the trot and again what does the trot feel like it's an upward movement it's a bump bump bump did you just see how he started because he's so tuned into that so let's go down to a walk again and the camera can just pan into my seat we'll pick up a different tempo and guess where I'm sitting I'm constantly sitting back on my balance point it takes a lot of muscle recognition to really what I'm going to say the lower back has to bend you can't be Hollow so I'm sitting back and when you start to feel this how good it feels you'll be looking for it constantly makes you feel secure when you're deep in the seat like this good boy smoke so I'm going to ask for him to walk again and he doesn't know walk trot or kin or cues verbal but I'm going to ask him to just have a nice relaxed walk when I start my students out I only want you guys to work on the transitions within the gate the walk and trot the transitions within the gate or slow medium and fast so before my students learn to trot bareback they need to be able to walk fast with their horse because that's going to make it really easy that energy and that connection through the seat to scoop them up into the trot you're only going to do three strides of trot back down to an energetic walk again and this is how you develop confidence because your seat is your horse is so tuned into you and engaged your seat is a captain and so I don't teach students to lunge you know to ride one of my horses while I lunge them for half an hour until they find their seat at the trot or the caner because that's really unfair the horse extremely unfair and I don't want my horses ruined with people bouncing all over them and so your job and it's hard in the beginning is to figure out how to inspire movement and take it away through your seat just think of it scooping the horse up this is so key to riding with balance notice that my arms are bent and that they are my hands are right over his withers and about eight inches so everything is about keeping me in my balanced position so a lot of riders that come to me we're taught like this so the minute you lock up your arms you create opposition to movement embrace in your body Plus this position pulls you forward now take your hands up here and just see how I just step back and this is also the cue for the backup I don't pull to ask my horses to back up I just change the contact and sit back and lift the shoulder because I want to lift the shoulder think of the biomechanics everything you're doing whether it's with your aides through your body or your equipment is telling your horse something so again I can't emphasize enough about reading and understanding biomechanics how the body works how your body works and how the aides work how appropriate your aides are when I back up I want to lift my horse into that I want to lift them I don't want to pull them and notice how my hands are always here in a very relaxed bent position there is no brace make sure you're breathing so we're going to trot again and then I'm going to ask him into the canner so I don't use any leg for any of this it's all the seat now watch how I ask him into the canter I'm going to lift up do you see that okay let's do that again good boy smoke so my hand I don't even need this my hand represents his body or his front end my seat represents his hind end so I'm gonna scoop up and lift scoop up and lift and look at how much energy in flexibility come on my seat has right now and look at how quiet the rest of my body is he can trip he can blow his nose he can pull on my reins but he's not going to pull me off my balance point because I'm not tight and I'm tuned in right now so that if he needs to lengthen the reins for any reason I'll let him slide or I'll relax my arms a little bit more and go straight for him whatever he needs but I'm not going to compromise my balance point no matter what I've been in situations where you know like we all have or some of us have where the horses lost their balance and if when your core when you're really sitting in your balance and you're very aware of how powerful your core is you can take that sit back and lift that horse and save both of you from a fall so this level of safety is amazing but it requires tremendous mindfulness and tuning into each other tuning into you how you present yourself how you show up and how your horse shows up so he had a really nice collected canter do I want to ride a bigger can or sure I'll ride a bigger canter nope picked up the there you go buddy so let's get a little bigger canter so open my hips up and push a little bit more so keep sitting back don't lean just keep sitting back you have to train that muscle and then slow your movement down in your body so the two key points I'll emphasize is your core and feeling your your balance point feel your core when your muscles are flexing contracting holding tightening and/or releasing and feel your balance point find those areas in your body make sure your long your leg is long it's pulling your seat down into into your horse's back make sure your equipment is set up properly your saddle your bareback pad make sure your horse has a pretty good mind right now and can move with some fluidity because that's going to help you be more balanced and at least more confident well thank you please feel free to leave a ton of comments or questions about this video and I look forward to hearing from you and may you always be one with your horse thank you you

Channel: Tao of Horsemanship

Views: 117,913

Rating: 4.8874936 out of 5

Keywords: bareback riding, balance, control, horses, caroline rider, natural horsemanship, intuitive, bitless riding, confidence, safety, transitions, core strength, self carriage, classical dressage, correct rider position, biomechanics, relaxation, flexibility, body scan, center of gravity, ground work, mindset, fluidity, harmony, true unity, correct saddel fitting, riding bareback, riding as one, partnership, love of horses, relationship, energy, mind body soul, mounting block

Id: ohrh_W46D-0

Length: 41min 5sec (2465 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 14 2015