The third preventer of the independent
seat after the incorrect positioning of the head and the hip is the
“Gripper.” This very strong muscle on the inside of your thigh serves
no purpose in the dressage seat other than in an emergency. The muscles
the dressage rider employs to move the lower leg back or against the
horse are located behind the thigh. Go ahead and reach for the back
of your thigh right beneath the fold of your cheek and then bend your
knee. Could you feel it? It feels like your biceps when you bend your
elbow. If you could not feel anything much, those muscles are underdeveloped
and you may have to seriously check how you use your aids. If the
grippers do the work for you they will not only push your knee against
the horse (you are supposed to bring the calf against the horse not
the knee). They will also bring the knee up or bend you forward in
your hip or both. Neither one of these effects is desirable, so tell
your grippers to take a rest.
The next source of problems with the independent
seat is bad habits. I want to divide them into two categories: the
habits you brought with you to the barn and the bad habits you developed
at the barn. The problems you brought with you are much more difficult
to deal with since their cause is often difficult to detect and thus
they will still be reinforced in your daily life. Most of these problems
are the result of lack of symmetry in our bodies. The office is often
guilty of turns or tilts in neck and shoulder. The habit of steering
your car with the same hand up on the steering wheel at all times
is sure to turn your body in one direction by stretching one side
and contracting the other. I had a student at one time who would always
push her hip out to the right. After much speculation why that would
be we finally found out that she had had five children and as babies
had carried them on her right hip. To solve that problem I suggested
that she have five more and use her left hip as a seat for them. She
must not want to ride well badly enough because she did not take my
advice.
To correct a bad habit you must stop doing
it and replace it with a desirable one. Often when we start riding
without any or with very infrequent instructions it is easy to become
accustomed to a poor posture or incorrect use of the aids. The answer
is riding under supervision, use of a mirror, or tapes to critique
your riding. Your best bet would be lessons because often it takes
an experienced eye to find the cause of a problem and not to get stuck
concentrating on a symptom. Should you feel that you developed bad
habits while riding with an instructor and you have been listening
and following her advice, it may be time for a change.
The last blocker of learning the independent
seat is mostly employed by those of us who learned to ride as adults.
It is the use of the left half of our brain. As great as the brain
is, it can do only one thing at a time, and in riding many things
happen simultaneously so it must fail. You must practice riding correctly
as much as you possibly can until the actual riding becomes automatic
and your left half of the brain can deal with the planning of the
ride. It does that very well. As you well know practice makes permanent
and so you must make absolutely sure that what you practice is correct.
Develop good habits! In case I whetted your appetite enough and you
would like to learn more about this subject I would like to recommend
a book by Susanne von Dietze. It is titled “Balance in Movement.”
