Having body awareness is essential on many levels and we often see riders in lessons who are told to put their right shoulder back. They end up screwing themselves into a ball, lifting their right leg, and pretty much doing everything except putting their right shoulder back.
This is not because they want to deliberately ignore their trainer, but when their brain tells the right shoulder to open, they haven’t got the awareness as to how to move their right shoulder without the rest of their body taking part in their attempt. It sounds easy, but in actual fact many people have trouble identifying different parts of their body and how to move or feel that particular point.
An osteopath once told me that clients will come in and say they have a general pain sort of all over their back. Whereas a person with a heightened body awareness will enter and be able to tell them the exact location, where it may be coming from and why.
This concept is hugely important in the art of dressage as we must not only know what aid to give, but know that when we think we give an aid, we actually give that aid and not some other group of commands simultaneously.
Often we see riders getting more and more frustrated with their horses. They will give an aid, but the aid they are giving is not the one they think, or even more common, they will give that aid but also give a counter aid at the same time. For instance a rider will put the outside leg back to ask for canter, but at the same time pull on the reins. So how do we improve our body awareness and decrease the gap between the aid we think we give and the aid the horse feels?
First as mentioned in part, you need to do work off the horse, this may be yoga, or pilates, or core training, in order to gain more awareness of your body and how to use it. Dance can also help, to create more coordination.
Second, is to think while you are riding. Albert Einstein said that insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If you give an aid, time after time, and your horse is not understanding you, you have to start thinking about what else might be happening. What other parts of your body are getting involved? If you don’t have someone watching, video yourself and see what you are doing. Notice the difference between the aid in your head and the aid in reality.
Then gradually try to adjust. Your horse can be the greatest ever body awareness instructor, because typically a horse will know better than you if you are doing the right thing or not! Listen to him. Does he understand what you are asking him? Gradually by thinking and doing and learning about our bodies, we can reduce that gap between the aid in our minds,and the aid we apply. Your horse will thank you for getting it right.
by Sarah Warne
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