Take a seat

Well, I did it. In my lesson with Debra the Great (that's her new name, she just doesn't know it yet) a couple of weeks ago, I did it. When she finished up with my friend Kara (who was looking AMAZING over fences...nice automatic release, my friend!), she walked towards me, and I said, "I want to work on me." She asked what I meant by that, after all, it's a bit vague. So, I explained about the videotape my dear husband made of me and my disappointment at what I saw....my seat all rocked back on my pockets (if I had them...I don't ride in jeans; they hurt too much), my arms all crazy and in front of me. Debra, being the Great One, smiled and proceeded to work her magic.

First, let me explain how awesome Debra is. She has a history with horses that reads like a Who's Who of the equine world in SEVERAL different sports (hunters, jumpers, Thoroughbred racehorses, dressage). She has all her USDF medals; she's trained several different horses of varying breeds up through the levels to FEI. With all this, she has a right just as much as anyone to be quite the DQ. However, she's truly the most laid back person on earth (must be the California in her) - seriously, she never groomed her horse when she rode other than to knock off the (SUBSTANTIAL amounts of) dirt from where the saddle would be. She would be out riding him, doing the most beautiful piaffe, passage, tempis, and pirouettes all with clumps of dirt flying from his neck, face and shoulders. In lessons, she laughs off the intensity I bring and reminds me how wonderful this dressage experience can be. So...all that said, after my declaration of how horrible my seat was, she walked up beside me with the mounting block, climbed it and asked me to rise up out the saddle. She proceeded to put her hand, palm up, in the center of my saddle, and told me to sit on it. "Really?" I asked with a bit of trepidation. "Oh, yeah," she chuckled, "I don't mind at all." I shrugged, and, not being one to say no to a new adventure, sat down.

In all this, we discovered that my seat bones sit farther forward in my seat than any others she has ever felt (She claimed to have felt "hundreds." I'll take her word for it.). So, to get them pointing down and in the right place in the saddle, I have to think of riding forward to the front third of the saddle with my upper body...almost putting a slight arch in my lower back. Well, what feels like a slight arch to me is actually a neutral spine position. I'm just so used to rolling back on my seat bones and flattening out my lower back that I have forgotten what "sitting up straight" really feels like.

Then, she moved to the other part of my seat - my thighs. To emphasize the musculature of my thighs, she asked me to prevent her being able to move my lower leg around. She pushed it in towards Obe's side, I pressed back against the pressure with my quads. She pushed on my toe to shove my leg backwards, I pressed back with my quads. She pushed on my heel to shove my leg forwards.....and my leg went FLYING up by Obe's shoulder. Debra squinted up at me, "Do you use your hamstrings at all?" I recovered my jaw that had dropped onto the pommel of the saddle and said, "Apparently no." After a few more minutes of talk of engaging the hamstrings (popping the tendons behind the knee), I struck out at a walk on a slightly larger than 20-meter circle with my new seat and new thighs. I quickly realized that my dressage education (if you want to call it that) had huge, gaping holes in it. With a few direct questions, and through getting her hands literally ON me, Debra had not only pinpointed those holes, but she had deftly filled them. "Seat" does not mean "butt." It is the crotch, the inner thigh, the inner knee, the entire pelvis...it's actually quite large as far as surface area goes.

So, there I was walking around, diligently working at engaging my hamstrings. Debra asked for sitting trot, and off I went. Immediately, I could feel the weight dropping through my thigh and leg. The part of my pelvis that was touching the saddle was further forward, riding in a circular motion through the front of my abdomen. My arms dropped naturally by my side (in fact, we never even had to address the issue of my arms once I discovered what "seat" meant). All this felt great, and I knew I was onto something thanks to Debra the Great's intuitive way of teaching. But, it wasn't over quite yet....

Feedback is more than the squeaky, eardrum-piercing tones that microphones produce when they cross paths with a speaker's output. It is a mechanism that lets us know when we are on the right track or when we have strayed a bit too far the wrong way. That night, my horse became the best feedback mechanism I've truly ever experienced. When I asked for trot and settled into my new seat, my lower legs were able to close around Obe's ribs and lift her to me. For the first few circles, Obe's ears flicked back and forth, but not in her usual, ADD, paying-attention-to-anything-other-than-me way. It was almost as if she was trying to figure out if this new way of going was true. "Really?" she was asking. "Is this really the way it's going to be? Are you sure? 'Cause I'm kinda liking this." After a few circles, I closed my leg, and Obe lifted me to the front of the saddle, carried her shoulders up through her withers, and lengthened...really and truly lengthened. And, get this, I RODE it. I TRULY rode it. It felt like I was riding a sin wave. Now, I'm not a mathematician by any stretch of the imagination. I teach English for really good reasons. However, I know a sin wave, and that's exactly what her energy felt like. I wasn't simply dropping down in the down parts, forcing my butt down on her back and squashing all the energy she was trying to create. Instead, I was allowing the up and the down portions of the wave to simply TAKE my seat (crotch, pelvis, thighs and all) through the energy. Debra almost laughed at how different we were. "Keep riding it! Feel it!" she encouraged.

I was sore for three days after my lesson. My hamstrings were a little surprised at being called into action. But, I couldn't WAIT to get back out there and try it again. I was a little worried that it was just a fluke, that I might not really be riding as well as I thought I was. Then, last night, nearly two weeks later, I rode in the indoor arena that has one short side in mirrors. I dared to take a look as Obe and I trotted by. It isn't often that I like what I see when I look in a mirror. But last night, I actually smiled at my reflection. Now, I just need another session with a videotape....that will tell the tale. I'll let you know when that happens!