Keys to sitting on your horse correctly

1. Roll the seat under to put weight on the back of your seat bones, and the front of your pelvis is lifted well up off the saddle, by the engaged abdominal muscles. The lower back should be stretched and supple. To begin with, this feels insecure because it takes core muscles to support it. These strengthen by sitting this way consistently. Only in this posture can the pelvis follow the horse’s stride pattern without opposing it. It eventually will allow for true collection and re-balancing of the horse. 

2. To start with, the upper body needs to stay back to keep the weight on the back of the seat bones. As the core muscles develop, you will sit a little more upright without losing the ‘sit;, the pelvis angle.

3. Suppling the hip joints is most important and the most important joints for a rider. They act as a hinge between the seat, hips and legs. The ‘hinge’ must be stretched open to the fullest, to allow the leg to stay underneath the rider’s body, which equally stays back on the saddle. Very difficult!

4. The centre of gravity of the rider must be lowered and the rider’s weight drops completely into the back of the seat by keeping the neck, shoulders and the lower back relaxed. With the front of the pelvis suspended by the engaged core muscles, combined the stretch of the hips, and the legs, supporting underneath the seat, means that the weight dropped into the saddle is not a ‘dead weight’, but instead a kind of adhesive glue that keeps the interactive seat fully connected to the horse.

5. The last point is that the rider must not add movement of their own to the horse’s movement by pushing or moving from side to side. The seat must be a ‘listening’ seat, not a ‘doing’ seat, and we modify the movement we receive from the horse with posture resistance.