Saturday, February 5, 2011

Thoughts on - sitting trot

Sitting trot is often one of those things that takes years to master, and everyone has a different idea about how to make it easier.

I had an interesting experience just before i stopped riding with my pregnancy.  I headed off to my last dressage comp and thought I may as well give my prelim horse a start at novice and see how he goes.  It is a local club, that is pretty low key, so is a great place to bring on horses without too much pressure.  

My mare is lovely and has been competing at the levels that require sitting trot for a while, and she is easy to ride, nice and forward, so I just need to keep her rhythm, suppleness, make sure her back is lifting, and she is looking for the contact, and it all comes together well.   My gelding, (the prelim horse) always gets better marks than her, has much better movement than her, but really doesn't move as correctly as her.



Somehow it slipped my mind that I needed to do sit trot at novice, which I had never really practiced on him.  Two days before the competition,  I thought I better give it a go.  

He has much bigger movement than my mare, and I knew it was going to be harder because he is not a very forward horse, and so I have to concentrate on getting him to be responsive and forward first.  After running through the test a couple of times, I realised this was not going to be easy.  I went through all the different "tricks" that I had to try to make sitting trot easier, but it was not happening at all.  This was compounded by the fact that I had a little belly, and my tummy muscles had already started to relax due to the pregnancy.  I was starting to wonder if I should bother at all.  I was bouncing all over the place, feeling like I was going to fall off, his ears keep going back, and he kept coming back to walk.  

If it wasn't my last comp, I think I would have withdrawn him, we were that bad.  

Competition day came, and we did a lovely prelim test, my mare's tests went nicely, and his novice test was our last ride of the day.  We warmed up, I am sure my sit trot got worse and worse as we went, then we got delayed into the ring for some reason, so I had to wait, and re-do the final parts of my warm up again about fifteen minutes later.  I was starting to get very worried, and quite self conscious that people might be looking at me bouncing all over my horse. 

Finally we went into the ring . . . I was thinking, "we just need to make it to canter, canter is good, just make it to canter, we can do it".  The trot part of the test felt like it went forever, going from walk back to trot felt terrible because he is so sluggish, and I needed to push push push, which puts me off balance and makes my sit trot worse.  I am trying to do tiny little rises every now and again to get my balance back, I am sure the judge wants to tell me to get off.  I finally come down the centre line to halt, with a big sigh of relief, and I give the judge a look of "OMG! I am soo sorry you had to watch that, I promise to be better next time".  

I go out to my friends who all say "that was great" and I am sure they are lying, yeah right, that was so bad, I am so embarrassed.

So, while I began this post wanting it to be "tips for how to improve your sitting trot" I just don't think I have enough of a hang of it to advise you, dear reader.  If I only had one horse, and it was my mare, I would feel completely confident explaining to you how to do it, because I feel great on her.  However, then I get on him, and feel like a completely useless sack of potatoes.

I can however, give you a couple of the ideas that I have used with success, and a promise that as I improve my own sit trot, I will keep you updated with any more insight I gain.

Having just started to ride again, bub is now 9 weeks old, i began my "improve my sit trot on the boy" plan on Thursday.  This is how my plan goes . .

1. warm up at walk, make sure I have rhythm,  then start to do small circles, bending, keeping forward an rhythm through the change of direction and circle size.   This will supple the horse, and cause the horse to come into the contact.

2. warm up rising trot, using shortening and lengthening rein, keeping rhythm throughout the changes, stretching and building on suppleness, and asking the horse to look for contact.

3. Shorten and lengthen strides.

3.  Either leg yielding on a straight line/circle or, turn on forehand/ turn on the haunches

4. once I have a supple back that is lifting, then I can start working on my sit trot.  If the horses back is not lifting, it is difficult for me, and painful for the horse.

5. I start by sitting for three strides, then back to rising.  Sometimes I will stand in the stirrups for half a circle, to make sure my weight is in the stirrups properly, then back to sitting for three strides.  Throughout the time I am making sure my thumbs are on top, my elbows are at my sides, and my thumbs are even as are his ears.

One of the key things with getting your three strides right, is to lead with your belly button.  If you are leading with your belly button and your heel is the lowest point, your thumbs are on top, then you just need to develop the strength to go for longer.

Once you can do your three strides, WITHOUT THE HORSES TROT CHANGING RHYTHM then you can move on to more strides.  Just add an extra stride in, then another then another.  Don't rush it, it is more important to keep your rhythm than go for longer.

There really is no point just banging around on his back for ever and ever.  He must develop the strength to maintain it, and that begins with rhythm, suppleness and contact.

For me right now, I have to build on my own strength, only doing short periods of sit trot, and slowly building it up.

In saying all that, in his novice test, he came fourth, so it can't have been as bad as it felt, perhaps it was just because I was not fit enough . . . .

Update on Sitting Trot - 26/2/11

I had a couple of lessons the other day with David Quick.  One of the things I wanted to work on was my sitting trot, find out if it was me or the horse causing the problem.  So, I showed him what we were doing, felt like I might all off, and he said it was fine.... hmm.  Apparently my sitting trot actually looks far better than it feels.  One of the things he did point out however, was that Mocha is extremely lazy, and I am constantly battling my instinct to nag nag nag with my leg.

He encouraged me to try out some spurs, which I was very wary of, because I feel like my legs are not still enough to use them correctly.  He gave me some great advice on how to use them effectively, and all of a sudden, Mocha was a MUCH easier ride.  I was able to sit still, and think of my legs as separate from my seat quite easily, rather than finding myself doing the push push push with the seat and the tap tap tap with the leg, and getting slower and sloower and sloooower . .  

While I am still of the belief that I just need to do more training on "forward", it certainly makes it a lot easier having the little bit extra "back up" aid.

I have also been using some of the visualisations I discovered in the "posture release imagery" site I found the other day.  It makes it a lot easier to get your body to do what you want without being forced.  Something to do with the language of your subconscious being pictorial.  Anyway, I will be doing a post on that stuff soon.

Between developing a better "forward" button, getting better at visualising, and practicing a little at a time, is really helping.  Just keep in mind, the most important thing, is to first have RHYTHM, that makes everything else easier.  Without rhythm, you cannot move onto the next steps of the training scale, this is the same whether it is dressage, jumping, or just wanting to ride in better balance with your horse.

A friend was kind enough to film my novice test the other day, which meant I got to see my sitting trot for myself.  Now, coming into the test, I was again feeling like I shouldn't be there.  The first half of it felt terrible, but by the second half it came together.  We got some very good marks, and finished up well, however,  I was concentrating so hard on not bouncing around all over the place I did have an error of course.  Bummer.

Watching the video back was very interesting, it certainly reminded me of why I love my horse so much, he is super gorgeous, and, I don't look as bad as I feel.  Which is nice to know :) Maybe I can relax a bit more next time, which may even make it easier too.

Happy riding everyone!