Its November, so it must be Mark Rashid time
Ho hum, what better time of year to spend sitting in an indoor school for 8 hours a day than....
freezing November !
Anyway, I now have a tonne of notes to write up. I travelled back from the clinic Saturday so only had one day to ride this weekend. (and the weekdays are too dark at this time of year, the horses are in by 4pm).
One of the things Mark talked about was the "figure 8" of movement in the rider's hips as they rode. Of course this is about the *movement* not about the physical hip joint, as the left side of the hip could not suddenly end up on the right with the person still facing the same way and not in agony !
But what was described was a looping flow of movement/energy from side to side. In all dimensions, not just in one plane.
He also talked about how the rider mirrors the horse's movement. In walk, the stride length is pretty close for both a walking human and a horse. And walking at that stride length is something we humans "practice" (do) all the time. Which explains why sitting a walk comfortably is rarely a problem.
But as we go up the gaits, the stride length increases. And we humans rarely practice moving at that longer stride length. Even if we don't actually have to "walk" on the horse as they trot, we do have to be able to absorb that movement in our hips.
As my mare has DJD and this sometimes affects her movement, I was thinking about this as I rode today. Effectively I could monitor how she was by being aware of that figure 8 and how it was moving. (One of the triggers to getting her diagnosed was that she was not moving the rider's hips other than in the vertical plane).
And then later, after riding, I went for a short run (18 mins). And I got to thinking that actually when you run you DO have a longer stride length. So if you run with correct posture, you ARE practicing that longer stride. Does that mean I am improving my sitting trot by running ? I guess it is difficult to isolate that aspect as the shear improvement in fitness and (hopefully) reduced weight will also help with sitting trot.
And then, as I ran along, I suddenly became aware that the same figure 8 was working in my hips; I could feel the change from one loop to the next. All of a sudden all I could think about was the figure 8 ! When I got to the end of the run and went back to walk, the figure 8 kept going...
spooky ;)
freezing November !
Anyway, I now have a tonne of notes to write up. I travelled back from the clinic Saturday so only had one day to ride this weekend. (and the weekdays are too dark at this time of year, the horses are in by 4pm).
One of the things Mark talked about was the "figure 8" of movement in the rider's hips as they rode. Of course this is about the *movement* not about the physical hip joint, as the left side of the hip could not suddenly end up on the right with the person still facing the same way and not in agony !
But what was described was a looping flow of movement/energy from side to side. In all dimensions, not just in one plane.
He also talked about how the rider mirrors the horse's movement. In walk, the stride length is pretty close for both a walking human and a horse. And walking at that stride length is something we humans "practice" (do) all the time. Which explains why sitting a walk comfortably is rarely a problem.
But as we go up the gaits, the stride length increases. And we humans rarely practice moving at that longer stride length. Even if we don't actually have to "walk" on the horse as they trot, we do have to be able to absorb that movement in our hips.
As my mare has DJD and this sometimes affects her movement, I was thinking about this as I rode today. Effectively I could monitor how she was by being aware of that figure 8 and how it was moving. (One of the triggers to getting her diagnosed was that she was not moving the rider's hips other than in the vertical plane).
And then later, after riding, I went for a short run (18 mins). And I got to thinking that actually when you run you DO have a longer stride length. So if you run with correct posture, you ARE practicing that longer stride. Does that mean I am improving my sitting trot by running ? I guess it is difficult to isolate that aspect as the shear improvement in fitness and (hopefully) reduced weight will also help with sitting trot.
And then, as I ran along, I suddenly became aware that the same figure 8 was working in my hips; I could feel the change from one loop to the next. All of a sudden all I could think about was the figure 8 ! When I got to the end of the run and went back to walk, the figure 8 kept going...
spooky ;)
Labels: Mark Rashid
posted by seahorse | 1:47 PM
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