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By Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett
Dressage Department Head, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre

WAVERLY, WV--Body position influences your horse whether you are standing still or moving. Correct position is the basic skill riders must master in order to progress up the riding tree. Unless you correctly position your own body, you cannot influence your horse to use its body correctly.

If you could view yourself from the side, a plumb line held by your ear should drop straight down through your shoulder, hip and heel. Try to maintain this line as you ride. If your horse were to disappear, you would be in a standing position on the ground. As a rule of thumb, if you glance down and see your toe, your leg is too far forward. This position puts you in a chair seat, behind your horse's motion, and horses will either scoot forward or slow down when this happens. Therefore, many riders may tip forward to rebalance themselves, trying to fix the problem. This compromises your vertical alignment even more. Your torso should stay perpendicular to the ground, not tip forward or backward, as you and your horse move rhythmically in balance.

Your spine should be straight with the lower back neither rounded nor arched. Take your hand and place it in the small of your back. If your lower back bumps out, then you are slouching or rounding it. If your lower back feels hollow, then you are arching your back. You want to feel just a slight gentle curve.

You can also test the curvature of your spine by standing next to a wall with your heels against the wall. As you press your upper back against the wall, what happens to your lower back? Is there a pronounced arch? Can you press it flat against the wall? Can you press your shoulders against the wall without arching your back?

When you round your lower back and slouch in the saddle, you push the horse with your pelvis. This might make a reactive horse scoot forward or a lethargic horse slow down. When I ask a rider to sit straight, they often arch their back in order to bring their shoulders back instead of lifting the ribcage to straighten their spine. When you arch your back instead of using a firm abdominal wall to lift your torso from your hips, you push your seat toward the back of the saddle and you wiggle or 'belly dance' in the middle to absorb the motion of the horse. This can cause problems with rhythm, as it tends to cause your horse to speed up.

Your mid-section should be lifted and firm so that your pelvis and hips can absorb your horse's motion in an upward tipping motion. Think of lifting your rib cage upward or of lifting from your belly button to your chin as a strong stick holds your spine straight. With a straight spine and firm abdominal wall, your pelvis can tip up and forward to set the rhythm at sitting trot without going faster than your horse.

Your shoulders should be relaxed and down. Tension draws your shoulders up towards your ears. To feel the difference, lift your shoulders toward your ears and then drop them as though you are pushing them into your back pockets. Your shoulders should stay parallel to your horse's shoulders. For example, if your horse is doing a shoulder-in with his shoulders turned to the inside, then your shoulders should also turn to the inside instead of staying perpendicular to the wall.

Occasionally, I see a rider with one shoulder more forward than the other. If that happens, I ask the rider to take the reins in one hand and pull their shoulder into place by putting the back of the hand on that side in the small of their back (be careful not to arch your back). You can also try extending your hand straight up over your head on that side. This stretches the ribcage on that side of your body which helps reposition the shoulder.

Your upper arms should hang from relaxed shoulders with a bend in the elbows. Your elbows must flex and absorb the motion of the horse in order for you to have steady hands. The amount that your elbows will open and close depends on the gait and the degree of collection. To understand how this elbow motion feels, bounce up and down with your hands placed on a stationary object. The opening and closing motion you feel in your elbow is the same motion that keeps your hands steady at the rising trot. To understand how this motion feels at the sitting trot, bounce from foot to foot.

Many riders lock their shoulders and elbows thinking this steadies their hands but it actually creates tension that makes their hands bounce up and down. Tense hips can also cause tense elbows. To unlock tense elbows, you can exaggerate the motion learned off the horse in the exercise described above or you can say 'open, close, open, close' while riding. You can also place your hands on the horse's withers to simulate the stationary object described in the exercise above. This, however, does not always work for riders with a tall torso because it causes them to tip forward. If this is the case, then I suggest putting a strap on the front of the saddle to hold while working toward steady hands.

Your hands should also be relaxed, holding the reins as though you were holding wet sponges. Imagine you are holding the sponges tightly enough not to drop them on the ground but not so tightly that you wring out all of the water. Squeeze the imaginary sponges tightly and feel the tension in your forearms. Now relax your hands and feel the relaxation in your forearms. Your wrists should be straight with the thumb the highest point of the hand--no 'piano' hands or 'shopping cart' hands.

The placement of your hands depends on the horse's frame. You should have a straight line from your elbows to the horse's mouth. If the horse is in a stretching frame, your hands will be lower. If the horse is in a working frame, your hands will be a little higher. And if the horse is in a collected frame, your hands will be even a little higher in order to maintain that straight line. Ideally, your hands should stay within a 4-inch box right in front of the withers, never crossing over the neck or bracing downward.

As you view yourself from the front or the back, a plumb line held at your nose should pass through the middle of your chin to the middle of your pubic bone. Your midline should align with your horse's midline.

If you tip right or left of the midline or collapse your ribs on one side, think about which side of your body is stronger. Since the muscles on your stronger side are tighter, you may tend to lift the seat bone on that side off the saddle. This pushes you to the weak side. The muscles on your weaker side are easier to stretch so you may find you can stretch the leg on that side down more easily, which also tends to take you off of the opposite seat bone. If you are right-handed, for example, you probably have trouble keeping weight on your right seat bone and tend to collapse your right shoulder as you try to pull yourself back over to the right. This may even cause you to feel like your right leg is shorter than your left leg. Stretching exercises on your stronger side may help to elongate that side.


As you ride, keep the image of a gymnast on a balance beam in your mind. If the gymnast does not keep her shoulders over her hips, she falls off. Like her, your shoulders must stay directly over your hips in order for you to be balanced over your horse and able to follow his motion.

The spine of the upper body joins the hip joints of the lower body at the pelvis. This is the all-important 'seat.' Without a correct seat position, you cannot influence the horse correctly. I will come back to the critical role of the pelvis and hip position in influencing the horse when we discuss correct lower body position.

By Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett
Dressage Department Head, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre

Aggravation is just one word that comes to mind when a horse roots and yanks at the reins, tosses his head up and down, or opens his mouth to evade the bit. Raising the head to get above the bit, cranking it to the chest to get behind the bit, locking the jaw muscles or locking the neck muscles are other bit evasions that exasperate many riders. They just want to scream, "Horse, you are not listening to me!" From the other end of the reins, the aggravated horse is screaming back, "Get out of my face!"

In most cases, we should listen to the horse. A rider's unsteady hands are usually behind that long list of bit evasions. While we should always consider that dental pain, back pain, poor saddle fit or other physical issues might be creating or contributing to the horse's discomfort, it is more often the rider who is a 'pain' from the horse's viewpoint.
Many beginner riders use their hands for balance when they ride. I ask these riders to allow a slight loop in their reins while we work on their position and seat basics. When students establish a correct plumb line from ear to hip to heel, they come into better balance with their horse, position their legs to apply aids correctly and open the front of their hips so they can begin to follow the horse's motion. Position, balance, and following the horse's motion are the basic skills needed to achieve an independent seat. And an independent seat is basic to achieving steady hands.

Riders do not need to master these basics completely before they can focus on developing good hands. However, the better these basics, the easier it will be for a rider to achieve steady hands. 'Steady' does not mean locked or unmoving. In order to maintain steady contact, a rider's hands must follow the motion of the horse's head through the elastic opening and closing of the elbow joints.

As the rider's hips follow the horse's motion, they open and close to a varying degree depending on the gait and on the horse's stride. At the same time, the elbows must open and close in the same rhythm and to the same degree as the hips in order for the rider's hands to follow the horse's motion and remain steady. When riders use their hands and reins for balance, they do so by tightening their elbow joints. Tension in any joint makes it impossible for the rider to follow the horse's motion correctly.

Ground exercises can help riders develop the feel of opening and closing their elbows while following motion. Stand face to face with a friend and place your hands on top of her hands. If you are working alone, place your hands lightly on a low fence or arena half wall. Doing these exercises on a mini-trampoline makes them even more effective.

· Bounce up and down simultaneously on both feet. This simulates the movement of the elbow joints at the rising trot. Notice how the elbow joints open and close. At the rising trot, the rider's elbows open and close every other stride.

· Now bounce left to right from foot to foot. This simulates elbow movement at the sitting trot. Notices how the elbow joints open and close a little faster in double time. That is because the rider's elbows open and close at every stride at the sitting trot.

· Now lock the elbows while bouncing up and down, then side to side. The hands will move up and down, losing contact with whatever stationary surface they rest on. If the elbows are locked, the hands will bounce. Relaxed elbows can move freely to absorb the horse's motion and so that the hands can maintain steady contact with the bit.

There are also simple ridden exercises that can help riders feel the opening and closing of their elbow joints. Run a short strap from one D-ring to the other on the front of the saddle. Riders can find one in a catalog, use an old noseband, or even braid one from twine. As riders hold the strap, they can feel how the opening and closing of their elbow joints changes at the rising trot, sitting trot and canter. Some instructors ask students to press their knuckles onto the horse's neck at the trot. Depending on the length of an individual rider's arms and torso, this may or may not be a useful exercise. A variation is to ask students to ride with their pinkie fingers touching the horse's neck. Once or twice around the arena is enough for a rider to feel whether she can keep her elbow joints relaxed or is locking them up.

While students work on position and seat basics, I encourage them to let the reins go a little bit and allow a slight loop so there is no rider interference with the horse's head. A reliable school horse is essential at this stage. As their balance and seat improve, the students are ready to take up light contact with the bit and work on developing steady, elastic hands.

The walk is the first gait at which most riders develop the independent, following seat that allows them to relax their elbows and follow the motion of the horse's head. So the walk is also the easiest gait for a rider to first feel elastic contact with the bit. If the contact is steady, the rein will be taut (not tight) from the rider's fingers to the horse's mouth as the horse's head moves forward and back at each stride. If the reins go loopy/taut/loopy/taut, the rider is out of rhythm. If the horse begins tossing its head, grabbing at the reins or exhibits another telltale behavior, the rider's elbows (or some other joints) are still too tight.

As the rider moves into a trot, the elbows must open and close to the same degree as the hips in order to maintain that taut but elastic connection with the bit and steady hands. At the canter, the elbows open and close in a rhythm more similar to rhythm of the walk than of the trot. The elbows usually open and close less at the canter than at the walk. The degree of movement of the elbows at any gait also depends on whether the horse is in a working gait, collected gait or extended gait.

Remember, tension in any joint makes it difficult to follow the horse's motion and have steady hands. When I look for tension in a student's body, I add wrists and fingers to the list of usual suspects. Figuring out exactly where students hold tension can sometimes be tricky. One student with tight hips opened and closed her elbows excessively. She literally 'overrode' with her elbows to compensate for the inability of her hips to follow the horse's motion. Another student tried to use the up and down motion of 'piano hands' to absorb the horse's motion in her wrists instead of her elbow joints.

We communicate with our horses through corridors of aid pressures. The green horse starts out as a clean slate and, gradually, we introduce varying corridors of pressures to create a feeling in the horse's body of the rhythm, speed, direction, etc., we would like him to move. As the horse builds confidence in what our seat, leg, and rein aids are asking him to do, he can respond in a relaxed, rhythmic way to our requests. When we apply our aids incorrectly or inconsistently, we have a communication problem. Unsteady hands make it impossible to use our rein aids correctly. Head tossing or other evasions are simply the horse's way of saying we are not communicating clearly.

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© 2010 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett has earned numerous United States Dressage Federation horse awards including Bronze and Silver Medals on horses she has trained. She competes her horses at Training through FEI levels. As a Certified Riding Instructor she brings over 20 years of experience to her position as Head of the Dressage Department at Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre (147 Saddle Lane, Waverly, WV 26184; 800-679-2603; www.meredithmanor.com), an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.

By Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett
Dressage Department Head, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre


We use corridors of aid pressures to create a feel in the horse of a shape we want his body to take. Refinements in the positioning, intensity, timing and release of our basic seat, leg, and rein aids convey information about gait, speed, direction and the degree of collection we want. We aspire to the clear, precise coordination of aids that allows us to flow from one movement into the next then the next as we ride. In our daily riding sessions, however, "aspire" is more often the operative word than our actual experience.
Applying coordinated aid pressures is a continual riding challenge for several reasons. First, we learn aids in theory as though seat, leg and rein operated quasi-independently of each other. Second, it takes hours in the saddle to transfer theoretical understanding of the aids into muscle memory that allows us to apply an aid correctly, modify it as the situation may require from moment to moment, and apply it with proper timing. Third, even when the rider may be fit and skillful, the horse may lack the fitness or full understanding of the aids necessary to respond correctly.

Teaching Aids One by One. While coordination of a whole corridor of aids is the ultimate goal, we teach the aids individually because that is the easiest way to explain them and to learn them. For example, when I teach the half halt, I start by explaining how to influence the horse with the seat as this is the most difficult part for students to grasp. Once they understand how their seat influences a horse, we move on to leg aids and, finally, to rein aids.
The majority of riders like to do everything with their hands and the use of leg comes more or less easily to most people once they master the concept of not gripping with the thigh. I teach rein aids last because the majority of riders rely too heavily on rein aids to direct their horse. Either they use rein aids alone or they use too much rein and not enough seat and leg. So, in the beginning, I do not focus on rein aids. Though I start with seat aids, eventually I want students to coordinate all three of their aids to achieve correct response.

Rider Understanding Versus Physical Ability. In reality, the horse always experiences our aids as a complete package of pressures whether or not we are applying them intentionally and whether or not we are applying them correctly. One rider may have a clear theoretical understanding of the package of aids for a particular movement but lack the body awareness or physical fitness to apply or modify the aids correctly. Another may have no difficulty applying a corridor of aids at one gait but struggle at another.
Look at an example of what typically happens when theory meets the real world as a rider attempts a circle to the right. In theory:

The rider starts by setting the rhythm with her seat then, simultaneously,
she drops the right hip to add more weight on right seat bone,
applies right leg pressure at the girth to activate the inside hind leg and to ask the horse to bend its body to the right along the arc of the circle,
lays her left leg against the horse's side just behind the girth to hold the horse's haunches on the circle and ready, if needed, to apply pressure to keep them from drifting to the outside,
opens her shoulders like a door while spiraling them to the right, turning only enough to stay in balance over the horse's center of gravity and direct him along the 'straight' line of the circle.
looks in the direction of travel along the circle as an aid to shape her spiraling seat,
slightly positions the horse's head to the inside with the right rein, and, if needed, uses the outside rein to adjust the degree of bend or to keep the horse's shoulders from falling out.
Whew! That is a lot to coordinate correctly. In actuality, most people drop their right shoulder or lean to the inside when asked to drop weight onto their right seat bone (think of staying on a balance [UTF-8?]beam—gymnasts must keep their shoulders directly over their hips or they will fall off the beam). Sometimes riders spiral their shoulders too much or not at all which means they are not in alignment with the horse's shoulders. If a rider turns her shoulders too far, she throws her weight onto her outside seat bone (to the left, in this example). If she spirals too far, she is focusing too much on just one part of the corridor of aids. The majority of the time, riders rely on the inside rein aid alone to turn their horses and do not use their seat or legs at all.
Horse feedback can be an invaluable training tool when a rider is learning to coordinate a full corridor of aids. Some horses give riders validation like our Sassafras who turns obligingly from correct seat and leg aids alone with no rein aids needed. She can boost the confidence of a rider just learning to apply seat and leg aids, even if the rider is still making some mistakes with her reins.
Some horses, like Clyde, give riders fits. Clyde, a 35-year-old Appaloosa with camp experience under his girth, is a master teacher because he demands that his riders be 100 percent correct with a full corridor of aids before he acknowledges their requests. If even one aid is not quite right, Clyde chooses to ignore them all. He may refuse to come off the rail and just keep barreling forward. Or he may duck to the outside if his rider pulls on the inside rein (they may position the rein, thank you, just do not pull on it). If a rider does not keep the rhythm correctly with her seat, he runs off at the trot. If the rider's seat rhythm asks him to speed up or slow down, Clyde just keeps trucking forward at the same pace. Clyde's frustrating behavior is what makes him a great teacher. Students must learn to organize all of their aids and time them correctly. Once they have worked through all of their problems, Clyde becomes very obliging and they experience the satisfaction of coordinating a full corridor of aids. Thanks to Clyde, they now own that corridor.

Horse Understanding and Fitness. Like riders, horses move along learning curve as they develop an understanding of the meaning of individual aid pressures and respond to them equally well at every gait. No matter how knowledgeable, skilled and fit the rider, a green horse may simply not understand what a corridor of aids means. A horse that is unfit or dealing with other physical issues may be unable to respond. An uncooperative horse may decide to ignore the rider or to kick or buck in annoyance.
For example, the rider may only need to weight the right seat bone to ask a sensitive green horse to turn to the right. However, the horse's response to the rider's question is incomplete because the horse does not yet understand how to bend around the inside leg. The horse needs to learn and understand a more sophisticated response to a full corridor of aids in order to stay bent and balanced on the circle or turn.
This is why we work with instructors until we become confident about our skills. A knowledgeable ground person can help a rider sort out that age old question is it me or is it the horse or is it a bit of both and make the necessary modifications in what she is doing based on the horse's level of understanding and fitness.
In the beginning, riders focus on individual aids at individual gaits. We ask the horse to take a shape then answer his response with a modified request. We ride stride by stride, constantly adjusting our communication with our horse. As the coordination of our aids becomes more automatic or instinctive, we slowing reach the top of the riding tree where we are able to influence a horse. In the meantime, remember that every rider and every horse is a work in progress and be patient.
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© 2010 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett has earned numerous United States Dressage Federation horse awards including Bronze and Silver Medals on horses she has trained. She competes her horses at Training through FEI levels. As a Certified Riding Instructor she brings over 20 years of experience to her position as Head of the Dressage Department at Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre (147 Saddle Lane, Waverly, WV 26184; 800-679-2603; www.meredithmanor.com), an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.

By Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett
Dressage Department Head, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre


WAVERLY, WV: you hope to give your horse clear requests with your leg aids, there is no wiggling out of some basic work on your seat. Before you can apply leg aids correctly, you must be able to follow the motion of the horse's gaits with your seat, using strong core muscles to hold you in balance so that your lower body can relax and move in rhythm with the horse. It can take months, even years, of riding to achieve this.

All of your body parts are connected. Tension held anywhere from your jaw to your toes interferes with your ability to communicate clearly with your horse. Grippy thighs or stiff ankles bounce you out of the saddle. Clamping calves or feet braced against the stirrups make it impossible for your legs to move on and off the horse's sides in rhythm with the gait. These muscles must be relaxed so you can apply leg aids with many degrees of pressure.

It is hard to 'see' the degrees of leg pressures. So let's go to a visual of a whip, an easily observed artificial aid. Novice riders apply their whip only two [UTF-8?]ways—a light tap or a hard tap. Seasoned riders have at least ten whip pressures available in the vocabulary they are developing with their horse. The first pressure is simply carrying the whip. The second is laying it against the horse's side. The third is just a very light on/off touch with the whip. The fourth is a quicker, crisper touch. The fifth is that light tap most people start with. The sixth is a firmer tap, the seventh is a medium tap and so on up until you get to ten. Ten is a shout, maybe even a bellow. Most riders will never need to use a ten. But understanding the range of pressures available helps you use your whip aid in a way that is clear to the horse.

Horses naturally understand that pressure escalates when a request is ignored because they do it all the time among themselves. If you watch a group of horses in pasture, you will see them constantly exchanging subtle, small signals like a wrinkled nose or pinned ear or a cocked hind leg to convey a message. If the other horse ignores the initial message, the signals become more noticeable. It is not until the other horse continues to ignore the message that a mare may charge with bared teeth or turn and let loose with both barrels. Similarly, you want to use the least amount of aid pressure, and the least reinforcement of the pressure, that will get a response from the horse. But if the horse does not respond, you need to escalate and reinforce, then release the pressure when you achieve the desired result.

The degree of leg aid pressure the horse responds to will vary from day to day, even minute to minute. Many factors come into play. Does the horse live in a stall or out in a pasture? When was the last time he had turnout? Did he work yesterday or was his last work session four days ago? What is the horse's basic personality and what is the mood of the day? Is it 90 degrees or 20 degrees?

How consistently you applied your leg aids the last time you rode can also affect the horse's response during today's ride. Let's assume that when you last you rode your horse, you bumped with your legs to ask him to move on a little faster and nothing happened. You did not get the response you wanted but you just let things go along. A few strides farther along the arena wall, you applied your leg aids again and, once again, the horse paid no attention to them. Maybe about the fourth time you squeezed harder with your legs and you added a little tap to reinforce your leg aid. The horse finally realized that your leg bumps meant 'more energetically, please' and responded to your aids.

If you apply and reinforce your leg aids inconsistently, your aids will not have any consistent meaning to your horse. So, when you apply those same leg bumps at your next schooling session, the horse will still not understand if you are asking him for something specific or just banging your legs against his sides randomly. If you consistently apply a pressure and immediately reinforce it if the horse does not respond, the horse quickly makes the association between the aid and its meaning in terms of a shape or direction you want him to take.

Whether your reinforcement is a stronger application of the aid or a touch with the whip, the timing of any reinforcement of an aid is critical. Unless the correction follows the aid request within a split second, the horse cannot make the connection between the two events.

The horse's basic temperament can also affect how you apply and reinforce your leg aids. Let's look at two ends of the horse spectrum. Walley, my upper level horse tends to be a little lazy. If he ignores my leg aids and I reinforce them by squeezing harder, he begins to go slower or may even react with a passage. This is lovely but it is also his way of getting out of giving me a forward response to the leg aid. A quicker pressure with the leg or pulsing the leg on and off in quick sequence works better to get a forward response than a stronger squeeze.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is my horse, Cory. This big Oldenburg is a much hotter, somewhat insecure horse who needs constant reassurance. Laying a supportive leg against his side as a suggestion to move forward is all the encouragement he needs. My legs are 'on' but not squeezing. Horses like this often launch themselves forward from any sort of bump. Although it is hard to convince some riders that a very light, constant leg pressure will calm their reactive horses, a constant pressure does not chase or increase the energy level of a horse the way an active on-off pressure does. A constant pressure, like the pressure of the girth, gradually goes away after the horse first notices it. So, a very soft, steady leg pressure against their sides can be a comfort zone for these horses.

We discussed the feel of following the horse's motion at each gait in previous articles. The application of driving leg pressures that ask the horse to go forward also varies from gait to gait. At the walk, leg pressures alternate from side to side in motion with the swing of the horse's hips. At the rising trot, both legs squeeze simultaneously in the sitting phase and release on the rising phase (if you reverse this, you will be out of rhythm). When rising, you can only drive with your leg aids every other stride. The sitting trot becomes more aerobic because you can now drive at every stride with the swing of your hips matching the swing of the horse's hips. This rhythmic pulsing becomes a 'keeping' leg for the horse's forward momentum.

In the three-beat canter, you squeeze with both legs as the horse's back reaches its 'up' phase. As you feel your hips lift, your calves 'lift' the horse then release as the back flattens out at the beginning of the next canter cycle. This lift/release, lift/release leg pressure in rhythm with the horse's motion is often easier for many riders than the trot leg aids.

Again, unless you have developed a feel for the horse's motion and an ability to follow it with your seat, you will not be able to develop the correct feel for applying your legs aids under different circumstances or for understanding whether the horse's response to the aids was correct. Use your horse's feedback and keep experimenting with degrees of pressure and reinforcement to figure out what works for that horse, that day. Your goal is a calm, attentive horse that responds quietly to your aids as soon as you apply them.

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© 2009 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett has earned numerous United States Dressage Federation horse awards including Bronze and Silver Medals on horses she has trained. She competes her horses at Training through FEI levels. As a Certified Riding Instructor she brings over 20 years of experience to her position as Head of the Dressage Department at Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre (147 Saddle Lane, Waverly, WV 26184; 800-679-2603; www.meredithmanor.com), an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.

By Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett
Dressage Department Head, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre

WAVERLY, WV: Until you can follow your horse's motion at the walk, trot, and canter (the subject of our last three articles), the feel of your seat aids on his back does not convey a clear request to your horse. You also must be able to follow the horse's motion before you can quietly apply rein and leg aids in coordination with your seat. You need strong core muscles to hold your upper body erect and flexible hips to follow the rhythm of the horse's back as it lifts and rolls in a different motion at each gait. When you can follow the motion, you are ready to apply your seat aids without 'noise' in a way that is meaningful to the horse.
Beginning riders say a million things to their horses at the same time. Their seat bounces all around in the saddle while they pull, grab, grip and slap with their hands and legs. At this point in a rider's education a goldie oldie school horse that ignores these beginners' mistakes and just keeps traveling along the rail in a nice rhythm really is truly priceless. Once you can follow the motion, your body understands the basic feel of your seat aids. Now you can practice applying them in ways that feel clear and meaningful to the horse.

As an oversimplified example, if you are following the motion at the walk and you stop following it, your horse feels the difference and stops. You can use your seat aids (or some books refer to them as weight aids) to ask your horse to start, stop, or back up. As your communication becomes more sophisticated, you can also ask him to move sideways, adjust his speed within a gait or adjust his degree of suspension within a gait. Start by practicing some simple exercises in coordinating your seat aids with rein and leg aids at the walk.

Stopping your Horse - As you follow your horse's motion at the walk, feel your hips swinging in rhythm with the horse's footfalls. As the horse's barrel swings left and right, your lower legs alternately pulse left and right to encourage the horse forward. As your reins maintain a light and steady contact with the bit, your hands oscillate forward and back as they follow the bobbing rhythm of the horse's head.

When you want the horse to halt, you take in a deep breath. As you let your breath out, sink into your seat bones, stop following with your hips, stop pulsing with your legs and stop following with your hands. Without any dramatic gestures on your part, your horse will feel the cessation of following movement and he will halt.

Some authors talk about 'burdening' the seat or 'bracing' the back. I dislike the latter term because it implies muscle tension. You use muscle strength, not muscle tension. You should feel like you are relaxing into the saddle and sitting deeper into it. Sit straight up in a chair with your hand on your lower back. Now take a deep breath and release it while keeping your back muscles relaxed (keep sitting straight!). You will feel your lower back belly out a half an inch or so. It is a very subtle change but one the horse completely understands as a feel that means 'stop.' If you fall behind the vertical, round your shoulders, or collapse your middle, you garble your request. Your hands do not pull back, even an inch. Your legs simply stop asking for forward as your hands stop following the bobbing of the head.

Walking Off - To ask your horse to walk off, begin pulsing with the legs, lighten your seat bones by breathing in, and resume following with the hands and pulsing with the legs. With a trained horse, the sequence starts with the leg aids. However, coordination among the aids for 'walk on' may depend on the horse's training level and on whether he is lazy, excitable or somewhere in between.

If it is hard to lighten your seat bones without tensing your back or lower leg muscles, think of 'growing tall' or stretching your neck to the sky as you breath in. Keep sitting straight and don't stand in your stirrups or arch your back. If you 'overburden' your seat bones in asking for a halt, you risk falling behind the motion when you ask your horse to walk off.

Speed Adjustment - If you want your horse to walk out faster, pulse or squeeze your legs in the increased rhythm you would like and immediately allow your hips to follow with an increased swing. If your hip swing does not match the request from your legs, the horse gets a mixed message and will not extend his walk. At the same time, your elbow joints open and close a bit more as your rein contact follows the increased motion of the horse's head.

As your legs ask 'more forward,' your seat and hands must immediately follow the increased motion with 'more forward' aids as well. Otherwise, the horse gets conflicting signals. Depending on his temperament he may ignore them or express frustration.

To slow the horse's walk, slow your aids. Depending on your horse's training and temperament, pulse or squeeze your legs in a slower rhythm or momentarily stop driving altogether until the horse's speed matches what you want. At the same time, slightly burden your seat without ceasing to follow the motion completely as you would when asking for a halt. Gradually slow the swinging motion of the seat until the desired rhythm is achieved. Your hand oscillation should slow as the horse's head motion slows.

Be careful not to fall behind the vertical rather than lightly burdening your seat bones. Rather than pulling back on the reins to slow the horse, just slow the oscillation of your hands forward and back as they following the bobbing of the horse's head.

Following the horse's motion at the walk, trot, and canter enables riders to coordinate their aids and take communication with their horses to new levels. When you have a solid foundation for your seat aids, you can then become more conscious of what you are actually saying to your horse with your rein or leg aids and of how the horse is responding to subtle adjustments in any aid. As you learn to coordinate your seat aids with leg and rein aids, your communication with your horse will take a quantum leap.
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© 2009 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. Nancy Wesolek-Sterrett has earned numerous United States Dressage Federation horse awards including Bronze and Silver Medals on horses she has trained. She competes her horses at Training through FEI levels. As a Certified Riding Instructor she brings over 20 years of experience to her position as Head of the Dressage Department at Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre (147 Saddle Lane, Waverly, WV 26184; 800-679-2603; www.meredithmanor.com), an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.