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Riding With Fluidity by Linda Parelli
07/03/2005

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Fluidity, Concepts for Riding Like You are Part of Your Horse by Linda Parelli

Fluidity is a solution for stiffness; ribs that don't bend; shoulders that don't move; hindquarters that don't work; sore backs; hollow backs; crookedness and poor flexibility... For horses What is a good rider? In my opinion, it's one who can be in total harmony with the moving horse; one who is part of the horse's movement and not restricting it; one who sits naturally (as opposed to artificially positioned), who is supple and flexible, as opposed to rigid or stiff. One who has their own self-carriage and deportment before asking the horse to do the same, is balanced and in time with the horse's energy.

In short, a good rider is a part of their horse and can enhance the horse's movement, not get in the way of it. Adopting a particular posture in the saddle so we look like a good rider is no substitute for the actual skill of becoming part of the horse. Somehow, equitation lessons don't quite help you get the "feel", it's more the look. Many equitation students and instructors I've worked with (including myself!) have a very difficult time breaking those hard learned patterns of stiffness in order to become more natural and fluid!

The Pathway to Fluidity

Pat explains fluidity in the most exquisitely simple way: "Do what your horse does, and do in your body what you want your horse to do in his." Simple words, but what do they really mean, and how do we actualize this? I've spent years studying how my horse moves, trying to understand what his back does and how to stay in harmony with it. For the most part I started to feel like a part of my horse... certainly more than when I was taking formal riding/dressage lessons. Pat's "Passenger Lessons" made the biggest difference, learning to go with the flow and do what my horse did... "zig" when he "zigged," "zag" when he "zagged," slow when he slowed, go when he goed! But the thing that was still eluding me was the sitting trot, especially when riding my Warmblood! Until I rode a horse with this big a movement and bounce, especially at the trot, I had fooled myself into thinking I was doing okay! So let's talk about what the horse does and how we can become a part of this so the whole experience becomes fluid!

Use All Your Joints

I learned that in my every day movements I was over-using some joints and parts of my body and under-using others. The ones I was over-using were my knees and my lower back. The ones I was under-using were my overall balance, my ankles, feet, and sternum (chest)... Hmmmm!

When I would sit down or stand up, my knees and lower back would be taxed, whether I was getting in and out of a chair or up and down off the ground, walking up a hill or down a hill. It was through Feldenkrais awareness (the science of reprogramming your brain through the way you move) that I found a way to balance using my whole body to make all my movements. This meant I put absolutely no stress on my knees or my back. Very illuminating!

So How Did This Affect My Riding?

I found that I would often experience lower back pain and shoulder/trapezium pain either during or after riding (so what was my horse experiencing?!). In trying to analyze what I was doing while riding, I found I would stiffen my ankles, lower back and shoulders. If you think about it, the horse uses everything in order to move. So when we don't use our whole body to move, it's going to compromise the horse's movement.

If we lock up our shoulders and lower back, so does the horse! If we hollow our backs, so does the horse! If we can't or don't use our ribs, neither can our horse. This opens up a whole new responsibility as a rider... a new perspective on rider responsibility for the beauty and freedom of the horse underneath us. But hey, let's not get depressed! Instead, let's put it in focus and learn how this awareness can take us to new heights of harmony and refinement when riding our horses. Riding with your whole body is just one ingredient that makes a well-rounded rider. In this next batch of topics, we'll take a look at some of the ingredients that help create the foundation for harmony and refinement in a rider, Level by Level.

When Bareback Riding Feels Better Than Riding in a Saddle: Resistance Versus Flow

Nearing completion of Pat's Level 2 Harmony program, many people start riding in our Bareback Pads more than in their saddles. In fact, they get to hate their saddles! One would like to think this might have to do with the weight and hassle of saddling. But I wonder if it doesn't feel more natural and balanced to ride in the Bareback Pad instead of getting into a saddle where certain parts of your body, like your ankles, are challenged. As soon as riders put their feet into their stirrups, everything changes. Why? Because their ankles get stiff. When you stiffen your ankles, every joint from there up to your jaw gets stiff! When this happens, riding becomes uncomfortable, especially sitting trot for us, and every gait where it concerns our horse. Ouch!

People have said to me "Well, I'll just ride in my saddle without stirrups." Fine, except that you'll just be doing the thing you can already do. As soon as you get into stirrups again you'll stiffen up because you haven't yet learned how to flex your ankles as shock absorbers for everything up from there!

Think of it this way: make your ankles loose. With every step, your ankles should flex just as your horse's hind leg ankles/fetlocks would flex. If you're pushing down on your stirrups you will inhibit every movement and flexion your horse has in his lower leg. Move your hips like your horse moves his hips in each gait. Move your ankles like he would too! Your feet should feel light in the stirrups, not pushing down or out, no matter what style of riding you do, English or Western. We're talking natural locomotion, joint flexion, articulation and movement.

What's a "Passenger Lesson," Anyway?

I mentioned Passenger Lessons earlier, what are they? Well, if you're studying Pat's Savvy System you'll find them in Levels 1 and 2.

A Passenger Lesson means you learn how to be the perfect passenger for your horse, much like you're in a car when someone else is driving. Have you noticed how you lean to maintain balance as the car turns, and you rate backward or flow forward as the car brakes or accelerates?

Interesting observation: most people don't do this when they ride a horse! The Passenger Lesson surrenders your sense of control when riding (harder for some than others!) and teaches you to "flow with the go" of your horse... to go and slow, to zig and zag, not a moment too soon or too late. Until you've done this, you can't imagine how much you can be out of synch on a day to day basis!

I remember the first time I tried a Passenger Lesson in one of the first clinics I attended with Pat, in 1989. Being a self-confessed dressage freak, I had a lot of trouble controlling my horse, especially when it came to making the decisions as to where we were going/turning/and at what speed. It was suicide to turn loose to my horse on this! But when I finally learned how, I discovered a lot about myself. I found that I was so against my horse's movements and changes it was not funny. I resisted everything. Flow with the go? No way! I resisted it! The result was, of course, restriction in my horse. Not only did my horse have trouble moving freely, he also suffered emotional strife because my resistance upset him. This was a big "B.F.O." (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) for me. Until then, I had always blamed my horse for being impulsive and difficult. Now, many years on, I realize that in opposing my horse, I upset him.

To this day, Regalo, the difficult horse that led me to Pat (no self-respecting dressage fanatic would have ever consulted a cowboy!), is fine until I get out of harmony with him. If I have any resistance in me it upsets him. But if I do what he does (ride in harmony with him) it works like a charm. When he braces, I do. When he goes fast, I do. It helps him become calm. And then when I am calm and confident and ask him to do what I want him to do... it works like you can't believe. This is everything Pat told me about what to expect. If I'm being a passenger I should do everything my horse does - go fast, go slow, don't be afraid. But most people (and me until not so long ago), don't do this. We brace against what's likely to happen and this upsets the horse!

Passenger Lessons - Level by Level

In Pat's Savvy System, Passenger Lessons in the Level 1 Partnership Program are at just the walk and trot in a confined area. We stay in a round corral, no bigger than 45-foot diameter, and flow with the horse at a walk. We relinquish control to the horse at the walk and learn how to flow with the go - going where he goes, turning when he turns.

If he trots, we bend him (lateral flexion) to a walk and then release. Note: if you don't release after the bend he'll become more impulsive and not learn to maintain the walk as his responsibility! (More info in the Level 1 Partnership Program: Book 6, Lesson 13). In Level 2 Harmony, we advance to bigger areas at the trot, then proceed to canter in small areas (round corral), and then progressively bigger areas. The checklists in each lesson ensure you don't go there until you know you and your horse will succeed. Knowing what you can do/are brave enough to do/what your horse is ready to do - this is called Savvy! In Level 3 Refinement, Passenger Lessons are accomplished bareback.

Do What Your Horse Does

If you are truly doing a Passenger Lesson, if your horse braces (neck, ribs, etc.) you should brace too. In fact, in lessons with my International Study Center students, I saw that if the horse went fast and the student did too, the horse became calmer and slower. If the horse braced his body against the rider and the rider did exactly the same thing, matched it physically, the horse calmed down.

What's normal is if the horse gets braced and faster, we try to get more relaxed and slower. This actually feels like opposition and lack of rapport to the horse, and because he is emotional it upsets him and makes it worse! Weird but true! Just when we think the life-saving thing to do is to hold back, the horse thinks the opposite! So, if we want to get on with the horse, to be in total harmony, we should do what he does. Once we create harmony, rapport, synchronicity... only then can we lead it to where we want it to go.

I have to admit I never had any idea of this before. I tried to control, I tried to restrict (out of fear) but all this did was upset my horse. Given the benefit of hindsight I realize that the real deal is to be so in rapport, so part of the horse that he thinks you are part of him, and not any way in opposition... this is when you have harmony. Having harmony means the horse will not think of you as a predator (a wolf in sheep's clothing), he'll think of you as someone just like him.

The Walk

The walk is the easiest to sit on, and the hardest to do really fluidly! A lot of people push their pelvis forward with each stride when actually it's more of a shift of each hip as the horse moves each of his hips. This gives you a little more of a side-to-side motion rather than a back-and-forth one.

The Trot
The trot is the hardest for the human, and the easiest for the horse! The trot is difficult to ride unless you can free your hips up to do what your horse's hips are doing - moving independently of each other. Because our hips are usually stiff when riding, rising trot is often the easiest choice. You can practice sitting trot by trotting very slowly at first and coordinating your hip movement with your horse's hips. This makes an amazing difference!

The Canter
Most people when cantering tend to rock backwards with their shoulders and scoot their seat forward, polishing the saddle as they go! I used to do this terribly and some riders have an awful time with horses who kick up or won't maintain the canter, or on the other extreme, get faster and faster and very emotional.

So far, every horse we've had riders try this new technique with has changed its way of moving (physically and emotionally) within minutes! Do as your horse does: each canter stride is like a little "leap" so you have to do little leaps in your body! Try doing the same thing with your arms as your horse does with his front legs, matching each stride with exactly the same timing. While it might look a bit funny at first, your body will move in a dramatically different way that is now in harmony with your horse's movement as opposed to the first scenario I described, where the horse is leaping forward and you are scooting downwards into his back.

By "leaping" or "reaching" up and forward with your horse at every stride, you become weightless and very comfortable to carry. Over a relatively short time you can minimize your arm movements to where it's just your joints that move, everything from your ribs through your jaw, shoulders and arms.

The Ribs - Zone 3

Horses can't bend their ribs on the circle unless you are bending yours. Once again, if you think about how much curve you want in your horse's body and do the same in your body, your horse will find the freedom to be able to do it. Many riders sit stiff and keep their horses stiff because of it. Experiment with getting more "flexy" and fluid. Exaggerate to teach and learn, then refine as you progress.

Asymmetry

Have you experienced your saddle slipping to one side all the time? So you constantly have to stomp your foot in the other stirrup to straighten it? The side to which the saddle slips is the "hollow" side. This is caused by your horse carrying his ribs off center, toward the "full" side. An easy way to correct this is to sit in the center of the horse's rib cage, which may mean you are actually sitting crooked on your saddle.

For example, if the rib cage is carried to the left, you would sit on the left side of your saddle's center. This would put you in the relative center of your horse's ribs. The worse the problem, the further you need to sit on that side.

Within minutes your horse will start to carry himself straighter and you'llbe able to sit more toward the center again, but you'll probably have to repeat this each time you ride until you've installed a new habit for your horse. Some other symptoms you might recognize if your horse is carrying his ribs to the left: left leads are easy, right leads are difficult. Right circles are easy, left circles are difficult. Your horse will "drop" his shoulder on the left circles because he is counter bent and can't shape himself properly on the circle to stay balanced. Of course, if your horse carries his ribcage to the right, everything above will be the opposite.

Collection Versus Engagement

I think there's a lot of confusion here. Horses can be mentally, emotionally and physically "collected" but that doesn't necessarily mean they are engaged. Engagement applies to when the hindquarters are carrying most of the weight and the hind legs are therefore positioned more under the body. There's upwards as well as forward movement, greater suspension and more power. In Pat's Savvy System, collection is achieved at Level 3. Engagement is Levels 4, 5 and 6. This is what I am playing with now with my Dutch Warmblood, Remmer, and it's awesome!

Is Fluidity a Dressage Thing or Does It Apply to Everything?

It would be easy to think that the fluidity I'm talking about applies only to dressage or English equitation, but it actually applies to all disciplines, English and Western. Fluidity is about using your whole body when riding and thus allowing your horse to use his whole body. Every horse and rider combination can become more harmonious, comfortable and balanced through learning to be fluid as opposed to rigid. Your horse and your body will thank you for it!