Before you can clearly communicate to the horse what shapes you want him to take at what gait and in what rhythm, you need to have control over your own body. You cannot simultaneously influence the horse’s shape, gait, and cadence unless you are in the right position over his center of gravity to apply the right sequence of aids with the right degree of pressure and the right timing. To control your body to that extent, you need to have an independent seat.

Relaxation is the basic skill riders must master on the way to achieving an independent seat. It is the first of six skills that build on one another to create what I refer to in my classes as “the riding tree” because once students have mastered them, they have the necessary foundation to branch out into any specialized riding discipline they may choose. An independent seat is the strong foundation that allows a student to successfully ride and train a dressage horse or reining horse or higher level horse in any discipline.

Riders need to be relaxed both physically and mentally. Physically, all of the muscles should be relaxed and all of the joints should be loose. The ankle, the knee, the hips, the elbows, and the shoulders are the joints we think of first. However riders need to be aware of tension anywhere in their bodies such as their wrists or fingers, their neck or jaw. Scan your body frequently while you are riding for any muscle or joint that is tense.

A lot of riders carry tension somewhere in their bodies and it commonly shows up as tension in the lower leg, a stiffening of the seat so that you can’t follow the horse’s motion. So the first thing an instructor should work on is relaxation. If you have stiffness problems, your instructor might have you bounce around without stirrups until your muscles and joints let go of their tension and you can be as loose as a rag doll. Remember, your joints are shock absorbers, especially your hips. Any joint that is braced or tense makes it harder for your body to absorb the shock of the motion of the horse.

Obviously, if you’re bouncing around on your horse’s back, his attention is going to be focused on the pain or the discomfort that your stiffness causes him. If anything about your seat makes the horse him uncomfortable in any way, then any other communication you are trying to give is lost.

You can empathize with the horse if you imagine that you are riding around and suddenly develop a terrible pain in your calf. Once that happens, nothing else really matters. What your instructor is saying to you doesn’t matter because you’re dealing with this pain that has to be addressed first. You don’t put all the blood, sweat, and tears into developing an independent seat because you want to look pretty sitting on the horse. You put the work into developing that kind of foundation or seat in order to communicate with your horse.

Eventually, you need to be relaxed at all gaits on all kinds of horses. As you evaluate your own progress, however, you may find that you can be relaxed at the walk on any horse but you cannot yet be relaxed at the trot on some horses or at the canter on others. What you want is to feel relaxed all the time but in the beginning you are only going to experience it on some horses at some gaits.

Mental relaxation goes hand in hand with physical relaxation. If you are not relaxed mentally--if you are nervous about something, if you are afraid of the horse, if you are in pain because of an injury or because you are sickthen relaxation is difficult. When one part of your body really hurts, it is hard to relax another part. If you are really afraid of the horse, even breathing takes some concentration.

To relax mentally, you also have to be able to leave behind anything in your life that is causing you stress when you are working with horse. I teach my students that as they are putting their foot in the stirrup, they should mentally picture everything else that is on their mind then picture themselves dumping it over in a corner of the arena. They will leave it there for the hour that they are in their riding class and they can pick it up again when they are through. During the class, however, they are going to relax and focus their attention on the horse.

Dumping your problems in a corner of the arena is guaranteed to make your riding better. Every rider has had the experience of a ride that started out badly and ended the same way because they were already in a bad mood the moment they got on the horse. So you have to learn to control that. Who wants to waste their hour of riding because they are mad at someone who just said something nasty to them or because they are allowing whatever else is going on in their life to intrude on their riding time?

When you start practicing this visualization, you will find that it not only helps you relax mentally, it also makes your riding a wonderful escape from life’s problems. However, getting on your horse and forgetting about everything else takes practice. Just keep riding.

When a student gets on a horse to take that first riding lesson, their greatest concern is staying there. Everyone is afraid of falling off, particularly in the beginning. Whether you are the student or whether you are the instructor, you need to be aware of this fear and aware that it is very normal.

Fear of falling creates both mental and physical tension. That’s why relaxation is at the base of the riding tree, the set of skills a rider needs to master in order to develop an independent seat. In order to relax, you have to become aware of every part of your body--every muscle, every joint--and find any places where you are holding tension. When you can let go of all of this involuntary tension, you can move to the second level of the riding tree. When you can stay relaxed over the horse’s center of gravity, you are in balance. When you are in balance, you can stay on the horse.

Essentially, the horse’s center of gravity is right where you sit. If you are gripping with your calves or gripping with your thighs or hanging on the reins in order to stay there, you are not balanced. Good balance requires both being relaxed and being centered. You need both vertical balance and side-to-side balance.

The vertical balance refers to the position of your upper body. When you are vertically balanced you are not tipping too far forward and you are not leaning too far back. Side-to-side balance means that you have even pressure on both seat bones. You are not leaning or falling off to the left side or to the right side.

You need to use your muscles correctly in order to maintain this centered alignment over the horse’s center of gravity. Using your muscles correctly means tensing the right muscle groups to help keep your body stabilized over the horse’s center of gravity but this is an “athletic” muscle tension rather than the nervous muscle tension that destroys relaxation. The primary muscle groups that you use to maintain alignment or balance are your upper and lower abdominal muscles.

Remember that balance is an issue for the horse, too. Depending on where the horse is in his progressive training the horse may be learning how to carry himself and the weight of the rider while staying balanced. When you balance quietly over the horse’s center of gravity, you help him stay balanced. If you lose your balance, you will throw the horse off balance, too.

Becoming aware of how your body is aligned will help you develop better balance. Riding instructors preach to beginning students about lining up the elbow, the hip, and the ankle so that everything drops straight down. If your feet are stuck straight out in front of you, your upper body is going to come back behind the motion of the horse. If your legs are too far behind you, your upper body is going to go in front of the motion of the horse. When the horse feels this, he wants to correct it.

If you fall behind the motion, horses will do one of two things. They will either run forward or they will slow down, perhaps even stop, as they try to position you back over their center of gravity where it feels comfortable for them to carry your weight.

As your body stays relaxed and centered over the horse’s center of gravity, its alignment may change depending on the horse’s direction, speed, and gait. This is particularly true when you finally reach the higher levels of any riding sport. As her horse leaves the ground in front of a jump, for example, the jumper rider’s upper body folds forward because she must realign her body to stay over the horse’s center of gravity. In the same way, a cutting horse rider may sit heavier on one seat bone as his horse changes direction or a reining horse rider may put burdening weight on both seat bones as his horse does a sliding stop. They are realigning their bodies to stay over the horse’s center of gravity and remain in balance as the horses shift their own balance in order to perform at higher levels.

Understanding the riding tree helps you build a solid foundation, an independent seat that will take you into the higher levels of whatever riding discipline you choose to pursue. When you are relaxed and balanced, you can begin to work on following the horse’s motion at the walk, trot and canter. Your communication with your horse moves to a new level. Then you can begin to apply the aids in ways that ask the horse for specific shapes. As your communication with the horse improves, you will begin paying attention to rhythm and timing, coordinating the aids for greater precision. Finally, instead of just asking for what the horse already knows, you will be able to start influencing the horse, teaching him new shapes and new games. In the beginning, it may seem like an impossible goal. Just keep riding.

Our goal as we move up the riding tree is to develop an independent seat so that we can influence the horse. An independent seat means that you are not relying on anything but balance to hold you on the horse. You use an athletic muscle tension to help you stay in balance but you are relaxed, not gripping with your muscles to hold you on the horse. Once you are in control of your own body, you can begin to influence the horse and control its body.

The first step in developing an independent seat is learning to relax while sitting on the horse. The second is learning to balance your own weight over the horse’s center of gravity. The third is learning to feel and follow the horse’s motion at the walk, trot, and canter.

“Following” does not mean just sitting and passively letting the horse’s motion swing you along. It is an active muscular activity that aligns your rhythm with the horse’s rhythm and puts the two of you in harmony. The rider needs to be aware of various body parts. She needs to be riding in balance, using elastic, athletic muscle tension to help her stay in balance rather than tight, gripping, nervous muscle tension. It takes strong abdominal muscles and loose, flexible hip joints that open and close smoothly. Being able to follow the motion is an essential skill the rider needs in order to ride in rhythm and harmony with the horse. Without this independent seat where you have total control of your body parts, you are always going to be limiting your horse.

A good instructor will choose school horses that can help a rider in whatever phase she is in at the moment. A good schoolmaster can help a rider become more relaxed and balanced so she can learn to follow the motion. Many instructors use longing to help riders develop a feel for the horse’s motion.

This understanding of it is fairly simple. But mentally understanding it and applying it physically takes a lot of hard work and mental concentration. It takes a lot of hours in the saddle on a lot of different horses to achieve a truly independent seat and there are going to be a lot of times when your progress seems very uneven. You get it on one horse but not another. You jump ahead on one horse but fall back on another. The key is to accept the feedback you get from each horse you ride to help you pinpoint weak areas.

The horse’s reactions are clues to whether you’re not following his motion properly. When people get ahead of or behind the horse’s motion, they put the horse out of balance. The horse will try to correct this so he can feel comfortable and in balance again. If you fall behind the motion, the horse will either sense that as a driving aid and run forward or he will slow down, maybe even stop, as he tries to position you back over his center of gravity where it is most comfortable for him to carry your weight. Most people tend to get behind the motion.

Our typical student riding at least twice a day spends about a year developing the necessary skills and muscles to be able to ride at all three gaits first, with relaxation; second, in balance; and third, while following the horse’s motion. During that year, there will be times when the rider might easily achieve all three of those goals at the walk but find that it is really difficult to stay steady over the horse’s center of gravity at the trot. Or she has no problems with following the horse’s motion at the walk and the trot but find she’s unable to achieve the right degree of physical relaxation at the canter to follow the horse’s motion on both leads.

It’s a very normal thing in the development of the seat is to hit plateaus. Just remember that everybody progresses differently and even if it takes you longer at one step, you might fly through the next two or three steps when you reach them. Expect plateaus and blocks from time to time and don’t get discouraged or frustrated because they will happen. Be aware that it is normal. The body awareness and control you are trying to develop is very complex physiologically and psychologically.

A lot of times in order to progress, you have to give up some level of control you’ve used and start all over again. The rider who’s been staying on the horse by gripping may feel she’s “balanced” on her horse. However, if she’s going to achieve a truly independent seat, she’s going to have to give up the security of her grip in order to learn how to ride with relaxation and true balance. Until she does, she’s not going to be able to follow her horse’s motion. She’s going to get stuck on a plateau. The irony is that when she gives up her grip, her riding is actually going to regress for awhile. That frustrates many people and makes it hard for them to give up the bad riding habits they’ve developed that at least give them some sense of control. The reality is that unless you are able to give that control up and reeducate your body, you are not going to be able to progress to the next level.

If you don’t have an independent seat, you will still influence the horse but your influences are going to create the wrong results and frustration for both you and the horse. Before you and your horse can play at the upper levels of whatever game you have chosen, being able to stay relaxed, to stay balanced over the horse’s center of gravity, and to follow the horse’s motion at all gaits is essential.

Aids are physical pressures a rider uses to communicate with the horse. When the horse responds correctly to the pressure, the pressure goes away. So a correct response rewards the horse.

Think of individual aid pressures as “words” that have a specific meaning to the horsechange gait, go left, go right. As both horses and riders progress in their training, they begin combining several aids into “sentences” with greater nuances of meaning than a single wordget ready for an extended trot after we make this left turn, spin to the left when you come to the end of this slide.

Aids are not the same as cues. The horse responds to voice commands or to a click that means trot, or a bump that means canter is responding to conditioned cues. This is a different communication system and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. The problem is that riders communicating with their horses via cues are working with a very limited vocabulary. Riders communicating via the aids have a full, rich vocabulary with many shades of meaning. In order to take a horse to the upper levels in any sport, you need this larger vocabulary.

The “natural aids” consist of the legs, the seat or weight aids, and the hands or rein aids. We put these aids together into corridors of pressures that the horse feels as a shape we want him to take. Because, we can vary the pressure of any aid, good riders can apply them with great finesse or shades of meaning to communication hundreds of variations of shape to the horse.

Leg aids are used primarily as driving aids that ask the horse to move a hind leg forward. A rider puts a leg aid on the horse by pressing with the inside of the lower leg (with the toe pointing forward, not out). Leg aids can be applied with varying degrees of pressure and in different sequences to ask for specific shapes. When both legs actively apply driving pressure, we call that a bilateral leg aid. Some examples would be asking the horse to move from a halt to a walk or from a walk to a trot.

When only one leg is actively pressing and asking the horse to move the hind leg on that side forward while the other just softly holds and steadies, we call it a unilateral leg aid. Some examples would be asking the horse to turn while in motion or to pick up a canter depart.

Weight aids are the second category of aids we have to use as communication tools. We talk about burdening weight aids where the rider drops more weight onto her seat bones and makes her seat feel heavier to the horse. The opposite of that is unburdening or decreasing the weight on your seat bones and making your weight lighter in the saddle. Like leg aids, weight aids can be applied bilaterally or unilaterally. It’s important to understand that when the amount of weight carried on a particular seat bone changes, the rider’s upper body position should not change. The upper body should not lean. The hip should not collapse. The rider simply drops a little more weight into one or both seat bones.

Weight aids are particularly effective because when you are balanced over the horse’s center of gravity and following its motion, any weight shift creates a physical pressure that causes a feeling in the horse that he needs to rebalance himself. They naturally influence the horse to take the shape you want. For example, to turn the horse to the left, you simply sit a little heavier on your left seat bone and the horse automatically feels like stepping to the left to keep you centered over his center of gravity.

Rein aids are applied to the bit through steady, quiet hands and an elastic wrist guided by loose, flexible elbow and shoulder joints. There are four ways we use them:

A keeping rein maintains steady, elastic contact with the bit while following the horse’s motion. Riders cannot effectively use a keeping rein until they are relaxed, balanced, and able to follow the horse’s motion with their seat.

A taking rein means that the little finger moves the rein slightly toward the body. Many riders incorrectly take rein by bending their wrists. However, if you bend at the wrist in order to “take rein”, you lose the elastic connection to elbow which is the essential joint to absorb motion as your hands follow the horse’s motion. A “take” is usually followed by a “give” or soft release. Examples of a bilateral taking rein include the rein back and the half halt.

A giving rein is applied by moving the little finger slightly away from the body. The giving rein aid always follows the taking rein aid. On a circle, for example, the rider rhythmically applies an inside taking rein followed by an inside giving rein to position the horse’s head slightly to the inside of the circle. Meanwhile, a steady outside keeping rein follows the shape you want the horse to take and allows the degree of bend you want.

A resisting rein is a taking rein that is not followed by a give or release. A bilateral resisting rein applied for a few strides asks the horse to make a downward transition or to stop.

In addition to these three natural aids, we also have the artificial aids of the whip, spurs, and voice. The voice is often used more as a cue than as an aid with shades of meaning. Whips and spurs are very misunderstood inside and outside the horse industry. When they are used to reinforce the driving leg aids, there is nothing innately abusive about them. They simply become another shade of meaning.

In that regard, the timing of their use is critical. In training, we take a horse through the steps of showing him want we want, then asking him for what we want. Once he has mastered those two phases, we can use our natural aids to tell him what we want. When we know that the horse understands what we are telling him but the horse chooses to ignore the request, this is the appropriate moment in time to reinforce your natural leg aid with a tap of the whip or a touch of the spur. Either should be applied with a degree of pressure that does not startle the horse or raise his excitement level. Used this way, whips or spurs are not seen by the horse as a punishment. They are simply another shade of meaning added to the pressures they already understand so they are going to be horse logical.

We use corridors of aid pressures to create the feeling of shapes we want our horse to take. However, it is important to understand that a constant pressure goes away. A good example is the pressure of the girth. Initially, a young horse may be very apprehensive about the pressure of the girth. However, because it never changes, he starts to ignore it.

The same can be true of any of our natural aids. If a rider inadvertently applies constant pressure with a leg or weight or rein aid because she is out of balance or unable to control her body’s movement in some way, the horse soon learns to ignore the pressure. That is why development of an independent seat through relaxation, balance and an ability to follow the horse’s motion is critical to proper application of the aids.

As we move up the riding tree, we learn to relax on the horse, stay balanced and follow the horse’s motion. As we continue to develop our ability to communicate more clearly with the horse, we learn to apply the pressures of weight (seat), leg, and rein aids to communicate to the horse the shape we would like him to take.

When we first begin using these aids, we are aware of applying them one at a time. Then we mentally group them into “recipes” or “formulas” for particular shapes. We even illustrate these groups of aids as pictograms to help us remember which pressures create which shapes.

When we do these diagrams, however, we start to notice a paradox. We use the same group of aids to ask the horse to do different things. Mechanically speaking, for example, we use the same set of aids to ask the horse to move on a circle, turn in a corner, do a leg yield or do a turn on the forehand.

Communicating to the horse involves much more than just a mechanical application of a specific set of aids. That’s the beginning but if riders want to progress up the riding tree from merely applying the aids to coordinating them, they have do more that just use their aids in an “on” or “off” mode. Coordinating the aids means applying the right aids in the right sequence with the right degree of pressure and with the right timing. Developing a feel for this coordination requires some additional skills.

First, riders need to be able to apply the correct aids without having to stop and think about exactly which ones to uses in each situation. They have to develop muscle memory of the shape their body assumes which, in turn, creates the aid pressures that shape the horse if he correctly moves in the direction those pressures indicate. Their application of the aids has to go on autopilot.

Second, riders need have to have an independent seat. They can’t be gripping with their legs or hanging onto the reins to keep their balance. They have to be aware of each of their individual body parts, each of their joints, and be able to use each one independently of the others. They need to be aware of where their body is in space, whether they are perfectly balanced over their horse or whether they have started leaning left or right or forward or back.

Third, riders must learn to apply the aids with different degrees of pressure. They won’t be able to do this if they do not have an independent seat and body awareness. The degree of pressure may vary depending on the horse’s understanding of the aids, the horse’s willingness to pay attention to the aids at that particular moment in time, and the specific question that the rider is asking at the moment.

Fourth, riders must learn to apply the aids at the correct time in the sequence of footfalls at various gaits to get the result they want. It’s easy to see what the horse’s front legs are doing but it takes time to develop a feel for what the horse’s hind legs are doing underneath you.

In the beginning, the horse is the rider’s best teacher because when the rider asks, the horse always answers. The rider interprets the horse’s response and judges the effectiveness of his or her aids. For example, if the rider asks for a left lead canter and the horse just trots off faster, the rider needs to figure out what went wrong in the choice of aids, the sequencing of the aids, the degree of pressure or the timing. Then the rider tries once again to coordinate the aids correctly and, once more, interprets the feedback.

Riders need to work on many different types of horses in order to develop the skills they need to coordinate their aids. If a rider doesn’t ask with sufficient precision, a forgiving Goldie Oldie may give them a canter in response to aids that would only confuse and fluster a young horse may. Horses with different personalities will respond differently to varying degrees of pressure or accuracy. Each horse can teach the rider an important lesson.

Working with someone on the ground who can describe what the horse’s feet are doing until you can accurately feel it with your seat can be helpful in developing a feel for timing. We also videotape our students regularly. Studying their tapes, they can critique the coordination of their aids and the results they are getting.

As riders progress, it becomes critical for them to develop feel, interpret results, and judge the effectiveness of their communication with the horse. They have to do this while staying relaxed, in balance, and following the horse’s motion. Only then will they be capable of riding a horse in a way that influences and trains it. Just keep riding.

Only when riders progress to the top of the riding tree are they finally capable of influencing a horse to teach it something new or to remind it about something it already knows. Their communication is clear enough and accurate enough that they can use the language of aids pressures to show the horse new shapes. They have developed an independent seat and muscle memory of the correct aids. They have developed a sense of timing. They have independent control of each body part so they can apply any aid with varying degrees of pressure. As the horse moves underneath them, they relax and follow its motion in perfect balance.

When we train horses, the first step is showing them what we want them to do. Then we can ask them to do what we’ve shown them. Once they fully understand what we are asking, we can tell them to do it. If we know they understand what we are telling them but they refuse to do it, we can enforce our request.

Beginning riders can only ask their horses for shapes and movements because they lack the necessary skills to demand more. At this stage, many instructors use forgiving Goldie Oldies to help riders learn to relax, find their balance, and learn to follow the horse’s motion. As they progress up the riding tree and learn to both apply and coordinate their aids, riders can begin telling their horses what to do. By interpreting the horse’s response, they can continue improving their coordination skills. By riding many different kinds of horses, they deepen their skills. At the lower levels on the riding tree, their horses are their teachers.

When riders become very good at coordinating the aids, they become capable of influencing the horse. Now they can show a baby green horse what to do or enforcing the requests made of a spoiled horse to retrain it. They have the necessary skills to use artificial aids like a whip or spurs to reinforce their requests without ruining their communication with the horse. The riders have now become capable of teaching.

The reason the combination of a green horse and green rider is so disastrous is that neither one is capable of teaching the other. Neither one can give the other the necessary feedback so that learning can take place. Similarly, until a rider is quite far along on the riding tree, he or she lacks the necessary skills to enforce a request when a horse deliberately refuses to respond. A lot of school horses who know the game cheerfully choose to ignore beginning riders. So fairly early on we do allow students to carry crops to reinforce their leg aids. However, no one wears spurs until they have an independent seat and time their use correctly.

Riders must be able to ride stride by stride and influence the horse with precise timing and degrees of their aids before they can create something new or enforce something the horse already knows. The difference between coordinating the aids and influencing the horse is very subtle. It involves control of the rider’s and the horse’s emotions as well as their bodies.

The ability to interpret and judge the horse’s feedback becomes very important at this stage because it determines the riders’ responses. They must be sure they coordinated their aids correctly and precisely. They must judge whether the horse simply didn’t understand the aids. Or they must judge that the horse understood the aids but choose not to respond correctly. Since, in the latter case, the timing of any enforcement is critical for successful communication and correction of the problem, riders at this level need to make their judgments in a split second without any emotional involvement. The horse must feel that their response is horse logical and fair.

Making these judgments takes experience riding many different kinds of horses. It’s not possible for anyone to judge correctly all of the time no matter how far they go in their riding. When you know that a horse understands something and is choosing not to do it, there is always the possibility that something is physically wrong. New tack may be bothering him. He may have sore muscles for a workout the day before. He may have caught a virus at a show the weekend before. Instead of enforcing his or her request, the rider may have to reevaluate the training plan for that day and give the horse an easy workout or even a complete rest.

When riders become trainers, they are going to be evaluating their horses every day. When they work with a horse every day for months they get to know its personality, its little nuances, and it becomes easier to judge whether the horse’s refusal to listen to the aids stems from soreness or stubbornness or mental burnout. If a horse that normally goes along with everything suddenly turns surly, it’s also OK to say let’s just go out and play on the trails. Give the horse a day off and see what happens. All of that is a judgment call on the trainer’s part.

Sometimes it seems like it’s going to take a long time before a rider reaches the point when they can influence a horse or enforce their requests. Don’t get discouraged. Remember that you’re going to reach different levels on the riding tree on some horses at some gaits at least some of the time before you experience it on all horses at all gaits all of the time. Just keep riding.

1997-2004 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. All rights reserved. Instructor and trainer <a href="http://www.meredithmanor.com/about/staff.asp#ron"> Ron Meredith</a> has refined his "horse logical" methods for communicating with equines for over 30 years as president of <a href="http://www.meredithmanor.com/"> Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre</a>, an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.
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