a poor workman

I have basically never been able to sit the trot.  I have only been trying to do so for about, oh, the entire length of time I’ve been riding seriously (admittedly not that long).  I don’t have the advantage of having developed an independent seat as a wildchild galloping around bareback on my pony, but I’m not sure many people do these days.

Can you imagine the unimaginable places horse hair would have gotten shooting this scene?!

What I did have was determination and desire.  I didn’t know how to sit the trot, and practicing just seemed to end in sore seat bones and inner thighs.  Practicing something incorrectly was not helping, so obviously I needed to learn how to learn to do this.  I read a lot of things.  You have to trot slower.  You have to remove your stirrups.  Relax this.  Tense that.  Move your pelvis.  Don’t cling.  Hug with your thighs.  Hug with nothing.  It is a mystery.

he was perfect in other ways

I never had the perfect horse to practice on, as lesson horses are probably predisposed to especially hate attempts at sitting trot.  My bouncing and jiggling never seemed to impress them, and there was more than one occasion that I nearly bounced myself off the side of Quincy, cartoon style.  Then I started riding this adorable four year old and I was like “Wow! Trying to sit the trot on this weak, tense back would be a huge disservice to this horse. guess I don’t have to try any more!” and I had a sweet out to stop trying to sit the trot for two years.

Then MIL said I had to sit the trot half of all my rides and I was like… wahh.  But my knees kept bumping the knee rolls.  And I was bouncing.  And I thought… maybe I should try another saddle.  I KNOW, I KNOW.  IT’S A POOR WORKMAN WHO BLAMES HIS TOOLS.  But I was desperate, and curious.  So I sat in my trainer’s new Stubben Euphoria.  And it was… if not quite euphoric definitely better than my saddle.  So in about four seconds I decided I was getting a new saddle.  Since then I’ve tried about four different saddles and all of them have been a marked improvement on my saddle in terms of sitting the trot.  I suspect the larger seat size has something to do with it — I’m not bumping up against the cantle or the knee rolls.  As it turns out, despite my flat-as ass, my spider monkey legs mean that I need a bigger seat than I thought.

So while I’m not putting all the blame on my saddle, I suspect that I’m going to have a lot easier of a time learning to sit the trot in a saddle that actually facilitates the correct position.  I’m going to go ahead and pretend not to be a poor workman blaming her tools, and just get tools that are better suited to the task because they fit my tiny ass and weird long legs better.