feet light, twist right, thighs tight: biomechanics clinic with Alexis MV (part 2!)

Where left off yesterday okay fine Wednesday, Alexis had introduced to me the concept of bearing down (becoming shorter and wider), keeping my feet light by stabilizing my post through my entire leg, and posting very purposefully. This was just the beginning of the biomechanics train.

Alexis asked to see Murray and I canter, and so we cantered a bit. It wasn’t the worst canter, but it wasn’t the best canter either. Pretty medium, which is a good thing to show a clinician. Alexis immediately honed in on the rogue flapping of my left side. My left hand continually drifted out to the left, and my left knee and thigh were flapping away from the saddle in a way that my right leg wasn’t. Earlier in the day Alexis had mentioned to a couple of riders that they should be mindful of keeping their shirt zipper/buttons centered over the horse’s withers. In my case, this wouldn’t be enough.

hahahaha my handssss

Alexis wanted to re-orient the twist of my body, which she thought would help address several of my problems at once.  First, she had me place my hands on my torso. I put my left hand across my belly pointing to the right, and my right hand across my back pointing to the left. Palms faced inward, touching my shirt. Then Alexis told me to twist to the left and drag my hands across my body as I did so.  It took a bit of coordinating on my part, but I did it. Alexis was like “I suspect that’s the position your body is used to being in, right?” It was pretty easy so I’m guessing yeah, it is.

Then, Alexis had me reverse my hands and the direction. I put my right hand across the front and my left hand across the back, and twisted to the right. Alexis said “that way should feel harder, but it’s what I want you to emulate as you ride.” I practiced twisting right and dragging my hands across my skin. I could feel the twisting all the way along my inner thigh, down into my knee.

Next, Alexis took a hold of my left elbow and pulled it gently away from my body, telling me to resist the pull.  I pulled my elbow back in, and Alexis told me to recruit the large muscles in my seat instead of just the muscles of my arms. Luckily for me, I already had done that a little. I wasn’t just pinching my elbow back in, but I was pushing my seat down into the saddle to keep that elbow in. (Writing this out, I know now what I need to focus on for my next ride!)

left hand now good, right hand now rogue

So out I went again, this time focusing on twisting right and keeping my rogue left hand in. As I trotted around, Alexis kept reminding me of the biomechanics fixes she wanted me to implement: twist right, thighs tight, feet light. Then: post slowly, like a hydraulic pump, like you’re moving through resistance going up and going down. It was hard getting these all to work at the same time. Mostly I would twist right and thighs tight, and then I’d realize that I was jamming my feet down into the stirrups again and needed to keep my feet light.  But with constant reminders, I was able to put it together for more than a few strides at a time.

And when I did it was SO COOL. Because my horse stopped falling out over his right shoulder, and he kept pushing into the bridle. At one point Alexis even said “he looks like he’s pretty willing to put his nose wherever the end of your reins are, so why not shorten those a little?” I was like “Oh yeah I have the worst reins in the world,” to which Alexis responded “well don’t blame the reins…”

left hand still being crazy, but horse not looking too bad!

We picked up the canter and I kept twisting right, thigh-ing tight, and feet-ing light. I also tried to bear down and add tone to the upper part of my abs.  Apparently this resulted in me leaning back like woah and probably fucking with the canter mechanic a bit, which I did not realize until I saw the pictures. But at the time, it felt like my horse was on wheels. Like seriously, the canter ceased to be a three-beat gait and just became this incredible, smooth, levitation-y phenomenon.

(I have not been able to re-acquire that feeling, without Alexis though. So there’s that.)

cute horse walking before the sitting trot wordvomitmayhem begins

And then came the part of the day that absolutely blew my mind. YES EVEN MORE. During lunch, Alexis talked about the mechanics of each gait and commented that the bouncing that most people experience in the sitting trot is in the down phase of the trot, not the up phase. The body is good at following the saddle upward, because it’s being physically pushed up by the saddle, but going down we fail to follow the saddle down accurately.

Of course I was like “wait how?” Because gravity is a thing. And it acts upon all of us. So why do we suck so much at falling into a saddle?

Alexis explained that one of the common errors in riding is to lock the joints and “relax” the muscles. (Relax is one of her least favourite instructional words! I scream it at Murray a lot shhhhhh.) Instead, riders should tone the muscles and let the joints flex freely. I don’t remember why. Mary Wanless is bound to have written about this in one of her many books, I just don’t have the knowledge or a book on hand to tell you.

So after we cantered, Alexis asked if I wanted to work a little on sitting trot. I was like “Oh, well I can’t sit the trot so I guess we will have to canter again!”

Alexis was not having it.

bad nicole loses her shoulders-hip-heel alignment when she tries to sit the trot, but at least her spine is straight!

Alexis suggested walking and picking up the sitting trot for a little and then walking or posting again. “Let’s do some reps,” she said. Ow, I said.

Alexis told me to keep my spine neutral and keep bearing down. I needed to keep my thighs on and feet light and not try to absorb the shock by wobbling my spine or core (or neck or head). Alexis said a lot of things as I was trotting around and I don’t remember almost any of them except “the spine should be like a jackhammer going up and down…. welcome to the bottom of the saddle!!”

After that rep Alexis asked “what part of that resonated with you?” and I was like “honestly the only thing I remember is the jackhammer spine thing.” I don’t remember how it all felt, but the part that Alexis said was the most right, I remember feeling my seat bones pounding into the bottom of the saddle.  I always thought that sitting trot should all swoosh-swoosh-swoosh like cross country skiing.  Instead, the mechanic Alexis wanted me to achieve was bam-bam-bam with every stride. The saddle did feel deeper, though I’m not sure how.

still bouncing, but not as much bounce as before!
(now that I look at this, I think Alexis may also have had me pull my left elbow back but don’t remember any more)

If it seems like we didn’t focus on the horse at all in this clinic, it’s because we didn’t. The point of the clinic wasn’t dressage lessons, it was to fix rider biomechanics. In light of all that though, I’ll note that I am super proud of Murray for being such a growned up boy and letting a stranger touch him.  I’m also super proud that he mostly kept his head down and just worked during our lesson, instead of fighting me over silly shit.

Since the clinic I’ve been working on this stuff non stop. I’m not in as much pain as before, which probably means both that I am assimilating some of this and getting stronger and not doing it as much as I should be (or was during my lesson). But I am slowly rebuilding my bass line. Which means that one day soon I’ll hopefully be able to do something other than go in straight lines and circles again!