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March 2008 • VOLUME 31 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
One of the most important aspects of riding: how do we balance our mass? This month we cover how to find the balance from many different perspectives. Balance is so incredibly important, not just in life, but in riding as well. How do you know you are in balance? What exercises can you do to see if you are in balance? So often when people think of riding balanced on their horses, they think whether they are putting too much weight in their right hip or leg or their left hip or leg. As if balance were just about one side or the other. Balance is so much more than this. And so much more complicated. Perfect balance assumes that if we put you in a weightless environment, you would stay motionless, you would not tip to the right, nor to the left and that you would tip neither forward nor back. Perhaps think of it as the zen of balance. How can we as riding instructors know exactly what the perfect balance, and thus riding position, is for each and every rider? It truly is at one level an impossible task. While on a very simplistic level we can say we need to have a straight line through ear, shoulder, hip and heel, this shot of a rider’s position assumes that each and every one of us is the same. Not to point out the obvious, but there is a lot of of difference between men and women, for example. Especially on a physical basis. We have two very different bodies. A man’s body, with his wide shoulders and upper chest, is built for strength. This, accompanied by a narrow waist and small hips and a small back end, creates a very different upper body balance than a woman with wide birthing hips. Some women tend to be flat in the back end, buying inserts to fill out their jeans, other women are buying 4 way stretch material trying to suck it all in. Some have a very well-developed top needing two sports bras to ride and not bounce, others are much more flat, not needing to worry about how this, too, might be affecting their balance. Complicating this, we go on with many different body types, some are long in the torso, some are short, some have very long arms that will change how they balance themselves, others very short legs that means their torso will have more effect on their balance. Some riders carry one shoulder a little more down, another a little more back, some curve their backs this much, others this much, pelvic differences can make a huge difference in how your mass is balanced when you are on top of a horse. While of course throughout our riding careers, we continually attempt to correct our position and our carriage, while we are doing this we are required by our horses to ride in balance now, with what our body is doing at this moment in time. Time is another culprit of change. When we are young and athletic, our carriage cannot help but be different, while changes in our bodies will happen over the decades. Pregnancy, breast feeding, weight changes, arthritic changes to joints, stiffness, all contribute to changes in our body and require that we know one of the most important aspects of riding: how do we balance our mass? Different heights, different weights, different body types carried in different ways are all complicating the answer to exactly how this mass can be balanced. Notice we are mentioning mass, not weight. As every horseman has seen time and time again, it is how we balance what we have that will affect how well the horse can carry us, not necessarily how much we weigh. A master horseman is capable of being in such a perfect balance with his horse that the horse finds freedom in movement. This freedom in movement can be easily compromised by an unbalanced rider. Even the smallest of changes will create disharmony. So how is an instructor going to be able to help the rider find their balance at any particular moment? The simple answer is to help the rider find an environment where they can find and feel towards their perfect balance. Where, when motionless and without being on anything, they can stay quiet and discover for themselves what effect their current carriage has. Are you going to tip forward? Will you tip back? What small changes can you make to find balance? What does balanced feel like?
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