This video will describe how to develop awareness and feel to improve; how to develop fluidity, harmony and flow in your ride.
One of the first things needed to develop fluidity is our ability to feel contact and connection and many riders struggle with feel…
Here is a little 5 step tip on how to improve your feel that I’ve played with over the years.
Lack of feel basically comes from not being “in your body” and instead being too much in your thoughts where you aren’t paying attention to the sense of “touch”. To be able to “feel” you need to develop sensitivity through your senses (specifically touch and vision) and take your awareness out of your head and into your body.
1. Start by focusing your attention to the middle of your head in a spot between your ears - become aware of this space in your head. Focus on that space.
2. From here, take that attention and put it all into your right hand, feel the inside of your hand, “become” the hand, feel how the hand feels from the inside out.
3. Then move your attention into your left hand, feel that hand, become the hand
4. Now keep your attention both in your hand and put it back in the middle of your head as well. Now the two are connected and you are able to receive inputs from your hand into your mind telling you what your senses are experiencing.
5. Don’t judge what you are sensing/feeling, just observe with your eyes and other senses and afterwards you can use that knowledge to adjust your actions/aids if need be to improve communication and effectiveness with your horse.
Next steps to grow “Feel”:
You can grow your feel with other areas of your body as well. Eventually you should practice putting your attention into your “core”(your center) as this will strengthen your seat and all of your aids in the communication with the horse whilst all the time also staying in the middle of your head. This is the intermediate level of developing “feel”
Then the following step will be to shift your awareness and attention from your body and into the body of the horse. Feel their body from the inside out, use your imagination - feel their structure, their movement pattern, what does it feel like to have fur on their body, or pointy ears - what does it feel like to be on the receiving end of the aids Instead of the giving end? - “become the horse”. This is the advanced level of developing “feel”
Share your thoughts, challenges or experiences with developing feel in the comments below:
25 авг 2024
