Thank you! I'm a new rider and appreciate your detailed explanation. I've recently started lessons and want to make sure I practice positioning correctly at home.
Great video....my partner & i rode bearback growing up soending summers on Scottish farms so we rude well but disnt nec have saddles or reigns. So everytime I'd pay to go riding they'd immediately put us in advanced but then look at our hands as theyve were obv not quite right. This wasbest vid I've watched 🙏👍
Great content Callie as usual. Clear, to the point and well delivered. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. P.S. BIG shout out to the lovely Ken for his acting chops on this one. P.P.S. Oh, and I experienced no issues with your audio.
This was a really cool video and I never knew how much can be affected by your hands. I struggle with pointing me toes out when I ride. I have my heals down and everything and I feel balenced but when I look at pictures of myself I see that my toes are pointed away from the horse and it feels really uncomfortable to point my toes tward the horse. If you could do a video on something to do to fix that would be very helpful. If you already did a video on this could I have the link? Thank you I love your channel and I learn a lot!
Rebecca & Nitya - that is because most people haven't really worked on developing their inner thigh muscles. For some, the floor/mat exercises can feel really awkward at first. The best one I know of is lay on your side. Upper leg straight & raise it 20" to 24" & hold there, next bend bottom leg (the one on the floor) at the knee. Now, lift BOTTOM, bent leg & raise it to touch the raised leg - knee to knee. Keep building up your reps. That should help you be able to keep your toes straight or even inward when riding! Good luck.
Rebecca & Nitya - if too hard at first, you can leave upper leg up & straight, hold there. Then raise leg on ground, keeping it straight as well, try to raise & touch lower leg to upper leg, toe to toe! Don't be surprised if you find yourself rolling/ falling over 1st few times. You can also brace head w/ your arm, upper arm flat on ground for support, lower arm bent to support slightly lifted head. Might be easier to leave head down??? No matter what, raising lower leg to touch upper leg is key. Strength (muscle memory will develop quickly) 💪🐴❤
Rebecca, I struggled with this and the solution is not about strength, you'll injure yourself! So I did some research and this is the solution I found. Your toes will naturally point in the same direction as your knee. In fact, if you try to apply force (e.g. bear weight or push on your stirrups) on misaligned articulations you'll hurt yourself (knee pain rings any bells?). Try this exercise: sit on chair and open your legs, keep a 90 degree angle between your thighs and your lower legs. Notice how as you open your legs, your toes will maintain the same aim as your knees. Now stand up with your legs hip width apart. Now widen your stance, as if you were on top of a horse, and flex your knees (if you have a mirror check your head-shoulders-hip-heel alignment). Now notice how your knees and toes are aligned . The reason has nothing to do with your ankles nor your knees, but your hips! The reason you toes point out while riding is because you are sitting on your butt, as if you were on a chair. You need to sit on your inner thighs. So go back to the horse stance and feel where in your body would there be contact(bear your weight) with the horse/saddle if your were on one? Find neutral pelvis in that position. That's it! Also starts doing hip mobility exercises.
This is so helpful! I know (and have been told) that I tend to have my fingers open and my instructors tells me to close my fingers. I have misunderstood that as tightening my fist, and watching this video really opened my eyes to understand that is NOT what I should be doing! When I ride this week, I'm definitely going to apply this logic and see how different it works! I ride at two different barns some weeks and it will be interesting to see it work on both horses! :)
Thank you so much for your videos. I do a little video production for the courses I teach (I'm a college professor) so I know that a lot of time, effort, imagination and creativity goes into each and every video and the smoother the final product, the more effort went into it. In addition to the excellent technical and artistic aspects of your videos, the information you convey is simply superb. I've been riding for over 20 years and I learn something new from each and every one of your videos. Thank you!!!
I´ve been a professional dancer with the National Ballet of Portugal but horses are my true passion so i´ve found ways to be a horse rider also against all odds and advice ... this to say I am so glad to find someone with such awareness of the body in the equestrian realm. This exercise is absolutely brilliant, and so are other videos and explanations you give. I know i´ve had the opportunity to learn how to ride because I had a very strong sense of movement and control over my body. I didn´t have the money to pay for horse ridding lessons, but because I was light, balanced, disciplined and brave some professional riders invited me to ride for them, that´s how i´ve learned! I am currently teaching in a horse ridding school and I am very grateful to have found your chanel! Thanks for sharing
The thing with the tight fist reminds me of my kickboxing instructor. He once said, that we should never fully close our fists. Not only to avoid injury, but also to be more flexible in our movements. We never questioned him, of course, but now I see, what he meant by this.
Callie @crktraining , thank you for this video and for bringing awareness to what seems like something so simple but obviously can influence your balance in a big way. As they say "its the little things" :-) And, thanks for the chuckle Ken.
This is such simple and effective advice, that i will use. I tend to ride with the thumb and forefinger squeezed together, so this will hopefully make a big difference!
I definitely noticed how simple holding and tension can affect my responsiveness when the horse goes from a trot to a canter. Thank you for this helpful tutorial.
I am really working on establishing that grip with the last knuckle straight, it makes all the difference when you can get it right, I think I saw Erica Posely talk about it a few months ago- I tend to hold the reins in the first way you showed, I struggle with keeping my ring finger and pinkie closed, and I am indeed obssessed with having light, gentle, sensitive contact, but I end up with no contact at all too much of the time, probably! To make it all more complicated, I started working at the barn where I was riding (and consequently haven't had the energy to ride in 3 weeks-😳- not the goal, the goal was more lessons, but the work is HARD, and I am expected to do an unreasonable amount of it- at the end of the day my hands are in so much pain I cannot use them properly, I broke my knuckles on both hands in a car accident when I was 19 and the ring fingers become so stiff it is almost impossible to be effective with the reins, I don't know what to do! I have lost 10lbs in two weeks, I cannot physically sustain this workload, but I love the horses so much and want to be a part of the industry however I can, but this is nuts! My boss, the barn owner, is very unreasonable in her labour expectations, men in their 20's can barely do this job and walk off of it all the time- I am 37 and weigh 110 lbs, I have held my own but I can't keep doing it... I am responsible for 30 STALLS, half of which are used overnight, which means a MESS, I just can't do it all on my own five days a week, I am not as young as they seem to think I am! Anyway, oops, sorry to rant! I was trying to look at this as my working student time, but it is all back breaking work and NO riding, what should I do? Everyone there says I will get stronger and they all want me to do well, except my boss, she seems not to care that I want to ride and learn as much as possible, she just sees labour... She had me weed eating, by myself, I have never TOUCHED a weed eater before, and I won't again, she can fire me, the stalls on top of turn out and water buckets are simply too much for me... Did I mention that two other GUYS, in their early 20's, work there? They somehow disappear after feeding to leave me all the stalls- they get to sit on tractors while they drag riding arenas, and string electric fence line. I would love to learn how to drag the arenas, and last time I checked fence line is pretty light weight... Yet she makes the little girl with NO EXPERIENCE handling small machines wield the 30 lb weed eater, that sure makes sense... She was going to make me use a freaking CHAINSAW, but I could barely hold the weed eater, and it can't HACK MY LIMBS off, so yeah, NO... The weed eater just sprays me with shrapnel and jerks out of my hands every 5 seconds, screw that...😒 I want to be near the horses and make some money to take MORE lessons, not less, and this woman's only intent seems to be to break me physically because she didn't think I could do the job at all and I proved her wrong, I guess, so now she is going to pile the work on until I just break down, I don't know if I should find another barn to work at or what! Am I just being a baby? My boyfriend even thinks it is unreasonable, and he says HE wouldn't/couldn't do the amount of and type of work this woman expects from me, and he has worked hard all his life... All the borders and my riding instructor are so helpful and supportive, they all want me to have a job there because I am good with the HORSES- not the muck rake or the weed eater. And I honestly even enjoy the mucking out, it is just the sheer volume of it that I am expected to do in the time allotted, my body just can't do it, I literally give out physically by mid-day, but I can't disappoint anyone, and I don't want to disappoint myself either, I finally feel like I am doing something more worthwhile than meaningless retail ... It has been a dream of mine just to be near horses like this, and I think I am being exploited, not mentored and guided as I had hoped... I enjoy hard work and pushing myself physically, but this is simply untenable! Any advice, haha? I am trying to give it time, but my body is running out of steam fast, I can't eat enough to keep weight on at this pace! SO sorry for the off topic ramble, it is just all I can think about anymore! I go back in for more tomorrow and I can barely open a bottle of water, my hands are trashed, all I want to do is sleep, and I am going insane without time in the saddle, especially when I am SO close to horses all day long! Watching everyone else ride is absolute torture, when it is all so close but still so impossible, I really don't know what to do!😳) ANYWAY! Sorry again, back to the topic at hand! (Haha...😳) I would love to get your opinion on gloves or no gloves, I am very interested in the different philosophies behind that choice, I currently ride without as I feel most gloves impede feel, but I have heard good cases made for how they can actually increase feel in certain ways! I would love to know what you think about gloves, Callie! Great video as always, can't wait to see what is next! Thanks so much!
I Saul when I ride and I use different colored rains but my instructor says I’m supposed to hold the reins with underneath with my thumb my thumb up but when you ride and you want to turn which rain do you go with
