From: lbm@avs.com (Linda B. Merims)
Subject: Re: hunt seat equitation
Organization: Advanced Visual Systems Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 23:24:15 GMT
X-Posted-From: phobos.avs.com
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

I suspect the discrepancy comes from the influence that dressage
has had on equitation in the last 15 to 20 years.  When I learned 
to ride hunt seat as a kid back in the 1960's, I too remember the admonitions
to "Grip with your knees!"  "Toes forward!"  Posting without stirrups was a
big deal.  Nobody said much about the role of the lower leg at all.

(It wasn't until the mid-70s that you could even FIND somebody to
teach you dressage on the West Coast.)

Actually, the most lucid, reasoned discussion of leg/foot position
that I have ever read is in Helen Crabtree's "Saddle Seat Equitation".
With some slight modifications for the more forward seat, closer
contact in the lower leg, and shorter stirrup, it has applicability
to hunt seat as well.  She discusses things I have never heard anybody
else bring up:

- if the saddle is not level on the horse's back (poor fit, just put
  on too far forward), the rider's leg will be too far forward, and
  the poor rider will be constantly leaning forward trying to climb
  "up hill" to get over their leg

- the absolute most critical measurement is the distance from the
  base of the saddle where your hip and pelvic bones are to the stirrup
  bar.  One size saddle DOES NOT FIT ALL.  Get it wrong, and you
  never get over your leg.  (I don't ride hunt seat anymore--the
  more expensive cut backs these days have adjustable stirrup bars
  so that you can correct for a saddle that is an inch too long or
  too short for you.)

- She brings out that the first thing to do when assessing a rider's
  seat with an eye to correcting fundamental problems is to look
  at the rider head-on, NOT from the side where most instructors
  attempt to make their corrections from.

- Horses toe in and toe out--so do riders.  Everybody isn't built
  the same.  Some people are going to have an easier time fitting
  their leg to the current ideal, and some folks will never achieve
  it--nor should they.  Deb Bennet had an interesting article in
  Equus several years ago where she pointed out that men's and women's
  pelvises are constructed quite differently.  What was a natural
  seat for a man is not natural, comfortable, or effective for a woman.

- Why are little kids so good at posting without stirrups?  It is
  because they are effectively kneeling on the top half of the
  horse's barrel.  The longer-legged rider's knees and lower leg
  are at or past the widest point of the barrel.  Taking an
  instructor literally and posting "from the lower leg" is a
  physical absurdity.  You always post "from the stirrup"--it's just
  which part(s) of your leg you use to keep yourself steady and close
  to your horse.

I'd recommend reading it.  It is the only thing I've heard that
sounded like physics and not like religion.  There are fashions
in all things, instructors all have their own ways of communicating,
and you have to approach what feels good and right and secure for
you and not worry so much about mechanical corrections to please
an instructor.  (Getting video-taped is a great way to see whether
you look "close enough" or just plain bad.)

Linda Merims