Personal Discovery and Exciting Weekend Plans!

Today I made the most amazing personal discovery ever. This means step aside Sir Isaac Newton! Sometimes for me, I have trouble balancing my position. Sometimes when I focus to hard on having a really straight and solid position, I lose ability to sit with the rhythm because my seat becomes hard. Or sometimes, when I think of being loose and going with the rhythm, I am not straight enough and I am not sitting up. When you don't sit up, you lose your entire core strength, and you go right to your hands to find the collection. It's all about finding the happy medium, and today I found it. It really helped me to feel like I was pushing the hind lengs down and under in the collection with my shoulders. This means that not only did I push my shoulders back, but I pushed them down too. This makes you arch your back kind of where your shoulder blades meet...or kind of like where your two wings would meet if you had them. When you arch your back here, "where your wings meet" then your shoulders are back, your neck is tucked in, your core muscles automatically go to work, and your seat becomes not hard on the back but "softly solid" so that you can still allow the back to come up. When I did this today, I had no tension in the collection, my horse was through the back and engaged behind, and I had the most straight but soft position. I have found that when your seat is too hard and forced, the back of the horse remains concave, making it impossible for the hind end to engage and for proper collection to come. When I think of pushing the hind legs down with my shoulders, and arching my back where your wings would meet, then it just comes. It is amazing how easy it was after I just did that. It was like a chain of events after I did that....my seat was quiet but solid, my hands were quiet, my legs had a soft but solid connection with the sides of my horse, and a quiet, active, and loose collection was found. Once you have this kind of collection, anything can be done. I worked canter pirouettes, half steps in trot, everything! It was really cool to have discovered that....so cool that I spent the entire day around with my back arched where my wings would meet, hoping that if I did it for long enough it would freeze that way! It's important though not to confuse this with arching your lower back. When you arch your lower back, you automatically lose your seat. It's all in the shoulders I found. The upper back. Where your wings meet! I am so excited!

Now for the exciting weekend plans! This weekend I am going to Aachen to watch the German National Championships!!! I am so stoked. I am going to watch both jumping and dressage, because there is so much to learn from everything. The best of the best Germans will be there, and it's at gorgeous Aachen! I will be sure to report back about the championships!

Tomorrow the horses are doing some cavaletti work to loosen up their backs to help with the collection and swing in their work. It's so great for them to do this work every once and a while!