Lateral work made easy
by Joni Bentley
As a physical activity, riding is fascinating because – unlike most sports – it actually deals with three different entities.
First, there’s you, the rider.
Your body, just like every other human body, has its own idiosyncrasies. Your bones are put together in your unique way; your tendons, muscles, and ligaments all connect and work in ways that are specifically yours.
But riding instructors usually aren’t trained physical therapists. They try to shape your body (and your horse’s body) without understanding how it works.
Your natural physical one-sidedness plus your daily stresses and traumas make demands on your sensory-motor system, which responds with a limited set of reflexes. Repeatedly triggered, these reflexes create habitual muscular contractions – contractions you can’t voluntarily relax. This causes stiffness and discomfort – as anyone who’s felt the soreness of tension in their shoulders and neck can attest.
These habitual physical patterns become so ingrained that they feel normal. Unfortunately, when contraction and mis-alignment feel normal, then correct alignment and posture, in contrast, tend to feel strange and wrong.
If you’re right-handed and I ask you to write with your pen in your left hand, it feels awkward and impossible.
That’s how it feels for a rider who’s used to sitting to the right – as you can see in the photo.
Without understanding the ways the human body is put together, riding instructors prod and poke this crooked foundation to fit an imagined ideal. This adds a new layer of crookedness onto the old. It’s as if you bought a house with a cracked, unsound foundation and tried to fix it by reslating the roof and cleaning the windows! One-sidedness develops over the course of years.
Happily, it’s easily unlearned. The Bentley Correction in Motion technique is a simple, effective way to dissolve your habitual patterns and behaviour. You stop doing the wrong thing, and the right thing does itself!
Then there’s your horse.
Just as every human body is unique and has its asymmetries and quirks, so too does every horse’s body.
When a horse is crooked, his forehand and hindquarters are out of alignment. One diagonal pair of legs pushes, and the other diagonal pair of legs is forced to support.
A horse that drives more strongly with his left hind leg drags to the right like a broken supermarket trolley. Most saddle fitting problems are a result of this – and they drive riders and saddle fitters mad!
The third entity: the horse and rider together.
Twenty years ago, following on my studies of equine biomechanics and human anatomical structure (specifically F.M. Alexander, the creator of the Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais), I realised that when a rider mounts his horse, a whole new physical entity is created. When we look at this entity as a unit, instead of as two separate parts, many things about soundness and apparent schooling issues become obvious.
Horse and rider together, with their physical quirks, asymmetries, and faulty sensory perceptions, inflict even more layers of crookedness upon each other.
Natural crookedness in the horse is generally tackled in lateral work. This is great if the rider is supple and schooled enough to absorb rather than block the horse’s movement, and if they have the necessary sensory appreciation. But most riders haven’t been taught to understand how to really feel what’s happening in their horses. And the rider must lead by example, performing in his own body what they expect of the horse.
The top trainers don’t expect you to ride lateral work before learning how to work your horse through the movements on the ground first. After which the trainer then supports you and the horse in hand from the ground so the transition from ground to ridden work becomes very simple and easy. Many riders tend to shy away from in hand work, just like I did, because it looked so complicated and alien. But it doesn’t have to feel like that. If you are given enough information and gently taught to guide the horse and what responses to look out for it’s remarkably easy.
When you understand how your individual horse moves, you begin to understand the effect of your crookedness on each other. You start to feel, in your bones and body, what it’s like to be in alignment with yourself and with your horse. You begin to know when you’re truly straight, because the horse goes naturally into self-carriage and takes up his natural rhythm on the bit.
And you experience the almost-magical changes that happen in your horse and in your relationship with your horse.
I will be giving a workshop on the 5th March Hadlow college Kent with Andy Ford focusing on the above. We invite you to join us and experience this simple gently but powerful approach to horse mastership.
19th Feb Riseholme College Lincolnshire
5th March Hadlow college Kent
12th Brinsbury college Sussex
ANDY FORD Andy is a full time instructor working in the south of England. He has been particularly successful in producing event horses and riders and his pupils have competed ay BADMINTON. BURGHLEY. BRAMHAM and CHATSWORTH Three Day Events. His dressage pupils have competed at Prix St Georges and F.E.I Junior and Pony level. He also trains many less competitive riders whose aim is to have a happy and balanced horse to ride.
“I have worked with Joni for a number of years and, like Joni have discovered that the way to produce a relaxed. balanced and harmonious horse and rider combination is to understand and address the combinations inherent crookedness. I have found that along with ridden and dismounted work, a great way for the rider to improve their understanding of their horse’s bio-mechanics is to learn In Hand work. Working their horse In Hand, the rider can guide the horse into a better balance using easy to learn exercises which can be easily introduced into the horses training routine. In Hand work is also a great way of introducing lateral work without the added burden of the rider, this then making it easier for the horse to produce when under saddle. Most horses benefit from ten minutes In Hand work prior to being ridden or as a training session in itself when time or daylight is short .”
For more information visit my website www.jonibentley.co.uk or call me for a chat 07771811561
If you can't get to a workshop check out my DVD home study course written especially for thinking riders who care about their own and their horse's wellbeing. In this DVD home-study course, you’ll learn how to turn your riding around and find a middle ground with clarity and ease, where your horse is happy to meet you. Plus it’s available with video feed back from Joni.
