Can You Critique This Picture?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by EvaZ on September 15, 2010 at 10:16pm

Jackie, Steinkraus is FS. We are in agreement, you are just talking about round back associated with "coupled with the rider looking down, with pivoting on the knees, and the lower leg swinging back. "

I have never mentioned these. I am not advocating a seat, that may lead to an accident. Quite an opposite. And as far as the "proper position" is concerned, it may be worth to study what very succesfull GP show jumpers are doing. You might find a huge variety of styles - including looking down, which is so frequent one might think twice about calling it a "fault". And you know, it works for them too. Lot of this styling rhetorics is just not holding water in the real world.

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Permalink Reply by EvaZ on September 15, 2010 at 10:38pm

Jackie, to illustrate the point, how pointless is the whole arguing about styles, look at our hero - Frederico Caprilli - on this picture:
http://ko-kr.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=381308999356
or here:
http://www.centroippicodipavia.freeservers.com/images/caprilli.jpg

I am sure, you will also find another picture of the same guy having a complete different shape. And both will be correct.

The point is this. Whatever you do on that horse, it must be 1.safe and 2. effective.
Both points are somewhat relative. What is safe in one jump, might be dangerous in another. Flexibility is the key. Safe means, you will minimize impact on your body, and you will not be easily displaced upon refusal or stumble of the horse. Your shape must reflect the situation.
Effective means, the horse does not have to fight the extra air resistance your body might cause, and your hands will not pull on the mouth, allowing the freedom of the neck, and your legs will not kick the belly. You will also be able to recover from the jump as quickly as possible, never loosing control of the rein.

This was the main objective of Frederico Caprilli, and whatever satisfies 1 and 2, would be OK with that guy. I can feel it my bones ;-)))

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Permalink Reply by Jackie Cochran on September 16, 2010 at 8:09am

Jocelyn is learning to jump. Hopefully soon I will be going over cross-poles again. Both Jocelyn and I are jumping at an elementary level. Until Jocelyn gets the body knowledge from actually doing the jumps, she will not be able to jump automatically. Until that wonderful day (and it will come for Jocelyn) her main security jumping will be keeping proper position. When Jocelyn is a more experienced jumper "proper position" won't mean a lot and her seat will change to reflect changing conditions.

When I started riding I took the cavalier attitude that what all those boring, fusty, fussy, nit-picking horsemen who wrote the classics could not possibly be correct about the necessity of really good position. If I did not have MS I imagine that I would have done well, no matter what variation of position I'd take over a jump. As it was, I was rarely satisfied with my jumps, and I had no idea how to fix it and my riding teachers were not telling me how to fix it. None of us knew I had active MS.
However since I DO have MS and have a constantly changing variety of neurological problems, I have found that all those nitty-gritty details were EXACTLY what I needed. By concentrating on the minutia of position after 3 years of riding I am finally secure enough to think about riding outside the ring, or of hopping over tiny jumps. It would have been dangerous for me to do either 3 years ago, today both are possibilities, but only because I have fixed every problem with my position. If correct position can do that for me, a crippled middle-aged woman, just think what it can do for an athletic teen-age girl. She has no limits.

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Permalink Reply by Jocelyn on September 15, 2010 at 5:51pm

After reading your reply, Just wanted to say that your story is really inspirational. It shows how you'll never give up on your Love of Riding, no matter what.

Never Give-up, Work Hard, and Enjoy.

Thank-you for all your help.

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Permalink Reply by Kairen Jamieson on September 16, 2010 at 12:52pm

Sorry..but to me a rounding back is done by collapsing the cores...and if my horse is coming into a 4'3" -4'9" fence with a stilt or quite coming...I do not round through the lower back but engage the seat and cores supported by the back muscles (which to me is why it is the cores that should control shoulder/upper body alignment by proper engagement and not the back...if the muscles along the spine are tense or used..you often get a hollowed back/posed look with eviodent tension that often affects the shoulder and armpit angle...if the cores are doing their job...the back muscles are free to act as an aid or as a supporting aid to the seat/leg/cores themself)....this in itself puts the seat bones into place as long as the ankles are suppled and without rotation or uneveness that would cause a collapse in the hip.....nor do I round when galloping downhill on a cross country course...it may be okay for training level...but if you are coming into a wide high peliminary fence off a hill...the upper core is still stretched keeping the shoulders aligned while the lower core is working for the waist/hip...and a gallop seat is okay if someone has the control over the body to adjust the alignment into a Jumping seat...but usually this has the green rider to much over the wither which encourages them to either anticipate a distance wrong or has them opening the knee angle too much...two point works not only the ankle...but also the angle alignments...especially the most important one in jumping...the ankle angle/rotation/suppleness...so...what is the focus of the point that I am missing...I am sure there is one...just a little blind I guess...lol.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Lamm on September 16, 2010 at 7:17pm

You and your horse are having fun and enjoying yourselves and I don't critique because I don't jump but I loved reading this thread...... maybe I will just give you an atta girl and have fun!! and hug that horse of yours for me... looks like a boy I know...

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Permalink Reply by Jocelyn on September 21, 2010 at 5:06pm

Hehe..That horse is actually a mare, Mandy. ex-TB racehorse, Oh and how I wish she was mine. =)

Thanks for reply!

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