Correct position
Mary Anne Campbell on a balanced seat
When I was first learning to ride I just sat on a friend’s horse and hoped not to fall off. I was twelve, I didn’t even know about helmets and never had boots, I rode bareback through the foothills of the Cascades and just tried my best not to fall off. It was a long walk back to the barn!
Then as a college student at UC Davis I took riding lessons. Not being content to just take lessons, now that I had options I took everything - well, not Polo, but everything else. Western equitation , reining, western showmanship, hunter/jumper classes, English equitation, dressage, trails.
I learned that I sat wrong, and that there was a correct way to sit to do jumping, or to do western riding, or to do dressage. And they were different. And the western riders thought the jumpers and dressage riders were effete, the dressage riders thought the western riders and jumpers were boorish and unkempt, the jumpers thought the western riders and dressage riders were just plain dull.
So being a congenial sort of person, I didn’t take sides, just explored them all and did them all equally badly, and none of it really made sense.
And after college, went back to plonking around on friend’s horses in the Oregon countryside, trying not to fall off.
When I finally rode with Craig, though, through the truly exceptional approach of the French cavalry seatwork exercises I developed a seat that was based not in fashion but in balance— and then riding made sense in a whole new way. And then I understood the rational behind the origins of the seats espoused by the instructors, and understood why their disciplines spoke of ‘one right position’ and yet—how little we Americans understand about real balance.
I don’t know— I really don’t know— how it is that horses don’t just walk away from the lot of us given the little attention Americans put on the development of real balance.
When you have it, or begin to approach it— it is SUCH a game changer. Regardless of the discipline, you know how to find your right balance with the equipment and the activity at hand. And real balance gives you calm, connection, and leaves your mind free to work at its best.
When you’re even a small amount out of balance that lack of equilibrium speaks through your whole being, your body, your emotions, your thoughts. Like being hungry or in pain, or like having to go to the bathroom: being even a little out of balance interrupts your ability to make rational sense.
Get seatwork.
Don’t let anyone tell you how to sit, get real seatwork that challenges your balance in a good saddle that protects the horse a bit from your mistakes along the way.
We teach it here. Come do an intensive.
There is no substitute for real balance, there just isn’t. And when you have it, you can do whatever you want with it, and it will be seriously safer, much easier — and a lot more fun.
