hey writing superstars so today i am going to teach you i must say at your massive request i've had so many requests for this how to not bounce in your sitting trot i can't wait to share this with you [Music] so guys you gave me such phenomenal feedback and honestly sent that video somewhat viral of how to stop bouncing in the canter i can't i couldn't believe how much you guys loved it you've asked for the trot i wanted to take a really good time to think about it and exactly the same as it did for a canter use a strategic planned proven system that will stop you bouncing in your trot okay so there's three components we're going to go through first we're going to go through why do you balance what mechanically happens to your body that makes you bounce okay and the bouncing good boy is the symptom the symptom of some other things that make you bounce we're going to tell you what that is the next thing we're going to do is address the cause of those symptoms so what things that can we do to address the cause of your bouncing okay on the third step i'm going to give you exercises to break down your ability to do a sit trot so that you don't bounce in a oh hey rest in a manageable cool way that you can do no matter what level you're at okay so that's the three things we're going to do but this this is the epic bit i am also going to teach you how your sitting trot can be this magical crystal ball in terms of how you're going with your training scale doesn't matter what level you are whether you've just got your horse in your bit or whether you're a grand prix rider your sitting trot is this crystal ball to actually how good your horse is going and i am going to tell you about that one as well before we look at the symptoms what actually happens to our body that makes us bounce okay now you know i'm the analogy queen with the banana and the flap like a dark and if no one knows what i'm talking about these two videos here tell you about that you might think it's crazy but it works really well this is all about the peg analogy [Music] have a look at this old fashioned wooden peg it's not spring-loaded it's one of those old-fashioned ones that you can make a little bit wider with fours but you can't really open it now think of a pair of jeans or a duvet or whatever it is loads of clothes and laundry that you've got on a line and you're trying to wedge that peg over the top of all of that those garments to try and keep it on the clothesline it's getting tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and the more you push it down the more it spreads and looks like it's going to get around it and going to seat down on the clothesline but all of a sudden it just flies out and pings off that's actually the same with our seat so toby is my cameraman tobes come in here and have a look at my seat when you start to ping off like the peg if you look into here toby your legs will often be doing this so if you look at me normally then look at me when i'm gripping they grip in okay you'll see that your toes will often go down your heels will go up instead of being lovely and nice like this everything pings and as you do that toby could you please get a great shot of my bum for everybody and as you do that you'll see that you create this space here and the more you pull the more you come up the more everything pokes out and then the the way to sit which is to be a part of your horse disappears so you end up just like that clothes peg pinging up out of the saddle so it's not about gripping with your legs as soon as you've gripped with your legs you can't sit trot anymore okay it's not about trying to drive him into the seat this is not friday night ladies this is horse riding and we just want to relax okay all of those things that we do to try harder when we can't sit shot actually makes it worse and you end up with this massive snowball effect okay and this peg analogy the visualization of the peg this actually is a little bit of a precursor to the crystal ball later to the crystal ball where it teaches you hey this also teaches me this also shows me when my horse isn't going so good within the training scale but we'll get back to that at the end okay so the peg analogy picture the peg visualize the peg you are a peg on your horse about to be pinned off that's why you're bouncing so how do we solve it so guys now we know what the symptom is the symptom is i'm pinging off the saddle coming out peeing like that peg okay now why what's the cause of that symptom here's where uh i'm not in the picture enough sorry i didn't introduce him guys this is my almost 19 year old grand prix horse this is wessel he is um a very special little monkey and you do see him in some of the some of these videos so yeah he's a beautiful little boy bit special doesn't realize he's 19. but we'll get on to that so anyway so you know what the symptom is we're looking for the cause the biggest cause is is just biomechanically how you sit on your horse a lot of people have this this incorrect information that you need to grip around your horse's body and hold on tight absolutely not okay what i want you to do is stand on the ground now just like you normally would put your head leg legs about shoulder width apart maybe a little bit further and just squat down okay squat down pelvis a little bit forward so it's not pointing out like this and just squash and feel the ground that's actually what the horse should feel like underneath you it's not that you're gripping with your legs or that you're driving with your seat it's just that you happen to be standing on the ground with you which is your syrup your pelvis is pointed up towards his ears a little bit so that you're sitting on your bottom not on your front sections okay and that the horse is just traveling underneath you so that you're almost traveling on air above him you have contact with him but it's light it's soft this is all about self-carriage when we think self-carriage we think about the reins it's also about this but riders have it in their head i've got a hole i've got a grip i gotta stay on no no you have to stand on the ground and have your horse underneath you that's it so how do we make sure you're standing on the ground easy thing stirrups so many people have two longer syrups okay so let me take my feet out of the syrups let's imagine that i can't reach them look at my body i can't squat i'm stuck i can't get out i'm stuck on the horse i need a solid whoa cheerful i need a solid surface on the ground where i can even stand up so that's a really good measure if when you get on your horse you can't stand up and keep your legs relatively exactly the same as what they were when you're sitting down it means your stirrups are too long there's an amazing article written that says long stirrups doesn't equal long legs if you want long legs you need a surface to be able to stretch down into so first things first make sure your stirrups are short enough okay yet again how do we measure that stand up if you can't stand up stirrups are too long okay and you need to be able to stand up without locking your knee out like that you need to be able to stand up and still keep a slight bend in your knee okay that is step one step two is all about fear or the i wasn't in there again or the perception that you may fall off the perception that you may look stupid that people are going to judge you that you're bouncing around like a crazy person and you don't want to be judged it's amazing how much influence that has to the way you ride okay it's amazing how much that can make you bounce just the fear of bouncing okay or the fear of falling off have a look at these videos here so look at these two here this one of them the left side is me in my perception bouncing around like the worst rider in the world i'd be embarrassed to go out the next one is me writing how i think is correct yes you can see the difference sure but they're not that embarrassing aren't they it's not that bad and that's what you have to remember and i challenge you guys to try this don't use your sitting shot as to how you perceive other people are going to see you and understand as well that sitting truck while being scared makes it worse it's a vicious cycle so only do what you can manage so then you see guys it's actually not that scary at all and you know what who cares what other people say you're learning you're allowed to learn so give yourself that space to learn so now we know what it is the peg what biomechanically and mentally causes the peg now i'm going to teach you how to have no peg let's get into it okay guys so now we understand why we become a clothes peg why are we off the horse like that and what biomechanically and mentally causes it now i'll show you how to fix it because all well and good to know that how do you fix it okay now there's loads of different ways and i'm going to give you a few exercises that you can work out that suit you okay if you're a person that's very nervous and actually part of the reason why you bounce and grip is through nerves okay make it a really easy transition so rather than thinking i must get a beautiful beautiful trot all of the time and not bounce make your goals small so walk along think about how your seat moves in the walk think that you're going i've got four beats here move your seat within those four beats of the walk visualize your legs on the ground think tall so you saw even there i was like my legs are a little bit like this when i was thinking about it and then i relax them down visualize the floor visualize the position in your body at the moment and then think about what you need for trot okay when you go to trot don't wait till you fail just get sitting trot and then go back to walk so for example i'm walking along you have to excuse wesley he thinks he's three and not 19. so he may spoke at some things you're walking along and now i go trot but that's enough walk again so i learned to get my confidence that i'm not going to lose my horse so i simply just go walk like this and then throw us truck and walk again and then i can you know it doesn't matter if i walk for another 10 circles visualizing it finding it analyzing what i did right what i did wrong and then again and then walk again and again i might do it quicker now and then walk again and then quicker now and then walk again and you see the horse gets better at it because transitions are good for a horse anyway and it also gives you confidence i don't think there's anyone out there who wouldn't be confident to trot for a step or a half a step and then walk again take control take ownership once you've got a bit of confidence you can increase that so you just do it for a count so let's say we go for five so we try one two three four five walk try it one two three four five walk trot one two three four five walk so you see you're taking over if at any time you start to bounce and you lose control abort mission go back to walk so let's do it as if you were struggling okay so i say i'm gonna do five steps one walk let yourself walk let me try and make it as bad as i can ready so try it oh look but you see by giving yourself the power to say it's okay to walk when you lose your balance that's okay relax a little bit more try again i'm going to try again now i mean oh i'm leaning forward oh no no re re abort mission go back again okay oh no no i put that inside the board mission go back again center two legs sit tall oh my god oh my god i lost it again walk it's okay to do that build and build and build okay so that's one line you can go down if the reason for you pegging is because you're afraid you've got nervous issues that's option one option two let's go in a rising trip okay and we make sure our horse is going really good first in a rising trot okay and you need to be able to do everything in rising anyway before you can sit and guys there's a little precursor to later on where i show you the crystal ball so sorry he's spooking at the dog thank you jeff for helping so you keep rising and then the same thing you just sit for a moment so i rise i sit for three one two three rise i sit for three one two three rise i plan to sit for three one oh just abort mission all right good boy go again i'm really good at that now let's make it nine i'm rising i sit for nine one two three four five six seven eight nine i rise good boy mercy so you're able to take control make a plan have a plan for success let yourself abort mission let yourself go from walk let yourself find your way so that you don't get stuck into or jeff is really not helping today is he good one jeff he's like i gave the opportunity out here before jeff you weren't interested what's going on and as you see guys we leave the dog in here we let them be like this wesley's particularly spooky and if i don't keep his scenario spooky he gets spooky all the time and again if you want to see a video on that have a look up here we've got videos on spooky horses but back to it so you see already if you've got a problem with fear solved if you've just got a problem with strength not being able to keep in the right spot etc etc you now have a plan it never works if you just keep trying okay let me show what happens when you keep trying in a wrong way okay when you don't abort mission and this will be why most people that are watching this haven't had success okay so let's do it from the rising trout now he's a school horse he's grand prix okay now instead of sitting for a set amount of time that i decide with a plan to abort let me do it in a bad way see what he does he comes above the bit oh oh my god oh he loses rhythm everything i'm like hey hi spokes how was that for getting that on film sorry wesley good boy but it shows you why it goes so bad because when you're getting it wrong you lose rhythm you lose the fundamentals of the way the horse goes so actually it can't be good you'll never get it right because you've actually created a problem with the bouncy sitting trot whereas and you saw how bad that got as i told you he has no idea he's 19 years old watch now even though i've caused that problem okay this is in real time guys i've caused that problem i made him spook that much he lost his rhythm that much look what happens now so hopeless if i just do it correctly so he's a bit nervous when i started so i went to my rising trot to help him find the rhythm i'll get him past jeff just to make sure his life's a little bit easier now sit hey and just by doing it in the right way he's fine good boy russell do you see guys it's through all your trying that makes it so difficult so now i'm going to teach you the crystal ball so this guy's is relevant for any of you that are at a higher level now when i say a higher level that might mean that you can just do novice and you can sit trot without bouncing it might mean you're a grand prix rider trying to get that really hard corner to corner to middle half path line or pirouettes on the center line this applies the same okay and it applies the same for canter and trot but we can talk about trot today because we're here so again if you want canter click this bottom this button here it talks about that okay so let's have a look at the crystal ball okay guys so everything you do in your riding you need to be able to do in a rising trot as well as a sitting shot just because in a test it's in sitting doesn't mean that in your riding you can only do it in sitting what rising trot tests for you is to whether the horse is there on his own four legs and in his own way through the training scale or whether you're holding him there with his body and you never ever want to do that you never ever want to be holding him with his body so for example guys a traveler in a rising trot can we do a travel while we're rising can we keep the quarters in can we make him travel like this without sitting okay equally can we do a half pass without sitting that he's traveling through the training scale he's hind loins to the bridle and actually it's all through the training scale good boy that ensures he can do it he smokes again a little bit there that ensures that he can do it it's simple what we often do is we start to clamp so if you watch the same exercises now in a clamping sitting trot you're gonna see what happens he loses rhythm he slows down he pulls out all these different buttons that i don't necessarily want because i'm squeezing even if i'm sitting up tall goodbye wes he's getting confused but even though even though i'm sitting up told looking pretty i'm clamping so when i go for a half pass what happens quarters lead rhythm changes he's against me actually what am i doing different look at all the confusion good boy all i'm doing is squeezing with my legs i'm being a peg that is the crystal ball to say to you hey he's not able to do it on his own four legs he's not able to do this by himself so let me do exactly the same exercise good boy wessie without clamping just by sitting through my saddle thinking about the connection of my horse and you see it's immediate guys as well i can solve this even after such horrific things prior all because the clamping was showing that there was something wrong with my training scale so if i had that happen and i wasn't able to relax my seat okay then i would go back and i do those movements in rising doing those movements and rising ensures that the horse is doing it on the aids not driven by your seat so now guys let me show you once you understand that you need to be able to do all the fancy things in rising trot as well that are you're able to sit drop without having the peg come into play what sort of excitement you can create you can create massive extensions my 19 year old beauty you can bring it back to normal you can ride a little passage you can go forward again good boy you can go trot pf no problem that's right no problem at all little trip there good boy wes into facade into extension again all because you want to listen to me i'm not puffing i'm not tired why because i don't peg and i'm sure peg has some other reason i don't know about the peg is my reason i don't am not a wooden peg mwah i hope you guys learnt so much i hope that this was like this massive eye opener for you that you can do it you can do it so much you can do it i believe in you you've now got the tools believe in yourself okay watch some of my lives we give away prizes all the time because i want you guys to have the opportunity to ride horses like this i believe that every rider can ride like this little horse like this if they want to help me grow the channel so i can make that happen now i'm puffing thank you so much for watching guys i'm so appreciative and i hope you loved this episode