One and a Half Horsepower Snowplowing.

Earlier in the week I shared a post clinic recap regarding the Biomechanic's and Centered Riding clinic with Jen.
Initially my first impression was indeed confusion and pain but also appreciation for the passion this woman has, always thinking of making things easier for the horse. After all, horses were never meant to carry humans on their backs.

Since then, the pain and some of the confusion has subsided and blossomed into a general understanding and further knowledge to add to my equine/riding library.

I am often told that I am over thinking things and I think I was here too. Although, I believe other factors were contributing to my difficulties, one of which is saddle type.

First off, close contact/jumping saddles are meant to assist the rider in maintaining a more forward center of balance to stay with the horse over fences and not inhibit the movement required for optimum jumping effort.
Problem numero uno in attempting to allow a draping leg, open hip and relaxed ankle.


Excuses aside, I was in fact over thinking this.
The coach was attempting to give me an idea of what she believes in, stronger, secure and less impactful riding, all condensed into a 45 minute lesson.
I struggled with focusing so much energy into achieving the 'Snowplow', toes to ears, lightness in the ankle, rotated thigh (thinking almost knee pinch but not), foot slightly back (thinking of 'feeling' the hock), that I was actually lifting my legs outwards. In turn pinching the nerves on the sides of my hips, ending in much pain.

Last night my goal was to create what I learned, play with it and learn.

Ok, ready? Recap Snowplow.

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I arrived at the barn with my bundles of layers and glorified snow pants in check set our 'circle of death' exercise (more on that later), and proceeded to grab Paloma from her stall.
Most days Paloma, the barn watch dog, will hang her head out of the stall and welcome all visitors. Tonight, she was quite literally bouncing at the stall door. Z-uh-oh, this may be a 'fun' night.

Paloma contained herself for the most part, despite the random 'death' stare she would give me as she saw me walking toward the rack holding the saddle and girth.
Legging up, no problem, but she was forward. Clearly working on a solid 1.5 horsepower tonight.
Sounds like a problem or annoyance, but actually my legs reap the benefits of hyper pony mode, so I welcome these moods.

I immediately began running through the checklist that I had learned in the lesson, positioning myself just so and remembering ankle to hock and toes to ears. Which, after attempting it again and figuring out why it hurt before, it made sense!
Ankle to hock= more connection with the horses haunches, thus riding horse back to front.
Toes to ears= removing the a-typical nagging of the ankle and back of the calf, a hunter habit, achieving more connection with your thighs and lastly a stronger base.
All in all, Jen calls this the "snowplow" or "down hill skiing plow", after she noticed my puzzled look.

Keeping these things in check among the many other things involved in proper riding proved tricky but I found that Paloma was quite happy about the new freedom around her barrel and she was quite a bit more sensitive to my aids than before. Mind you it could have been the 1.5 horsepower engine I was working with but I did noticed a significant difference compared to other '1.5 HP days'.


For now, I am still undecided whether or not I would take on this clinician again, mostly due to cost and the lack of information that can be understood in 45 minutes.
In hindsight, I think I got my 65 bucks worth in snowplowing techniques, at the very least!