Now we are getting into the series of lessons that are going to seriously launch you into a world class rider. I am very excited for you! The Feel you have been developing for your horse will bring you a new depth to the riding lessons that you saw and did right back at the beginning of your program.
The most important joint in your body as a horse rider is this joint where your legs meet your pelvis – which is your real hip joint (Sue is pointing to it in the photo to the left).
When your pelvis – the interface between your body and your horse’s back – is in the right position for you, you feel strong and stable as a rider and your horse is able to move freely and happily underneath you.
And your hip joint plays a big part in keeping that beautiful power and stability as you ride.
When you are in your perfect pelvic position and when you turn in the way I show you in the lesson audio – as you rotate your body – your position is so strong, yet gentle, that your horse will automatically turn with you. In fact that’s how I tell whether I am in the perfect position or not, because my horse turns effortlessly with me as I turn my own body.
Women’s pelvis’s and the muscles tendons and ligaments around it, tend to take a hiding over our lives. Men can have falls from horses that damage their pelvis – but women not only have falls – we specifically bury a whole heap of emotional stuff in the pelvis that tightens us up and then we add childbirth to that.
The goal of this lesson – and repeat it as many times as you feel for maximum benefit – is to release any stuck spots in your pelvis and make a strong stable seat and independent legs on your horse a reality.
And at the same time learn how to turn your horse effortlessly.
This is another lesson straddling the chair, in clothes suitable for riding. Get the height of your chair comfortable for sitting in a riding position by building it up with books if you have to.
This is a 13 minute healing and riding audio lesson – click here for the alternate recording of Effortless turning
You can repeat this audio whenever you notice a stuck spot in your pelvis or to eliminate a bigger problem in stages. This is a very well supported program, so don’t forget my background and skills – I am available for one-on-one healing sessions if the problem feels too big!
Written Version of the Audio
As with every lesson, if this lesson did not release stuck spots in your pelvis and bring you to an even stronger and yet happier seat on your horse, then it will be through no fault of your own. It will just mean that there is some kind of blockage in the way that needs something other than what we are doing here to move it – so just contact me for a private session.
Now take your attention inside yourself and listen inside yourself.
Notice what parts of your body move as you are breathing…
Feel for your heart beating…
Notice… with soft ahhhh eyes… any energy in your body, any feelings of energy, any movement, any ebb and flow and just pay gentle attention to that. And notice how quickly and easily you drawing yourself into listening deeper inside yourself.
Now allow your mind to gently take you into the effortlessly strong and stable riding position that you have worked on so many times now. That’s it, just allow your body to slip into that position where you feel all those two sets of muscles lining up parallel to each other and making a column of strong and stable core muscles automatically.
Notice how that is happening a lot faster and easier than it did back at the beginning…
Now… take your attention to your hip joints that we showed you on the skeleton in the video and with soft eyes, move your knees very slowly in and out just a little bit and feel that joint – and feel what happens to your seat bones and riding position while you are doing that. Just notice how much movement there is and what happens to the rest of your body as you are moving…
Come back to your knees relaxed again.
Feel that hip joint again, take your attention down to it.
Now, IMAGINE the joint itself opening up and ALLOWING your knees to roll outwards. You are not rolling your knees outwards – you are imagining that the joint opened up so that your knees COULD roll outwards.
Hmmm… and notice the prickles of energy, the little rushes and ebb and flow and movement of energy in your body as you do that.
Let the joint come back now.
Just imagine that the joint is softening and opening and imagine that the joint is allowing your knees to fall open. Notice anything else that needs to soften too, as you pay gentle attention to what happens to your seat bones, to the magnetic connection between your butt and your chair horse as you do that…
Like everything else this is not about trying, this is about it being easy, being effortless.
Bring those joints back again.
Now very, very slowly take your knees out as far out as you can without any effort at all and notice what happens to your seat bones and your magnetic butt.
Feel the resistance? Can you feel any tightness or tension in other parts of your body as you try to do this with your legs?
What I am trying to get you to feel, is that a good leg position – the gently froggy legs that Peggy talks about, comes from a softening of the hip joint itself – not from placing the leg itself in any particular place.
When you get to the place that it takes effort, melt back a little and make soft ahhh eyes as you pay gentle attention to the energy there in those hip joints, in those seat bones, pay gentle attention to the change and movement of energy around your body and allow the release of any unnecessary tension from that joint, allow any understanding of anything that you need to know or do to flow.
Sit quietly for a while, while you do that.
If you need longer in this space, then stay there as I take the rest of you into turning your horse. If you need to, you can do the turns next time.
Now remember the rotations that you did when you were standing?
Hold your arms up as if you were holding reins.
I want you to imagine that you have eyes on the front of your shoulders, on the front of your hips, on the front of your knees on the front of your toes. And, listen to the whole instruction before you do this, keeping these lovely soft opening hip joints, I want you to very slowly turn all those eyes to the left at the same time – ONLY to the place where you can turn easily and naturally with no push, no twisting, no contortions, no effort.
Now turn… feel those soft opening joints in BOTH hips as you turn all those eyes, in a tiny, tiny movement.
Now come back to all eyes looking straight ahead.
Most of you probably tried too hard to turn on the chair. Because this is a chair, not a horse, and the chair is not going to move, then you cannot turn all your eyes very far at all – in fact the movement is tiny. You will get a bigger movement on a horse as the horse turns with you.
But the point I am trying to make is that when you are riding your horse, the turn is EFFORTLESS. It is easy.
And if it is not easy, then we need to listen deeper inside ourselves, melt off it, make soft ahhh eyes, and figure out what needs to change, what we need to know or do for either us OR for our horse, to make it effortless.
One of the things that might have to change is that you are going to have a stirrup length short enough to ALLOW you to soften that joint and for most of you, that will probably mean shortening your stirrups. Don’t get hung up on that though – it will be whatever it needs to be. Just don’t be surprised if you need to shorten your stirrups, that’s all.
Now have another go… turn… Feel those soft opening joints in BOTH hips as you turn all those eyes in a tiny, tiny movement and just imagine your horse flowing into that turn with you…
Staying connected with heaven and earth while you are turning your horse. Now THAT is a rotation… Mmmm mmmm.
For any of you who have not yet found that beautiful place for softening and opening those hip joints and for turning your horse, AND THERE WILL BE SOME OF YOU WHO WILL NOT HAVE FOUND IT IN THIS LESSON the first time – then replay the lesson as often as you like, when that feels like a good thing to do.
Bring it into a live seminar or come back to me for a private if you are not finding the right position in a lesson – that’s what we’re here for and that’s how the course has been set up – so that you can get just what you need to achieve what you want…
I can’t wait to hear how you go when you try this on your horse!
Up Next
Okay, so now it’s time to take your new, beautiful magnetic riding seat out to your horse and anchor it into effortless auto pilot.