Biomechanics Lesson

Yesterday I had my first biomechanics lesson in a while. With both horses going so well and Kate lending me her butterfly saddle and the weather being good (cold, but not raining), I figured it was high time to get some lessons in. 

I decided to ride the pony because TC is on his clicker training and mostly walking/trotting protocol. That ended up being a good thing because as per usual in biomechanics lessons, there was a lot of starting and stopping. I think TC would have been weird about that. 

Such a cute pony

Unfortunately the pony didn't feel great. I took his temp but it was normal, if a little low. Everything else was normal, he was just a bit quieter than usual, who knows why. Maybe I was being paranoid, he is normally pretty chill in the cross ties so maybe I was just nervous about having a lesson. I let the instructor know that he was a little iffy. The ride wasn't hard on him at all (mostly standing and walking) so it was okay. Plus, spoiler alert, he was fine.

The two big things I wanted to deal with were: I wanted to figure out my twisty thing that causes me to *occasionally* feel like I'm falling off the side of horses (I think I just need to catch this on video since it didn't happen yesterday so it was hard to explain) and I wanted to deal with me losing a lot of my organization when horses get behind my leg. 

We didn't quite get to those things necessarily, but I still got some good things to take away. 

So cute

The realignment went well! She said that I had nice internal rotation, tone, and alignment. She only had to change my pelvis a little bit because I was slightly hollow backed. Apparently based on watching me ride, she couldn't tell I was hollow backed until she got her hands on my seat bones. I think I tend to be more hollow backed on the pony than TC, but either way, my core was not engaged enough to hold my pelvis in the correct alignment.

From there, we worked on my bear down. It definitely needs some work so I relayed that to her, but she said that pretty much all riders need to work on their bear down. She put her hands on my stomach and really had me work on it and she was very picky. She said that I tended to push down instead of out. This was brand new for me so I want to think about this more.  

She also said that my breathing wasn't very good. I know this but it's always good to have a reminder! I could NOT make the noises she wanted me to make. She thought I might be shy or resistant to shouting, but I pointed out that we were all alone in the little valley and that I've always had problems projecting my voice. I started to think a little bit more about that. Could it be that these were all related? I'll explore that later. 

He's gotten so fancy

From there, we played with my leg alignment. Again, the internal rotation was not an issue, which was good to hear! I have always been told that I had a bit of a "hunter jumper leg" with my toe out. I've been working hard on that. The biggest issue was that I struggled to engage my abductors, necessary for suction. She had me hold my lower leg away from his side and then resist her push to push them back in. My left side was weak but my right side downright HURT me. So that's something I need to work on! Interesting that TC's harder abduction side is mine too... damn those mirror neurons! 

Other than that, my leg was pretty good I guess! The resistances for keeping my toe up and my lower leg back were quite easy for me. 

We did some riding and worked a bit on my fencing lunge for steering. She thought this might be my issue when it came to me falling off a bit to the side. I'm not sure how much it's going to help me with my falling off feeling, but I'm going to run with it and see what happens!

Glad he was feeling better

Overall I felt like the biomechanics help was great! I got some really specific things to work on in the gym and a few things to think about while riding. My day was all biomechanics all the time because we got word that Mary is potentially coming in February!!!! First time in two years! I'm so excited. I'm definitely going to do the workshop again and might end up doing the clinic with Mary. I'm not sure what horse I'd ride, but that's a problem for future Megan. 

The pony was totally normal by dinner time last night. He was apparently "perky and demanding dinner" according to my mom. Either way, both horses are going to get some time off next week. They each get tomorrow off and then it's going to start raining on Monday and not stop for a while (boo, but we need the rain).