AND RIDE RIGHT

Editor’s Note: It’s a rare rider who hasn’t been told she sits “crooked” in the saddle. At some point in your riding career, an instructor, clinician or even a well-meaning friend has likely pointed out that you collapse to one side, hold one shoulder higher or carry one hip ahead of the other. These observations aren’t just nitpicking. A horse must compensate for the asymmetries of his rider to maintain his own balance.

This means, of course, that most riders are motivated to correct postural faults for the sake of their horses. But that’s often easier said than done. After riding crooked for so long, straight feels odd, and attempting to maintain the correct position for long periods of time while still riding smoothly and effectively can be exhausting and frustrating. Eventually, you may begin to think you’ll always be crooked and it will forever limit what you can achieve in the saddle.

But what if sitting crooked wasn’t your fault? What if it was the natural and direct result of how you---how all humans---are built? And what if this asymmetry wasn’t something you had to “fix” in order to be an effective rider but merely something to be aware of? According to Nebraska physical therapist John Macy, these ideas aren’t just hypotheticals---they are all true. What’s more, he says, a small, but significant, adjustment can help most riders straighten out.

Macy’s work with riders over the past five years has produced new insights into the source of asymmetry in the saddle. He has also developed some easy-toimplement methods for keeping crookedness from interfering with your ride. If you’ve struggled for years to correct a crooked seat, his ideas may seem almost too simple to be effective, but so much about good horsemanship is ultimately, elegantly, simple.--- Christine Barakat

My personal experience in the saddle is limited. I used to ride horses with friends out in Washington State, where we headed up and down mountains on the trails. It was wonderful, but from a professional standpoint, my interest in riders, more than horses, is what led me to start thinking about asymmetry in the saddle.

In my work as a physical therapist, I focus on movement symmetry. For many of my clients, asymmetric movement causes problems in daily life, as well as athletic activity, and I help them become more symmetrical. I have a client who is a very active show jumper in upper-level competition. One day, she asked me to come out to look at her horse, who seemed to be having a problem staying straight.

On my visit to her barn, I took video of my client and six other riders working in the arena and over jumps. But early on---before I even looked at the videos---I noticed something interesting. When the riders were sitting in the saddle simply speaking to me, a pattern emerged: When relaxed and “at rest,” many riders sat in the same asymmetric way, with the left stirrup slightly shorter, more weight on the right buttock, and the knees pressing inward toward the saddle on the left and outwards on the right.

In reviewing the action footage later, I discovered another pattern, one suggesting that a lot of equine asymmetry was caused by rider asymmetry. Many of the riders shifted to the right as their horses lifted up over the jump, which forced the horses to compensate. Usually they were successful, but not always. In every case on those films where a rail was hit, the rider had shifted to the right as she came up in the stirrups for the jump. The straight riders were more efficient and effective.

This phenomenon is not unique to riding. Optimal performance in any sport or discipline requires a position of athletic readiness---a balanced and symmetrical posture. The most efficient athletes make adjustments to accommodate terrain or other variables but repeatedly return to a balanced, symmetrical position. Across virtually all