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MPR
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| Posted: Thu Apr 24th, 2014 07:44 pm |
The dressage saddle has a Y rigging for the rear billet. I suppose I could use just the back one, which connects to the middle and rear positions.
Someone had mentioned the balance point for a particular horse. I just read about this in a sport horse conformation book, so I tried to map it out on a photo of my horse. I don't know if this balance point thing is correct or not....but the lowest point of the saddle seat is suppose to be at this balance point. This would be position B?
Attachment: IMG_3455.JPG
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David Genadek
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| Posted: Thu Apr 24th, 2014 09:15 pm |
| I have attached your picture with some lines on it assuming that is how the points were arrived at. With out knowing more about the reasoning behind this it is hard to comprehend the misunderstanding. This may be an interesting proportional study but the notion of a balance point is a gross over simplification that does not take into account the magnificently engineered intertwined systems that create the horses motion. You should go to the knowledge base and read The Ring of Muscles anatomy Active & Passive Function. You should also read Debs Principles of Conformation books to get a fundamental deep understanding of where you might choose an anatomical point and how it might have a meaning. Perhaps Deb can see some meaning in those points that I can not? Attachment: proportions.jpg
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MPR
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| Posted: Thu Apr 24th, 2014 09:30 pm |
I enjoy studying and learning, so I'll check out those resources. As soon as my horse starts moving, it is clear that his frame is moving in an uphill way. The still shot is different. A person can diagram a photo, but seeing a moving horse is much more informative.
My thoughts on all this......have the rider at Point A or between A and B. Then then influence the horse with the rider's aids and body position. ??
Anyhow,..thanks for posting on this interesting topic.
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MPR
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| Posted: Thu Apr 24th, 2014 09:42 pm |
Here is a motion photo. The rider is in position A or A to B. My horse is moving uphill.
Attachment: 11-5-2013_002.jpg
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Ride A Grey Horse
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| Posted: Wed Nov 9th, 2016 08:16 pm |
David I've just seen on your website that you now make an English saddle! Trying to cheer up on this day of shame, so I'd like to consider one, to replace my fancy-brand saddle with the stirrup bars that leave my legs working to fall right.
Can you tell us a little about it? I know for years you only made Western trees.
Thanks and best,
Cynthia
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EvanB
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11th, 2016 05:03 am |
As a Foremanist (Monte Foreman) I had a particular interest in the sitting positions given as the concept of sitting in the 'correct' place is very important aspect of Foremanism. If I may get onto a rabbit trail for a second. I do feel that although Foreman is only casually mentioned, his riding concepts and saddles were largely misunderstood even by Mr. Genadek and that what Foreman was trying to teach through his system (including tack and equipment) can only really be understood by an in depth study of it. Not to mention that Foreman was a man of 'facts' when it came to horses and was always experimenting and never satisfied (including saddle design) even up until his death. Also that with saddle materials he was subject to the constraints of his time, that the 'balanced ride' design was never solely his own and he did not consider it flawless. I apologize for getting off subject.
Back to my question. I guess I feel the need to go around a bit here to fully explain. So in Foremanism we definitely seek to be in position A yet the old original balanced ride couldn't quite get a person there sitting only when rising in the stirrups (which systematic rising makes up a large part of Foremanism), but as one of Foreman's students continued on with the saddles in scientific form as he would have wanted I feel both in theory and in actual use that this saddle properly placed depending on the horse and rider, sits the person at position A or at least between A and B. As David mentions in the thread that Liz riding in A had the same horse respond much quicker and more easily when turning on the hind end than when in position B. I can remember my own surprise as I learned Foreman's technique the same feeling of ease with which the horses stopped, turned around, and changed leads. So I guess I mean to say having experienced the same thing from better position compared to say in my case a 'regular' western saddle, I do not question the advantage of position A. So now I can start to get to my question. Two Baucherists I have studied a good deal are Fillis and lesser known H.L. DeBussigny. So with this idea of a 'horizontal balance' that these men had as opposed to what they viewed as the 'old school' idea of in their minds trying to get the horse almost constantly balanced with more weight to the rear the majority of the time they wanted an equal weight distribution on the front and hind legs right. So then in his work 'Equitation' DeBussigny in Chapter 21 entitled 'THE ASSEMBLAGE' sets down his own experiment he did in proving Baucher's theory on two platform scales as follows...
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From the beginning of equitation, this state of equilibrium of rider and horse has been the subject of researches and theories, more or less practical. Of these, Baucher's is the most reasonable. Moreover, this grand master has proved experimentally the existence of this equilibrium, and the fact that it is produced by the assemblage. I give here one of Baucher's tests in the form in which I have several times repeated them for myself.
An ordinary saddle horse, properly trained but not practiced in the demonstration, weighs one thousand pounds. I place him, without saddle or bridle, with his hind legs on one of two platform scales and his fore feet on the other. If he took naturally a state of perfect equilibrium, he would thereupon register a weight of two hundred and fifty pounds with each foot, five hundred pounds at each end.
But as a matter of fact, the forward scales register 612 pounds; the rear scales only 388. The horse will not distribute his weight equally between the two pairs of limbs, unless his naturally wrong position is rectified by the demonstrator.
For this purpose, I add a twelve-pound saddle and three pounds of bridle; making the new weight 1015 pounds, which the horse distributes, ten pounds in front and five behind. I take the reins of the bit and raise the animal's head. At once the weights change, and become more nearly equal. The front scales now show 522 pounds and the rear 493. Fifty pounds has shifted to the hind legs.
Still keeping the head up, with the aid of a whip, I place the hind legs side by side, and both perpendicular to the horizontal line of the horse's spine. All the while, I bear lightly on the bit and flex the head at the atlas region. The scales now indicate 510 pounds on the fore legs, 505 pounds on the rear ones. This difference of five pounds arises from the impossibility for a man on foot of keeping the front legs exactly perpendicular upon the scales or obtaining perfect flexion at the atlas region. Allowing for this small difference, we have here an undeniable proof of a state of transmitted equilibrium imposed upon the animal by the man.
The demonstration is still more striking when the horse is mounted. I weigh, dressed, 172 pounds, a total weight of 1187. Letting the reins lie loose, I find that the scales read 722 and 565 pounds. I take the reins, flex the horse's head and neck to bring the animal "in hand," and at the same time, by the contact of my legs, I bring the animal's hind legs into the perpendicular position. The scales now read, in front 598, behind 589, a difference of only nine pounds. In this particular case, the horse had become pretty nervous from having his feet on the unsteady scale platforms; and in order to keep him quiet, I had been neglecting my own position, and leaning slightly forward, for the sake of loading the fore legs and keeping them still. As soon as I rectified this, and sat with head and body erect, the forward scales read steadily 593, while the other oscillated between 592 and 594 with the action of my legs in trying to keep the horse perfectly quiet. It was a convincing demonstration. Moreover, by leaning forward or backward with the head very erect, I could always take thirty-five or forty pounds from the reading of either scales and add it to the other."
As far as I can see in the pictures of his work he sat around position B perhaps even more toward C at times. So my question really is seeing the results of his test which proven what he is saying how would the riding sitting at A effect the same? Because I would think one could in some ways rightly say that in A the rider would be putting a greater proportion of his weight on the horse's front end and rightly I think. So if that is the case than how can it be that the horse with the rider in A is able then to work much more easily and freely especially in work on the hind quarters? Any help would be greatly appreciated in understanding this...maybe it is just me but when I get onto something like this I get almost fixated and getting it settled in my mind!
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Kuhaylan Heify
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11th, 2016 07:37 am |
Dear Evan: Very cool. What book did you get that out of, and is it still in print?
best
Bruce Peek
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DrDeb
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11th, 2016 08:56 am |
Yes, Evan, the DeBuissigny experiment is an excellent and famous one. Sally Swift applied the same technique to helping riders become aware of their own weight distribution habits, i.e. most people weight one foot more than the other all the time. Swift used two bathroom scales, one per each of the person's feet.
All accomplished horsemen sit the same way. You will find the 'right' way to sit whether you look at the best horseman in Mongolia, Persia, Japan, Argentina, Germany, France, England or America.
Many authors -- and particularly in our culture and language, we are familiar with those of Europe beginning at the end of the Medieval period and especially after the printing press comes to Europe in the 1550's -- many authors of this period and culture have tried to describe the 'right' way to sit. Indeed so also did Xenophon, writing some 400 years B.C. So here, I am about to relieve you of the tendency which you say you have to obsess -- just stop it, my friend, because authors have struggled with this. I know they have myself, because I too have authored books, and here also I am writing to you through this forum. But writing ABOUT something is not the thing itself; and in short, it is very difficult to adequately put into words what 'sitting right' really means.
Neither do photographs always convey it, nor either videotapes or movie film.
The reason for this is that 'sitting right' is NOT a position; it is a dynamic. No good rider ever sits 'in a position'; to do so would be to pose, to be a wooden doll like you see people trying to be in the Western Pleasure competitions. Needless to say, they are very confused, and they have totally lost the essence of what it means to ride well.
So to sit 'right' is not a position; it is a dynamic, which means, the good rider is the one who can go with the flow, with what Dave Genadek calls 'the river of energy' that comes up from the animal's foot-contact with the ground and which flows through its oscillating spine from rear to front. For example, I have had people scoff at me (because the only explanation for it that they can wrap their heads around is that this must mean that I am a coward too afraid to ask much of a horse): they scoff because I tell them the truth, that I haven't come off a horse in over 35 years.
And this is for two reasons. One, because I live by a hint I once heard Tom Dorrance give: he said, "Until I have THAT I don't even want to get on them." And the 'that' that Tom was talking about was whether the horse cares about you or not; whether he wants to be with you MORE than he wants to be anywhere else, or do anything other than what you have suggested to do. From that moment on I committed to always making sure this would be the case; to make getting that OKness and keeping that OKness the numero uno priority at all times whatsoever.
And the second reason is this. In 1977 I was taking my first hunt-seat lessons at a proper stable, and had progressed so far as to be permitted to rent school horses a couple of days a week to go for practice rides not under the direct supervision of an instructor. One day I was in the indoor arena on a big roan TB X QH named T.J., a horse anybody would like to ride, a real nice horse who didn't mean any more harm than any other horse would. The indoor hall at that place was a Butler building (sometimes called a Bonanza barn), one of those I-beam frame places with the metal siding. It had big sliding doors at either end so the tractor could go in and out. The front door, which opened onto the stable yard, was open; the back door was almost shut but not quite; there was a gap of maybe ten inches between the two doors.
Well, we came around there at a trot and damn if there wasn't a horse or a person -- not absolutely sure what it actually was -- moving around out to the back, and they happened to brush by the gap in the door just as we were passing it, and old T.J. shied a big one, right down to his elbows I mean, to where I felt the sole of my left foot smack against the ground.
And I didn't fall off. And I heard a little voice in the back of my head, and it said, "you know what Deb, you're going to be able to do this."
Forty years later and I'm in my sixties and I'm out riding my lovely Ollie one afternoon with a group of people in a field. The farmer had given us permission to trod around in there as the crop had been harvested and the irrigation turned off. Like most fields around here, that one is fitted with big metal boxes over the irrigation heads. The boxes are open to the side facing the field, and we would be passing those openings as we trod around the field. Well somehow a white rag had blown into one of them and got hung up on the spigot, and there was a little wind that day, and so you probably know what happened....Ollie's neck gets level with the pitch-black opening before mine does and he sees this white "ghost" flapping around in there before I do, and he goes BOOM, straight down to his elbows in a bigtime shy. And the girl behind me says "Geezus! Are you all RIGHT??!" because again, of course, I didn't come off -- just sit 'right'. But remember also, T.J. cared about me -- though back then, it was before I'd met Tom so I didn't realize that was part of my success. Ollie, of course, came much later and I've deliberately worked to get it that way. Which means, when the horse goes down to his elbows and it takes your butt two beats longer to catch up with how fast he's gone down, HE WAITS FOR YOU TO ARRIVE before he does the sideways part of the shy.
And the same applies everywhere else too, whether you are jumping or going down a steep pitch on a trailride, or cutting a rollback on a cow: to quote the jazz repertory, "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing."
So again, as I said at the top: all good horsemen no matter where in the world, sit the same way, and that 'way' is largely unpicturable and ineffable. The best that an author can do is to give an idea of what the 'limits' are, i.e. don't sit grossly on the fork, don't hollow your back, please for God's sake bend your elbows, don't hang on the reins, don't look down and in but rather up and out, relax all the joints of your legs, relax your butt muscles, and sit as square and as quiet as your own physique, the horse's, and the work situation allow.
And after that -- quit worrying about it. When people would ask Ray Hunt this same type of question, he'd have them go do something simple, like a circle; and he would coach them a little close, until they were doing pretty good with it, and the horse was OK, soft, properly flexed, moving forward from the leg willingly -- and then he'd say to them, 'so how do you feel about your position now' and of course there would be not one thing that anybody could criticize about it. In short, Ray was wise enough not to get the cart before the horse. -- Dr. Deb
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EvanB
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| Posted: Mon Dec 12th, 2016 03:34 am |
Hi Bruce, I thought there was a link in there. The whole work is actually now online publically. It is from 'Equitation' by H.L. DeBussigny. It's a good book. You might find several things you'd like to implement from it. He was much more a true Baucherist in my opinion than Fillis was. One of my favorite things is his divisions of equitation given at the beginning. Also he gets pretty scientific with anatomy and gaits for his time. A paper back version can be had pretty cheap on Amazon last I saw.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Equitation
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EvanB
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| Posted: Mon Dec 12th, 2016 04:44 am |
Thanks Dr.Deb, I appreciate your taking time to answer so thoroughly! I'll have to read your response a couple more times I think to glean out all the wisdom. Being a younger person though I do enjoy learning from the experiences and studies of folks older than myself. From my own experiences I do agree. Sometimes I've seen people with what is considered by many a 'correct' seat with horses that couldn't work at all and stiff in the way riders, and on the other hand riders who if examined by an 'expert' had an incorrect seat who were real naturals with their horses. Of course I don't mean to say position doesn't matter!!
I guess the way I'm looking at it is more mechanical, in regards to DeBussigny's test versus the positions A,B, and C and the effects they would have. Because it would seem just looking at things very plainly as if there was a disagreement between what the scales would say and how that relates to real life action up on the horse and especially at speed stopping and turning. So no doubt say if someone did the same test three ways (A,BC or in the middle, and the croup seat)on the same horse the scales I imagine would read vastly different. Wouldn't it be so that the rider in the croup seat would appear to not only the horse's but his own weight 'loading' the hind end, yet I wouldn't expect that same person to be able to do much at all for reined maneuvers for example. So in that case the weight was technically back off the front but the rider would be in the way so much as to not be practical right? And then on the other end of the spectrum position A would appear to be loading the horse's front end on the scales yet from what I read here such as from Mr.Genadek, the anatomy of the horse's back, my own personal experience and that of at least every serious Foremanist says that A is the best place to be to make things easier for horse and rider if you can get there, which is why I found this thread so interesting in the first place because honestly outside of Foremanism it is rarely talked about in the general horse world! Caring the concept then into real life for myself any way I was raised with what I would call late 80s early 90s cutting and reined cow horse training (giant seated flat seat cutting saddles) being around my dad, but really he was more cow horse as he put reined work on all his cutters which just like today many haven't the slightest idea. Anyway so as I got old enough to start training there was always this honestly speaking 'pride' about having a horse well reined you know, it always sets a guy apart especially in SD! So around the time that Foreman's teachings came to me I thought I had a good grasp on a lot of this kind of stuff, not that I was a know it all or couldn't be told just that I thought I already the foundation. Then watching some of the more advanced Foremanists I was amazed at the speed, ease, and seemingly effortlessness with which the could preform what Foreman called the 'basic handle' (which is truth compared with many things isn't so basic). It honestly shocked me a bit, thinking we are reined cow horse people we are supposed to be some of the best at any kind of reined work and I couldn't at the time come close to what they did easy. Long story short as I studied, learned and implemented much of Foremanism I was surprised at how easy it really was! As I came to find out Foreman called it just that 'the easy way' with his motto 'the right place at the right time with the least amount of fuss'. All this time before I came to see that in reality with everything I'd learned from CH folks I was at least partially in the way. When I was up in that position A area and with a better understanding of foot falls at all gaits maneuvers didn't require the kind work I formally had to put in because the horse could do them all along I just had to get out of the way. The hardest part for me with my back ground was to not slouch, not shy away from support on the stirrups, and to quit sitting the stops. And again I was amazed how they'd stop when I wasn't in the way, still more amazed that they'd turn around better being upfront in an A, AB position. Which if someone would have told me before there is no way I would have believed it. But it makes sense to me now there by giving the horse an increased ability to bring his hind legs underneath his mass and work off his rear. The part I am failing to see right now is how does sitting more forward behind the withers and its effects on the horse relate to the horse's weight distribution such as seen on the scales. Again I don't question it works because I've experienced it but could it be that it does indeed place slightly more weight to the front while at the same time freeing up the back and hind end? I realize to that the horse itself plays a large role here. For example I enjoy teasing the gauchos I know from the Criollo process because many have only ever ridden the best Criollos and Freno de Oro/ Freio de Ouro bred ones at that and so they have extremely talented horses making many what a lot of people would call 'difficult' moves easy such as lead changes for example. I tease them that with a regular old run of the mill Quarter Horse their program would not work on them. Like with the lead changes they don't teach the Freno bred horses to change leads they merely change on their own because of their fantastic breeding but so many 'average' horses couldn't do that they way that they sit on them. So to tie all this back in to the thread that is what I am wondering is about what the scales would theoretically read in a static form in A and if that means more weight to the front how to understand than how that positions still frees up the horses to work so much better. And I apologize to anyone reading if I rambled on!
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EvanB
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| Posted: Mon Dec 12th, 2016 04:49 am |
I can share to illustrate the quality of animals which they work with! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdycGDGRCg&app=desktop
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DrDeb
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| Posted: Mon Dec 12th, 2016 07:54 am |
Evan, would you be willing to condense your previous post to just one or two sentences, and be sure you ask a specific question -- just ONE. Your post is unreadable, and so far as I can tell, contains neither a question nor an observation about your real experiences with your own horse. Understand please that I am not here to listen to/read novels or "stream of consciousness" from the merely curious, and I don't think any of our good longtime correspondents is, either. Thanks for the courtesy. -- Dr. Deb
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EvanB
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| Posted: Mon Dec 12th, 2016 12:58 pm |
1. My personal observation was noticing the very big difference in the ease with which my horses worked when I could get to A in a saddle.
2. My question is two fold. Doesn't sitting at A actually put more weight on the front end because it is further forward? In other words as compared to DeBussigny's test sitting further back. And if that is the case that it puts more weight to the front how can it be understood/explained that it frees the horses up to lift the back and work off the hind end?
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DrDeb
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| Posted: Tue Dec 13th, 2016 03:39 am |
Evan, yours is a question straight from the end of the 18th century, and the confusion that lies behind it is the essential reason why Saddle Seat riding, and for a long time the riding and schooling of jumpers also, went wrong.
The confusion is this: the horse is not made of wood. It therefore does not work like a wooden rocking-horse. When you pull the front end up on a wooden rocking horse, the back end goes down and indeed the point on the rockers where the most weight bears, moves toward the rear. But a real horse does not work that way, and you and others are deceived if you think that's what DeBuissigny did in 'raising the neck'.
A real horse has a back that works like a diving board. It is not rigid; it is elastic.
When a real horse collects, it coils its loins, which drives an elastic wave forward through the spine which ultimately assists in raising THE BASE of the horse's neck (i.e. not its head), along with the forepart of the thorax. The coordination of the rider's leg and hand, a skill which DeBuissigny certainly had, also independently induces and assists the horse in raising THE BASE of the neck.
When the horse raises THE BASE of the neck, even if its head shoots forward and down -- which it must do in the greener horse who has not yet achieved the strength for full collection under a rider -- so long as it coils its loins, arches the freespan, and raises THE BASE of the neck, then it will have as much or more weight on its hindquarters than its forequarters. The huge mistake made by 18th century riding masters, and those who came before, and indeed those who came after up until Baucher and Caprilli, was their belief that you had to raise the horse's head in order to lighten the forehand. But when the rider raises the head, or a device such as an overcheck is used to achieve the same, it drives THE BASE of the neck downward and this in turn sends a 'hollowing wave' backwards through the spine, which makes it much more difficult for the horse to raise the forepart of the thorax, arch the freespan, or coil the loins; and this in turn, because flexion of the loins in turn governs flexion of the stifles and hocks, makes it impossible for the horse to sit down in back. In short, if the horse's head ALONE is raised, without first being supported by raising the base of the neck, then the horse will wind up being more on the forehand than it was before.
When DeBuissigny "raised the head", he did it according to Baucher's method no. 1, that is, he did it with the horse in 'rassembler', i.e. we would say 'round'; and he did it by the coordination of the leg and hand, so as to produce correct 'ramener', which we would call 'arching the neck'. And arching the neck requires that the horse make the effort to raise the base of the neck; that's what arches the neck. Thus DeBuissigny's horse was, in state 1, relaxed, just as he says; but in state 2, fully collected according to our own definition, i.e.:
(1) Collection starts from, and is always primarily the product of, coiling of the loins.
(2) Collection is continued when coiling of the loins induces a 'rounding wave' through its elastic spine, such that the freespan of the back becomes arched.
(3) Collection is completed when the abovementioned wave results in the raising of the base of the neck relative to the core of the loins.
Now my friend, you can stop worrying about weight distribution, in other words stop living in your head; but instead go and ride your horse, and attempt to feel what I have just described. And go to our main website and download the three crucial papers which are free .pdf's which I ask all students to study:
(1) Lessons from Woody, which is about the primacy of straightness to collection;
(2) True Collection, which describes the biomechanical mechanism in the horse;
(3) The Ring of Muscles revisited, a further exposition on collection, straightness, and OKness.
And if after studying these materials you find that you do not know how to teach the horse to collect, or your horse is not doing it or does not find it easy to do, then write back for more help. Cheers -- Dr. Deb
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devvie
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| Posted: Wed Dec 14th, 2016 07:31 pm |
"HE WAITS FOR YOU TO ARRIVE before he does the sideways part of the shy."
Oh yes! Absolutely the only reason I've not once come off Mr. spook, rear, spin 'n bolt when he is having a "moment." He could easily have finished the job so to speak! Yes, I'm new to the forum and yes, we're chipping away at the groundwork exercises and I'm saving up my questions.
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