Upcoming “Sit the Trot!” Clinics & Lessons Summer 2008
Please see below about BODY MAPS, SHARED SPACE, & VISUALIZATION!

Lessons available in the Western Oregon Wednesdays through Saturdays. Call to schedule.
If you are interested in hosting a clinic please contact Michele at potentmoves@gmail.com

CLINICS Now Scheduled:

• June 28-29 Crosby Creek in Woodburn, OR - 2 days of movement lessons and riding.
• July 11-13 Cave Junction, OR - 3 days of movement lessons, riding, and Functional Integration body work for your horse.
• ALSO: August 28 – 31 North Willamette Valley Adult Amateur Camp - Hania Curjel Price & Bernadine Diers and I will team up for four days of fun learning!

Call or e-mail Michele Morseth at 541-504-0494 or 541-219-0085 (cell) or potentmoves@gmail.com

Neuroscientists and movement scientists are discovering great new things about how we move, how are brains and bodies learn new movements, and how we coordinate our movements with HORSES and other people.

The structures in our brains, researchers have discovered, are pliable and plastic. This neuro-plasticity means the body maps in our brains change depending on what activities we do, how we do them, our perception of ourselves, and how we think about our bodies and our movements. For riding, two elements are vital for learning to ride well, our sense of space and our body maps.

We have a sense of personal space which allows us to maneuver through crowds in an airport or slide past horses, people, and tack in a busy barn aisle. We also have a sense of shared space for joint actions in which we coordinate our movements with another. We blend our personal space and coordinate our movements to waltz with our partner around the dance floor or to pick up a heavy object with another person. The blanket toss works because the group of people holding the edges of the blanket coordinate their movements to toss the person in the middle high into the air.

According to a study on coordination dynamics between horse and rider, the expert rider flows in motion with the horse, coordinating three areas of her body (sacrum, ankle/heel, shoulder/elbow/wrist) with the movement of the horse’s trunk. With an expert rider, at the trot, the sacrum of the rider and the horse move together and the rider absorbs the motion in a single up-down movement of the sacrum. The back is relaxed and supple as well. The novice rider makes smaller, bumping sacral movements and tenses the back. She lacks resonance with the horse. Second, the ankle of the expert rider was shown to be crucial. While the novice rider’s heel and toe moved together, the expert rider’s heel moved far more and came up earlier than the toe. The effect is explained:
“having flexibility at [the ankle] allows the expert to maintain stable phase synchrony between his body and the horse, whereas [because the ankle does not flex] the novice is more passively perturbed by the force of the horse’s vertical motion.”

The third element is likely a result of the first two because with good absorption of the movement in ankle and sacrum and low back the shoulder can better relax. In the study for the expert rider, the shoulder, elbow, and wrist moved together, also in phase with the horse’s sacrum. The horse also showed better coordination and evenness of movement under the expert rider. In the novice rider there was an increasing lag in movement from shoulder to wrist as the horse trotted. The novice rider gets out of phase, tensing up from the horse’s movements, never blending her personal space with the horse’s.
The expert rider not only shares her personal space, she also incorporates the horse into her body maps. Your brain is crammed with body maps about yourself and the space around you. Wrap yourself around a horse enough and your brain, capable of reorganization in response to experience, will include the horse in the body map. Ice skaters blend their personal space in an exquisite dance and their body maps reflect this extension of their own body map into the other—the two dancers become as one. A good driver does the same—the car becomes an extension of her own body map. When we ride a horse well, we blend our personal space with the horse and our body map will, over time, reflect this–our brain will change so our concept of our self, our homunculus includes the horse. Just as a concert pianist has a well developed body map of the skills it takes to play well, the good rider develops a body map that blends with the horse. The good rider anticipates the smallest change in the horse’s movement and redirects or adjusts her balance and movement to the horse.

The article about coordination dynamics and riding postulated that practice and training will make stiff and tense movements fluid and flexible. I don’t completely agree. Time in the saddle, if spent moving with the motion of your horse, will develop the body map that will support the movements needed to ride well. The more you ride in synch with your horse, the more your body map will come to include your horse. Spending time bumping against your horse will reinforce the tension and reinforce your personal space rather than you and your horse’s shared space. For riders who ride only an hour or less each day this can be frustrating. However, research in learning movement skills shows that visualization has much of the same effect on movement as actually doing the movement. In studies it was shown that partaking in an activity once a week and visualizing doing it well in three 1 hour sessions had the same effect as actually doing the activity 3 times per week.

Visualizing in detail about riding your horse and moving with it will also help you move with your horse—if you have felt the sensation of moving in phase with your horse. Begin at the walk and take the time to sense when your personal spaces are blended and you are moving in synch with your horse. Have someone help you recognize when this occurs. Then visualize that movement in detail, sense your seat bones contacting your saddle, your thighs and calves against the sides of your horse and the ribcage moving back and forth. Sense the relaxed movement of your back and shoulders and the flexion in your ankles, the movement of your shoulders, elbows, and wrists in response to the nodding of your horse’s head. Experience the pride and satisfaction that goes with really moving and directing each step of your horse with quiet hands. Sense your horse’s back move under your seat, his hind legs moving your pelvis, first on one side and then on the other. This detailed visualization will help you master riding, even when you don’t have the time to ride many hours a week.

**Sit the Trot! is a current ODS Business Member.  In return for paying higher dues, ODS Business Members are permitted to send 1 broadcast e-mail per quarter.  Please contact the ODS Office for details.