Reach for your toes

Do you feet go to sleep when you ride? Do you feel like you jamb against your stirrup?

Do you have trouble getting your foot straight into the stirrup? Or maybe sometime you need to be able to tighten your girth when you are on your horse but you don't feel comfortable reaching down to do it. Here's a quick tip to improve your contact with your stirrups and tighten the girth while mounted.

Next time you ride notice how much pressure you have in your stirrups. Does it feel like you really brace against the stirrup? Could you imagine being able to slip a piece of paper underneath your foot without losing your balance? How far down your horse's side can you reach comfortably, without worrying about falling off? Can you reach your knee, the horse's elbow or your foot? Be honest with yourself. If you are using all your muscle strength to stay on and not breathing it isn't easy!

Start slowly and look for gradual improvement in your ability to comfortably reach towards your foot. Be careful of the horn if you are in a western saddle. You might want to spend a minute at the beginning of each ride for a few weeks rather than trying to accomplish this all at once. If it is too difficult to do it in the saddle practice this lesson off the horse while sitting on a flat surface. Then once you have mastered it try again in the saddle. Reaching your foot is not the goal. Finding a comfortable way to get there is!

Start with sliding your hand down your thigh, then off the end of your knee in the direction of your foot. If you have long arms this may be easier than someone with shorter arms, however everyone can do this when you find the right balance.

The key is to move your hips far enough back in the saddle to counterbalance the weight of your upper body as you lean forward and down towards your foot. If you are too far forward in the saddle to begin with you will tend to round your back to get to your foot. But this will cause your lower leg to swing back making it impossible to reach your foot.

If your back is arched when you start you won't be able to get very far down and this exercise could feel scary - like you are going to fall off if you are not careful. Push your pelvis back in the saddle and start again. Make sure your back is flat before you begin.

Once you push your pelvis and hips far enough back in the saddle it will be much easier to reach your foot and of course, the girth while you are there. This is because you no longer need your foot to help support you as you fold down. You will counterbalance the weight of your head going lower with your pelvis further back in the saddle.

Once you can easily reach your foot see if you could pick it up just enough to slip a piece of paper underneath. If you can congratulations! You have figured how where to rest your weight on the saddle without stiffening your leg. If you can't pick up your foot then it means you still have too much of your weight in the stirrup or worse, you are bracing against the stirrup. You will have to experiment to find out where to rest your weight in order to pick you your foot that little bit. But when you do you will discover that you don't need to brace against your stirrups anymore.

Use this Murdoch Minute to improve your contact with the stirrup, distribute your weight more evenly through your leg and seat and be able to tighten the girth while mounted. Spending a little time with this exercise might also yield some interesting results in terms of freedom of movement in both you and your horse. And remember to enjoy the ride!

Wendy Murdoch resides in Washington, VA and is an international riding instructor/clinician. She travels worldwide teaching riders of all levels and disciplines how to improve the horse's performance by improving their body position. Her book, Simplify Your Riding and DVDs Simplify Your Riding - Ride Like A Natural Part 1 -3 are available at www.murdochmethod.com.