Cob Jockey

A few days ago, Andrea posted about a lesson she had on Dylan, and something stuck out at me.  As riders, we are all too familiar with that phenomenon where you hear something one way your whole life, and suddenly someone else restates that thing a different way, and it clicks.

Andrea said "If I float a seatbone, he loses his hind end on that side."  It honestly didn't even register with me as I read it, but I found myself coming back to it during my next ride, which was a lesson.


What have I been told in the past by not only my trainer, but also clinicians? I...
- Scrunch up my right side
- Put too much weight on my left seatbone
- Need to "close the door" between my right arm and the right side of my body
- Have a more closed hip angle on the right
- Carry my right shoulder lower than the left

The view from my office window today.  Hello darkness winter my old friend

But as I was riding on Thursday, I very clearly felt why all of those things were happening: Connor has this move where he can toss me onto the left seatbone, so that all the weight comes off the right seatbone and the right side of my body crunches into a compensatory fetal position to counterbalance being thrown off balance.  He especially loves to do it when I'm asking for right bend and he don't wanna, so he tosses me over and lifts the right side of his back higher than the left while my "crunch" move renders the right side of my body totally useless to make him bend.  Smart pony.

My thought process went something like:
- Horse isn't straight, dammit.
- Remember Andrea's blog for some weird reason
- Hey, where ARE my seatbones?
- Oh, that one isn't touching the saddle, hmmm.  I'll put it back.
- DAMMIT I JUST PUT IT BACK AND NOW IT'S FLOATING AGAIN WHY DID YOU...oh.
- Figured it out.

Even as far back as 2012, we loved to pile on the left side.  Both of us.  Collectively.

I had a great lesson, in large part because I was finally able to independently figure out what was going on, put all the pieces together, and resist Connor's signature move.

Thanks, Andrea!