These clinics exist to help teach riders body positions that can reduce the risk of serious injury from a fall. It's using physics, gymnastics and rote position drills to reduce the risk of head injury, getting stepped on and other serious issues associated with coming off. You practice slowly over and over again so that when you eventually have to do these things in a split second on a real horse, your body reacts the right way without thinking about it.
Alert: You're not going to learn a thing from reading about or auditing LandSafe. You really, really, REALLY have to participate in the clinic to learn it. Do not try this at home, but please try this at a LandSafe clinic! I think every rider should take this.
These clinics are held in two four-hour sessions over a weekend. For the first half of the first day, we learned the brace position (spoiler alert: yes you DO want to put your hands and arms in front of you! But without your joints locked), and then learned how to hold the brace position in increasingly more difficult exercises using gymnastics mats and trampolines. Then we moved to the mechanical horse.
I was generally A+ at the gymnastics exercises, but putting it into practice on the mechanical horse was a whole other thing. In order from what I found easiest to what I found hardest:
Rearing - easy
Left rotational fall - easy
Left shoulder fall - it was easy until they took all the mats away and we had to land on the green inflatable, then it got very hard to stay tight
Right rotational fall - hard, I don't twist this way easily
Right shoulder fall - also hard
Emergency dismount - ridiculously hard (for me only)
The emergency dismount scared me, and also is what left me the most sore. No one else had as much trouble with it. Unlike a Pony Club emergency dismount which teaches you to kick out of your stirrups before jumping off, Danny teaches you to launch yourself out of your stirrups, using your hands to push away from the horse's withers, so that you land running as far away from him as possible. I found this incredibly challenging and got my right foot hung up on the cantle numerous times, but I did finally do it right in the end. I was also left so sore from this specific exercise, it still feels like someone is knifing me down my quads as I write this nearly two days later.
I learned so much though, and I think I'll do it again next time it comes around. I have so little body awareness, these are skills I'm going to need to drill over and over in order to get them right, and it's not like I have a mechanical horse sitting around to practice on! Also, I may have bought a new helmet while I was there...
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| Review to come |
Sounds like an excellent clinic; were there any 50+ age group folks? I definitely would not be able to do an over-the-cantle emergency dismount, not being as flexible...
ReplyDeleteNice new helmet...I have wondered why helmet companies aren't mandated to have a recycling program for old helmets (not the bashed up ones they will take for doing statistical tests on)...there must be a huge amount in garbage dumps or closets...
Glad you asked that! There was a woman in my group who was probably in her 60's. Kelly and Danny modified the exercises for her. She wasn't able to do all of them, but she did most of them, including shoulder rolls off the horse onto the tallest mat and rearing.
DeleteI wish there was a recycling program too. It's not like I can donate an expired helmet to a riding program or something, it just has to go in the trash.
Thank you Jen for the update - I am more apt to pay for such a clinic that can provide adaptable exercises / situations for us older folks!
DeleteAnna
I really want to do one of these clinics. Do you think doing the clinic helps you feel more comfortable when riding through shenanigans?
ReplyDeleteI'm such a naturally timid rider, it's not made me more bold or more willing to jump on something stupid. Danny said the same thing that the end of the clinic, the best thing you can do to keep yourself safe is not get into unsafe situations in the first place by having the right horse for the right rider doing the right level. But I think it makes me more confident that if shenanigans happen, I'm more likely to get through them without a serious injury.
DeleteYay! So cool you got to do one of these. I'd really like to do another one myself, though I remember being so sore afterwards.
ReplyDeleteMy triceps and quads were pretty sore, but that was about it. Definitely made me wish I had a hot tub though.
DeleteI've never heard of these clinics, but it sounds really interesting! What is the point of not kicking your feet out of the stirrups on the emergency dismount? The risk of having your foot caught scares me.
ReplyDeleteDanny harps on two ideas throughout the clinic, that in a fall you want to protect your most sensitive body parts (head, back) and also you want to get as far away from the horse as possible, always knowing where he is in relation to you, so you don't get a secondary injury after the fall from him stepping on you or falling on you. So the idea of keeping your stirrups is that they give you something to push against to launch yourself far away from your horse. Without your stirrups, you're pretty limited in how far you can get away from him. He told a couple of real life stories from his eventing and steeplechasing days about how he would've been seriously injured if he hadn't pushed off his stirrups to get enough leverage to get away from the situation.
DeleteI REALLY want to do this clinic one day! It looks seriously so, so valuable!!
ReplyDeleteI really want to find one of these near me and do them. Sounds invaluable!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic opportunity! I'm definitely going if they ever have a clinic near me.
ReplyDeleteThat seems like such a useful clinic to participate in!
ReplyDeleteThese clinics sound great! I remember reading Olivia's posts and thinking they seemed really useful. Glad you thought so too! Love the new helmet, looks great on you!
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