Mini-Clinic: Fixing the Hands and Arms

The BHB has been improving leaps and bounds since he had front shoes applied and a thorough massage to relieve any lingering body soreness. So in celebration, I thought I'd share some of the tips and tricks that have helped me improve as a rider.

I'm definitely not a professional or upper level rider, but I'd love to share the things that have made a huge difference in fixing my riding and position issues. My hands and arms are probably my weakest links in riding dressage, so I'm constantly trying to improve them.

1. Shorten the reins... all the time!
• When my reins get too long, everything starts to go downhill.
• The one thing that has made a HUGE impact on me recently was when Heather told me that the top international riders are constantly shortening their reins between movements and even during movements in their tests.  They've just perfected the art of shortening the reins to make it discreet enough so that neither people nor the horse really notice it. This changed my mindset of trying to keep the perfect rein length. Instead, now I'm trying to shorten my reins much more frequently!
• Think about whether you need to shorten your reins or not at every half halt.
2. Shoulder blades back and down
• If my shoulders roll forward, my arms straighten, so in order to fix this I have to think "stick the chest forwards/ upwards" 
3. Elbows at the side
• Obviously a big one for me! I seem to have a hard time getting to that perfect spot with my elbows. Most often I have them too straight, but sometimes I'll also have them too glued to my sides. The elbows should be just in front of being perpendicular to the ground, and the angle of the elbows can vary greatly upon rider build and horse front end build. 
• I hit the gym and do weight exercises that engage and strengthen my lats. There are a million options for these. You can do a search for "lat strengthening exercises" and find some that you have the equipment for. If you don't have weights/gym equipment, you can use straight arm planks  (make sure you "pinch" your armpits to engage the lats) and tricep push-ups to engage the lats (these differ from regular push-ups because you keep your elbows next to your sides the entire time)
4. Double reins reduce fidgeting
• For some reason when I have two reins to hold, my always-busy hands become quiet. I can't wait to see if this holds true at shows once I'm ready to show 3rd+ level where it's legal to use a double bridle.
5. Fingers closed
• I still struggle greatly with this since I want to have super open hunter fingers. I've tried all the "hold x between the reins and your fingers" tricks, but none of them have really helped me. Wearing stickier gloves makes it a little bit better, and grippy reins with stops help a tiny bit too. I'd love to see if anyone has suggestions for this. 
6. Be "side reins" to reduce movement
• In the trot, imagine your arms are creating the same connection as side reins would with the horse's mouth. Hold your hands steady in one spot and don't move them except to do open the rein to the side when needed.
• Holding a grab strap at the front of your saddle can help you distinguish when your arms are actually moving so you can increase arm movement awareness. 
7. Straighten the wrists
• These fix themselves when I have short reins and good arm positioning without tension. At one point in time I was ready to tape Popsicle sticks to my wrists to help with this though!
8. Stop bouncing arms
• If you fix all of the above and lose any extra tension you may have in your shoulders/arms, this should resolve itself.

Uncovering soreness... at a show!

For the past two months, the BHB has been a bit more sluggish and downhill than usual. For the most part we blamed it on the heat coming out, but after watching Heather ride Mark before our show 2 weeks ago, it became evident that he might be foot sore. He was super downhill and his front leg movement resembled a western pleasure shuffle while his hind legs were as snappy as usual. Lately, he's also seemed to digress in his training too and Heather has been struggling with the lead changes he's never had issues with before.

We had the hoof soreness confirmed by our vet who noticed that he seemed slightly off in both fronts while trotting on the lunge. The farrier also examined his hooves when he came out. The BHB didn't react to hoof testers, but his feet are so large that it's hard for anyone to get enough pressure on them! Evidently the footing in the arena we school in (crushed rock, all-weather type material) is making his feet sore. He has absolutely fantastic feet that have foxhunted in mountains and have worked in sand-based footing barefoot without an issue.

So... The BHB got his first pair of dance shoes this morning! I would love to have been able to keep him barefoot forever, but I obviously have to worry about his comfort first and foremost. He's going to have a massage next week to help work out any sore muscles used to compensate for his hoof pain. Then we'll hopefully be able to quickly work back to peak performance condition!

Getting his first pair of shoes!

Getting back to our show results-- I made the BHB do an energetic crawl through 3 tests this weekend before scratching the last. The first day we managed to get our last qualifying scores at first and second level for Regionals. So now we are qualified in 3 classes! If we manage to get a second level freestyle together in time to get qualifying scores, we'll go for a fourth class! I have a rough idea for the freestyle and 2 sets of music picked out that I have to choose from... so it looks like it could happen!