The rider balances the horse the horse does not balance the rider, the horse becomes an extension of the riders body.

Your position in riding is everything. It will either allow things to eventuate through training with ease or it will create repeated struggle.

Your position is your awareness, your centered, balanced and clear self, like the mastered martial artist has mastered himself from the inside out. Your position brings you into alignment with your horse, when mastered it allows the clear flow of your aids to communicate and create together in harmony with your horse.

When you are in alignment with something it will come relatively easily, when we are not in alignment with something we begin to force things to happen and when we force something it moves further away from us. We encounter more resistance and things become more difficult. More problems arise and the general feel of everything becomes that the rider is against the horse, fighting instead of asking and an overall state of annoyance instead of understanding becomes more present.

Your position is your alignment with yourself and the balance you obtain on the horse. Blockages internally will always express themselves externally. Firstly through emotion and if this emotion is suppressed then it will show up later physically – soreness, injury etc. They are almost always presented to you through the horse.

Clearing blockages and becoming aware of them is a crucial part of your growth and cannot be skipped.

Once this has been acknowledged the inevitable step forward will be to face the reality of any unbalance that you already have. This sometimes means falling off. Falling off is not there to tell you that you are doing something wrong, it is there to help instill within you a conscious choice, will power and desire, to STAY ON.

Every time you fall there is always a decision you have made to fall off, a split second before you fall.

The simple fact is that before you can ever become strong and balanced you will at some point of time be unbalanced. Every rider has, at some point, fallen off and there is an important purpose behind this process in riding – as in life. Choices have no power behind them until they are backed by intention. Intention only comes about through desire. What you desire and the stronger that desire gets, builds intention and then the choice you make from there is backed by the physical power of your mind in complete alignment with your body. How is it possible that a mother is able to move a car when her child is trapped under it?

Position is developed only through riding, the feel, the awareness and the growth only comes about with time in the saddle. Balance in this position is developed through intention and focus and intention and focus is built from testing that balance when you fall or nearly fall off. Staying in a comfort zone of an easy horse or stronger equipment will never allow you to build a balanced position. Build a foundation of balance in your position, then truly face the growth by taking away the security blanket that only holds you back from what you really are able to achieve.

Sit tall, be clear, remain focused and all that you do will be powered by the strength of the whole Universe.

© Catherine Louise Birmingham