drop those stirrups!

[Amanda Perez <amandaperez@ureach.com>]

  Cy is barefoot, so while waiting for his feet to grow, I am 
limited to pasture-riding.  The farm I keep him at has an un-
used pasure that kind-sorta serves OK for a ring.  This was the 
first time I have done any 'ring work' on the 'Cyco-horse'.  
After some brain-farts and seeing what he could get away with, 
he settled down and was pretty good.  I did circles, figure 
eights and serpentines at a walk, and halting/standing, working 
on steady, even pace and responsiveness.  Did a little work at 
a running-walk - he really needs alot of work at maintaining an 
even, steady pace when gaiting.  The real eye-opener, though,  
came when I decided to drop my stirrups for a while: WOW does 
that make any balance issues you have obvious - the first 
circle I did I nearly fell off, I was so imbalanced!  I really 
had to work at lengthening my inside leg and not 'folding' to 
the inside (I tend to ride turns with my inside hip up, inside 
shoulder down).  Of course it's no big news-flash that riding 
without stirrups is a good exercise - but as a non-competitive  
rider it's easy to give schooling exercises short-shrift (plus 
middle age makes the security of stirrups increasingly 
appealing!).  It's amazing how out-of-kilter you can get and 
not even realize it when you can compensate using the 
stirrups.  I used to ride bareback as a kid alot and it's does 
wonders for seat and balance.  I'm not sure I'm ready for 
bareback on Cy yet: he still has his moments of idiocy and I am 
still rusty, but I will try to do some stirrup-less riding on 
each ride now.

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