Re: RC: RC: Hollowing Question

["Linda B. Merims" <lbm@ici.net>]

JPascu@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 4/3/99 5:57:09 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
> wmilner@verinet.com writes:
> 
> > o with whether or not the horse is correctly rounded, it is not the chief
> >  indicator.  For example, if you look at a high level dressage horse, they
> >  generally have a higher head than most folks would want on their working
> >  horse, but the horse's back is well rounded...

Deb Bennett points out that the essential first gesture involved in
rounding is that the horse contracts its abdominal muscles; there
is no musculature in the back itself to make it hump up.  (If the
withers feel as though they are coming up, it is really because
the rump has dropped, which really means the horse has bent at
the lumbosacral joint.)

Jean Phillipe Giacomini pointed out to me that that is actually
a main schooling use of spurs in dressage--to gently poke the horse in
the tummy so that it reflexively contracts its abdominal muscles,
thus artificially provoking the back rounding gesture you eventually
hope to obtain--and maintain--through seat and legs alone.

Linda B. Merims
lbm@ici.net
Massachusetts, USA


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