11/09/2022
The horse is good, but the rider is in passive collapse, supported by the high saddle cantle and the knees up into the thigh blocks. The saddle encourages the rider’s passivity, and the horse suffers.
Supported by the same type of saddle, muscular collapse can look like descent, but the horse suffers the same way. The two riders on the outline don’t carry themselves; they arch the lumbar vertebrae and let their vertebral structure support their body instead of the muscles. The riders expose their vertebral column to nucleus pulposus or other problems, but this is their choice. The horse does not have a choice. In motion, the rider’s weight is multiplied by two to three folds. The horse prefers a light seat, which is related to the tensegrity holding up the rider’s body.
To perform acrobatic moves, gymnasts lift their bodies through tension. Their body’s tensegrity allows them to be lined up to minimize the effects of gravity. Perhaps, having been trained as a gymnast helped. I have observed that adjusting the tone of my gluteus maximus, upper thighs, and psoas muscles helped to tune my whole physique to the horse’s tensegrity properly. I found the support of the high cantle disturbing as it alters the adjustment of my body tone to the horse’s tensegrity. However, when I trained Margit Otto Crepin, she liked to ride my horse Atoll II. Margit rode in my Samba but preferred the Rumba. This was before her Olympic career, but Margit was already a very good rider. I wondered why she found greater comfort in a saddle offering more support. Later on, I learned that humans have different fascia tension or looseness levels, and I understood why Margit and other good riders preferred a slightly deeper seat.
Problems start when the saddle casts the rider in an artificial posture and support that hampers the rider’s ability to adjust the body tone to the horse’s tensegrity. We are no longer at the age of stimulus-response, stretching, and relaxation. I certainly hope that today, no one still believes that the rider’s legs contract muscles that engage the horse’s hind legs. For centuries, the horse has willingly figured, between the lines, the meaning of our gestures and formulas. By repetition, the horse cans relate the relation between the contact of our legs and the engagement of the hind legs, but the complex body coordination that the horse has to orchestrate to swing the hind leg efficiently forward is more likely to be disturbed by increased pressure of our legs.
From the twist of the long bones to the spiral motion through the body and the storage and reuse of elastic energy, a large part of the horse’s motion is out of our control. The partnership is about selecting the cadence, refining the balance, and creating conditions likely to guide the horse’s mental processing toward efficiently orchestrating the horse’s physique. Our understanding of the gaits and performances’ athletic demands allows us to follow the horse’s processing and provide insights when the horse’s mind and physical intelligence start to process in the wrong direction.
The complex interaction of forces between the horse and the rider demands a tone of our physique that refines our perception. Biotensegrity cannot be altered by a saddle adding shifts and thickening our perception. The practical application of biotensegrity relies on our understanding of the horse’s body function and forces interaction but commences with the accuracy of our perceptions. We don’t need to be stiff, but the antidote to contraction is not relaxation.
“The work of your eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you. “ (Rilke). Don’t let the shamans direct your though and limit your potential. Don’t let the saddle darken the images in your heart. Choose a saddle giving you the support you need, not the swellings the makers sell.
Jean Luc, Science of Motion.
