25/01/2022
Copied from one of my riding instructor groups! Beware students! A squeaky toy or two is in your future 😘🤠
My solution for teaching my student riders be aware of their hands and fingers when riding:
Riding with open (stretched) fingers, many riders do this because they think it makes their connections softer in their horse's mouth...but the opposite is true.
MYTHBUSTER:
Riding with open fingers causes you to lose contact and the sense of direction and the tactile communication through the reins to the bit. In fact the hand communication becomes rough, unclear and therefore worse.
This disturbs the horse and he won't seek contact with your hand because open fingers give unease in the mouth and the horse will move away from the bit. (Say bye bye to true collection)
This is just as true for bitless riders, as the pressure is on the nose and the horse will shy away to avoids this pressure.
To teach the rider to let go of their old habbit and get familiair with this new hand position without looking at her hands (because looking down wil make the rider en thus the horse out of balance) but still be able to find the new hand position on her own, she holds two squeaky toys in her hands.
This way she can't ride with open fingers because then she loses the squeaky toys but if she squeezes too hard or pulls the reins then the squeaky toys remind her brain not to do so by squeaking.
Of course we did a good job of getting the horse used to the squeaks first because this was no rodeo flying lesson!! 😄