Sylvia Loch

[ann-jen]

I'm going to a lecture this evening. Has anyone been and know what to expect? Its a lecture as opposed to a demo and its at a golf club so unlikely to include any actual ridden work. Has anyone been to one of her lectures before and did you find it useful?
Thanks,
AJ

 

[sikaran]

She's based in the scottish borders and is an advocate of classical training in dressage. Also keen on lusitanos I believe. Saw her competing at Etal a few years ago. Should be a good night - let us know what you think!

 

[bellaM]

Lucky you! I'd love to see one of her lecture demo's!

 

[Tierra]

Sylvia is a wonderful woman and a fabulous horse person. She brought classical training back into a more accessible form for many many people.

If its lecture, it might include some of her weight distribution and posture exercises which are quite good fun.

I owe so much to this lady and will never be able to thank her enough for the help she offered to myself and jack.

Really hope you have a good time and if you have never seen her ride, try and fix that

 

[__Annie__]

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Lucky you! I'd love to see one of her lecture demo's!

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Ditto that

Enjoy!

 

[ann-jen]

Thanks guys - I had a lovely evening. I was a bit worried as I was going on my own but when I got there I found I knew loads of people there anyway.
I think the main things I took away from the lecture is that I need to think more about my posture and the positioning of my inside leg. I've always found it hard to keep my shoulders back but found when I have been trying to get my back into the shape sylvia described, my shoulders just go back anyway. I'm having a flatwork lesson today so will give it a try. I was relieved that a lot of what Sylvia was saying is very in tune with what my own instructor tells me too so I'll look forward to telling her about the demo.
As far as the inside leg thing goes, I wonder if I should start using the back stirrup bars on my WOW to get that straight thigh she was talking about. I haven't used the back bars since I first got the saddle but now wonder if it would be easier to achieve that position if I did. Tierra I know you have a WOW so what do you think? I jump as well so I guess its just laziness on my part that I don't fiddle on changing them over as the back bars are a bit tight and fiddly to use.
Anyway I will try and maintain my better upper body posture in my lesson today and see how it goes - I'm guessing it might be quite difficult to keep it up to start with but I'll give it a try.

 

[Tierra]

The back bar will put you in a much better position yes. Your hip to heel alignment will be correct. Using the front bar drags the whole of the leg position forwards and out of the correct classical alignment.

I'd also possibly recommend some work without stirrups to lengthen the leg. While doing this do lots of lifting your leg off and clear of the saddle, then rotating your thigh and knee inwards and placing it back onto the saddle and try to keep it there. Everytime you feel it returning to your original position, do the same again.

Its better, imo, to do this lengthening with the stirrups. Purely smacking your stirrups down a few holes tends to unbalance most people and tips them forwards. You need to be thinking of your posture and weight as being like the pole running through the centre of a carousel horse. If you tip forwards, the whole frame will... you'll start to use your hands to balance yourself which will press down on the horses mouth... the result is a horse on the forehand with its head being dragged downwards by a stiff hand (your hands will be stiff and unforgiving because you start to rest on them... for the hands to be nice and elastic, they need to be moving from the elbow and shoulder.. if you tip, they move from the wrist making it hard to react fast enough and fluidly enough for the horse to respond or for you to be kind)

Sylvia always taught me to try and think of my legs as being the bank of a river and the horse being the flow of water underneath. You want to be pushing the flow from back to front but then containing it enough with both your hand, seat and body position to stop it escaping and creating more impulsion. Your body needs to help encapsulate this with a good, deep, influential seat that doesnt bear down on the horse too much. The aim is to get that flow of energy moving forwards, but also up and under you. If you bear down with your weight or are too "grindy" in the seat, you'll cause the horse to hollow away from under you.

So yes... id put the stirrups to the back bar and do some work without them to lengthen the leg and improve the seat. Keep the stirrupless work short and focus on sitting correctly... im sure sylvia explained that you should be feeling all three bones in your position (pubic and both seat bones) quite evenly... Remember to keep adjusting your leg and to keep rotating the thigh and knee inwards (any fat you may carry on the leg should be moved to the back of your thigh if possible to try and cause least interference between you and the horse)

Keep your hands up and elastic with everything coming from the elbow (which acts as the pulley) and learn to generate all that energy from behind and channel it forwards. Lots of half halts will help too... teach them from the leg and not the hand if at all possible (squeeze of the thigh should ask for a slowing down).

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me and im really glad you enjoyed the evening. I could rave about this woman forever as she completly changed my outlook on riding and did amazing things for my horse.

 

[ann-jen]

Wow thanks for that.

I spoke to my instructor about the back bar thing today and she reckons I should just experiment with it and see how it goes. She agrees it will probably sit me in a better position but the only thing she was concerned about was that as Jenny is quite short in her withers that it would actually encourage me to sit too far behind her withers if you know what I mean???? She says my shoulder hip heel alignment is fine with the stirrups on the front bar so I wonder a little if its not broken why fix it. I will have a play with it and see how it feels for me and Jenny.
Have to say I had a fab lesson today and Jenny went really well - her dressage seems to be really coming on. We worked quite a bit on my position today - I had to imagine I had a pingpong ball under each armpit at the same time as squeezing the lower part of my shoulderblades together! I found that by doing that my posture improved quite a lot anyway. I used to do quite a bit of work without stirrups but haven't for a while so maybe I'll have to give another go. Certainly got plenty to think about at the moment.