Teaching sitting trot/independent seat to men...

lottiemoo

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15 December 2019
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Hi,
For the first time, I am teaching a man to ride, and although he is progressing well, he has trouble learning sitting trot because occasionally he 'bounces on his delicates :oops:'.

Any tips I could give him? At the moment, he gets tense trying to protect everything, and so can't sit to the trot movement.
 
Some men wear women's big knickers and hoik everything up to the front. Tight Y fronts is another choice.

.
 
He certainly needs the right underwear to help him out!

Women and men have differently shaped pelvises. If he has been taught to sit in exactly the same way as a woman he will be struggling. There have been some great graphics floating about on FB, have a search.
 
My OH learned with no problem but he learned first to sit correctly in walk. Weight mainly on one's seat bones.
Then he learned to feel the movement of the hind legs in walk. First one side rising and then the other. The movement of the horse's hind legs is the same in trot as it is in walk.
He learned on the lunge with the RI teaching him in walk and then able to create a very slow smooth trot to start with.
OH then aged 67 was about to ride Western so he had to learn sitting trot right from his first lessons.
Would it help your male student to think of Western riding?
My OH cantered soon and easilly too. But it took almost a year before he got rising trot.
 
Does he absolutely need to sit? I've taught a few adult beginners recently and got them to take a light seat in trot (holding neck strap or mane if it helps) and taught canter from that position, and didn't bother with the traditional sitting! Neither wanted to be serious riders, just happy hacking out. Sitting trot is over rated :)
 
When I was teaching people to ride, we had one man who could not learn rising trot, he just bounced, and he went on some longish rides, we only hacked out, no school. You would have thought he would have learned in self defence but no, even when we put him on a horse with a very rough trot. Weird.
 
When I was teaching people to ride, we had one man who could not learn rising trot, he just bounced, and he went on some longish rides, we only hacked out, no school. You would have thought he would have learned in self defence but no, even when we put him on a horse with a very rough trot. Weird.

Ouch.
 
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