What is/was your favourite or most influential "lightbulb" moment?

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Jinx94

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One I had recently was to imagine bringing my chin back to my spine rather than the usual "look up!".

Others include "put your full beams on" (pretty sure that came from HHO!) and a very thorough lesson where I was told in no uncertain terms that if my feet aren't in the correct position in the stirrup, I can never expect to ride well. Bit harsh at the time, but totally changed my position and security in the saddle!

What about you? What memorable pieces of advice have you received?
 
Good thread!

I know one of my most lightbulb moments was about my second lesson with Di Breeze with Topaz. She very correctly concluded that although we were doing all the moves correctly, we weren’t really ‘doing’ it, meaning she wasn’t ‘really’ engaged and through.

We then worked through the gears within the pace and complete eureka of what it all should have been feeling like!
 
"Ride the horse underneath you, change doesn't happen overnight"

My instructor is constantly reminding me of this at the moment, we have made huge leaps and bounds recently in our lessons but can't expect to have it all straight away in my tests and to use my next tests to cement the good stuff. Her advice is to really maximise our marks by making the most of what he's good at (free walk, transitions, halt) and don't worry too much at the moment about the canter being a bit wild or him being a bit stiff on the left rein and honestly I have not had one bad ride since she said that to me, I work really hard on improving the stuff we are good at to make sure it truly is consistent and then I just reward him and be happy that he's trying his best for the rest of it.
 
Specifically? ‘He shouldn’t be stopping at every jump he hasn’t seen before. He’s not spooking, it’s a habit’. That was last autumn, to be fair to him he had only started any sort of showjumping a year ago but that instructor was completely right, he wasn’t spooking anymore and I needed to tell him to put his brave pants on. Suddenly fillers were absolutely fine, as long as I was very very positive.
In general - you don’t ever want to find the point where your horse throws in the towel. Setting them up for success gets them happy and confident. It is very tempting to push on, jump bigger, more collection, more extension, etc - but then you’ve got a sour horse who’s just learnt to say no. You can mentally and physically challenge a horse but it’s got to be interesting and fun for them.
 
Big lightbulb moment - stop over riding. I have a laid back boy. I have been in the habit of pushing, pushing, pushing, resulting in strides getting shorter and choppier. Have stopped overiding and have now got a forward thinking horse, with the ability to collect and extend. Stills massive way to go, but definitely one step forward
 
Lillian_paddington said:
In general - you don’t ever want to find the point where your horse throws in the towel. Setting them up for success gets them happy and confident. It is very tempting to push on, jump bigger, more collection, more extension, etc - but then you’ve got a sour horse who’s just learnt to say no. You can mentally and physically challenge a horse but it’s got to be interesting and fun for them.
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^ With bells on!
 
Being told and accepting that I can't control what's going on around me so I must focus on controlling my horse has been life changing but only because it has been followed up by a trainer who has worked with me to change the way I ride ie positive and forward.
 
oldie48 said:
Being told and accepting that I can't control what's going on around me so I must focus on controlling my horse has been life changing but only because it has been followed up by a trainer who has worked with me to change the way I ride ie positive and forward.
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Me too
I have a youngster and we're just working at home, but rather than waiting for the jets/helicopters/ramblers to go away, if I ignore them he does too
 
I hope I have explained this properly because I find the technicalities difficult.

For a long while I had been unable to jump in anything near a proper position. I was almost always left behind. I repeatedly asked my instructor why this was so. I felt so many people could do it I surely must manage it correctly occasionally.

One day I had a lesson with another instructor. We were doing canter poles.
“What ARE you doing?” he asked.
“Cantering the poles” I replied.
“If you do that over a jump you will have an accident“

It turned out that I had been riding the poles by putting my horse’s canter lead leg over them first, therefore when jumping I was mistiming the take off movement and expecting my horse to lift on the lead leg of the canter.

Now I don’t get the jump right every time but at least I know what I am trying to do.
 
The first time I realised what it means to control your horse with your seat.
I had been riding for a few years but somehow never really grasped the concept of "using your seat to control, ride your horse". It was always reins, weight,legs, upper body, core... just a jumbled mess. Until a friend asked me to ride her very well-ridden and trained horse during her holidays. I was very afraid being too handsy, bad seat etc. and she just said (knowing my problem): Nope, as soon as you sit on him you will figure it out what it means to use your seat. And then I sat on him for the first time, really nervous to screw it up. But within 5 to 10 min I realised what she had meant and what "using your seat" means. Of course I wasn't perfect afterwards, but I finally had grasped the concept! ;) To this day I am so grateful to her and her horse.
 
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Breakthrough was when I felt what it means when the horse takes your hand forward softly - rather than me bringing my hand back to find the horse.

Finally I quit left-right-lefting, held my hands still and forward and rode the horse from the back to the hand. Life changing!
 
“Leave him alone” my instructor would repeatedly tell me “you’re doing too much for him”. When I learned to put this into practice was when we formed a true partnership. When I stopped setting him up for everything and trying to do his job & mine (because he was a baby and I thought I needed to) he became forward thinking and took responsibility for doing his bit. Sometimes less is more.

The other thing I live by is to always try to ride the horse underneath me. It doesn’t matter what he was like yesterday or last week or when I fell off three months ago I need to feel what I’m sat on and ride him accordingly.

Great thread by the way!
 
Back when I was still a complete novice, taking a mare with a very regular canter down a grid. Taught me how to follow a horse over a jump and felt fabulous. I was about 16 and still remember it clearly.
 
Mine was realising that to get a good stride to a jump you need to ride the canter around the corner - not collect them up around the corner. The feeling for me is that when you come straight to the fence you want the horse to be strong and pulling you, which you get from riding the canter in the corner. Then you can wait for the jump.

I had been doing the opposite. Holding the canter back around corners and then chasing for the jump as I came up to it. I was missing virtually every time. Once I figured out that the horse should be pulling you into the fence and that corners don't have to be done at a snails pace, I would get far better strides and was finally able to step up!
 
The day I first realised I could identify which hind leg was off the floor which meant I never needed to look at the shoulders again to check my diagonal! I had a very good riding structure try to teach me this in my teens but I didn't understand then one day it just clicked!
 
Such a good thread! I've had a few lightbulb moments recently, all relating to working from my seat and leaving alone with my hands.

My instructor had been saying that I was doing too much, trying to hard, need to do less. We got the working into the outside rein well enough established, and then began to carry the hands – hallelujah! I now know what to feel for, and how to get there. Such an amazing feeling when it finally twigs
 
Recently - a different saddle. Horse I've struggled with for years, not really forwards, terrible in the contact, generally not really that much fun to ride. Borrowed friends saddle, and its amazing. His saddles have always fitted, but haven't given me any security. As a results I have tended to hang onto him, though fear and insecurity. This saddle make ME feel so safe that I've let go, and in the space of 2 weeks, I have the horse I always knew was there.

Last night in a lesson, trainer said 'If I just walked in here not knowing him, and saw him going like that, I'd be thinking, who is that horse, he's stunning'. Best compliment ever, and I was beaming.

On the aside, despite no pennies, I have ordered him one.
 
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