What's your #1 bad riding habit?

sasquatch said:
I've still got to learn my diagonals, for some reason my right feels wrong no matter if I'm on the correct or incorrect diagonal.
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Keep at it. I recently fixed this after years of issue-avoidance. Now both diagonals feel fairly normal - it's just a question of re-training your muscles!
 
JFTD said:
Keep at it. I recently fixed this after years of issue-avoidance. Now both diagonals feel fairly normal - it's just a question of re-training your muscles!
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I used to always ride on my right diagonal, hardly ever changed but now I make a point of riding on my left twice as much as my right and it now almost feels normal. When it does I will quit and ride equally on both lol
 
EKW said:
I used to always ride on my right diagonal, hardly ever changed but now I make a point of riding on my left twice as much as my right and it now almost feels normal. When it does I will quit and ride equally on both lol
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Exactly - out hacking I'm always on the right dx as that's my rubbish one, and constantly changing for a few strides then changing back. In the school I now make sure I'm on the correct diagonal on the right rein and occasionally make myself ride on the right dx on the left rein just to torture myself. It's very effective ;)
 
Bojingles said:
Toes out! I didn't have formal lessons as a kid and as an adult have tried to emulate those with a lovely position, toes in, heels slightly down. I can do the heels, but the toes leave me feeling numb and as if I've inflicted a serious injury on myself. I'm trying - how do you all do it??
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Just watch that you're not forcing your toes in at the ankle. I was in a similar situation to you, and would copy what I thought was right by twisting my ankles in - pain! You need to lift your thighs away from the saddle and gently rotate your thigh in from the hip so the flat part is in contact with the saddle, not the fleshy back part.
 
Hmmm, just 1? Nope to hard to pick:

Toes out.
Heels going far too far down.
Stupid wobbly legs dangling around doing their own wee dance.
Nagging with boths hands and feet.
Sit crooked to the right.
Get stupidly tense in the canter transition, really, what the actual, I *know* that won't help the horse!
Collapsing my core, it looks as ugly as it sounds, think 'gargolye/hunchback position'.
Hands to low/hands to high, never a happy medium.

The last time I saw a video of me riding I was so disgusted I refused all offers of riding horses for a good few weeks.
 
Fixing my left hand.

It was my anchor hand when hunting and xc. It's fine when I'm on the right rein, but awful on the left and I really have to think about holding with my right and softening the left when on the left rein when trying to school.
 
Just one? I feel like selling my horse and collapsing into a hole of depression whenever I see videos of me riding.

I draw my heels up towards the horse's arse when asking for more forward, my leg could be a million times more stable, I nag with my leg, I stare fixedly at my horse's neck as if it might disappear should I stop looking at it, I have a weird habit of trying to throw myself over the horse's right shoulder when I ask for the right lead canter, my outside rein could be more connected than it probably is, bracing on the inside rein when doing lateral work is probably unhelpful, slouching like the hunchback of Notre Dame into downward transitions is definitely unhelpful.... Dare I go on?
 
At the minute it is tilting my pelvis forward and not sitting back on my cushions (as my instructor likes to call my buttocks!)

No doubt once we've rectified that something else will randomly go weird
 
Nothing....... I'm perfect........NOT!!!! ;)

I've noticed I'm tipping forward and bringing my leg back when asking for canter transitions..... So I'm working on it!

Riding with little contact.......... Very very guilty need to sort that one.........

Infact there's soo many I'd be here all night listing them.

On the plus side(for me). I've started enjoying my riding and not taking it too seriously. I used to get awfully stressed about things due to lack of confidence and this rubbed off on the horse I was riding, usually for the worse! But now I just try to laugh about everything and so far so good! (Even when said horse is spooking at nothing!)

I'm quite a lazy rider, comes with years of riding horses with vocal commands only, but I know this and I am working on it :)
 
SaffronWelshDragon said:
Just watch that you're not forcing your toes in at the ankle. I was in a similar situation to you, and would copy what I thought was right by twisting my ankles in - pain! You need to lift your thighs away from the saddle and gently rotate your thigh in from the hip so the flat part is in contact with the saddle, not the fleshy back part.
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Thanks for the tip :). You're right - I've been forcing my ankle into ungodly positions.

If it cheers any of you up, when I had my first lesson, my instructor said it was like watching "an idiot with a shotgun." Doesn't get much worse than that ;)
 
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