# Can't canter without bouncing



## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

People who look so relaxed at canter , like they are doing nothing, are actually doing something; they are engaging the core muscles, and moving WITH the horse, with their abdomen. They may have relatively loose legs, but their core is working. 

Some people use the anology of 'painting' the saddle with your butt' , which would require you to move your but along, rythmically, as the horse moved.
That can help.
The thing that helped me, and others, the most is to think of going DOWN with the horse, when the horse is going 'down' in the canter stride. I've described this a dozen times on this site, but here goes . . . . The horse's canter has basically 3 beats, with a moment of rest before repeating those 3 beats again. Let's call beat#1 as the strike off beat; the outside hind hits the ground. #2 is the inside hind and outside front hitting at the same time, and #3 is the inside front, the 'leading' leg, hitting the ground with the other legs coming off the ground as . . . the horse has a moment of suspension and repeats the sequence.


At #3, when the leading leg is hitting the ground, the horse is in it's most 'downward' position, as if it were going down a hill. You need to canter a bit, find that position by feel, and start really thinking about your pelvis following DOWN with just that beat of the canter . All other beats allow your horse to move you, but on the 'down' beat really think about your seat bones and pubic bone trying to go all the way down into and through the hrose's body, to the ground.


try it.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Rock, or plan on polishing the saddle. The horse's rear lifts higher than the withers, then the withers lift. So the back is rocking back and forth, very different from a trot. So don't try to be steady in the saddle. People talk about not moving in the saddle but they do:








In a trot, the horse's back stays relatively flat as it goes up and down. In the canter, it acts more like a teeter totter:


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## Horsef (May 1, 2014)

This isn’t the correct way to learn (and most of forum members will agree) but I had the same problem for years - three to be precise, I am embarrassed to admit. The only way I managed to learn is to learn in two point, practice in two point a lot, and from two point gradually get down in the saddle. When following the movement in two point became automatic I didn’t have any issues sitting it either. It took a few months. But I was a particularly untalented, stiff middle aged beginner.

The problem most people have with this approach is that they think that you will always want to canter in two point if you learn in two point, but it wasn’t an issue for me. I now mainly canter sitting down. I have to say, if I don’t ride for a long time I feel much more comfortable in two point for a month or two, both in trot and canter. I don’t really have a problem with that, seeing that I don’t show and only ride for fun. I am currently riding almost exclusively in two point because I had a six month break due to an injury and then this blasted plague.


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## IRideaHippogriff (Jul 19, 2016)

I've been riding mostly regularly for 4 years and I am still working on the canter. One point that "clicked" for me a couple of weeks ago is also how important it is to get the transition right. If the transition is rushed or messy, it can start you off bouncing and unbalanced. Are you starting from trot or from walk? If you are starting from trot, make sure you are truly sitting that trot, half-halting very clearly, and that the horse is essentially rocking right into canter, not running into it. If you sit that first rock, you're setting yourself up for success and in time with your horse.

I am always way more bouncy when I've let her run into it and find myself bracing as a passenger, instead of an active part of the motion, or if I was still posting even a little bit, because I was never matching her rhythm to begin with.


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## TXhorseman (May 29, 2014)

Hi Shortyhorses4me. I think you’ve already realized the biggest problem you have when cantering – tension. 

If you tense your muscles, your body cannot move as smoothly to follow the motions of your horse. The saddle drops from beneath your seat only to come back up and smack into it. Complete collapse of the muscles, is not the answer. You can learn to release unnecessary tension in your muscles while still keeping them active. 

Gravity helps a balanced rider maintain her balance and follow the motion of her horse moving in the canter. Someone who has experienced sitting in a rowboat – or, better yet, a canoe – facing oncoming waves often grasps the concept easily. If you tense your muscles, you must hold on tightly in an effort to not be tossed to and fro. By releasing tension, you can allow gravity to draw your center of balance lower. Then, your upper body can more easily make necessary adjustments to maintain balance.

When riding without unnecessary tension, the rider allows gravity to hold her seat deep in the saddle, keep her legs wrapped gently around her horse’s sides, and hold her feet in the stirrups. Then, she can allow her body to flow with the movements of her horse.

Her relaxed (read “relaxed” as “without unnecessary tension”) pelvis follows the down, forward, up, down, forward up flow of the saddle while her upper body makes the necessary adjustments to remained balanced above her center of gravity. The joints of her relaxed arms extend as the motion of her horse’s head draws her hands forward; gravity draws her elbows back beneath her shoulders as her horse’s head retracts.

It is good that your horse has been slowing to keep your unbalanced body from falling off. As you release tension and follow your horse’s movements, the horse should be encouraged to continue in this same motion without additional effort on your part.


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## Shortyhorses4me (Jun 17, 2018)

bsms said:


> Rock, or plan on polishing the saddle. The horse's rear lifts higher than the withers, then the withers lift. So the back is rocking back and forth, very different from a trot. So don't try to be steady in the saddle. People talk about not moving in the saddle but they do:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't think I realized the back end comes up like that, thank you! When the back end comes up, is that when you lean back/move your hips forward?


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## SteadyOn (Mar 5, 2017)

Oh man. I had the worst bounce in canter when I started riding again, after 16 years off. It took me two and a half years of really really regular riding to get past it. And if I have a long break, or an off day, the bounce comes back!

Things that helped:

Lots and lots and lots of trotting without stirrups. Both rising trot and sitting trot. And doing this with a very long, relaxed leg and thigh as straight down as I could manage. It helped my core strength and helped to open my hips.

Also, watching videos of advanced riders sit the canter, and seeing how they moved, and where they moved vs. didn't move.

The other visual that occurred to me one day, and really helped, was thinking of my hands and body opening and closing like a book along with the motion. I pictured my hip joint as the spine of the book, and when it "opened" my upper body would open back and hands and lower body would open down. When the horse's front end lifted, the book would close a bit, then reopen again on the down portion.

The other thing... "Just relax into it" is advice given by advanced, strong riders who feel like that's all they have to do because they have the strength and muscle memory to make it *feel* relaxed. But if you just relax before you have all that in place... yeah, it won't work. At all. You have to have all the building blocks in place before that's going to happen. 

And on some horses.... wellll... they're just bouncier. It might not be possible to get ALL the bounce out, ever, and so you just do the best you can with what you've got.


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## Shortyhorses4me (Jun 17, 2018)

All of this is very helpful folks, thank you! I really do sort of freeze everything up curl forward. At the moment I can canter from walk, trot or tolt, I've been trying to stick to from walk right now. I started learning canter by doing sort of a half seat, not true two point, just sort standing in the stirrups. So now I'm trying to learn to sit.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

your horse is an icelandic? my experience with many gaited horses is that the canter can feel really discombobulated. Have you tried cantering on a non-gaited horse?


btw, don't take this as 'dissing' Icelandics. I think they're peachy!


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## Shortyhorses4me (Jun 17, 2018)

tinyliny said:


> your horse is an icelandic? my experience with many gaited horses is that the canter can feel really discombobulated. Have you tried cantering on a non-gaited horse?
> 
> 
> btw, don't take this as 'dissing' Icelandics. I think they're peachy!


t

His gaits are well separated and his canter is 3 beats. I think his canter feels more like a regular horse canter than some other icelandics I've ridden. He is short backed even for an Icelandic, so maybe that is pushing me out of the saddle more.


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## jgnmoose (May 27, 2015)

You are bouncing because you are not moving in time with your horse. 

Bracing anywhere will cause this more than anything. 

If you want to get better the first thing is to work on is the sitting trot. A seated trot should be harder to do well, but teaches your body to get fluid and in time with the horse while moving at a slower speed. 

The other thing to work on is riding with region around your waist/belt line. People focus too much on everything else going on with their body while riding, when having an independent seat is really an area roughly from the upper thigh to your ribs. 

If you have that working, the other things either fall in place or at worst matter a lot less. You will be amazed at how much better you are once you have learned to 'roll' your midsection with what your horse is doing. 

In formal riding lessons of any discipline, too much emphasis is placed on everything other than the area where you actually get a good seat in my opinion. While all of them are muy importante, if you have a stiff midsection and have no idea what your seat bones are doing they don't do much good. 

So in short, temporarily stop worrying about all that other formal stuff about riding and learn to move your body with your horse.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Horsef said:


> ...The only way I managed to learn is to learn in two point, practice in two point a lot, and from two point gradually get down in the saddle. When following the movement in two point became automatic I didn’t have any issues sitting it either. It took a few months. But I was a particularly untalented, stiff middle aged beginner....
> 
> I am currently riding almost exclusively in two point because I had a six month break due to an injury and then this blasted plague.


Wanted to say "Amen!" to this. I started riding seriously at 50, after a 30 year gap. Had a few back injuries along the way, and, like a lot of guys, my back has never been fluid.

Starting this spring, I dropped my stirrups to what I call the Grandpa Bear setting. If Baby Bear is too short, and Poppa Bear is too long, and Momma Bear is "just right" - according to the books - then the Grandpa Bear setting is one hole longer than the Poppa Bear, and two holes lower than the Momma Bear. On my Abetta saddle, the holes are 1.5 inches apart. The Grandpa Bear setting is roughly equal to the bottom of my heel when barefoot.

There are some things I've liked about it. I have a tendency to brace and one cannot brace worth squat at that length. It has forced me to work on moving my back. It is as close as I care to get to going no stirrups while trail riding. It has convinced me I can ride securely over up & down terrain, ride mild spooks and refusals, and do so without needing stirrups to help.

That said, I've recently raised my stirrups and gone back to riding using weight in the stirrups, flexing at the knee, slightly off the saddle and using my legs to cushion the up/down motion. Honestly? Bandit moves more balanced and more freely and more athletically when I do so. The difference isn't big at a walk on level ground. It is small at a canter - and while I learned cantering using the half-seat, I'm now fully comfortable sitting a canter. But...I think Bandit does a little better if I don't sit. At a trot, the difference is very noticeable. A trot has a very large up/down motion and I can spread the impact out by using my legs - just as one does when jumping down from the bed of a pickup. And if we are dropping into a wash, or I'm asking him to climb out of one, it REALLY helps. If he has to hop a little over a bush as we climb out, he NEEDS me up and forward!

I plan to sometimes drop my stirrups down again and force myself to ride without their help. On the trail. It is good for me as a rider. But I plan on mostly keeping the stirrups at least as high as the Poppa Bear setting and using a half-seat for all of my trotting and cantering.

In 2012, on the thread Riding the canter in half seat, maura wrote:



maura said:


> Riding the canter correctly and well in a full seat is difficult, and many more riders do it badly than do it well. As Allison stated above, it requires a degree of abdominal fitness, as well as correct position, relaxation and a good understanding of gait mechanics and how the horse's back moves. That's out of reach for a lot of recreational riders. *I would much rather see an elementary or intermediate rider cantering in half seat, allowing the horse to move freely, than someone attempting and failing a full following seat and punishing the horse's back in the process.*
> 
> There is nothing inherently insecure about riding the canter in half-seat or two point as long as the rider is in balance.


It made sense to me then and still does. It is good to experiment with options. But I plan to use, if not a half-seat, perhaps a "3/4 seat" as my primary way of going faster than a walk. It is secure, easier on MY stiff back, and helps Bandit move better. If that makes me look like I'm not a polished rider....well, I'm not. I'm not a polished rider and Bandit isn't a polished horse, and we're both pretty content with each other. 

Besides, most of my riding is now with Bandit in the desert where the birds and snakes won't give a rat's rear end how I look. :rofl:

A book on English riding that maura recommended to me some years back, and that I've recommended even though I'm much more a western rider now:

Common Sense Horsemanship

$20 used is less than the price of a single lesson and it has given me a lot of food for thought over the years. Another favorite quote:



> The verb 'to sit' should be eliminated from our vocabulary where riding is concerned, for the idea it conveys is intrinsically misleading. Were it not for its indecorous connotation the word 'perch' would more aptly suggest the position that the rider should assume in what is commonly described as the 'forward' seat. - Piero Santini's first paragraph on Geometry of the Forward Seat in Riding Reflections (1933)


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

My gaited horse (A Tennessee Walking Horse) has a canter that is so smooth I believe that you could sip tea while sitting it. 

My Arabian mare makes me love 2 point.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Cowboy's canter would allow one to roll your own smokes. But his trot will make you pee blood.


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## secuono (Jul 6, 2011)

Cantering up hills may help.
You scoop with your pelvis.


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## Horsef (May 1, 2014)

@bsms I gather that you ride trails mostly. I am not sure about Western but I was thought to never sit either trot or canter out on trails. I could well be wrong - and it could also be that the people who were telling me that saw my riding and just gave up on me  Around here most people will post the trot and two-point the canter on trails. I am not too sure how correct that is but I'm sure it helps the horse on uneven ground.


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

I think you are over thinking this. I did see where @tinyliny mentioned that icelandics may have a different gait so I googled them. It says they have 4 or 5 gaits depending on the horse and the canter is one of the main gaits but I'm going to assume that their canter is going to feel different than a "normal" canter. I have a TWH that can canter and I would agree with Tiny that her canter, while it is a canter - has a different feel than a "normal" horse. 

The biggest thing I think you need to do is "loosen up". I'm betting you are tensing. You are cramming your heels down and you are pulling your shoulders back, potentially arching your back and stiffening up your body (that's fairly common when people that are trying to ride pretty (focusing on equitation). The problem is that you end up putting your body in the wrong position and sometimes you even stop breathing.

Sit straight and put your body in the correct spot but the breath. Breath and allow yourself to absorb the shock. If your canter is different than a normal canter and closer to what my TWH does - it's actually going to force your legs into a little more forward position. Don't worry too much about that while you are getting the feel of it. You can correct minor things later. Right now you need to allow yourself to breath and figure out the feel of it.

I hope that helps.


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

jgnmoose said:


> So in short, temporarily stop worrying about all that other formal stuff about riding and learn to move your body with your horse.


I like this....


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## Shortyhorses4me (Jun 17, 2018)

His gaits are very separated and clear he is 4 gaited. His canter reminds me of other regular horse canters I've been on. His trot really throws you up to, I try practicing sitting trot some, but I also don't trot as much as tolt. He does have a short back even for an Icelandic, I was thinking the other day that might also make it more difficult to sit since I'm closer to his hind end. When riding I tend to bring my legs up, its hard for me to keep my heels down. And I lean forward, and kind of freeze up there. So yeah moving my hips with the horse is not going well atm.


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## keelan (Jan 5, 2010)

The first 5 strides are usually the smoothest when you are first riding. So try to canter just 5 strides then go back to the trot for a 20 meter circle. Rinse, repeat. this also reduces the time for building tension. As you get used to the motion you can extend the number of strides.


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## AnrewPL (Jun 3, 2012)

In addition to the good advice you are getting from everyone, and sorry if this has been covered. It's probably a combination of two things. Firstly, like you said, needing to relax and flow with the horse more. Any bracing will cause you to bounce yourself out of the saddle, and this is why it's possible to have a really light small person who can't ride a horse as lightly as a bigger heavier person. If the bigger person goes with the horse better, they will be much easier to carry for the horse despite them being heavier. 

The other thing is in relation to what, I think it was Tinyliny said. When someone rides smoothly they might look like they are not doing anything much but will in actuality be working quite a lot through their core, and elsewhere. The thing to remember with that is that you need to take the time to build up the strength, the suppleness and relaxation in all the muscles you need to engage, and then, on top of that, make it natural. That, unfortunately, takes time. 

And Tinyliny: "painting' the saddle with your butt", made me laugh and think. Yep, I've gotten on a few station horses that had me just about painting the saddle with my butt ..... literally.


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## AnrewPL (Jun 3, 2012)

Oh yeah, I also was going to add that when I was working as a riding instructor for a while I used to get the kids I was teaching to do lots of sitting the trot. Seemed to help them ride at a canter better.


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