# Sitting Trot - Tips?



## laurarachelle (May 6, 2011)

Hey everyone!
I was just sitting at work today watching people ride past my window when I realized what amazing sitting trots that all have, and it reminded me how much i need to work on improving mine.
Does anyone have any tips on improving the sitting trot? Especially without stirrups!!

My sitting trot with stirrups is decent- could definitely use some work, but in general I keep good balance and don't bounce around TOO much.
Without stirrups is a different story however... I can usually keep my balance for a few strides but then I need to grab some mane and steady myself :-( I can't seem to stay balanced without squeezing my lower leg when I'm sitting. Help!
Ironically, my posting trot without stirrups isn't bad at all!
The coach I had for about 4 months when I was at school was very good at telling me what I was doing wrong... But never gave me any tips on how to improve. Needless to say I won't be going back to her. The horse I rode also tended to have a very fast, choppy trot, which didn't help me much!

Any tips would be great!


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## jinxremoving (Apr 6, 2009)

"I can't seem to stay balanced without squeezing my lower leg when I'm sitting."

What's wrong with that? I was trained to grip with my calves and I do just that at the sitting trot without stirrups and it helps tremendously. You also want to make sure you're taking deep breathes, sitting up straight and definitely relaxed... if your body is rigid / stiff it's going to be awful.


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## laurarachelle (May 6, 2011)

The main issue is that my squeezing is almost always interpreted as a cue to go faster, and the horse will often break into a canter!


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## IslandWave (Nov 25, 2009)

Wow, where do you work that you can see riders go past your window? 

Anyways, what helped me to learn how to sit the trot was to take a lesson on the lunge line so that my trainer could just intruct me on how to use my seat and I wouldn't have to worry about steering the horse and all that. What also helped was riding a horse with a nice, fairly smooth, trot.

Hours in the saddle and good quality instruction are key. My trainer had very good exercises that made me sit correctly.

When I sit, I sit on my butt, my seatbones. My upper body is tall with my cheat open, shoulders back, and looking forward. My seatbones are evenly weighted and my legs just hang there. No gripping, my legs just drape on either side of the horse like wet towels. Sometimes riding bareback can help since you have to stay centered on the horse or you'll slide off their barrel.


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## laurarachelle (May 6, 2011)

> Wow, where do you work that you can see riders go past your window? :smile:


Spruce Meadows! :wink:


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## back again (Mar 29, 2011)

I actually spent part of my last lesson working on my sitting trot  Ill just post what we did in that part. 

Start off in an active walk without stirrups, then go up into a slow trot, almost just a jig, that way you can really feel each side of the horses movements so you dont just start bumping it allows you to feel the movement making it easier when the pace gets more into a working trot. 
We did this on a smaller circle (10m or so) then as you get the hang of it leg yield out onto a larger circle (till 20m) and as the circle gets bigger get your horse to move out more so when you get to the 20m circle you are in a working trot.

After that we started to do 2 loop serpentines (each loop at 10m circle) in sitting trot (this was more to loosen him, but I found it really helped me sit better), everytime I changed direction (so where we crossed over) we came back to walk for 2 steps then back up to trot.


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## LoveTheSaddlebreds (Jul 9, 2009)

What I did to help my sitting trot was grab a little piece of mane to steady myself at first (there's no shame in it! After some practice, grabbing the mane wont be necessary, but its better than tugging on the mouth!). I worked on relaxing my lower back and letting my body move with the horse more. I worked without stirrups a WHOLE lot and only practiced without them. Finally, with the stirrups, my position was 110% better. It also helps to keep the horse collected and slow at first. Once you get better, it may be easier to go faster. Good Luck!


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## SissyGoBob (Oct 17, 2010)

I push with the balls of my feet and bounce on my ankles. I can post a video of if need be.


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## gigem88 (May 10, 2011)

My instructor keeps telling me, don't forget to breathe.


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## jinxremoving (Apr 6, 2009)

What about everyone else, do you grip with your calves or legs or not at all?

I've read a lot of conflicting info about gripping or not gripping. As mentioned I was taught to grip and I can sit the trot OK... but now I'm wondering if I'm doing it wrong, lol. (Sorry to hijack this thread...)


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## laurarachelle (May 6, 2011)

@ jinx:
No worries! I'd love as much imput as possible. I think it depends a lot on the horse, some respond to the slightest bit of pressure on their sides as a cue to conter (as was the case with the horse I rode in lessons during the school year), but others wait for a specific cue, so a little bit of gripping with the lower leg is ok.

@ everyone else:
Thanks for the tips! I will have to remember them next time I'm riding.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

laurarachelle said:


> ...My sitting trot with stirrups is decent- could definitely use some work, but in general I keep good balance and don't bounce around TOO much.
> 
> Without stirrups is a different story however... I can usually keep my balance for a few strides but then I need to grab some mane and steady myself :-( I can't seem to stay balanced without squeezing my lower leg when I'm sitting...


Sounds like you are tensing your legs when riding without stirrups. Squeezing with the leg will not improve balance. It may also be that fear of losing balance is causing tension in your thighs, making you bounce more and thus causing you to lose balance.

Although this is in the English riding section, you might try using a western saddle for a few rides - preferably with a tall horn. Manes and grab straps, IMHO, don't do much to help restore side - side balance issues. There isn't enough leverage. With a tall saddle horn, you can adjust and keep going.

Once you do that, you lose your fear of losing balance, and start to have the relaxed, dead weight legs that for me are critical to successfully sitting the trot. I also found I had to lower my stirrups and let my legs hang down. (This shouldn't be a problem without stirrups unless you still put your legs into the with-stirrup position). The weight of my legs keeps me from going up as far, so there is less bounce when I come down, and the cycle repeats until I can relax into the saddle. It also lowers my center of gravity, which always helps balance.

I find it helps to rotate my hip back a little towards my pockets. Not so much leaning back as relaxing in my hips and letting some of the bounce go into my buttocks instead of my bones.

Once I got the feel on a western saddle, it was easy enough to switch over to English. I could also shorten my stirrups some without bouncing, because I was no longer afraid of losing balance. [Note - in honesty, I can shorten them enough to lose the sitting trot. The higher my knees go up, the harder it is to sit the trot.]


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## maura (Nov 21, 2009)

It would be really helpful to know what discipline you ride, and what discipline the other posters ride, to sort through the advice. If you're riding a hunter, jumper or event horse, you are going to maintain frictional grip in your lower leg at all gaits. With dressage, the draped like wet towels description is accurate. With western; your calf may not be in contact with the horse at all.However, in any discipline, to test yourself while learning to sit, it's a good idea to take your whole leg off the horse and see if you can maintain the following motion in your seat bones without gripping with your leg. 

Gripping 1.) tends to make the horse misinterpret and go faster and 2.) stiffens you and pushes you up out of the tack. The best teaching aid I ever had for sitting trot was my dog. Yup. 

The first step in learning to ride the sitting trot correctly is understanding how the horse's back moves at the trot. Since it's hard to see the top of a horse's back while it's moving, my Lab was always my demo animal to show how the back on one side rises as that hind leg comes forward, and that the sides of the back rise and fall alternately as the horse trots. Once a student understood that, putting them in the correct position (IslandWave gave a great description) and putting them on the lunge did the rest. 

Once you've mastered following the horse's back with your seat bones on the lunge, it's a matter of reintroducing stirrups and then working on your own while maintaining the following seat..


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## kitten_Val (Apr 25, 2007)

My only suggestion would be to relax your seat and try to move with the horse on sitting trot (IW & Maura already put it way better than me :wink: ). If horse is balanced it's much easier to sit it (and if its smooth on top of it it's a real fun). 

P.S. I don't do lunging with my instructor for whatever reason, she makes me work on sitting trot during actual ride. Although I do see benefits of lunging when you don't have to think about reins, turns, etc.


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## back again (Mar 29, 2011)

Another suggestion I have that I just thought of reading maura and KV's posts is if you can go on a lunge, or have a horse that you trust to go straight and not do anything crazy is you could shut your eyes for a bit. I did that and it really makes you more aware of what you are feeling 
p.s. maura said it would help if we told you what discipline we rode, I do dressage lessons


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## writer23 (Apr 6, 2010)

Just a side note: I cannot sit my horse's huge trot stride unless he's round and offered his back up to me (not hollow). Makes the trot so much easier to sit!


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## laurarachelle (May 6, 2011)

The tips have been great guys, thanks! I'm not in lessons currently but I'm waiting for a barn to get back to me so hopefully I will be able to put your suggestions into action later on in the summer.
I ride jumpers, but the barn that I'm hopefully going to be starting at has a strong dressage focus, with a little bit of jumpers thrown in there on the side.


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## serafina (May 5, 2011)

I am just learning about sitting trots - was introduced into this mornings' lesson b/c I'm now posting enough that I need to know how to transition down to a walk. 

I agree with the comment about gripping with the legs -> horse speeds up. This has been my experience so far!

What I learned about sitting the trot this morning was 1) stay really, really, no REALLY, loose, and 2) keep your weight flowing down the backs of your legs, just like you would at the rising trot.

I thought I was going to bounce around like crazy, because that is what I was doing while I was trying to figure out the whole "rising" trot thing, but that's not how it worked at all (with the advice from my instructor, above). It was definitely less comfy than the rising trot, but I found that as long as I focused on keeping my legs as loooong as possible, I wasn't bouncing up out of the saddle really at all. Part of this is because the horse adjusted his trot to accommodate my sitting (instructor made a point of this, too, said that I should *definitely* let that happen).

I have also heard (but have no experience to back this up with) that sitting the trot bareback is a *very* educational experience & will also improve the rising trot too.

PS I would think I had died and gone to Hell if I had to watch other people riding horses while I had to work in an office. I don't know how you can stand it!


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Another tip I''ll toss out, although I'm a beginner rider myself...

Do something besides practicing the sitting trot. By that I mean do something that will keep your conscious mind focused elsewhere. You cannot ride a sitting trot with your conscious mind. It needs to be your subconscious mind making it happen.

To me, that means trotting the horse around cones or doing pattern work while sitting the trot. The only part of my conscious mind I want to involve is to sometimes say, "Relax. Let the legs hang."

My 13 year old daughter does a very good sitting trot. She likes to ride our gelding around while belting out Jimmy Buffet tunes at the top of her lungs. That MAYBE something you want to skip in front of others  ...but it keeps her conscious mind busy while the subconscious does a good job riding the trot.

And our ex-ranch horse gelding just trots around looking like, "She's 85 lbs, and listening to Jimmy Buffet beats cutting cattle for 10 hours..."

He said I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
I took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy there's still so much to be done


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## laurarachelle (May 6, 2011)

bsms said:


> Do something besides practicing the sitting trot. By that I mean do something that will keep your conscious mind focused elsewhere. You cannot ride a sitting trot with your conscious mind. It needs to be your subconscious mind making it happen.


Good point! Someone earlier also mentioned that I'm probably over thinking things which causes me to tense up, which I think is probably true. Both of your points go hand in hand!



> PS I would think I had died and gone to Hell if I had to watch other people riding horses while I had to work in an office. I don't know how you can stand it! :razz:


I KNOW, it's such a tease, but it does provide a good distraction from my work :wink:


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## BlondieHorseChic (May 6, 2011)

Ok, don't laugh. Keep your weight back on your Jean pockets. Imagine you are a sack of potatoes. Heavy, kind of slouchy (sitting tall tenses muscles which makes you bounce more) keep joints moveable so they can absorb the horses motion. Imagine your Jean pockets are paddles an move slightly with the horse. Stay very loose as you ride. When riding without stirrups still keep your heels down, it helps with balance alot more then it seems like it would.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Lots of great advice.

I especially like BSM's advice to do other things while riding. 
I think a combo of having a lunge lesson where you have the luxury of doing NOTHING but focussing on your form for a bit, then going out to practice this by not focussing toomuch on it but rather using it as a tool to get you where you need to get.

YOu know that the trot motion is like a wave; it is both up and down, and side to side with the more dramatic movement being the up and down.

The horse can carry you up easily, especially if you LET him. It's the down part where problems start. If the horse's syne wave and your syne wave get off rythm with each other (he is going down a split second before you), then eventually you get so off kilter that you are goind down just when he is coming up and you whap! into the upward moving saddle. Then , usually you reestablish your rythm to his for a few strides until you two get out of kilter again, and on and on.

SO, you must think about going DOWN with him as more important than going UP with him. You cannot wait for gravity to make you fall back down, you almost bring your pelvis down with the saddle by the contraction of your core muscles. At the least, take a few strides and think about the down beat as apposed to focussing on rising with him.

Can I sit the trot well? H*ll no!

ETA:
Do NOT grip with the calves. Only in an emergency as it will cause your upper body to loose it's freedom to follow the horse's movement .


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## natisha (Jan 11, 2011)

tinyliny said:


> ETA:
> Do NOT grip with the calves. Only in an emergency as it will cause your upper body to loose it's freedom to follow the horse's movement .


Yes, gripping with the calves will not give a nice sitting trot. Here's why. If you grip with the calves or feet they become a pivot point- the lower legs stay with the horse's movement. Your body will then bounce or move around as your seat cannot stay on the horse & you will end up trying to follow the motion with your upper body-like a tied on blow-up doll.
Think of it as if you were bolted onto a horse. If the bolts were through your ankles or lower legs the rest of you is free to flop around. If the bolts were through your butt you would easily follow the motion. Do not try real bolts.:wink:
If you drop or lengthen your legs the pivot point is in your seat & hips, where you want it to be. Balance (side to side) is then kept with mainly using your upper inner thighs. The low back & hips need to be loose to follow the motion. The lower legs are then free to communicate speed & direction.


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## kitten_Val (Apr 25, 2007)

Just got email today from Jane Savoi's website:

"Today’s training focuses on one of the biggest issues for many riders—How to sit the trot better. You might even be surprised to find out stuff like how tension in your neck relates to how easily you can sit the trot!"

I'd really suggest to sign up to her videos (it's FREE). I find them to be easy to understand.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

tinyliny said:


> ...SO, you must think about going DOWN with him as more important than going UP with him. You cannot wait for gravity to make you fall back down, you almost bring your pelvis down with the saddle by the contraction of your core muscles...


I don't like disagreeing with tinyliny, but I do disagree here. The only force available to make you go down is gravity. You have nothing above you to push against and force you down. You can grab the front of the saddle and force yourself lower in the saddle, but who wants to ride like that?

Since gravity is the only thing that can make you come down - riding normally - then I draw two conclusions:

1 - The less you go up, the easier it is to come back down. The upward thrust could launch you above the horse's back (did that a couple of months ago, and it hurt when I hit the ground), but the less it launches, the easier it is for gravity to pull you down with the horse's back. So one part of riding the sitting trot smoothly is to go up less.

2 - You can slow your return, but you cannot speed it up. Once you start down by gravity, physics controls how fast you come down - unless you interfere. And the best way to interfere is tension in your legs. Posting without meaning to post. The tension can be your leg muscles straightening your leg against the stirrup, or it can be tension in your thighs pulling your legs together - think of an inverted V coming down on top of an O. Tension pulling the legs of the V together would slow the inverted V from coming down.

A few months ago, I was lunging my mare with an English saddle on her. I noticed the stirrups didn't move much as she trotted in circles around me. But then, stirrups don't fight the horse. I was mostly paying attention to the forward-aft movement, but IIRC, they didn't bounce much up or down either.

So how do you reduce going up? The only things I can think of are to roll your hips back slightly until you feel the fleshy part of your buttocks in contact with the saddle, and let your butt muscles take part of the upward thrust. The second is to have a relaxed back. However, I think there is a limited amount we can do to reduce the upward motion.

To speed up coming down, the only things I can think of are:

1 - Relax, Relax, Relax! Relax your legs. Relax your thighs (pulling together). Relax your butt muscles (particularly while going up). Relax your back. Relax your shoulders. You cannot speed up gravity, but you can slow the effect of gravity down.

2 - Legs below you. I like to ride with a mild chair seat, but if I am pushing my feet forward, then A) there is tension, and B) the weight to my front is pivoting me (creating imbalance) instead of pulling me down. 

I will temper this a bit. My legs are extremely tight from 40 years of jogging and only recently taking up riding. The tension in my thighs isn't so much muscular as it is tendons and muscles I cannot control trying to keep my legs together. When my feet are a bit forward, my legs don't have to spread as far apart, so a MILD chair seat might help me. But I'm a 53 year old guy. On the whole, getting my heels underneath should help me come down straighter and faster.

Still, I'm very much a beginner rider. There may be a lot of other things I'm just not seeing. But right now, I am convinced my biggest problem with riding is fighting the horse's motion instead of accepting it.


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## maura (Nov 21, 2009)

bsms, 
I can't emphasize enough how important it is to understand *how* the horse's back moves; then you have to put yourself in the correct position so your seatbones can follow that motion. 

Also, I think you took tinyliny's suggestions too literally. (I remember from the Centered Riding thread that you're analytical and don't do well with imagery.)
You *allow* your seatbone to sink down as the horse's back on that side falls; that's what she means by going down, not that you force your seatbone down or grind into the horse's back. 

This all sounds so easy on the internet, but the truth is, as soon as your start to bounce out of the tack, you lose correct postion or start to grip and lock your joints. Then you have to struggle to find the following motion all over again. That's why learning on the lunge is such a good idea.

If you don't have a helpful dog, lunge a horse with a big trot with no saddle and pay attention to how the muscles of the back under the saddle really move at the trot; that's a great first step. 

Fairly early in my dressage education, I got in a fabulous moving horse with a *huge* trot. At my first training level show with him; the judge told me 1.) not to attempt to sit to him yet because I would ruin him 2.) to go take a lot of lunge line lessons on an upper level horse and *really* learn how to sit before attempting it with him. (She then gave us 8s on some of our rising trot work.) It was excellent advice. I did 4 months of weekly lessons on a 3rd/4th level horse that was also a huge mover. I had to have massage and chiropractic on a regular basis during that time, but overall it was well worth it.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Something I would love to do if I could figure out the mechanics: Put a sack of potatoes in a saddle, trot the horse on a lunge line, and see if the potatoes could 'ride' the horse better than I do.

My guess is the answer would be yes. Potatoes don't get nervous and don't have knees to grip with.

When I start to get out of synch, I make a conscious effort to spread my knees and try to make myself relax, particularly in the lower back and thighs. When I do, gravity seems to put me back in synch with the horse's motion.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I agree that there is no force against which one can push to bring themselves down faster than gravity. What can happen , though, is that the human body can contract and expand (even in a vacuum, such as space where nothing exists to puch against). So, the pelvis and lower back can contract (makeing the effective length of the upper body less,) then expand downward to match the drop of the saddle downward. It is more a mental image than an actual , physical process. What we focus on matters. So, for someone who may not find the ability to follow the sitting trot, trying something new such as focussing on the downward part of the wave may make a difference.

ETA; I find myself honored to think BSMS would not like to disagree with me. Isn't that special? ( hear Church Ladies voice)


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## kitten_Val (Apr 25, 2007)

bsms said:


> Put a sack of potatoes in a saddle, trot the horse on a lunge line, and see if the potatoes could 'ride' the horse better than I do.


If you _*tie *_the sack to the horn it WILL ride and possibly even sit through the buck (unlike many of us). :lol:


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## phoenix (Jun 7, 2010)

I had the hardest time learning to sit the trot when i was taking lessons. My instructor used to tell me i "floated above the saddle because my hips were too closed and creating a triangle that was making me hover". She said she'd never seem anyone ride by floating along basically above the saddle without falling off yet i could do it. Unfortunately i couldn't sit the trot or canter without being bounced everywhere. 

So i took lungeline lessons, lots and lots of them. i'd trot without the reins, without the stirrups, with my eyes closed. you name it i think i did it. My instructor told me to be like spaghetti, all wiggly and loose. she also told me to imagine i had two headlights attached to my hips and that i wanted to keep them facing forward and slightly up. This helped me to sit taller and not round my back out so much.

I actually rode my horse today without stirrups to work on my sitting trot and to try and figure out why my right hip collapses when i'm riding a circle. I did okay on the sitting trot, aside from the fact that my horse kept stopping and doing his crazy half canter half trot move he likes to throw in. i didn't get very far into investigating the collapsing hip though.


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