# Think I"m having issues with my jumping position..



## xeventer17

to me it seems like your stirrups are a bit too long and you seem to hunch your shoulders and back much more than you should. Jumping position should be practically the same as your regular position except your knee and hip angles are more closed. i dunno though, that's just what i see.


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## koomy56

I agree, shorten your stirrups 2 holes. You cannot fix your back if you have no base of support, which will be easier to find with shorter stirrups.  
For that sized jump, yes you are releasing a bit dramatically. Fromt he look of your pictures, you seem to have the basic idea of as you bend forward, your butt will scoot a little towards the back of the saddle. If your stirrups were shorter, your legs wouldn't be so easily pushed forward. You def have the right idea, just need some fine tuning. 
What I would do for you, is have to practice bending forward, like you were going to lay yourself on your pony's neck and give him a hug. Where is your point of rotation? It shouldn't be your waist, it should be at your hips, where your actual hip sockets are located. 
How easily can your bend forward, maintaining your leg position, while keeping your back flat? People get that roached back because they aren't stable in their lower backs, and they bend at the waist to compensate. I have a friend who is similar in build to you, and she has had the same issues. Long legs, long arms, and not knowing where to put everything. haha. 
As with the release, practice trotting something a little smaller. Approach it in 2-pt, have your hands in front of you, grab mane if you have to. Try not to let the jump make you catapult forward, just sit in 2-pt and wait for your horse to jump up and close your angles. You can see in the 2nd picture, you have thrown yourself so far up his neck that it has caused your pony's balance to go down in front. See how your hands are way up by his ears? Release with your hands about in the middle of his neck, or about 6 inches from his withers. With these sized jumps you do not need that dramatic of a release. 
Dont jump the jump for him, allow him to carry you over the jumps by himself, while you stay out of the way by being quiet and subtle. It is nice that you are thinking of staying out of his way, but actually by throwing yourself up his neck is throwing his balance off quite a bit. Hope this helps!! CUTE PONY!


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## JustDressageIt

There are a few things that are jumping out at me:

- You have lost all base of support in your legs. They are swung forwards and don't offer you any support at all. I will discuss this a little later on.
- You have rounded your back completely; you want to keep it nice and straight. 
- You have fallen behind your horse's jump, and this is partly caused by your leg position. 
- You are throwing your reins away as far up the neck as possible instead of doing a correct release. 
- You appear to be a very confident and brave rider, and this will definitely work to your advantage! Your horse looks to be willing as well, and if you can start working with an instructor that can be right there with you, I think you could be a superstar in no time!

In the mean time, here's my e-advice:

I would recommend you start right from the ground up. At the moment you don't have a solid base of support; that being your legs. 

I would suggest asking someone to lunge you on your horse and you can focus on your lower body; you want to sink into your heels and keep your lower leg anchored just behind the girth. Although the following is a dressage rider, they are illustrating the correct shoulder-hip-heel straight vertical line that you want to achieve:








When you're riding, your leg and pelvis will be your anchor of support; if that is not solid, your position won't be solid.

As I was saying.. if you can get someone to lunge your horse, great! Let that person control your horse's speed, and you just concentrate on your position.
Think about your legs hanging from your hip sockets, sinking your weight into your heel. Don't push your heel down, as that might force your leg forwards. Think of keeping that shoulder-hip-heel line. 
Next you want to work on your upper body. 
Imagine a star painted on your shirt on your chest. You want to show that star off! Roll your shoulders back and keep your chin up, be cautious not to arch your back at all - you want it straight, not hollow.

When you are confident about your position on the lunge line, take it out around your arena. 

To solidify your jumping position, you want to start on the flat.
You want to be able to hold a two-point (forward seat) position on the flat at all paces without falling backwards or forwards, through transitions and changes of direction.
So! Get into your two-point position at a walk. Drop your reins and don't balance on your horse's neck. Once you can hold this for a few rounds around the arena, then put your hands on your hips while maintaining your forward seat. Then hold your arms out to the side... lather, rinse and repeat. 
Do this exercise at a trot (if you can keep your reins dropped, this would be good - if not, then ask someone to lunge you again) and a canter. Finally, start adding some trot and canter poles in. 

If you can do an entire course holding that position without balancing on the horse's neck and without falling backwards or forwards over a course of trot and canter poles, then try a little crossrail. 

For your release, you want to keep your arms bent, and not use the horse's neck as balance, but allow the horse to use its neck both before and after the jump. Maintaining a light contact throughout the jump is ideal - the key word is LIGHT. 

Here's what a solid leg position looks like:
(in my opinion)









No matter what this horse does under him, he is not going anywhere! His butt is centered over the saddle, his legs are in correct position and solid.


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## JustDressageIt

Here's the two-point that you want to have on the flat, without reins, without touching the horse's neck:


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## JustDressageIt

Lots of posts, sorry.. just wanted to add... your hip angle is closed waaay too much - see the rider on the bay horse in the post above? That's the angle you want to have  perhaps slightly more so over the fence, but not as closed as what you have. 

Pinto Pony, where are you and your zillions of pictures with your great jumping position?


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## JustDressageIt

Red is as close to ideal as I could get using Paint and an eyeball... yellow is your position. Visual aids like this help me a lot, so I thought they might help you as well..?


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## Skippy!

Wow JDI! That was very thorough! LOL! Good advice, i like the last bit you did with the MS Paint, that was a really good way to show her how to correct her positioning =)

You get 3 Gold Stars today


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## Shellbe

Thankyou, Thankyou, Thankyou! Everyone has offered great advice. I particularly liked seeing your visual representation with paint JDI . *haha* lol, koomy56, I do find it difficult to find a place for everything! My long arms and legs are fine for flatwork where they can hang down nicely, but when I've got to compress the length, things can get tricky . 
Am going to work on all the excersizes mentioned. I can't have an instructor for quite some time, but I've gotten over problems with position in other areas of riding, with help from the video camera, even if it's just sitting somewhere and I only see myself riding at certain points . Also if someone's around I can ask them to take a squiz at me. When I get it right, I then focus on the feel of what I did right, and that usually keeps me on the gith track .

Not being heavily into jumping until the last few years (yet not doing much of it in this time in any case), I kind of know what to look for with certain riding faults, but am definately no pro. But the issue has mostly been about how to correct the faults. Sure I've come across info on how to correct position, but I find some of the textbook readings on this don't give enough information, or just aren't explained in a way I can really understand it. But thanks to you all, I've a better understanding now . So thankyou again, you've been most helpful .


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## xx chico

Hmm, well I was going to say something but I'm pretty sure all you need to know just got covered haha!

Also JDI if you hadn't mentioned pinto pony and her wonderful position, I was definitely going to add that too lol


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## Equuestriaan

JDI, think you could do one of those visuals for the pictures I put up for critique?  http://www.horseforum.com/horse-riding-critique/please-critique-my-jumping-24464/


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## JustDressageIt

Equuestriaan said:


> JDI, think you could do one of those visuals for the pictures I put up for critique?  http://www.horseforum.com/horse-riding-critique/please-critique-my-jumping-24464/


Definitely! I will get on that later tonight when I'm back on my computer.


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## Shellbe

Hi again everyone. Went out and did a bit of jumping today keeping in mind the great advice you all gave. Mainly I worked on keeping my back straight, but I also had my stirrups shorter, which seemed to help ALOT. So anyways, here's a couple of pics, well, stills taken from a vid from my jumping session. When I worked out what keeping my back straight while going over the jump 'felt' like, I was able to really distinguish when I was keeping it straight, and when I was not. There were some jumps where I didn't keep my back straight, but I knew staight away that it had not been. So am rather happy with myself. Not having had instruction for quite some time, and not being able to get any instruction for jumping for quite a while, I've just become rusty and/or forgotten some things. But with all your advice I'm starting to realise (with less concentration) when watching myself in a vid where I'm going wrong, why, and etc. Or like I said, associate with what correct position 'feels' like. I'm a very feeling rider, so once I understand what something feels like I'm full steam ahead to work on it and improve. So anyways, here's a couple of pics/stills from a video from today. I know my baggy jeans might make it a little difficult, so sorry, for that. I'd like to know how my legs are by the way actually. In the first seres of pics at the start of this thread my legs are right forward. I don't want to have my leg slipping back, as so many people have that issue, so I suppose I was trying to avoid that from happenning as well, that was my thinking :S. But has my leg/s slipped back in today's pics at all ? It's kinda like a bit of a phobia of mine I suppose, to have my leg's swinging back, nothing that has me in histerics, but yeah. I've still got some work to do in order to improve so that my position with be consistantly correct, but I'm on my way. So thankyou all again . Any other advice is much appreciated.  I know my release is probably still a bit too much, but I'll get to that .

















Anyhow, thanks again everyone.  LOLz, my boots seem to have blended into the horse, but my heals are down .


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## IheartPheobe

Alright, get your leg baaack, girl! 
In the pic you just posted, you need to get your butt out of the saddle- it should be over the saddle not in it. You might want you also move your foot back in the stirrup- but that might just be that your leg isn't back enough. Also- hands off your horses neck! It's making you fall forward more =]


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## Skippy!

Shellbe,

Have you considered trying to get your form together on smaller jumps? It's a lot easier to get a good feel of your body position over 1 - 1 1/2 foot jumps =) Once you finally get where you need to be when you are jumping small fences, slowly build up to the big fences. It'll be much easier to take the new challenge of height when your stable in your saddle =)

Your back looks much better since the first pictures! But your hands/arms need to be tucked neatly and closer to his wither rather than his poll =) If he were to stumble after that jump i think you'd eat his mane! =) And that second picture looks like you were left behind in the saddle a bit too. So thats my advice for tonight! Work on your hand position and your seat security! All in All, great improvement so far!

My that horse is quite the exuberant little jumper! =) Very cute!


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## ~*~anebel~*~

1 to 1 1/2 foot fences aren't fences 
I still think that your stirrups could use some shortening, but do it gradually so you don't disturb your position too much. I think that despite the really poor stirrup length that you are a really well balanced rider. With the shorter stirrup length i think that you'll be a little bit more consistent in your seat over the fence, and won't feel the tendency to slip back into the saddle, along with really working on your leg and keeping it on to support your body over the fences. Also, once your stirrups have reached an ideal length (probably 1-3 holes shorter than they are in the recent photos)you're going to feel that it's easier to keep your back straight because you wont be reaching for your stirrup. 
And as much as it's not seen a lot today I love your release. Automatic releases are a rare thing these days (in case you couldn't tell from other posters ) but I think you've got the basic idea. If you look in both of the recent pictures, you can draw a straight line from your elbow to the bit. I would focus on bringing your arms a little closer into your body, and still keeping the straight line from elbow to bit, and I would also throw in a few medium crest releases (shorter than in the previous pictures) where your hand rests beside the horse's crest, just to keep your position fresh and keep you thinking.
I also like your horse he looks like an honest guy and isn't afraid to jump because obviously you try very hard not to catch him in the mouth, good job


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## starlinestables

The second round of pics are much better and the other posters are handling that advice really well.

I'm afraid for you and your pony though! Those jumps are dangerous. My friend made some jumps out of cinder blocks... The horse slammed on the breaks and she landed on one of them and she had to be care flighted to the hospital! The horse knocked over the cinderblock and got his foot through the hole and almost broke his leg in half.... but he did have a small fracture.

Be careful and keep up the improvements! You are getting there! )


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## Skippy!

~*~anebel~*~ said:


> 1 to 1 1/2 foot fences aren't fences


I've never been the expert on jumping ;D. i dabbled in it for a little while and decided I enjoyed Dressage much more 

So what are 1 to 1 1/2 foot jumps? "Ground Poles for the Vertically Challenged"? LOL! In the little kiddie classes they call those jumps  Cavelettis (sp x_x) also work well for working on form. Thats how i got my two point and seat more rock solid when learning to jump.

What I was intending with that advice, was to try to get the position right on the smaller jumps/semi-above-ground-poles/fences/hurdles/etc to where when you tried the larger jumps/really-above-ground-poles/fences/hurdles/etc you will have a good foundation to fall back on (or you wont fall back at all.. since you've worked on your seat and form over the smaller obstacles ;D).

Again, good improvement since the last set of pictures!


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## JustDressageIt

MUCH improved from yesterday, well done!!! I'm very impressed.

Your legs are sitting a little bit more underneath of you, which is awesome, now just try bringing your heel back a little bit more underneath of your hip. You are getting more centered over your saddle, but it looks like a little left behind still, so try to not fall behind your pony's motion. 
Good with the looking up!! 
Now, roll back your shoulders and show off that star on your t-shirt!
As for your release, I'm going to disagree with Anabel here and say that's quite an overexaggeration of an auto release - you want your elbow bent and your hands a little closer to the horse's crest so you're not giving him a big hug 

Well done, I'm very impressed. If you can drop the height a little and work on your position with your whole body, that would be greatly beneficial to you - as well, you can start to feel about getting left behind. 

ETA_ Skippy!, I use the term "fences" for any sort of jump... guess that makes me very un-jump/ground pole/slightly raised speed bump - wise too.


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## JustDressageIt




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## JustDressageIt

An auto release I like:


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## JustDressageIt

Auto release ish?


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## Shellbe

> ~*~anebel~*~ --> And as much as it's not seen a lot today I love your release. Automatic releases are a rare thing these days (in case you couldn't tell from other posters ) but I think you've got the basic idea.


Thank you . I always want to use the least amount of pessure on a horse wether it's leg,seat or from the hands, etc. And in jumping I like to especially stay off my horse's mouths. Sure I have contact and have them going nicely on the bit during a course and especially when lining up with each fence, but then with my releases (as can easily be seen ) I just give heaps. As has been said, and as I'd thought, it's too much, but I rather dislike seeing riders hanging off the mouths of their mount over a jump, wether they're using their reins as balance or just haven't conquered the release. I see pictures and videos of top riders doing this and it puzzles me how thier horses are able to perform with that restriction.... (just my own pet hate I suppose, I don't intend to offend anyone or cause a debate with my little speel then). But thankyou, releasing how I do (though not my current arm placement:lol is something I prefer from just watching showjumpers and etc. 

I did feel the urge to shorten my stirrups more than the suggested 2 holes today actually. But thought there's no harm in working up to the appropriate length. 

The little guy (14.3H )I'm jumping on in the pics I've put up is such a champ . It's a shame he hasn't been sold (we run a stud so it's the whole breed bring along and sell situation) because he's the perfect little allrounder. Quite a sensitive boy though, really pics up on anything thought/felt by his handler/rider. He's very enjoyable , so I don't mind that he hasn't found a home, except that money doesn't grow on trees . 

Thank you all for your encouraging comments, and advice . I'm finding my way regarding my jumping position now. Still alot to work on though .

starlinestables, my jumps are pretty safe . I'm not using cinder blocks, they can be scary accidents waiting to happen that's for sure. The gridded blocks I have for use with some of my jumps are made of concrete (regrettably), but the squares are small (I can only fit my hand into them up to the first joint of each finger (including thumb) and so no hooves can find their way in. Sure there's danger to me if I happen to come off and land on them, but it's no different to hitting a proper jumping wing . The material which would cause the most problem to a horse with my jumps, is the tires. In certain scenarios of course, should the horse step inside them and freak. But then I was told by a trainer once that they run their horses through (a yard for example) tires set up like this OOOO, as a desensitising excersize, or an excersize to teach lazy horses which might stumble alot to pick up their feet.*shrugs* With anything around horses, I look for their safety first . Unfortunately the anlge I had to have the camera on while I rode today had to fit in with where the sun was, so there is a jump in the way of the jump I'm jumping. But it's good of you to mention about the safety of jumps assembled where people don't have proper jumping wings and etc. 

Thank you all again. 
Bee


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