[转帖]How do I improve my sitting trot?

One of the things people want to know most is: "how to improve the sitting trot？"
It's the number one question I receive around the world!   Beginners, just learning sitting trot want to know "how to ride the sitting trot" and FEI professionals still want to work on improving their dressage sitting trot & especially - bouncing in extended trot or passage/piaffe.
We all want to stop bouncing at the trot.  We would all like to know how to ride an extended trot on "full throttle", big moving horse or pony.
So, if you're having difficulty riding the sitting trot, you're not on your own!  Learning to sit the trot can be very difficult!  It's all very well if you're young, fit, confident & flat-chested!   You haven't got as much to bounce (smile).  But, if you're unfit, older & large-chested it's feels so awful, or even hurts so much, it's enough to give up!
But here are some great ways to improve your sitting trot...
How to Improve the Sitting Trot
1.  Improving the Rider's Balance

The three best exercises for sitting the trot are exercises that increase your balance, strength, timing & confidence:
  1►  Still legs improve the rider's balance
  2►   Learn to stand
  3►   Check your stirrup length
The first one "Still Legs"  tests out if the rider has good balance, or can easily be tipped back in the saddle.   To have good control and balance through the leg is the first step to a great sitting trot.
Practicing this "standing exercise" .  This is the not just the fastest way I know to learn how to do a sitting trot, it teaches you how to improve your balance for all of your riding, no matter what your sport.
Check your stirrup length.  Not only is it an Official Rule that your heels must be the lowest point, but it's that levering of the heel down that stablises the leg, and give the rider balance & confidence.
A rider needs a good independent seat before they even attempt sitting trot.  The best way to gain true balance, independence and control of our body is to do some basic balance exercises on the lunge, or on a vaulting horse, or even on your own, and the way to start is to start with standing.


2.   Best tips for Bouncing in Trot - Stopping the Rider "Flapping"
Improving sitting trot means getting stiller and stopping the flapping, nodding & bouncing in sitting trot:
Here's four best tips to fix the four major things that start bouncing in sitting trot:
1►  hands
2►  heels
3►  dressage headnod
4► Bottom bounces in the saddle in working trot and even bigger bounces during extended trot  
Needless to say, if the rider's hands move, their heels bump and their head bobs up and down, then in response, the horse stiffens, and lowers their spine tensing and then the horse becomes impossible to sit on.

   3.  Video of sitting trot
One of the fastest ways to learn how to not bounce in the saddle when a horse trots is to really see yourself on video sitting trot.
Your sitting trot video for the first time might not be easy to watch....but you can't imagine an Olympic runner who hasn't watched their technique and action on video!  In fact, that's a major field of sports biomechanics: video & motion analysis.
The first step is to get filmed!
1►  Video of sitting trot
3►  Check to see their belly buttons, and check your own "wiggle in the middle"  
They absolutely DO NOT "wiggle in the middle".   
There is nothing more valuable than your seeing your own Video or DVD of sitting trot.

   4.  My Best Kept Secret....
It's all very well for young, fit, tall riders to just hop on a horse and just "sit" - but that never happened to me.  I BOUNCED!   
Not only did I bounce in the saddle, but my chest bounced completely independently of everything else too!   ...and that's NOT what they call they independent seat!  *smile*.
I couldn't do the "normal" sitting trot like everyone else, and for years and years struggled desperately, until someone taught me like this:
The trots you know about are:

1)  Rising Trot
where you sit when the outside front foot (and inside hind) hit the ground and then rise.  Sometimes called a "single" trot as you're only sitting in time with one front leg.

2)  Sitting Trot
when you sit in time with both front feet (or both back feet).  Sometimes called a "double trot" as you're not rising at all, and sitting twice as much as rising trot..
But...there is the "third alternative" which I wasn't taught for years...It's called:
3)   Rising Trot - but your bum doesn't leave the saddle.  Yes, that's right.   It is CLEARLY rising trot, not "normal" double sitting trot (bounce-bounce).  
That is, you put a little "rise" in your sitting trot so that instead of just going "sit-sit", or "bounce-bounce", you're going "sit-rise", but you're rise is so small that your bum doesn't leave the saddle.
I often put a dollar bill under someone's bottom and tell them to do RISING trot, but to keep the money under their bum.
So it's a more forward-back motion than an up-down motion, and therefore your butt doesn't leave the saddle.
As I said, it's all very well for talented riders not to have to worry about it, but if you are large-chested like me I can GUARANTEE nothing will stop them bouncing completely apart from this "third alternative".


Some Warnings!

Not ready ...
Sitting trot is not a requirement until the THIRD year of training.  Let's look at this in terms of hours.  The Spanish School eleves work 40 hours per week.  And, the average rider rides only 2 or 3 times a week.   
If the rider attempts their sitting trot before they are able to do the previous movements, then neither horse, nor rider are following the program of training laid out in the dressage tests, they are "jumping levels", and there is nothing that the major texts agree on more than: THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS!
The older horse's back is stronger and more "set", the muscles are thicker and stronger with the ability to hold the rider stiller.  A younger novice dressage horse is bouncier and more difficult to ride until they can really balance themselves, and then you on top of them.
It's much more difficult to ride sitting trot on a horse doing novice or training level dressage.  If the horse is young, or untrained, or simply unfit, they don't have the physical ability,  balance, and especially co-ordination to be able to hold the saddle still.  And, a moving saddle is harder to sit on than a still saddle!
Perhaps, if you're having difficulties, then you're just trying too difficult a movement, or too early.
Above the bit  
Another reason why sitting trot is not introduced until later is that the horse needs to be on the bit...truly on the bit...for the rider to be able to sit still, and a novice horse is more 'on the bit' than the preliminary horse.   If the horse is hollow, or forced into a "fake frame", you will bounce.
So, again, you might be asking too early.
On the forehand
Often riders think they have to train the horse to do sitting trot.  It's not so much you're training sitting trot, is that you have to develop the correct muscles to enable you to sit the trot.   
This means the horse has to "sit down" bending it's back legs a big like a kangaroo or a frog.  "Sitting down" to be able to spring.   If the horse is too young, or too unfit, or unprepared they will carry more weight on the two front feet on the forehand and it will take a lot of skill in riding the sitting trot!

Too fast - rushing
Even 1 or 2 beats per minute faster than normal trot makes sitting the trot almost impossible to sit.

h4v6sY

a good article

h4v6sY