How to Sit on a Horse Before Walking

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Kelli on behalf of Expert Village. I am going to show you how to ride your horse with a walk. So once you are on your horse, there is definitely a way that you want to sit that is going to enable you to ride most effectively. You want to be sitting with your shoulder, your hip and your heel in a line so there should be a vertical line going straight down and your shoulder, hip and your heel should be in that line. You want to make sure that your heel is pressed downward because you wouldn't want it up because that would cause your foot to slip through your stirrup which could be really dangerous. If you would happen to fall off, your foot could get stuck in your stirrup. So you want to keep your heel down. You want to keep your leg in a nice relaxed position, slight bend to the knee. I'm on a Western saddle and it is a little bit different from a English saddle so you ride with more calf pressure so your knees aren't necessarily pressing on the horse. If I was on an English saddle, my knees would be rolled inward more and I would have a little less calf on my horse. But since I am on a Western saddle, I have my knee rolled out. When you are riding, you want to keep your shoulders square. If you would think of having your shoulder blades touching together, that is how you would have perfect back posture. You never want to get too much arch in your back or you never want to get slumpy in your back. You also want to sit vertically straight up. You never want to get too far back or too far in front of the horse. Too far back is going to throw your horse off balance and he is probably going to hollow out his back and he is going to go a little bit slower. If you get a little bit too far forward, that is a cue that you want your horse to go faster so your horse might have more of a tendency to pick up speed or take off on you. So you want to sit in a nice vertical line with your shoulders back and relaxed. You don't want them scrunched up or pushed too far down; just have them back relaxed. Shoulder, hip and heel in a line. Your hands held loosely in front of the horn right above the wither just a couple of inches above the horse's shoulder and you want your chin parallel to the ground. You don't want it to be looking too far up here and you also don't want to be looking down. You want to be looking where you are going right between the horse's ears. So those are some tips and techniques of how you can properly sit on your horse and ride most effectively."