Oh. My. Abs.
During my riding lesson today, J had us doing some sitting trot during one portion of an exercise. For some background, you should know:
- Thanks to all the back injuries I had as an undergrad, I lost a lot of the “feel” I used to have while riding, and in order to really sit the trot, you have to be able to feel the horse’s back—what it’s doing, how it’s moving.
- My hips are very tight—and to sit the trot, you also need loose hips. But I’ve been having trouble moving with the horse at the walk—even when I could feel how she was moving.
- As a result of #1 and #2, we’ve done very little sitting trot—and the thought of sitting trot terrified me a little bit, because if you can’t feel what the horse is doing and move with it, you end up bouncing around like a sack of rocks, which isn’t good for the horse’s back—or yours. And I’m not interested in screwing up my back again.
I couldn’t really tell you how it happened, but something clicked, in the way things sometimes click. I was sitting the trot today better than I have EVER sat the trot before. When you’re really sitting it, all the horse’s movement gets absorbed in your seat/hips… I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s an incredible, incredible feeling.
However, the movement is not unlike doing those bicycle crunches—you know the ones where you take your elbow to the opposite knee? Imagine doing a very subtle variation of that—think of flexing/moving your ab muscles just a few inches up and down, up and down… for fifteen or twenty minutes.
Not to take anything away from the how amazing the sitting trot feels but… Oh. My. Poor. Abs.