Newbie-please forgive my ignorance-leg position

[mom23monkeys]

I am a bit confused with the lower leg position...Is the LOWER lower leg, like just above your ankle, susposed to be on the horse at all times??? My trainer says to wrap my leg around but I feel like my leg is curving in, if that makes any sense. Also, when posting, are you susposed to post from the stirrups or from your thighs? Watching some riders, I see their stirrups and lower leg going up and down with each post. Is that correct???:confused:

[jetsmom]

The easiest way to explain it is to stand up in your stirrups with your knee bent. Relax your leg/ankle to let your weight drop into your heels, with your toes turned out slightly. (If you feel like you are falling forward, your lower leg is too far back. If you feel like you are falling backwards, your lower leg is too far forward. Your leg should hit "The sweet spot" where it is directly under you so if you removed the horse you would be landing on your feet. With your toes naturally slightly turned out, you will normally (assuming the horse is not too small for you so your feet hang below it's belly), you should have contact from your top of the thigh, to where your calf muscle ends. You don't want to be pinching with your knees.
When you post, your ankles should be relaxed. They act as shock absorbers. Once your lower leg is properly muscled, there won't really be any noticable up/down movement of your heels. However, it is better to be relaxed, and have a slight movement, rather than pushing off your toe/stirrup. Having a relaxed, lowered ankle will allow you to be more secure. If you tense up your ankle and press on your stirrup/ball of foot, it will act like an inflated beach ball and pop you out of the saddle and make you less secure, if that makes any sense.

Welcome to the forums.

[dags]

mom23monkeys (love the name :) )

The dressage folks have something I've always loved- the "breathing leg", which loosely translates to having enough feel throughout the leg to feel the breaths of the horse. At the least, it's just there, being in touch with the horse's side, rhythm, and at utmost feel, their breath. Taking into account every muscle move in the core of their body.

That's fine and dandy till you ride Mr. Slab Sides, whose belly feels to disappear beneath your knee. The point being is that all horses (barrels) are different, and all balance points vary.

Posting question is easy, thigh. More so, leg. Remember this, if I (with superhuman quickness and monkey arms) can reach and rip your stirrups out from underneath you, will you miss a beat? Prepare for that to happen multiple times throughout your riding career, courtesy of a sticky fence or what-not, and always rely on your muscle, not your iron to get you out of that triple combination .. ..

[fourmares]

Your lower leg should touch your horse to about the point where the top of a paddock boot sits. If you allow your toe to be at a 30 - 40 degree angle, your lower leg will naturally lay against your horse. If, however, you try to ride with your toe facing forward you will likely pinch with your knee, which drives your lower leg away from the horse and would make it feel as if your leg has to bend in a weird way to have to lower leg touch the horse.

When posting you should allow the trust of the horse's trot to lift you out of the saddle. You should not need to stand up. Then you should use your leg and thigh to lower your seat back to the saddle so that you aren't thumping the horse in the back... If your horse is particularly lazy you might have to post a little more agressively, but you are still using your whole leg to support youself rather than standing in your sturrips.

[2DaPoint]

"Stand and stretch, sit and squeeze."
This is a quote I use over and over and over again with my students.
If you do it the other way around, you ARE pinching with your knees.... and shouldn't be.
It will throw you completely off balance and make you have to hold onto the saddle with your legs just to stay on your horse.
When you rise, if you allow your heel to drop down past the stirrup iron, you "refresh" the flexibility of not just your ankle position, but also your knee angle and the length of your thigh. Lengthening your leg puts your weight down below your center of gravity and is the greatest balance distributor you've got.
This might be some of the movement you have noticed in other riders' legs.

Shoulder-- hip-- heel. These three things should make pretty much a vertical line.
As others have said, if your leg is too far forward it will make you want to sit down on your bottom, (and consequently use the reins for part of your balance, which is bad), if your leg is too far back it will make you feel like you are falling forward., (and has the very bad "fix-it" of making your grip with your knee and thigh just to stay ON.... which is also bad).

The exact amount of contact with your "lower leg" (and I agree there is a whole lot of variation on just exactly what this means) will be determined by your build, your horse's build, the length of your saddle flap, and how much GO you have to add to your horse at any given moment.

George Morris (all hail) discusses the "Educated Grip" when talking about leg position.
This is referring to the points of contact that run from the very upper thigh, down along the thigh to the very back of the knee, through the inner calf, and into the ankle.

Obviously, you cannot really use your ankle for pushing if your knee is smashed against the saddle.... mainly because it won't be anywhere near your horse.
Another problem with pinching too hard with your knee is that you lose the ability to BEND your knee.
Ya see..... the knee is a hinge joint. Pure and simple. It is not supposed to have any sideways movement to it. (People with ACL problems can relate..... it's not such a good thing.) Hence, if you can't bend your knee so that your calf (and ankle) can move both ON to he horse as well as OFF, then you really won't have a very effective Leg Aid.

Generally speaking, your horse should be able to tolerate continual CALF pressure, which is the most general way in which you communicate tempo and pace.
When you need more "go", or obvious one-way lateral movement, you need to bend your knee more so that your ANKLE begins to have contact as well.
When you're really really serious about what you want your horse to do from your leg aids, you should have, by that point, have bent your knee enough that your actual HEEL is up and into the horse's ribcage. (This IS where the spurs are strapped, after all......)
There are even times-- yes I'm going to say it-- that you need to RAISE your heel by way of stepping onto your toes, so that you can get even better contact with your heel or spur.
This is the least preferred way of using your leg as an aid, but there are definitely times when it is appropriate. Just hopefully not in an Equitation class....

When you hear "wrap your leg around your horse", I believe it is another way of saying "BEND your knee and get your ankle closer to your horse!"
For the most part, Hunter-length stirrups make it pretty difficult to actually wrap your leg around your horse. Dressage-length stirrups, on the other hand, really facilitate that possibility.

You do have to be careful of turning your knee and thigh so far away from the saddle that there is "air" between you and the saddle. Also, in turning your knee and thigh away, you will probably have your toes pointing out away from your horse at a less-than-acceptable angle. These are the tweaking points of equitation once you've learned how to use your body parts to make your horse do what you want him to!

But speaking as an instructor, I would much rather polish up a toed-out rider than try to get a knee-pincher to let loose and USE their lower leg!
I can't tell you the number of "but my old trainer said my toes are supposed to point straight ahead" students I've inherited and had to retrain to use their lower legs properly.

So, gee, I hope I said something LESS confusing.....
KD

[JB]

I am a bit confused with the lower leg position...Is the LOWER lower leg, like just above your ankle, susposed to be on the horse at all times???[quote]
No - it shouldn't be on the horse at all unless the horse's wide, deep barrel and your short leg just make it happen.

It's the inner back of the calf that should be resting on the horse, assuming you are talking from a hunter/jumper point of view, not dressage ;)

[quote] My trainer says to wrap my leg around but I feel like my leg is curving in, if that makes any sense.
And the above reason is why :)

Also, when posting, are you susposed to post from the stirrups or from your thighs? Watching some riders, I see their stirrups and lower leg going up and down with each post. Is that correct???:confused:
If you "post from the stirrups", you end up standing/pushing against them, and that does tend to make the lower leg wobble around. It pains my eyes to see people posting and their lower is flaps out and in when they rise and sit, like wings :no: That lower leg needs to stay still. It's fine to think of posting off your thighs - just don't think of posting off your knee ;)

[2DaPoint]

Also.... as I was riding today I thought to myself..... "The HIP"!!
That's where you post from. The HIP. Not the knee, not the stirrups...... the HIP.
That's really where the motion, and the most noticeable change in angle, occurs.
I actually found myself thinking about it as I was trotting along. Where AM I posting from?
It was pretty clear to me.
KD

[JB]

Something else about posting that often gets people in trouble. We've all been through the "up down" mantra, right?

Well, it's wrong.

Posting is much more forward and back than it is up and down.

If you think about pushing your belly button towards the horse's ears, that seems to automatically make you post more correctly through your leg and hips and not push from your feet.