You can’t deny the importance of stirrups to a rider. Stirrups are an essential item on the pony tack list. Riders use stirrups for mounting, dismounting, balance, pony control and occasionally for protecting themselves from a potential fall.

So why in the name of all that is horse heaven do instructors demand that their students learn to ride without stirrups? If you’ve ever been baffled by this question, I’ve got some clarifications for you.

Before I answer the problem of why instructors ask students to ride sans stirrups, I have got a bit of information for you. When riding without your stirrups, lay them across the horse’s neck or the shoulders, but don’t lay them across your saddle. It will take you simply one experience with severely bruised things to learn this lesson yourself the tough way, but I am protecting you from that experience. Laying the stirrups across the horse’s shoulders and neck will cause him no discomfort. The stirrups will bounce in complete harmony with the horse’s movements. Try to get the buckle away from the stirrup bar, and place this across the horse’s neck. You can avoid pinching and bruising your upper legs by doing this and shoving the stirrup leather flat underneath the saddle’s skirt.

Riding without stirrups is designed to help you analyse and enhance your sense of balance and stability. When you’re riding without the security of the stirrups, you are presenting your instructor with a naked view of your capabilities, or absence of them. When you’re without stirrups, you’ve got to sort of feel out the position astride your pony that works best for you , and that may involve a large amount of wriggling and shifting. While the natural bias is to rock forward so that you can absorb the impact of the horse’s movements better thru the upper part of your body (and also because the horse’s neck can be grabbed if required) this will make the horse tense. You must relax and sit back. You have to learn how to absorb the impact of movement thru your lower body areas: the lower back, hips and pelvis. The higher part of your body should be upright and still, moving just enough to flow with the horse’s movements. You need to attempt to sit as loosely as practical in just such a way that your weight presses down on the horse’s centre of gravity.

Riding without stirrups helps nervous riders gain some confidence. Although it can be a rather terrifying experience at the outset, riding a gentle pony without stirrups will improve your sense of balance and give you better control of application of aids. If you are especially uncomfortable at the beginning, you should not feel humbled to suggest that you start at a walk. Once you feel comfortable with that, you can slowly progress to a trot and then to a canter. No-stirrup work actually develops your sense of security, but you shouldn’t be averse to admitting your 1st fear. It’s better to begin slow and build up. Excess fear can communicate itself to the horse.

The rider with more experience benefits from no-stirrup work in that she or he is able to develop a sense of feel and reduce riding stress. Stress can build up without the rider even being mindful of it: it can begin at the ankles, at the neck or at the back and shoulders. You become a better rider when you’re really aware of your body and the signals it is transmitting.

The inception of stirrups is military, they were designed as part of horse tack to enable cavalry riders to stay stable during battle. Clearly, in the days before stirrups were invented every rider rode without them, many riders rode with no pony tack of any type whatsoever. Accesorios fluo . Since horseback fighting is kind of a part of history now, it can be contended that we do not need stirrups anymore. But like all devices that ease life, once we have got it, we don’t wish to give it up. If you really intend to become a top class rider, though, you must perfect the art of riding without stirrups.

Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers visit HorseHorses