How can you keep your legs still when rising to the trot?

Answer 1

To keep your legs still when rising to the trot, focus on balance, relaxation, and core stability:

Engage Your Core: Use your core to rise, not your legs. This helps you lift smoothly from your seat rather than pushing up through your stirrups, which can destabilize your legs.

Keep Heels Down: Letting your weight sink into your heels creates a solid foundation and keeps your legs anchored. Think about letting the weight flow through your legs and into your heels.

Relax Your Legs: Avoid gripping with your thighs or knees, as this can cause your lower leg to swing. Instead, allow your leg to hang softly around the horse, keeping it long and relaxed.

Follow the Horse's Movement: Focus on moving with the horse's rhythm instead of lifting yourself out of the saddle. Let the horse's motion help you rise, which keeps your leg in a steady position.

Check Stirrup Length: Proper stirrup length gives your leg a natural bend and stability. Adjust them if they’re too long or short, as this can affect your balance.

Practice Balance Exercises: Two-point position (standing slightly above the saddle) helps strengthen leg stability without relying on the seat, training your legs to stay still.

With time, these techniques help develop a stable, balanced leg position while trotting.

Answer 2

You can keep your legs still at a posting or rising trot by squeezing with your knee calves. If you squeeze with just your knee calves, from there down to the stirrups it should be still. Unless you have a horse like me where you have to bump him in a rhythmic motion to keep him at an extended trot. So the answer is to squeeze more with you knee calves instead of using your feet to post.