“Two Tracking” was what they used to call it. It’s the process of getting a horse to move forward while at the same time stepping a little bit sideways, leaving two lines of hoof prints in the sand. To do this the horse should be “crossing over” with both front legs and hind legs. It turns out that this movement is the foundation of “collection”. That is, the horsemanship of actually “doing something” with a horse. Now, if all you want is to be a passenger on a horse going on a scenic trail ride you can stop reading here.

If you’re still reading, I assume you’ve taken an interest in dressage, reining, working equitation, or reined cow horse competition and the like. Or maybe you use horses for ranch work. In any event, you’ve discovered that you need improved mobility in your mount in order to put him in position to do a job.Nuno Oliveira, the 20th century dressage master, said “I do nothing before I do shoulders-in”. I’ve found his approach indispensable. “Shoulders-in” is essentially “Two-tracking”. It puts the horse’s hind feet more under his body and shifts more of his weight onto them, causing him to feel springier, and to be able to move in any direction easier. It’s basically what ballet dancers and football players do.

To do shoulders in do you need three things: forward movement, body angle, and body bend. He moves forward because he has learned to do so with a squeeze of your calves, or a tap of your stick. He angles about 45° inward, with his forehand or shoulder off the fence, because you turn your shoulders, rib cage, and reins inward a little. He bends because you sit on your seat bone on the inside (arena) side. Remember how you twisted when a friend poked his finger in your ribs? Your seatbone has a similar effect on your steed.

We attended another horsemanship clinic this weekend. Again we came away with our heads full of good useful knowledge, a bunch of rain-soaked clothes, and sore muscles! Now, I’m not totally against having a few crampy places after riding a lot, but this was on a whole different order. Our esteemed instructor brought along a Pilates coach. That’s right, there I was a “seventy-something” cowpoke, lying on a saddle pad on the floor exercising abdominal muscles that I haven’t used since the turn of the century! (Unless you consider the table muscle, from eating steak).

It put me in mind of those folks Who “Pooh Pooh” equitation as exercise. And it sure felt like I had been exercising when I tried to get out of bed this morning! I discovered that Joseph Pilates was a German who developed this technique in prison camps during World War II. I’m thinking maybe this is his revenge? However I will continue to do his exercises, because I could immediately feel the improvement in my communication with my old pony. My balance, and my position were improved. I thought to myself “this stuff actually works!”No, my all-time favorite exercise has always been dancing. You exercise to music that you like, while holding a woman in your arms. But I am beginning to see that equitation runs a close second, as you use even more muscles, and you get experiences that are exhilarating, kind of like flying! (Well, sometimes you are flying, but we try to keep those to a minimum). It really does seem like when you see a group of horsemen, and women, that they appear unusually fit for their age. That is unless you consider old bronc stompers!

“You’re never too old to learn.”

I can’t tell you how many times my grandmother told me that. But, I found it true once again this past week. You see, in the path to learning classical equitation there are many stages and each of these are places where the basic biomechanics of horse and of rider must reach an equilibrium. My own nemesis has been the very first stage – the shoulders-in exercise. Intellectually I have understood for some time that it is designed to put the horse in position to increase the ability of the inside hind leg to take weight, as a tool to developing “collection.” I even understood that a certain angle of 30° and a slight bend and a slow cadenced walk are the keys to this development. The problem was that every time I tried to sit on my right seat bone and turn my shoulders, my saddle went to the left. It’s downright creepy, sometimes, how our bodies sabotage us! So Manuel gets on my horse to show me what it looks like. He emphasizes that the rider’s outside foot can push against the stirrup, causing the rider’s weight to come to the inside. Then I tried it. It was better. He even said I needed to not be afraid to let my seat slide a little sideways over the saddle to get the right position. Better. Then on Monday, Donna says almost the same thing, but adds that she’d been instructed to put the outside seat bone in the middle of the saddle. Now, armed with these bits of information I’m finally “getting” right shoulder-in. I still don’t feel like my right side bone contacts the saddle like the left. Maybe I’m not symmetrical. But the horses are now actually doing shoulder-in right, right…sometimes. In the world of teaching and learning there is this mystery of how we learn. Often after hearing the same thing many times, someone new comes along and says the same thing a different way and…boom, the knowledge that has been sitting just outside our brain plops into our circuitry!