A Novel Way to Improve Your Balance

How do you improve your balance in the saddle when your horse suddenly spins around? Or stops suddenly? Standing on one foot, although helpful to improve balance, does not fully address the situation. You need to have the flexibility to withstand an external force and remain upright. Standing on unstable surfaces isn’t enough either.  That doesn’t help when the perturbance comes from another source than under your feet. Fast drills to improve your reflex time also falls short because those changes of direction and jumps are planned. They are expected by you because they are planned by you. 

 What is best to improve your ability to maintain balance with unplanned perturbances? Tune in to find out!

Transcript

A Novel Way to Improve Your Balance

How do you improve your balance in the saddle when your horse suddenly spins around? Or stops suddenly? Standing on one foot, although helpful to improve balance, does not fully address the situation. You need to have the flexibility to withstand an external force and remain upright. Standing on unstable surfaces isn’t enough either.  That doesn’t help when the perturbance comes from another source than under your feet. Fast drills to improve your reflex time also falls short because those changes of direction and jumps are planned. They are expected by you because they are planned by you. 

 What is best to improve your ability to maintain balance with unplanned perturbances? Stay tuned for insights.

 Hello, I’m Suzanne DeStefano, I help riders find the subtle moves for better function in the saddle.

 I can’t tell you the number of times one of my Feldenkrais students told me a story about how they avoided a fall. (Or how if they fell, it was a completely different experience and they didn’t hurt themselves). They were completely surprised that they remained upright despite a sudden, unexpected force. 

 In our Feldenkrais classes  We didn’t practice falling. We didn’t do fast drills. We dont just stand on one leg all the time in hopes of improving our balance. Feldenkrais students spend a lot of time (not exclusively) on the floor. That allows the student to minimize having to deal with gravitational forces. You can slow down. You can sense and observe your movements. You sense the impact of your where you are looking and how your eyes are seeing in your movements. You can discover how parts of yourself connect to the rest of you in motion. You discover how you can separate movements. You find the counterbalance to control your movements and for improving stability. If you can find the counterbalance in a motion, you have full control of the speed of your movements. You can stop anytime and even reverse the movement! That equal and opposite action is extremely important in balance. You’re priming your nervous system to find those important connections in your daily life or in the saddle. That’s the key!

On the floor you can safely create rotational movements. Think about it!  We walk and run forward. We turn in standing or sitting in our own habitual patterns. These actions don’t set us up for unusual forces, like those from your horse…especially when your horse suddenly spins! Stay tuned for the key to improving your balance in and out of the saddle.

 Just a quick break to tell you I offer online lessons via Zoom for movement education with the feldenkrais method. Riding lessons are available. Too.  With packages to taylora to your needs and your budget.  gRoup movement lessons, video coaching and live private sessions can be yours. Just contact me a info at Suzanne destefano.comwith your goals and desires and let’s see if we can make your goals your reality

 One of the best ways to explore all those movements to help us stay balanced when the unexpected happens is to roll!

 Rolling doesn’t only help your balance, it helps you coordinate so you can function in a way that each part of yourself can act independently and it helps unify your movements to integrate them in a functional way. Finding that all important positive tension required of good riders is also created while rolling on the floor. 

 To successfully cope with sudden movements, You need to have available to you the flexibility to rotate, to round, and to fold and bend in many ways. You need to know where you are in space. If you are losing your balance, it’s important that you know your orientation in space in order to find upright again. You need to be able to separate your movements and yet integrate them in a harmonious way. You need to quickly find a way to absorb the force and create the movements to counterbalance in order to stay upright. There’s no time to stop and analyze. Your fast drills may not have prepared you for the position you find yourself in. Rolling gives you that dynamic experience in a safe way. 

 There are countless ways to roll. You can roll in segments. That’s where one part of you starts the process and slowly the rest of you follows in a passive way. You can roll in one piece, like a log. You can roll side to side, you can roll back to belly. You can roll witha judo roll, head over heels!  You can roll on the middle of your back to the middle of your belly. You can roll on a diagonal or top to bottom!

 You can take your rolling into sitting or expand it to standing. Just like rolling there are multiple ways to come away from the floor. Many involve rotational movements. They are reversible and require counterbalance for stability and improve flexibility 

 There are rotational, bending, flexing, and extending movements! Rolling is playful! Play is pleasant, your nervous system likes that mindset and encourages spontaneity. 

 The possibility to remain upright when the unexpected happens is possible because you have primed your nervous system to many novel, unique situations through rolling. Those connections are important because they need to be spontaneous and automatic when your horse tries to disappear out from under you!

 To recap, basic balance skills are a start, and to do them mindfully is a good way to improve them. The more you know how you move, the greater your ability to help yourself improve your balance. You may notice standing on one leg is easier. Build your sensing skills then you can notice what small skills that are present on your “good” side that helps you balance. Take those skills and apply them to your not so good side become better. Take those noticing and sensing skills to the saddle and you’re able to help yourself improve while riding. But the skills you develop rolling on the floor increases the chance your will find the coordination, flexibility, and counterbalances needed when the unexpected happens. Rolling on the floor will also improve any quick fast moves and balance exercises you may have been practicing in your training program.

 That’s all for today. Thanks for listening. Check out my YouTube channel I started recently. It’s under my name, Suzanne DeStefano. I’ll appreciate a look and subscribe.  Please contact me with any questions or if you would like to learn from me. IN the meantime, Enjoy your time with your horse!

Stay tuned for a video and let me know in the comments if you would be interested in a series of movement lessons with rolling as a theme!

Dynamic balance

Pay Attention 

Reversibility

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