Rider's Improvements

A door opened for me the rider with the first exercise in Moshe Feldenkrais, 'Consciousness Through Movement', entitled 'Moving like a tree in the wind'. It greatly impressed me and I spoke to friends about it, who, of couse, turned it into a standing joke. Not long after, my riding completely changed and a few weeks later I began the manuscript for 'The Elements of Equitation (2005).

Since then I have a growing awareness of exercises which may be useful to improve riders' performances. They are so far the following, with new ones appearing at my the horizon.

1. Feldenkrais: Moving like a tree in the wind
2. Feldenkrais: Rising without effort from a chair
3. Feldenkrais: Learning how to sing
4. Feldenkrais: Distinguishing intentional from autonomous muscle action (which permitted me to turn my vertebra into a column and to drop my shoulders
5. Bio-feedback: Stopping my breath (which confirmed the Zilgrei instructions) (to me this is a most powerful general purpose exercise to maintain and restore health and well-being
6. Skeleton studies: Raising the vertebra from C2, which lets your grow two inches
7. Skeleton studies: Raising the sternum from T9, which closes the shoulders
8. Meyners: Using the back side of my thighs to propel the horse on
9. Meyners: Pushing back C8, which in the process straightens my upper vertebra and closes my shoulders

Each of these moves (I do not want to call them lessons) works easily and produces a perfect, always same result: an upright vertebra and more power.