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Post by horseguy on Jun 12, 2016 14:21:13 GMT
The answers to the questions I received in an email raised above will require several posts. First, the rider's back should never be concave. I know of no Seat that encourages this.
There are many "grandpa" stories that circulate. It is important to understand exactly what grandpa did in the Army. I once met a man who said he rode in the Cavalry. He was surprised to discover I knew more about the subject than he did. It turned out that he was in the Remount Service and basically delivered horses by truck to destinations up until 1943 when the horses were disbursed. He had no Military Seat training. On the other hand, I have known some highly trained Army riders in both the Cavalry and Mounted Artillery. Like anything, the source matters.
It is also important to understand the context of a Seat and the language used to describe aspects of a Seat. Today the dominant "English" seat is George Morris's Hunter Seat. Because it is the dominant Seat the words and concepts from this relatively new (1970s) Seat are the language we tend to use in describing riding. It is here we can get into trouble describing the US Military Seat/Fort Riley Seat using Morris's Hunter Seat words, which is commonly done.
In the Morris Seat a riding position is more of a static form. "HEEL DOWN" is yelled, screamed and spoken in riding lesson across our country. This is a form. It is a fixed body form of the ankle that can be easily judged in a show arena. Hollow or concave back is another form judged to be incorrect, meaning a straight back is correct. A show judge looks for fixed forms to compare riders and award ribbons. The more static the forms, the easier they are to compare.
In the 1950s when I began riding lessons forms were not so common. The US Cavalry had been dismounted for 10 years when I took my first lessons. Horse shows then were seasonal, four a year summer, fall, winter and spring. Judges were often retired military riders who looked for dynamic position in a rider not static forms. What was judged was balance in motion. Today there is a show every week. Horse shows used to be occasional presentations of horses and riders who did other things with their horses, now it's a thing in an of itself. It would be comparable to if the annual slam-dunk competition at the NBA All Star game became a sport with its own league and had a season.
Therefore, "I always understood that the seat used in the cavalry was with the pelvis tilting forward riding on your crotch with back concave. It was not on the seat bones such as The Pony Club balanced rider." to be answered correctly we must address the static contemporary assumptions here. For example, "pelvis tilting forward" when considered in a context of dynamic movement has its place. As a static form, it sounds exhausting. "On your crotch" as a static position sounds worse than exhausting, however in a more dynamic context of movement, taking into consideration how much weight might be in the irons, there is a fleeting place for this too.
To address these small elements of riding in proper context, we must understand the entire rider's moving position and how specific elements like ankles and seat bones work within the whole. Answers do not come easily in the contemporary language of static forms, as the question implies they might.
This photo, based on the period of the uniform, is a very early military seat from the Caprilli period. Prior to this a soldier would have jumped leaning back, being
left behind" in the old "Chair Seat" position. This US Army rider is up out of the saddle lightly, folded forward at the hips with following hands (not so light). Stirrups are "home" with no concern for heels down. During this time Fort Riley was using the French Cavalry Training manuals written by De Sevie (sp?). In the 20 to 30 years that followed, Harry Chamberlin and other top US Cavalry riders would refine the Seat pictured into the Fort Riley Seat, write new manuals and establish the US Seat as the world's best.
More later.
Please post additional questions.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 12, 2016 17:35:24 GMT
(I am adding another contemporary jump picture here because the original posted one does not come up for me)
Contemporary post Morris crest release jump
Woman, probably officer's wife or daughter, at Fort Riley circa 1920
These two jumps are of similar height. The riders are similar in body type, as are the horses. The main difference is in what Morris calls
"hip angle". In the Morris Seat, the hip angle is greater, established early, sometimes a stride or two before the jump, and the angle is maintained throughout the jump. Many students are told to stay in the position after landing for 2 or 3 strides, for increased stability on their horse. I call this teaching technique use of the crest release as training wheels.
Here we see Harry Chamberlin in a sequence of pictures. The only unchanging aspect of these pictures is his balance, which can be see by the stability of his foot position and the line from his elbows to the bit. His body position is not static, but rather he is moving his body in relation to the horse's arc over the jump. This is a dynamic jumping position, not a static form, with an ever changing hip angle.
The noteworthy foot position is constant in how it carries his weight in a balanced way to the ground. In the contemporary jumping form above, the feet are back behind the vertical "weight to the ground" position. The contemporary rider is not secure by means of balance but by means of jamming themselves between the stirrups and the chest of the horse's neck like a rock climber spanning a crevasse.
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Post by Chris on Jun 12, 2016 22:52:27 GMT
Harry Chamberlin:
Seat: Forward part of pelvic bones rest on saddle; crotch well back so as to be deep in throat of saddle; fleshy part of buttocks forced rearward toward the cantle at all times, and never allowed to slip forward under rider. Rider does not sit on buttocks but on inside of thighs and forward points of pelvic bone.
That looks to me like what I was told.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 13, 2016 2:03:40 GMT
Harry Chamberlin: Seat: Forward part of pelvic bones rest on saddle; crotch well back so as to be deep in throat of saddle; fleshy part of buttocks forced rearward toward the cantle at all times, and never allowed to slip forward under rider. Rider does not sit on buttocks but on inside of thighs and forward points of pelvic bone. That looks to me like what I was told.
"Pelvis tilting forward riding on your crotch with back concave" and "crotch well back so as to be deep in throat of saddle ... pelvic bones rest on saddle" I think are somewhat different, and that difference is in feeling it in centered motion. Also, "resting" as oppose to "tilting forward on your crotch" is a distinction for me.
I replied, "to be answered correctly we must address the static contemporary assumptions here. For example, "pelvis tilting forward" when considered in a context of dynamic movement has its place. As a static form, it sounds exhausting. "On your crotch" as a static position sounds worse than exhausting, however in a more dynamic context of movement, taking into consideration how much weight might be in the irons, there is a fleeting place for this too.
I am interested in the subtleties of feel and effectiveness, which tend to be more contextual in their understanding. Trying to find absolute rules, which I find simplistic, is a shallow pursuit. Your statement "It was not on the seat bones such as The Pony Club balanced rider" implies some absolutes, as well. I was a Pony Club instructor in the 70s and 80s before the break with the British Horse Society. At that time PC and the Fort Riley Seat allowed for the seat bones come into play when it is appropriate but not always.
There are some universal "don'ts" like the hollow back and the "fleshy part of buttocks forced rearward toward the cantle at all times, and never allowed to slip forward under rider" although we do see a lot of contemporary riders well ahead of where their buttocks would be effective. Mostly, however, riding does not boil down to absolutes and therefore it is best to begin with balance and unity, and from there discern how we feel in the saddle when we do certain things. For example, is your Chamberlin quote universal for all the gaits? Does the "resting" of the pelvic bones change with the gaits and/or with speed, in a jump approach? Always the same in every jump? In other words, it's not a set of rules like a cook book. It's best understood in the context of application and effectiveness. The Army riders were preparing for war from the back of a horse, not for a horse show. Therefore the approach to understanding requires a very active practical perspective. It's not a simple set of rules.
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Post by rideanotherday on Jun 13, 2016 13:21:36 GMT
Since I really don't have the familiarity with Calvary or Morris...I will simply address static vs dynamic.
A static seat is easier to judge and compare, because there's less to look at and in a rail or rail enclosed competition,it's pretty to look at, even if it doesn't do much else than look good. A dynamic seat will be more useful long term and in more situations because by it's nature it's adaptive.
Depending on what I'm doing, I've had my boots "home" in the stirrups (all the way to the heel) and then just to the ball of my foot. Each position has it's use. One is not more "right"...unless you are talking situationally.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 13, 2016 14:22:01 GMT
Continuing with Chamberlin's selected words, "... pelvic bones rest on saddle; crotch well back so as to be deep in throat of saddle; fleshy part of buttocks forced rearward toward the cantle at all times, and never allowed to slip forward under rider. Rider does not sit on buttocks but on inside of thighs and forward points of pelvic bone."
I hope people reading this get a picture of relaxation. This relaxed "resting' in the saddle is different than "the pelvis tilting forward riding on your crotch" as the original question of definition offered. It might help to look at the standard saddle in use by the US Cavalry up until it was dismounted in 1943.
If you look at the contours of the saddle where the "throat" (forward of mid-point & back of pommel) is located, you will see a curve inward where the "inside of thighs and forward points of pelvic bone" would rest. In teaching the Ft. Riley Seat, I use images, one of which for this the "resting of the thighs and pelvic bone" is a wet dish towel draped across the saddle. There is no "tilting" forward, but rather resting downward. The forward in the Forward Seat (Caprilli) is the fold of the upper body not a tilt of the hips. I can see if the incorrect hollow or concave back is taught, that it would be necessary to tilt the hips, but with a correct fold of the upper body the tilt is unnecessary.
Forgive me as I return to my first comments. What I see today is a general teaching style based on the Morris Hunter Seat that is an abbreviated version of the older method. Morris's instructor was the great Hall of fame rider, Fort Riley instructor and notorious fox hunt party goer Gordon Wright. Morris learned to ride correctly and his international competition history demonstrates that. He did, however, in the 1970s introduce a "modern version" of the Fort Riley Seat that is made up of significant edits and short cuts that have changed not only how Americans ride, but how they think about riding. His "more hip angle" and "heels down" check list fit well into the simplified self-esteem driven culture of the 1980s, but it has caused us as a riding nation to lose sight of the integrated whole of motion of the rider and horse in unity.
I'd suggest that Chris and others who want to discover the nature of dynamic position in the Fort Riley Seat, read Sally Swift's centered Riding book, if they have not. She was trained by a US Cavalry rider and became interested in body dynamics as the result of a skeletal challenge she faced. In her dedication to finding the essence of the Seat she learned, she distilled her experience into the "centered" principle. This is key. A check list of where your hands should be, how you hips meet the saddle, your ankle form, the linear shape of your back, and all the rest of the forms that Morris's approach put into a false primary focus are meaningless if the rider is not "centered" and supple.
Asking me if a list of forms is correct or not opens the biggest can of worms I know in American riding. The whole is not made up of a list of parts, but rather of the feel of equilibrium in motion, which is centered among other things. Do not be fooled by instructors who offer a checklist to complete in order to be a correct rider. That will only get you judged well or not in the narrow context of a horse show. If you want to ride effectively, you must go far beyond a checklist.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 16, 2016 14:27:22 GMT
It interesting to me that this discussion ended. The fellow who posted the original question seemed set on "being right", which today translates to having a checklist. I have this haunting feeling lately that our culture has become immune to things that cannot be quantified or listed in some measurable way. Chamberlin wrote two books as well as the Fort Riley manuals that came into use between the Wars. There were some absolutes in his writings, but also a lot about "feel" in simple things. I always remember the description of stirrup length. It had a starting point but it went on to say how a horse and the rider have variations in body types or conformation and the length of the stirrup is established in terms of what suits the combination of horse and rider within reasonable bounds.
The older I get the more I see the need for manuals that are explicit but I also increasingly see that life is very contextual and this is very true of riding. If there is one word that sums up the Fort Riley Seat, it is "effective". If you read Chamberlin or Swift or anyone really, and you don't understand a specific point, the best course is to ask yourself, "what is the effective thing to do?" This has helped me interpret the words of may authors from the days when the best riders were military riders.
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Post by rideanotherday on Jun 16, 2016 17:21:31 GMT
The book that I go back to quite often is "Riding Logic" by Wilhelm Muesler.
Riding Logic is based on classical horsemanship from the famous 1912 German cavalry riding manual and the Principles of Riding and Driving, published by the German National Equestrian Federation.
(not exactly Ft. Riley, but pretty similar, I would imagine)
There are five main sections;
Training the rider,
which includes topics such as learning to 'feel', and leg, body and rein influence;
Schooling the horse,
which is broken down into stages, including 'what does a horse look like when obeying the aids?', 'how a rider can tell if his horse is balanced', understanding riding and collection, and there is a section within this on disobediences and how to remedy them;
The lessons;
where the basic gaits are explored, as well as rein back, turn on the forehand and hindquarters; striking off into canter, and riding on two tracks;
Further aspects,
which covers riding in and out of the arena and jumping, as well as hunting and competition riding; and finally
Equipment for rider and horse,
and items used when schooling, such as cavaletti, whips, spurs, and other basic tack.
I have found this book to be very straightforward and helpful quite often. I have a small library of "go to" books and this book will feature in it for years, even though the likelihood of me getting into jumping is pretty minimal.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 16, 2016 23:01:54 GMT
"Riding Logic" by Wilhelm Muesler is a must read book. If you own 5 books on riding this should be one of them. It has been reprinted countless times. The translation is very readable and the book is short. Get it, read it, read it again. As I recall, there is little or nothing on jumping. Caprilli came after but the French integrated works like Mesler's with the Forward Seat at Saumur. Our Fort Riley first manuals came from Saumur.
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Post by horseguy on Jul 3, 2016 15:32:39 GMT
I was folding jeans the other day and I noticed an older pair that is well worn in the inseams about 4 or 5 inches on either side of the crotch. I thought I should take a picture of those worn seams and also take a picture of my favorite saddle that has two very distinct seat bone depressions in the seat. (my last favorite saddle had these too and were worn almost through the leather) Those two pictures would make my point that I attempted to make here in reply to the Military Seat question.
The point that is most important to me, having used the seat for over 60 years, is that it doesn't come down to a simple set of rules. It is dynamic. It will wear your breeches at the crotch (which I am sure the questioner will be please to read to support his view) and it will wear your saddle's seat where you apply your seat bones. Effective riding requires both and knowing the difference when one works more effectively that the other.
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