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Post by horseguy on Apr 18, 2017 16:32:22 GMT
In this 9 minute video Morris once again tries trys rewrite history. Mentioning Chamberlin as his inspiration Morris justifies the American "Forward Seat" he created. He describes the US Military Seat as leg based, not seat based, and says the "seat takes care of itself " ignoring the well known saying from Jim Wofford, "Good riders sit". Wofford's father was a US Cavalry School riding instructor at Fort Riley, where Olympic rider Jimmy Wofford grew up riding. Morris who invented the crest release (later to blame Rodney Jenkins), edited all dressage from the Fort Riley Seat when introducing his Hunter Seat Equitation, advised clucking and all sorts of nonmilitary ideas, and wrote books and gave clinics to become the nation's first wealthy Big Name Trainer. We see in the video an old man protecting his mistaken ideas with outright misinformation, which I am confident he believes is true.  [/p] Chamberlin Jumping circa 1935
 Contemporary Fort Riley Seat Rider
Morris Seat Contemporary Rider
This picture shows the jumping "cheats" Morris fostered, feet behind to absorb the horse's hock thrust energy, leaning on the horse's neck, rider's butt highly elevated and over the saddle pommel.
Morris also completely altered the 2 point position.
Typical Morris method teaching young rider to perch in "2 point". Fort Riley 2 point is 2 feet in stirrups with balanced rider up out of saddle, which makes the Morris 2 point actually a 3 point position, 2 feet with hands on neck.
Bottom picture shows military 2 point, the "ready position" for the next jump. Rider is in a light seat with nearly all his weight in his 2 feet, thus the 2 point name.
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Post by jimmy on Apr 19, 2017 13:04:46 GMT
Morris is a god to people in the hunter jumper world. Your thoughts would be blasphemy!
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Post by horseguy on Apr 19, 2017 15:59:31 GMT
Morris is a god to people in the hunter jumper world. Your thoughts would be blasphemy! Many years ago, like when everyone had an @aol email account, Morris used to post on the Chronicle of the Horse forum. Back them there were a lot more instructors who had come up through the Fort Riley Seat method. They could clearly remember when in the late 70's Morris' changes were met with mixed reviews. He was regularly confronted about things like the crest release and he used the same fuzzy history he uses in the video to justify it an other things. But then people knew he was full of it. As the years have gone on and people retired or died, he's the last man standing in many ways. He's prevailed by outliving so many riders. Now he pretty much gets to write the history books. You can imagine back then I was pretty hard on him, typing long segments of the Fort Riley Manuals and posting them along with pages from Gordon Wright's book, his teacher who taught at Ft. Riley. But then, as now in the video, he had a quiet kind of Alzheimery way about him that he used to deflect nearly everything. His friends would post in his defense always saying what a nice gentleman he was. And then there was his dress, his attire. Not unlike David O'Connor, Morris paid attention to his "look". The whole package, the fashion, the gentlemanly manner, the medals he won and the books, which I find difficult to read, all went into his defining the role of "the god" as you put it. In the 1980's when you could buy a set of tires for your car for $100, Morris was getting $500 for a clinic where he blessed students by alternating his chants of "heels down" and "more hip angle" in their direction. Morris never mentions Gordon Wright. I suspect they were not close. I never met Wright but I had a friend who hunted with him in the Carolinas. He described Gordon Wright as a man who could hunt for five hours, stay up late into the night until the last bottle of whiskey was emptied, then be up at dawn ready to hunt hard the next day. I picture George retiring early so as to lay out his hunt attire ready for the morning. Yeah, blasphemy. |
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Post by jimmy on Apr 19, 2017 20:45:33 GMT
In a totalitarian state, your enemies are killed, and you re-write the history books. The only books and people left are those that agree with you.
The dictators of fashion and trends in riding just wait for all the people who know better to pass away of old age, hoping they haven't written a book!
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Post by horseguy on Apr 20, 2017 18:22:37 GMT
I started writing a book many years ago. After about four years of writing I started assembling it into chapters. As I did that I found I did not like what I wrote and began revising. After about a year of that I realized that my frustration was that there was not a horse present. Apparently my main obstacle to conveying organized sequential information about riding is that I keep coming up against the need for a horse present in the moment.
Then I decided I needed to make a series of videos. That got cumbersome.
Bottom lone, George Morris has outlived my energy to convey a lifetime of experience with horses based in the military seat. I think he's managed this because he has the advantage of that fuzzy mind that doesn't demand the horse present in the process. What his mind demands is highly polished boots, new breeches and a very clean polo shirt. In that regard, my Carhartt with its gentian violet and Koppertox stains is all I need.
Besides, the millennials don't care anyway. They know everything.
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Post by jimmy on Apr 21, 2017 14:19:53 GMT
To the millennials, your comments are a micro-aggression, and a trigger, which would result in retreating to a safe place, and maybe cuddle with a therapy dog!
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Post by Laura on Apr 22, 2017 3:36:03 GMT
This is not super on topic, but this video came up after the video on this thread so I watched it. At about 8:50, he compliments a rider for jumping from the short stride, which was a very clear chip. This confuses me. I would think that when you start jumping larger fences that "jumping from the short stride" would bring a rail down and disrupt balance.
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Post by horseguy on Apr 22, 2017 13:37:01 GMT
Laura says, "This confuses me." It confuses me too.
First of all, most of the horses are behind the bit as they warm up. This puts a tension in a horse's spine that is extremely counter productive for jumping. Morris ignores it. He also ignores that the rider who is the subject of the video has high hands, which are very counter to the basic Military Seat principle of "straight line from rider's elbow to the bit". As an instructor I want to yell out to her, "Relax your elbows". She forces her posting in a very active way, counter to the let-your-horse-move-you principle.
As the horse and rider begin jumping, you see the rider unable to sit the canter in a soft manner and as a result, she is constantly bouncing in the saddle. I cannot tell if the horse is always swishing their tail as a result of the tight rein use putting the horse behind the bit, or the pounding of the rider's butt in the saddle. As the video reaches half way, the horse is loosening up in spite of the tight reins but each time the rider lands a jump the rider falls forward, then back into the tight rein position. As they jump more jumps you can see the horse throwing its head on landing in a complaint about the rider's hands and rocking weight. (good horse to communicate the flawed riding)
At about 7 minutes in even Morris cannot stand the tight reins and says, "Not such a short rein" several times. The perchy, bouncing, pounding of the saddle by the rider's butt continues along with the falling forward on landing each jump.
At 11:40 minutes George compulsively mentions "hip angle", which for me is a minor issue for this rider. And there you have it, Morris praising this rider who perches and bounces, cranks the horse into a tight compressed spine through the neck with her hands and otherwise restricts a rather nice horse. But... the rider has the trendy big helmet visor (used indoors) and the obligatory figure eight nose band. Boots and breeches are perfect, as is the preferred Morris polo shirt. She is offered as a correct example of the American Forward Seat. Morris documents here how he has ruined American riding.
"Good riders sit", Jimmy Wofford
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Post by rideanotherday on Apr 24, 2017 12:02:30 GMT
Admittedly, my education for jumping is limited. Taking the titles off of "style" of seat, there were some limiting riding behaviors. Super tight through the upper body. Tension is your enemy. That gray horse is s a saint for putting up with it. I don't know that I ever saw a "release". When she was posting her hands lifted in sync with her posting. I would recommend that she work on relaxing her upper body and getting her hands quiet.
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Post by horseguy on Apr 24, 2017 20:50:32 GMT
Admittedly, my education for jumping is limited. Taking the titles off of "style" of seat, there were some limiting riding behaviors. Super tight through the upper body. Tension is your enemy. That gray horse is s a saint for putting up with it. I don't know that I ever saw a "release". When she was posting her hands lifted in sync with her posting. I would recommend that she work on relaxing her upper body and getting her hands quiet. I agree, some pretty basic stuff to correct there, yet Morris keeps saying in the video what a good Forward Seat rider the rider of the gray horse is. When I try to make sense of this video I can't. I could speculate i.e. if his clinics were $500 a day 25 years ago, how much are they now, and multiply that number by the 5 or 6 riders in the clinic. That's a nice one day paycheck. Complements build positive word of mouth. Could this be it? |
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Post by grayhorse on Apr 25, 2017 4:53:24 GMT
"Complements build positive word of mouth. Could this be it?" That's frustrating if true. I have been known to accuse my trainers of being "too nice" to me. I don't want a compliment unless I damn well deserve one. The gal in the video is all the things said above. Tight reins, no release, hands and body bouncing around, horse behind the vertical etc... sadly, I doubt she came to ride like this on her own. Im going to guess that someone taught or coached her to ride like that and probably told her how great she looks while doing it. Now she's got George's approval too. Next thing you know she'll go out win some shows, stick a feather in her hat and call herself a trainer, end up teaching more riders the same thing. Its a vicious cycle, as they say. |
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Post by rideanotherday on Apr 25, 2017 10:47:43 GMT
"Complements build positive word of mouth. Could this be it?" That's frustrating if true. I have been known to accuse my trainers of being "too nice" to me. I don't want a compliment unless I damn well deserve one. The gal in the video is all the things said above. Tight reins, no release, hands and body bouncing around, horse behind the vertical etc... sadly, I doubt she came to ride like this on her own. Im going to guess that someone taught or coached her to ride like that and probably told her how great she looks while doing it. Now she's got George's approval too. Next thing you know she'll go out win some shows, stick a feather in her hat and call herself a trainer, end up teaching more riders the same thing. Its a vicious cycle, as they say. I agree. I'd rather an instructor get me correct rather than fluff my ego. I'm not paying for compliments. That's what significant others are for. When I take lessons, it's to improve myself. That said, I don't want to be mistreated in a lesson either. |
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Post by rideanotherday on Apr 25, 2017 10:56:11 GMT
In this 9 minute video Morris once again tries trys rewrite history. Mentioning Chamberlin as his inspiration Morris justifies the American "Forward Seat" he created. He describes the US Military Seat as leg based, not seat based, and says the "seat takes care of itself " ignoring the well known saying from Jim Wofford, "Good riders sit". Wofford's father was a US Cavalry School riding instructor at Fort Riley, where Olympic rider Jimmy Wofford grew up riding. Morris who invented the crest release (later to blame Rodney Jenkins), edited all dressage from the Fort Riley Seat when introducing his Hunter Seat Equitation, advised clucking and all sorts of nonmilitary ideas, and wrote books and gave clinics to become the nation's first wealthy Big Name Trainer. We see in the video an old man protecting his mistaken ideas with outright misinformation, which I am confident he believes is true. [/p] Chamberlin Jumping circa 1935
Contemporary Fort Riley Seat Rider
Morris Seat Contemporary Rider
This picture shows the jumping "cheats" Morris fostered, feet behind to absorb the horse's hock thrust energy, leaning on the horse's neck, rider's butt highly elevated and over the saddle pommel.
Morris also completely altered the 2 point position.
Typical Morris method teaching young rider to perch in "2 point". Fort Riley 2 point is 2 feet in stirrups with balanced rider up out of saddle, which makes the Morris 2 point actually a 3 point position, 2 feet with hands on neck.
Bottom picture shows military 2 point, the "ready position" for the next jump. Rider is in a light seat with nearly all his weight in his 2 feet, thus the 2 point name.
[/quote] The one thing you said was a cheat, "Leaning on a horse's neck", I find that less objectionable if the alternative is chucking the horse in the mouth. Whatever happened to a supporting leg? What is so wrong with letting the horse be at vertical or slightly ahead? You are limiting their ability to see by having them behind the vertical. |
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Post by jimmy on Apr 25, 2017 13:18:10 GMT
Sometimes the instruction many clinicians spout, whether or not it's pertinent to the student in front of them, are so routine and predictable, that they probably could just phone it in. Or maybe even a pre-recorded conference call....
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Post by horseguy on Apr 26, 2017 17:04:47 GMT
Sometimes the instruction many clinicians spout, whether or not it's pertinent to the student in front of them, are so routine and predictable, that they probably could just phone it in. Or maybe even a pre-recorded conference call.... Morris cannot get through a clinic without the "hip angle" tape going off over the loud speaker. |
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