Eliza's Riding Assessment
Hi Eliza
Sorry for the delay on these here are your riding assessments back
Megs
31st March 2023
part 1
part 2
part 1
Session Summary
First of all you're doing so well your level pelvis and quiet legs show you've been working hard on creating that leg position that is so important.
As you can see that the next stage is mainly upper body work, building a strong centre that doesn't have a tendency to collapse through the right side, will help your weight stay evenly through the turns and also the balance when you are on the left rein.
Once we get this part of your alignment levelled up it will be interesting to see if the shoulder naturally releases it's need to hold on to everything or if we then need to do a bit more work on de-coupling the movement patterning of the shoulder and ribcage.
All of this begins in the Core and Contact section of the academy, for the right side squishiness I would recommend any of the classes with collapse, leaning or collapsing in the title as these will target the area we would be looking at here. There are some long classes but also daily classes too so you don't need to be finding hours each day.
Awareness of this throughout your day in general will also help, notice how you hold things, do you collapse your right side to carry heavy stuff, what shoulder do you put bags on, or hang haynets over. When you much out do you twist to your right or left and can you start to alternate all of these so you even out. You'll notice other areas too, maybe the end of the sofa you sit on or the car arm rest your lean against.
When it comes to a collapse it shows up all over our day so it gives us multiple times to work on.
Once you've started to feel like this area is filling out and becoming more mobile but strong too, I would then say start to look at ribcage mobilisation, there are a few classes in the core and contact section that specifically work on this and they all have ribs or ribcage in the title, head to those so you can start to get the feeling of releasing the ribcage from your central body at times like turns.
After these start to feel easier the next stage will be looking into the left shoulder and finding new movement patterns that aren't linked to bracing and blocking. As I said I think this may ease as we correct the other areas but we still may need to do a bit of work on these. The improve your contact dailies will be a great place to start with these and for longer sessions you have 45minutes of upper body releases & a chilled session for the stressed rider, these focus on de-coupling that movement.
These should keep you going for a bit, the key with them all especially the daily classes is to not do the next days class until you feel comfortable with the one you are doing, for example you may stay on "Day 2" for 7 days before moving to day 3 if it feels particularly challenging.
This helps the body create consistent lasting change as we are working not only on building strength but reprogramming long held movement patterns too.
Any questions please send them my way, if you want to organise a zoom session just shout.
Megs x
17th April 2023
Part 2
Session Summary
Yes, you are definitely going in the right direction. And what a difference the second video had, watch part 1 first and then part 2 for them all to make sense.
Main area now to work on is the central region, still in the core and contact section but now with the videos with the word core, align or aligned in, any of these will get you working on that deep core section, which will support you more and help those final pieces drop.
With your left leg, we want to be building a bot more strength into it, so balance work will be important, your wobble board etc and then the sessions about your legs and feet, these will all make a large difference to being able to support that leg and have a more quiet contact.
Once you've started to build on that, the next stage will be to do more smaller circles and changes of bend like serpentines, figures of 8 and loops etc where you move from one rotation to the other and maintain balance, this will then test all you are doing and bring to the forefront if theres any stickiness in the movement patterns.
But definitely all going in the right direction and now its just building that central line of strength so that you build more resilience to your sympathetic movement pattern when it does like show up.
The same thing as I said before about the daily classes, try and do a class a day, but be prepared for it to be the same one, especially when its around your deep core, until it starts to feel easier before moving onto the next one.
On the balance board work on the alignment I talk about and then rotating within that alignment, also work on one leg balance on the balance board to help bring evens into the muscle strengths. because of your biomechanics unevenness you may need to do the balance board with your trainers on and your wedge in your shoe so you are starting from a level playing field.
Any questions please shout.
Megs
29th July
In these videos I highlight the left side, where we want to get the left thigh rotating inwards for the trot and canter work.
Here are some classes to help with this:
Then I spoke about the central region of the body in the canter, this is where we head back to the core and contact and building alignment and strength in this area
You can do pretty much any of the sessions in the core and contact and they will help you to find the central line for the canter and strength
https://www.megparkinson.com/coreandcontact
But when you are riding really thinking about supporting through the central column, and not being too relaxed through your midline, you have great ability to fill and tone the right side and we just want to bring that tone and engagement into your left side too. There is a tendency to drop into the back of the left seat bone so just be aware of rolling more into the front of the left seat bone to help activate that line.
27th September 2023
