Do you have independent legs and hips?
We all know that having independent aids is vital in order to ride well.
But did you know that in order to have independent aids, you must FIRST have independent legs and hips?
What does that even mean?
Independent legs and hips means:
- You're able to feel and control the weight on each of your seat bones independently.
- You can purposefully weight or lift each seat bone independently without working hard or becoming unbalanced.
- You're able to feel and influence each hip joint separately, or together, at will.
- You're able to swing your pelvis equally well in each direction
- You're able to articulate your hips and pelvis in sync with the horse's back movement without gripping or unwanted movement in your legs
- Your hip flexors are able to open and close freely with the movement of the horse.
- You have freedom of movement in your legs with no gripping or bracing.
- You can lift each leg independently off of the horse without tension and disorganization.
- You're able to rotate your pelvis while maintaining purposeful control over the weight you have on each seat bone.
- You are able to lengthen your inside leg or outside leg without disturbing the alignment of your spine.
- You can drape your legs softly around your horse's sides and subtly control your leg aids at varying points of your legs where they contact the horse.
- You can apply fine spur aids with whisper-soft precision.
- You can control the mechanics of stirrup-stepping aids without causing rigidity in your torso.
It may be that this seems far off and impossible for you.
And it may be that it all feels impossibly overwhelming to try to attain.
- Normally, you would have to invest thousands of dollars and thousands of hours in longe lessons to attain this quality of control and movement in your seat.
- Maybe you have no idea where or how to even begin.
- Maybe you feel frustrated that you are perhaps too old, too stiff, too untalented, or lack the resources and time to do this right.
But luckily it doesn't have to be this way any longer for YOU.
Through years of experience teaching a variety of riders from all backgrounds, we have seen over and over again that many riders find themselves stuck because they are addressing their imbalance, stiffness, and crookedness at the symptom level.
Meanwhile... they ignore the obvious solution because everyone assumes it must be HARD.
Working HARDER and struggling MORE usually does not yield better results. Instead work SMARTER.
The solution, in fact, does not have to be HARD.
Sometimes the best solution is actually quite simple.
(Perhaps a little unusual and unexpected, but still... quite simple)
THE CENTRAL PREMISE...
By improving alignment and body awareness through simple movement patterns done with awareness and attention, you can restore your ability to feel, influence, and control each leg and hip joint independently. You can even restore full range of motion to your hip joint, enabling improved capacity to move fully and effortlessly with the movement of the horse.
Profound Change. .
How is such profound change possible?
How can it be possible with such a simple solution?
Well… get ready, because you’re in for a profound ride.
There is a concept in Feldenkrais...
- There are no isolated parts.
- Everything works together as a WHOLE. It is a system.
- When you make a change or influence one part of the body, it has a ripple effect through the rest of the body.
- It is simple, yet profound.
CATHERINE MCCRUM, FELDENKRAIS PRACTITIONER:
“QQ, my horse, was very crooked. When I rode left circles they got smaller and smaller. And when I rode right circles… well I ended up cruising straight into a corner and getting stuck! How come I knew how to co-ordinate my body for symmetrical ski turns, but I couldn’t for the life of me apply my awareness to my horse?!
Frustrated, I started to explore…and explore… and explore. One day I found the missing pathway - the magic ingredient of just the right degree of leg, hip and pelvis.
As a result, QQ completely rebalanced underneath me. His whole left side softened and he had a beautiful even curve from his tail to his head. At last I could ride equally easily in either direction without struggling and fighting with him.”
INTRODUCING...
A 5-Day Online Feldenkrais Workshop Experience October 14-18, 2024
with Catherine McCrum, Thomas Ritter, and Shana Ritter.
5 Days of 5-17 minute Pre-Recorded Feldenkrais Lessons PLUS a LIVE Q&A on Day 5.
- Day 0, Anatomy Tour of the Hip Joint (5:09) - A short demonstration of some possibilities of movement of the hips from the skeletal perspective. The hip joint has a large range of motion and once you feel how free yet connected you can be in this part of you, a whole world of fabulous functioning opens up. Both in and out of the saddle!
- Day 1, Heels in and Out in Sitting (9:46) - In this lesson we explore how the placement of your feet impacts the length of your spine, your posture in the saddle and your ability to have equal weight on your sitting bones. The movements will reveal which leg and sitting bone you habitually have more weight on, as well as how this impacts the flexibility of your hip joints, the alignment of your spine and the carriage of your head and neck. By the end of this (nearly) 10 minute session you will be on the road to finding equal support from each leg and 'self-carriage' in your torso.
- Day 2, Knee Circles (14:13) - The hip joint is truly amazing! Strip away the muscles, tendons and ligaments, look at what lies beneath, and you'll start to realise how much potential you have for incredible movement. Many riders however, are stuck in self-limiting patterns that restrict the range of motion of their hips and consequently the ability to balance the pelvis equally easily over either leg. In this lesson we get into the details of rediscovering the full range of motion of the leg and femur in the hip socket. We will restore the ability of each leg to flex, extend, abduct and adduct, and to internally and externally rotate. At the end you will feel balanced and stable in standing, but also ready to move in any direction.
- Day 3, Releasing the Hips by Pulling the Heel (16:49) - In this lesson we get into the intricacies of why it can be difficult to internally rotate the femur in the hip joint. We'll also discover why it matters to have these movements in your repertoire! One small example is a minute degree of rotating the thighs out softens and rounds your back which is great for down transitions. Conversely a minimal inward rotation of the femurs and knees will lighten your sitting bones and lengthen your spine forward and up... which creates space for your horses back to lift. An inward rotation of one leg and an outward rotation of the other creates a small degree of rotation in your pelvis and spine which can be an invitation for your horse's spine to bend and rotate. There is no limit to how much you can refine your seat and aids once you discover the optimal connection of your legs to your pelvis and spine.
- Day 4, Turning the Femurs in and Out (12:50) -
How do your feet, ankles and lower legs relate to your ability to rotate the femurs internally and externally? In order to restore any lost function you have to be a movement detective. In this case, we will solve the mystery of why the feet can either be a supportive friend that helps us be more mobile and balanced, or they can be an 'enemy' that sabotages our balance from the ground up. Collapsed hips, an asymmetrical torso, small scolioses in the spine and poor mobility of the pelvis and hips often have their roots in disorganised and chaotic feet and ankles. In this lesson we explore the knotty problem of recovering full range of motion of the feet in the ankle joint and how that has a ripple effect up through the whole of your body. You will feel balanced, tall and a lightness of step after these movements. Enjoy the feeling!
- Day 5, Inside Hip Joint to Outside Shoulder (12:37) -
How can you take this new sense of mobility and make it useful for your riding? In this session we put it all together. and play with some patterns of creating spirals and turns from the feet and legs into the pelvis, spine and to the diagonal shoulder. For the purpose of re-educating your brain and nervous system to find these new pathways, the movements in this session are more exaggerated than you might use in the saddle, however they are the building blocks of the movements you need in your body for circles, turns, bending your horse and laterals. Ultimately you will learn to support your horse to move in a balanced way, rather than interfere with their potential for amazing movement.
LIVE Q&A October 18th at 6:00pm GMT+1 with Catherine McCrum and Thomas & Shana Ritter.
BONUS 1, FeldenRide - Rotating the Femur (16:38): In this practical lesson Catherine is assisted by Jacky Davies and QQ (the horse).
BONUS 2, Bonus Hand on Lesson (8:22): Here I show the movements of rotation of the leg in your hip joint in a 'hands on' lesson with a student.
BONUS 3, The FeldenHip Podcast: An exclusive podcast of the recordings from this workshop so you can listen anytime, anywhere (especially while on your horse) with just your phone. So easy!!
Join the Community each day for discussion in the FeldenFit Facebook Group
Full, Lifetime Access to all recordings, course materials, and the Facebook Group beyond the 5 days of the Workshop.
Workshop Price = €49
*Other Currencies Available.
"I really did think I knew where my hips were; I have been practising yoga for years, Feldenfit since Catherine launched it, and I am a fully functioning human being and horse rider..... of course I know where my hips are!
And then I was challenged by Catherine to make some subtle movements.... “no, more subtle, slower, less!....” and I still remember saying “ooohhhhhhhhhhhh, THAT’s what you mean!” when I discovered where my hip motion actually sits in my body. Not where my brain thought it was, not where my habitual body map had placed it.
Over the few months since being Catherine’s Hip Guinea pig I have messaged her a number of times about quite HOW MUCH this knowledge reform has changed my movement patterns. I move better in the gym, I move better on the yoga mat and in Xi Gong movements, AND OF COURSE I move better on my horse. And my coach noticed it too. And my horse. Hip Hip Hurrah!"
Jacky Davies, U.K.
"If people can learn to audit in a curious rather than correctional way maybe there’s a degree of relaxation and comfort in the movements they develop. And that’s the first step to getting rid of that tension, rigidity - all the things coaches worry about in the horse that has most of its origin in the rider. And these deep dive examinations of how our bones are moving under the influence of the bones of the horse as they move is fascinating. I think it’s one of those courses you would revisit over and over again and every time you would get something different, or incremental improvements in your understanding of how to improve your seat and aids just from the process of doing the lessons."
Naomi Betts, Australia
"What starts out as seemingly simple movement patterns in this workshop, quickly unfold to new realizations and discoveries about how to lift and use the seat bones and hips more efficiently. I went through this series twice in a row and found it incredibly illuminating. Even though I have been riding for over 40 years, it taught me new ways of becoming more even in my movement with my hips and seat bones, and I can’t believe these tools were not available to me years ago when learning to aid in a differentiating way was a big challenge to learn. Riders who have the advantage of learning this earlier in their riding education are extraordinarily fortunate - likely cutting through years of struggle and trial and error."
Shana Ritter, Portugal
And just who is Catherine McCrum?
And her horse, QQ
ACCREDITED FELDENKRAIS PRACTIONER, GESTALT PYSCHOTHERAPIST, DRESSAGE RIDER
Catherine McCrum is an accredited Feldenkrais practitioner and has been teaching sport, fitness and movement since 1986 as first a ski instructor/coach and then as a Personal Trainer. She is also a Gestalt psychotherapist with a particular interest in working with developing awareness of how her clients embody their emotional and psychological patterns. Catherine assists in most of the Artistic Dressage Program courses by providing riders with Feldenkrais-based lessons to improve their body awareness, coordination, balance, and suppleness.
ALSO JOINING FOR THE LIVE Q&A
Thomas and Shana Ritter
We are Thomas and Shana Ritter. Thomas is German and Shana is American, now based in Portugal on our farm of mostly Lusitanos (also a few Lipizzans + one seriously awesome pony for our daughter) by the ocean. Together we run a program of online courses and programs which educate riders how to train their horses themselves, in accordance with classical principles and biomechanics. Thomas is an International Clinician and author of two books and countless articles in many publications. Shana is a USDF Bronze and Silver Medalist. We have studied with Karl Mikolka, Egon von Neidorff, Arthur Kottas, Charles de Kunffy, Hubert Rohrer, Dorothee Baumann-Pellny, and Thomas Faltejsek. Together we create and orchestrate the Artistic Dressage program helping riders all over the world to have better, happier relationships with their horses through correct, gymnastics and a thoughtful, heart-centered approach.
