Mary Wanless teaches riders how to strengthen their core and back for better canter posture. She walks through three hands-on exercises: pulling the cantle with hands behind, extending firmness from collarbone to pubic bone, and making fists to push the cantle backwards.
One of the things that happens to riders a lot in canter is when they're in trot, they're probably a pretty good box. They have a front, they have a back, they have depth front to back to their box. And then when they get to canter, it's almost like they suddenly become just a front and they ride as if they were two dimensional. And of course, all of us know where our fronts are. We can see our fronts and we vaguely know there's something behind it. Not so many of us are really aware of where our backs are and perceive our bodies as what lies in front of our back and is encased by our back and our front. In other words, we don't walk around perceiving ourselves as having a back and having a front and having depth to the box and having substance and thickness. Many of us walk around as if we were only a front, not just right canter, as if we were only a front. So becoming aware of your back is really important. So this exercise will help all riders, I would say, begin at least to build an awareness of their back and the depth of the box. And I want you to put your hands around behind you and pull on the cantle. Both hands. That's it. Whereabouts in your body firms up. Okay, so you feel it both back and front? Yes. Now, most people at this point will just feel it in their front and not feel it in their back. Let's say, for the sake of argument, it's her belly button area. And then my aim is, as she keeps pulling to go, could you extend the feeling of firmness down and extend the feeling of firmness up? Because we really want it to go all the way from collarbone to pubic bone. Now, the next bit is the more important of the true. Make fists. And now push on the cantle like you'd push the cantle backwards. So don't push it down, push it back. Okay. And if you're in a hard chair, you can push back at the level of your back here, and then you're going to see what firms up as you do that push back. So Mil is saying she can feel it in the middle of her back. Now, doing the first exercise enables virtually everybody to access their front and strengthen up there. It's harder to get your back to firm up in this exercise. It takes just a bit more perseverance for most people. Persevere if you don't, because getting where you can get strong here is worth so much. Sam.
