I have two questions, one short and one long.  Short one first.  I always thought that the ideal was to have a mane grow to the right, or at least braid it to the right both in H/J and dressage.  However a girl who shows quite often was helping me braid the other day, and told me (very adamantly) its always on the left.  Anyway, if someone would clarify it for me that would be great!

The second question is regarding my riding.  Through my younger years of less-than-stellar riding education, I have developed into a “stiff” rider.  I know it’s true, and I am trying very hard to learn to relax and go with the horse instead of “force” the horse to go with me.  Therefore, I follow the dressage page quite often and I really have been focusing on Karen’s advice.  I love the idea of learning to ride with balance, instead of pure muscle tension (my natural tendency at the moment).  I have started to do a lot of no stirrup work, and while I know I have a long road ahead of me, I can already feel the difference in my seat and ability to let my arms go with the horse’s mouth.  However my question lies in over fences work.  My eq is far from perfect (I am schooling about 2’6″ to 3′), but I feel like it is necessary to have some tension in your legs in order to grip and stay with the horse over fences, correct?  Balance is always a component, but I am just having a hard time imagining how I wouldn’t get jumped loose and end up in the dirt if I didn’t grip at least a little!  Both Karen’s view and one of the Jumper judges would be awesome, and of course anyone else who wishes to have some input

Hi guys, I’m sorry if this turns into a novel but it’s a huge problem that I really need to address.  Basically, I have chronic muscle tightness in my neck, shoulders, and back to the point of almost always being in some kind of pain, and it greatly affects my riding.  In the past year, I have moved to a real training/showing barn instead of just riding people’s backyard ponies.  Those backyard ponies taught me a ton, and now I am learning to refine it with the help of my wonderful trainers at home and at college.  I am confident jumping though about 3′ now, and all the flatwork to go with it, but I am finding my tightness is a huge hinderance in ways I never noticed before.  I sometimes have trouble using a following arm, and my breakover is fluid, but I have a rounded back and shoulders.  My trainer is aware of my tightness issues, but is always telling me to relax and just go with the horse.  I feel like I am to the best of my ability, but I know I can get better.  These problems will also be an issue when I start showing eq over fences at school next year.

I have tried just about everything to help fix my tightness.  I’ve been to doctors, and they just tell me I need to stretch.  Stretching sort of helps, but not really.  I have tried the Shoulders Back, but that just made it hurt more.  I am debating going in to see a chiropractor.  I guess I just don’t know what “relaxed” feels like.  I really have trouble when someone tells me I need to relax more into my riding because I try very hard to push myself to be better, but it is hard and frustrating when my body physically won’t let me.  I will try to get a video, because then you guys can see what I am doing wrong, but does anyone have any experience with this, or any suggestions?

Thanks ahead of time,

Emily

Hi everyone,

So I have always had a hard helmet that I just wash in warm water with a little soap and then set out to dry.  But now I have this helmet:

http://irhhelmets.com/-IRH-Riding-Helmet-ID-3100.html

and I don’t know how to clean it!  It is suede, with non-removable padding.  I really want to make sure it’s cleaned right, so anyone have any ideas?  Thanks so much