Today's bite-sized tip is brought to you by my first panic moment on saddle.
My regular partner in schooling is the type of horse that falls back to a walk at the slightest hint of "whoa", so I never realized that I was tensing my leg while giving the downward transition cue. So when in my recent lesson I was paired instead with Seymour, who likes to trot, trouble ensued. At my instructor's behest, I tried to transition from a trot to a walk, but instead Seymour happily sped up his trot.
My fore-brain went blank.
The animal instincts of my hind brain immediately screamed at me to hang on by raising my knees and leaning forward (losing seat contact), squeezing my legs (asking Seymour to go even faster), and tensing and raising my hands (losing rein contact).
Folks, seriously, ignore your hind-brain instincts. They suck at riding horses.
As for me, after a few seconds (of my instructor's desperate shouting) the more sensible part of my brain came back online and I eventually slowed to a walk. Oh yeah, and I don't do the leg tensing thing anymore.
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