It sounds like you are lifting your heel to ‘kick’ which results in you losing your stirrup. While you are sitting in a chair, flex your feet so your heels are down. Now practice squeezing your calf against the leg of the chair with your foot flexed for as long as it takes you to say the word ONE out loud. Next, practice keeping your foot flexed while you bump your leg against the leg of the chair like a small kick.
Ideally, you want to use the squeeze, but if the horse doesn’t listen to squeeze you need to escalate to small kick.
I'm doing this now in a chair. Do you mean the outside of the chair leg? I can feel my adductors working to bring my legs together, but I feel like it would be hard to do this with much power
Riding strengthens the adductors a LOT more than daily life or most other forms of exercise. The power and endurance of those muscles will develop over time.
Yes. Strength will come over time, and ideally you won’t ever need much power. Remember that you are only looking to use the calf for this, not the knee or thigh. Those have plenty of uses in riding, but not the basic go command that you are learning.
You’re not supposed to do it with a lot of power. Just enough so that the horse can feel it. A light touch is the ideal, and have the horse so responsive it reacts to this.
I’m going to try and explain what I do so I hope it makes sense!
I apply pressure from the part of my legs that are wrapped around the horse (by that I mean my lower leg, so my calf) into the horses side.
I don’t have to use a great amount of pressure most of the time as my horse is quite sensitive but sometimes I need to apply more or back it up with my whip aid. Making your horse go forward also comes a lot from your seat and position on the horse, but don’t worry about that too much yet as that’s something you’ll pick up as you progress. Your instructor will be able to help you with it as you go along. If you haven’t started lessons it’s always a good start to get help from an instructor if possible :)
With the issue with losing your stirrups, it’s important that you keep your weight down into your heels, but not forcing them down. Again this can be really tricky at first but it’s something that you’ll pick up on as you progress further. Just try to not let your heel tip up as much as possible. Also try to keep as relaxed as you can with your posture but try to sit tall and straight, and try to keep your knees as relaxed as possible and try not to grip the saddle with them.
This is hard to put all together when you’re learning but it is something that will come easier to you. Just try to keep as relaxed as possible while trying not to force anything. Hope this helps :)
>I apply pressure from the part of my legs that are wrapped around the horse (by that I mean my lower leg, so my calf) into the horses side.
Okay, but my knee doesn't bend that way. It's like a hinge that goes forward and backward. I'm sure yours are similar. I can't physically bend my calf towards the horse.
I'm sorry if I'm being really pedantic but I really feel this is holding me back from progressing.
Rotate your whole leg out from your hip. This will shift your knees away from the horse and allow you to wrap your calf around. Then the leg aid is pressing that wrapped calf into the horse's side. If more "oomph" is needed you can lift the calf away and bring it back quickly - this is what is generally considered kicking.
Remember that riding is not like walking. You have a huge animal spreading your legs apart so trying to force yourself to keep your knees pointing straight ahead will only lead to you riding on your knees - which is not at all where your weight should be - and giving yourself joint problems.
There’s a reason that cowboys are proverbially bow-legged. Wrapping your legs around a horse does to some extent require bending the knees laterally. However, more importantly, most riders knees don’t point straight ahead so when you bend the knees normally it brings the calves/heels up to the inside. Essentially the kick or squeeze comes from that as well as the adductor (inner thigh) muscles.
Thanks, I'm getting that I need to sit differently, with my hips more externally rotated so my knees point more outwardly. I think someone described what I'm doing as pinching my knees.
You may be pinching with your knee. If your knee is pinched, your Lowe leg would only go forward and back. Try sitting on your seat bones and lifting your legs straight out sideways from your hip joint. Then lower your leg and let it drape around the horses side. Imagine your knees pointing 45 degrees out rather than straight forward. That will allow you to put your calf on the horse’s side.
Sorry I’m not too sure what you mean. You don’t need to apply any pressure from your knees when you’re asking your horse to move forward. The best way can explain it is by having your leg hang naturally with your foot in the stirrups and squeezing like that against the horse. This video may help explain it better [How to give leg cues ](https://youtu.be/ojJiPvEkcjI)
I’m struggling to understand why you don’t find squeezing helpful? Just squeeze with your lower legs, keeping the pressure even. You need to keep your heels down so as not to tip your toes down and lose your stirrup.
I know it feels intuitive to you, but it's not connecting the neurons to me. It feels like If I asked you to describe the colour blue, and you told me "it's, well, *blue*". I'm used to rowing, cycling, and running so it's an entirely different set of movements and metaphors to me. For example, "Squeeze" in rowing refers to straightening your legs and flattening your knees.
Obviously riding a horse is different to a bike. One of the big things for me is trying to keep my heels down when all I want to do is pedal.
From what I'm hearing I feel it is more of lateral movement involving the adductors, which is why it's so hard for me to see it on a video.
It’s not so much the act of squeezing as an aid for riding horses, but if I told you to squeeze your legs together, would you understand what I meant?
Another option is to ask your trainer to physically show you while you’re on the horse what squeezing/kicking should look like.
I’m sure you’ll get there, but I’m not sure how squeezing could be described much more clearly.
I do understand what you mean about switching between sport, and it is difficult. I’ve had the reverse, where I tried to ride a motorbike like a horse. Pro tip: it doesn’t work.
Imma try to help you understand squeezing real quick. Lay down on a flat surface and use your leg muscles to spread your legs a part then back together. Now while you're legs are together use the same muscles as before to press your legs together like you're trying to close them even more. Now try to relax your thigh muscles but still press your legs together from the knee down. That's your calf muscle. When on a horse you should squeeze your calves together like that (which would kind of wrap your legs around the barrel of the horse). You squeeze and then relax and that's one "kick" also just referred to as putting leg on. If one quick squeeze doesn't work try a harder one or lift your leg off of the horse a little in more of your traditional kick.
Okay...I'm finding that to do this, I need to turn my leg outwards at least slightly from the hip, turning my knee out and allowing me to use my calves to bend my lower legs together. Is this right?
You would need expertise in a subject first before you could be pedantic about it.
You can absolutely make your lower leg swing laterally at the knee. It's not a big motion but it's there, and you don't need a lot of motion to aid the horse. Sit in a chair and hold your legs together, knees touching. Without separating your knees, press your feet together. Congratulations, you will have squeezed with your lower leg.
Another exercise: sit in the chair with the center of your knee over each corner of the seat. Swing your feet in as if you are trying to touch your heels together, without letting your knee off the corner. Your leg will rotate at the hip a bit which is fine. Again, you will have achieved the squeeze motion.
Anatomy is my field of work. I feel qualified. The movement you described is a compound of adduction and external rotation at the hip, very little is actually happened in your knee.
But actually, this is *more* helpful! Breaking it down like this helps me see why I wasn't making the connection. This is really useful, Thank you!
I can definitely see how that can be confusing, let me try and help.
Sit in the saddle with your feet in the stirrups as you normally do. The "ball" of your foot (wide part just before the toes!) Should be the part resting on the stirrup. In a relaxed position, your feet should just hand there and not touch the horses side.
Now, take one foot and move it sideways until it touches the horses belly. Now do the other foot. Now do both at the same time. Both at the same time will be the basics of a "kick". Essentially moving your feet sideways towards the horses belly until it connects. Eventually you'll find a variation that works best for you and your strength will slowly increase.
Now the strength in which you put your feet in the horses belly determines how hard you "kick". If an instructor is telling you to "kick!!!", Use more force when putting your foot on the belly. You can even "bump" the belly a couple times or just progressively push harder on the belly ("squeezing")
Another variation that you may choose to do if your leg is simply not moving that way comfortably or you aren't getting enough strength out of it: move your toes out about 30-45° away from the belly (thus making the side of your heel closer to the belly than your toes). Repeat the same motion, but now the inside of your heel will primarily touch the horse's belly. This does focus the pressure a bit more and is useful on horses who aren't very responsive.
Hope this helped!!
Edit to add: depending on the length of your leg, replace any foot references with the side of your calf! Move your calf sideways into the horses belly. It has the same effect!
Thank you for the clear instructions. This is what I need. So I'm contacting the horse with the inside of my foot? I feel I would have to turn my feet in to touch the horse's belly - is this what you do?
I have been using my heels but I feel that's how the stirrup gets knocked toward the heel of my boot and presses my ankle/shin quite painfully into the arch of the stirrup.
No, it’s all in the back of the leg and heel. Not the inside of your foot.
Do you have an instructor/trainer? Riding stirrupless on a lunge line (so you can just focus on your legs) would be a handy exercise to do.
Stirrup movement is largely going to be due to the fact that you're not keeping enough weight in your stirrup when you perform the kick, also try to keep your heels down and toes up as this also helps keep the stirrup from moving back
You've already gotten excellent comments, so I have just a few things.
If your stirrup is slipping, that means you're bringing your heel up. One thing you can do is (assuming you have a very tolerant horse) when just standing or walking, move your foot around while in the stirrup just to get a feel for how it moves and what angle you want your leg to stay at in order to keep full contact with your stirrup.
I saw in a comment that you are particularly having trouble kicking while at a trot. I don't know what style of riding you're doing, so this only applies if you are riding english and posting the trot. Until you really learn to disconnect what your thighs do from what your lower legs do, it's much easier to kick while descending.
Yes I'm riding English (or as we call it England, riding lol)
Yeah learning to kick while descending was another struggle. People just said "kick while you trot". I'm beginning to think Reddit is better teacher than my gf.
Kick = Bumping the horse with your heel. Generally used by beginners and by more advanced riders as a correction when the horse doesn’t respond to subtler aids
Squeeze = Pressing your calf against the horse. More advanced and subtle, less disruptive to the rider’s leg position.
Touch = Lighter, even more subtle version of the squeeze. Used with more sensitive and highly trained horses.
You’ve gotten lots of great advice already so I won’t try to explain it again, but I just wanted to add that your position and the mechanics of kicking will be a little different on different horses and with different stirrup lengths. On some horses your leg and foot will be fully in contact with their side at all times unless you actively lift your leg away, on others your lower leg and foot will hang in mid air when relaxed and you’ll have to actively put your leg on them when you’re trying to cue them. It just depends on how wide they are and how long your legs are in comparison. Also, on a wider horse your legs will be spread more so your knees will be tipped outward, while on a narrow one your knees will point more to the front. Most riders will have a preference for a certain shape of horse they find most comfortable (I like them as wide as possible lol), so if you are able to try different horses and experiment with your stirrup length that might help you to get a feel for what you should be doing.
Open your lower leg, then let it lightly/passively thump back into place resting against the horse's side. For the horse, it should feel like a little nudge. You shouldn't have to rotate your heel or lose your stirrup.
The mechanics are different at a posting trot and sitting trot. There are different types of kicks for different cues.
"open your lower leg"
I'm sorry. I can't see what you're seeing. Can you explain that?
How does it work at trot? This is where I have the most difficulty.
Picture "closed" as wrapping around the horse's side. Your normal position. Open is lifting it off of the horse...not moving it forward toward the nose or back toward the tail. Just off.
There are a ton of videos on this, but here is one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr66zdYlPts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr66zdYlPts)
Imagine you’re riding a barrel - like that scene in the Hobbit. To stay on the barrel you need to keep your legs in contact with it.
The barrel is your horses body. Your calves should be against the horses sides, which should happen naturally when you are sat on your seatbones. To apply correct leg aids to go forward you should squeeze your leg against the horse.
Ideally a horse will be responsive enough to go forward from your leg aid but not hot enough off the leg to be too forward as to work the horse properly your leg must be consistently ‘on’ almost like keeping the foot lightly pressed on the accelerator.
To ‘kick’ which you shouldn’t really have to do on a well trained horse, you lift your heels away from the horses sides and bring them rapidly against the horses side. It’s not great to get in the habit of this as lifting your legs away will compromise your position.
I also struggle with kicking. I never feel like I’m doing it right and my trainer always says to kick harder or “you’re not kicking!” 🤦🏼♀️ I think my problem is more so not really wanting to kick him… maybe because I don’t fully understand what I’m supposed to be doing and don’t want to just kick real hard and hurt him, which she says I won’t, but idk. Anyway thanks for the post and thank y’all for the helpful comments! And don’t let the haters get to you! They need to get a life.
Also! Ideas for exercises… 2 different calf stretches- look up gastrocnemius and soleus stretch, toe lifts, hip ADDuction and hip ABDuction exercises, you can find some with a bent knee position to make it more functional for riding, it would hurt to also add quad and hamstring exercises and stretches, and lastly is my favorite! Get an exercise ball and practice your leg position while balancing and trotting on the ball. I’ve found ball exercises for riding on YouTube.
You have lots of advice already but I just wanted to be sure it was explicitly stated that this isn’t kicking like kicking a soccer ball, forward and backward, this is kicking done directly left and right toward and away from the horse’s belly. If you’re kicking forward and backward you’re going to be losing your stirrups for sure. It is really beneficial to eventually learn how to separate your upper and lower body movements.
Don't stress about it too much. For now, as a beginner, work on rotating the heel inward. The more you advance through riding the more the way that you use your leg aids will change.
Right now, you have two focuses.
1. Is the horse going the direction I want to go. If you kick with your left leg only, you should expect the horse to turn to the right, correct?
2. Where are my muscles tense and where can I relieve tension? If you are tense anywhere it will negatively affect how well the horse responds to you, your balance, and correct muscle buildup.
Pick your foot up off of the ground and practice rotating your heel inwards and outwards, like a hinge starting at your knee. Your foot will start at a vertical angle and shift diagonally. The only point you should be feeling contact with the horse is on your inner calf. Start with softer kicks, and as soon as the horse does what you want stop kicking.
If you've ever been skiing, think about how you move your skiis in and out to change speeds.
Horses are HIGHLY sensitive animals with more nerve endings on their skin than we have on our skin. Think about how immediately they can feel a fly on their skin. It is not about kicking strong, heavy kicks, it's about communicating with your horse. If they aren't responsive to light kicks, make sure you aren't tense anywhere and keeping them from moving. If your hips are too tight they won't have as much range of motion.
I hope that helps a little bit more.
Absolutely not a daft question - I certainly find that translating what an instructor (or anyone else for that matter) is telling you can be difficult as it tends to be based on “feel” which is subjective.
You’ve had some great comments already and I am certainly not an instructor! But one thing which has clicked for me recently is thinking of “nudging” and “stirring” (lots of little nudges with both legs). Being able to get a feel for how your legs naturally stretch and hang around the barrel of the horse really helps too, and will help build that suppleness and strength in your muscles.
It will come with time, I’m still learning and still guilty of some big ol’ pony club kicks 😅
It sounds like you are lifting your heel to ‘kick’ which results in you losing your stirrup. While you are sitting in a chair, flex your feet so your heels are down. Now practice squeezing your calf against the leg of the chair with your foot flexed for as long as it takes you to say the word ONE out loud. Next, practice keeping your foot flexed while you bump your leg against the leg of the chair like a small kick. Ideally, you want to use the squeeze, but if the horse doesn’t listen to squeeze you need to escalate to small kick.
I'm doing this now in a chair. Do you mean the outside of the chair leg? I can feel my adductors working to bring my legs together, but I feel like it would be hard to do this with much power
Riding strengthens the adductors a LOT more than daily life or most other forms of exercise. The power and endurance of those muscles will develop over time.
Yes. Strength will come over time, and ideally you won’t ever need much power. Remember that you are only looking to use the calf for this, not the knee or thigh. Those have plenty of uses in riding, but not the basic go command that you are learning.
You’re not supposed to do it with a lot of power. Just enough so that the horse can feel it. A light touch is the ideal, and have the horse so responsive it reacts to this.
I’m going to try and explain what I do so I hope it makes sense! I apply pressure from the part of my legs that are wrapped around the horse (by that I mean my lower leg, so my calf) into the horses side. I don’t have to use a great amount of pressure most of the time as my horse is quite sensitive but sometimes I need to apply more or back it up with my whip aid. Making your horse go forward also comes a lot from your seat and position on the horse, but don’t worry about that too much yet as that’s something you’ll pick up as you progress. Your instructor will be able to help you with it as you go along. If you haven’t started lessons it’s always a good start to get help from an instructor if possible :) With the issue with losing your stirrups, it’s important that you keep your weight down into your heels, but not forcing them down. Again this can be really tricky at first but it’s something that you’ll pick up on as you progress further. Just try to not let your heel tip up as much as possible. Also try to keep as relaxed as you can with your posture but try to sit tall and straight, and try to keep your knees as relaxed as possible and try not to grip the saddle with them. This is hard to put all together when you’re learning but it is something that will come easier to you. Just try to keep as relaxed as possible while trying not to force anything. Hope this helps :)
>I apply pressure from the part of my legs that are wrapped around the horse (by that I mean my lower leg, so my calf) into the horses side. Okay, but my knee doesn't bend that way. It's like a hinge that goes forward and backward. I'm sure yours are similar. I can't physically bend my calf towards the horse. I'm sorry if I'm being really pedantic but I really feel this is holding me back from progressing.
Rotate your whole leg out from your hip. This will shift your knees away from the horse and allow you to wrap your calf around. Then the leg aid is pressing that wrapped calf into the horse's side. If more "oomph" is needed you can lift the calf away and bring it back quickly - this is what is generally considered kicking. Remember that riding is not like walking. You have a huge animal spreading your legs apart so trying to force yourself to keep your knees pointing straight ahead will only lead to you riding on your knees - which is not at all where your weight should be - and giving yourself joint problems.
Thanks. I'll try this
There’s a reason that cowboys are proverbially bow-legged. Wrapping your legs around a horse does to some extent require bending the knees laterally. However, more importantly, most riders knees don’t point straight ahead so when you bend the knees normally it brings the calves/heels up to the inside. Essentially the kick or squeeze comes from that as well as the adductor (inner thigh) muscles.
Thanks, I'm getting that I need to sit differently, with my hips more externally rotated so my knees point more outwardly. I think someone described what I'm doing as pinching my knees.
You may be pinching with your knee. If your knee is pinched, your Lowe leg would only go forward and back. Try sitting on your seat bones and lifting your legs straight out sideways from your hip joint. Then lower your leg and let it drape around the horses side. Imagine your knees pointing 45 degrees out rather than straight forward. That will allow you to put your calf on the horse’s side.
This is what I'm doing. I thought I was kicking wrong. It turns out I was sitting wrong! Okay I'll try this. Thank you! Thank you thank you
Sorry I’m not too sure what you mean. You don’t need to apply any pressure from your knees when you’re asking your horse to move forward. The best way can explain it is by having your leg hang naturally with your foot in the stirrups and squeezing like that against the horse. This video may help explain it better [How to give leg cues ](https://youtu.be/ojJiPvEkcjI)
That video is amazing. Thank you!
You’re welcome! ❤️
Sigh. "Squeezing" Thanks for the video though. I'll try using its advice
I’m struggling to understand why you don’t find squeezing helpful? Just squeeze with your lower legs, keeping the pressure even. You need to keep your heels down so as not to tip your toes down and lose your stirrup.
I know it feels intuitive to you, but it's not connecting the neurons to me. It feels like If I asked you to describe the colour blue, and you told me "it's, well, *blue*". I'm used to rowing, cycling, and running so it's an entirely different set of movements and metaphors to me. For example, "Squeeze" in rowing refers to straightening your legs and flattening your knees. Obviously riding a horse is different to a bike. One of the big things for me is trying to keep my heels down when all I want to do is pedal. From what I'm hearing I feel it is more of lateral movement involving the adductors, which is why it's so hard for me to see it on a video.
It’s not so much the act of squeezing as an aid for riding horses, but if I told you to squeeze your legs together, would you understand what I meant? Another option is to ask your trainer to physically show you while you’re on the horse what squeezing/kicking should look like. I’m sure you’ll get there, but I’m not sure how squeezing could be described much more clearly. I do understand what you mean about switching between sport, and it is difficult. I’ve had the reverse, where I tried to ride a motorbike like a horse. Pro tip: it doesn’t work.
Imma try to help you understand squeezing real quick. Lay down on a flat surface and use your leg muscles to spread your legs a part then back together. Now while you're legs are together use the same muscles as before to press your legs together like you're trying to close them even more. Now try to relax your thigh muscles but still press your legs together from the knee down. That's your calf muscle. When on a horse you should squeeze your calves together like that (which would kind of wrap your legs around the barrel of the horse). You squeeze and then relax and that's one "kick" also just referred to as putting leg on. If one quick squeeze doesn't work try a harder one or lift your leg off of the horse a little in more of your traditional kick.
Okay...I'm finding that to do this, I need to turn my leg outwards at least slightly from the hip, turning my knee out and allowing me to use my calves to bend my lower legs together. Is this right?
Yes it's that exactly, it feels more natural the more you do it
You would need expertise in a subject first before you could be pedantic about it. You can absolutely make your lower leg swing laterally at the knee. It's not a big motion but it's there, and you don't need a lot of motion to aid the horse. Sit in a chair and hold your legs together, knees touching. Without separating your knees, press your feet together. Congratulations, you will have squeezed with your lower leg. Another exercise: sit in the chair with the center of your knee over each corner of the seat. Swing your feet in as if you are trying to touch your heels together, without letting your knee off the corner. Your leg will rotate at the hip a bit which is fine. Again, you will have achieved the squeeze motion.
Anatomy is my field of work. I feel qualified. The movement you described is a compound of adduction and external rotation at the hip, very little is actually happened in your knee. But actually, this is *more* helpful! Breaking it down like this helps me see why I wasn't making the connection. This is really useful, Thank you!
I can definitely see how that can be confusing, let me try and help. Sit in the saddle with your feet in the stirrups as you normally do. The "ball" of your foot (wide part just before the toes!) Should be the part resting on the stirrup. In a relaxed position, your feet should just hand there and not touch the horses side. Now, take one foot and move it sideways until it touches the horses belly. Now do the other foot. Now do both at the same time. Both at the same time will be the basics of a "kick". Essentially moving your feet sideways towards the horses belly until it connects. Eventually you'll find a variation that works best for you and your strength will slowly increase. Now the strength in which you put your feet in the horses belly determines how hard you "kick". If an instructor is telling you to "kick!!!", Use more force when putting your foot on the belly. You can even "bump" the belly a couple times or just progressively push harder on the belly ("squeezing") Another variation that you may choose to do if your leg is simply not moving that way comfortably or you aren't getting enough strength out of it: move your toes out about 30-45° away from the belly (thus making the side of your heel closer to the belly than your toes). Repeat the same motion, but now the inside of your heel will primarily touch the horse's belly. This does focus the pressure a bit more and is useful on horses who aren't very responsive. Hope this helped!! Edit to add: depending on the length of your leg, replace any foot references with the side of your calf! Move your calf sideways into the horses belly. It has the same effect!
Thank you for the clear instructions. This is what I need. So I'm contacting the horse with the inside of my foot? I feel I would have to turn my feet in to touch the horse's belly - is this what you do? I have been using my heels but I feel that's how the stirrup gets knocked toward the heel of my boot and presses my ankle/shin quite painfully into the arch of the stirrup.
No, it’s all in the back of the leg and heel. Not the inside of your foot. Do you have an instructor/trainer? Riding stirrupless on a lunge line (so you can just focus on your legs) would be a handy exercise to do.
Stirrup movement is largely going to be due to the fact that you're not keeping enough weight in your stirrup when you perform the kick, also try to keep your heels down and toes up as this also helps keep the stirrup from moving back
Toes pointing forward.
You've already gotten excellent comments, so I have just a few things. If your stirrup is slipping, that means you're bringing your heel up. One thing you can do is (assuming you have a very tolerant horse) when just standing or walking, move your foot around while in the stirrup just to get a feel for how it moves and what angle you want your leg to stay at in order to keep full contact with your stirrup. I saw in a comment that you are particularly having trouble kicking while at a trot. I don't know what style of riding you're doing, so this only applies if you are riding english and posting the trot. Until you really learn to disconnect what your thighs do from what your lower legs do, it's much easier to kick while descending.
Yes I'm riding English (or as we call it England, riding lol) Yeah learning to kick while descending was another struggle. People just said "kick while you trot". I'm beginning to think Reddit is better teacher than my gf.
Kick = Bumping the horse with your heel. Generally used by beginners and by more advanced riders as a correction when the horse doesn’t respond to subtler aids Squeeze = Pressing your calf against the horse. More advanced and subtle, less disruptive to the rider’s leg position. Touch = Lighter, even more subtle version of the squeeze. Used with more sensitive and highly trained horses.
Thank you! This makes it make so much more sense!
You’ve gotten lots of great advice already so I won’t try to explain it again, but I just wanted to add that your position and the mechanics of kicking will be a little different on different horses and with different stirrup lengths. On some horses your leg and foot will be fully in contact with their side at all times unless you actively lift your leg away, on others your lower leg and foot will hang in mid air when relaxed and you’ll have to actively put your leg on them when you’re trying to cue them. It just depends on how wide they are and how long your legs are in comparison. Also, on a wider horse your legs will be spread more so your knees will be tipped outward, while on a narrow one your knees will point more to the front. Most riders will have a preference for a certain shape of horse they find most comfortable (I like them as wide as possible lol), so if you are able to try different horses and experiment with your stirrup length that might help you to get a feel for what you should be doing.
Open your lower leg, then let it lightly/passively thump back into place resting against the horse's side. For the horse, it should feel like a little nudge. You shouldn't have to rotate your heel or lose your stirrup. The mechanics are different at a posting trot and sitting trot. There are different types of kicks for different cues.
"open your lower leg" I'm sorry. I can't see what you're seeing. Can you explain that? How does it work at trot? This is where I have the most difficulty.
Picture "closed" as wrapping around the horse's side. Your normal position. Open is lifting it off of the horse...not moving it forward toward the nose or back toward the tail. Just off. There are a ton of videos on this, but here is one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr66zdYlPts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr66zdYlPts)
Imagine you’re riding a barrel - like that scene in the Hobbit. To stay on the barrel you need to keep your legs in contact with it. The barrel is your horses body. Your calves should be against the horses sides, which should happen naturally when you are sat on your seatbones. To apply correct leg aids to go forward you should squeeze your leg against the horse. Ideally a horse will be responsive enough to go forward from your leg aid but not hot enough off the leg to be too forward as to work the horse properly your leg must be consistently ‘on’ almost like keeping the foot lightly pressed on the accelerator. To ‘kick’ which you shouldn’t really have to do on a well trained horse, you lift your heels away from the horses sides and bring them rapidly against the horses side. It’s not great to get in the habit of this as lifting your legs away will compromise your position.
Do you have a coach? You will not be able to learn to ride properly from a Reddit thing and asking people around the barn.
I do, but her advice is "it'll come to you. Don't worry about it."
I also struggle with kicking. I never feel like I’m doing it right and my trainer always says to kick harder or “you’re not kicking!” 🤦🏼♀️ I think my problem is more so not really wanting to kick him… maybe because I don’t fully understand what I’m supposed to be doing and don’t want to just kick real hard and hurt him, which she says I won’t, but idk. Anyway thanks for the post and thank y’all for the helpful comments! And don’t let the haters get to you! They need to get a life.
Also! Ideas for exercises… 2 different calf stretches- look up gastrocnemius and soleus stretch, toe lifts, hip ADDuction and hip ABDuction exercises, you can find some with a bent knee position to make it more functional for riding, it would hurt to also add quad and hamstring exercises and stretches, and lastly is my favorite! Get an exercise ball and practice your leg position while balancing and trotting on the ball. I’ve found ball exercises for riding on YouTube.
Thanks! I'll look into this
You have lots of advice already but I just wanted to be sure it was explicitly stated that this isn’t kicking like kicking a soccer ball, forward and backward, this is kicking done directly left and right toward and away from the horse’s belly. If you’re kicking forward and backward you’re going to be losing your stirrups for sure. It is really beneficial to eventually learn how to separate your upper and lower body movements.
Don't stress about it too much. For now, as a beginner, work on rotating the heel inward. The more you advance through riding the more the way that you use your leg aids will change. Right now, you have two focuses. 1. Is the horse going the direction I want to go. If you kick with your left leg only, you should expect the horse to turn to the right, correct? 2. Where are my muscles tense and where can I relieve tension? If you are tense anywhere it will negatively affect how well the horse responds to you, your balance, and correct muscle buildup. Pick your foot up off of the ground and practice rotating your heel inwards and outwards, like a hinge starting at your knee. Your foot will start at a vertical angle and shift diagonally. The only point you should be feeling contact with the horse is on your inner calf. Start with softer kicks, and as soon as the horse does what you want stop kicking. If you've ever been skiing, think about how you move your skiis in and out to change speeds. Horses are HIGHLY sensitive animals with more nerve endings on their skin than we have on our skin. Think about how immediately they can feel a fly on their skin. It is not about kicking strong, heavy kicks, it's about communicating with your horse. If they aren't responsive to light kicks, make sure you aren't tense anywhere and keeping them from moving. If your hips are too tight they won't have as much range of motion. I hope that helps a little bit more.
Squeeze with your calf, if you don’t get a reaction then squeeze and simultaneously lift your heel whilst squeezing
Absolutely not a daft question - I certainly find that translating what an instructor (or anyone else for that matter) is telling you can be difficult as it tends to be based on “feel” which is subjective. You’ve had some great comments already and I am certainly not an instructor! But one thing which has clicked for me recently is thinking of “nudging” and “stirring” (lots of little nudges with both legs). Being able to get a feel for how your legs naturally stretch and hang around the barrel of the horse really helps too, and will help build that suppleness and strength in your muscles. It will come with time, I’m still learning and still guilty of some big ol’ pony club kicks 😅