ART TM Alignment riding therapy
Have you noticed especially during hacking that your horse has a preferred diagonal in trot, and when you change to the other one it feels a bit bumpier?
Do you know why and how that works?
Take a look at the picture below of Jo and her mare Smoke. Believe it or not this is a very common picture in riding once you freeze the motion and take a closer look. Jo was shocked when she saw these photos because to her riding like this had become habitually normal!
It is the interplay of Jo’s crookedness with Smoke’s that over time has caused a slight unlevelness in smoke’s movement on the right rein. This is because their individual one-sidedness has shortened one of their diagonal pathways. It is easily cured and most likely if you don’t know about ART™ this will be happening in your riding partnership too!
Due to being right handed Jo has become tight in the diagonal pathway between her left shoulder and right hip. This causes her to tip her body to the right, as you can see above.
Her mare’s crookedness exacerbates the problem because she is right handed too. Her left hind leg crosses diagonally towards her right front shoulder, leaving Jo with no support under her left side.
Nip it in the bud early!
One-sidedness springs from us being right or left handed; horse’ also favor one hind leg and shoulder as discussed above. One-sidedness twists the rider and horse’s spine and pelvis, stressing the muscular skeletal system. Over time, this affects the nerve and blood supply to the horse and rider’s organs, leading to crookedness, back pain and behavioral problems and that is why it is important to nip it in the bud early!
Another reason to nip it in the bud is one-sidedness, not only stresses the muscular skeletal system, it also makes it impossible for the rider to sit straight making riding lessons fruitless!
Unlike Jo this experienced rider remains more centrally over his horse, even thought the horse is tilting its trunk to the right on both reins! (See the partnership rebalanced after ART™ below)
One would expect that if the rider is, “trained” to sit straight, this would have a knock on effect on the horse’s way-of-going. Nice thought, but in reality the rider doesn’t have enough weight, or strength, to counteract the weight and strength of the horse’s one-sidedness.
Over time the horse literally imprints it’s crookedness into the rider’s body, affecting your alignment! Because your horse is big and heavy compared to you, he’s going to win the alignment battle!
ART™ Horse and rider: crooked apart and crooked together
Until horse and rider are treated as a partnership, they remain caught in a vicious cycle of transference.
Some bodywork therapists – for humans and for horses – are aware of this. The more discerning, open-minded ones attend my workshops and teacher training to find out how they can support their work with horse and/or rider after the treatment is done.
ART™ shows you how the bodies beautifully designed structure naturally springs into action without stress or strain once the diagonal pathways between horse and rider are balanced. From then on training is easy.
The next photos clearly show how the horse’s beautifully designed structure has naturally sprung into action after only 3 months of using the ART™ of riding. Now he is calm, straight and forward, we are ready to introduce lateral work.
Andy’s quote: “Art™ is so easy and different to any training I have ever come across and I believe it will revolutionise training in the future. It has resolved so many issues for me. It gives the most careful consideration to all the different factors involved in crookedness. It then shows you through simple exercises how, by “unfixing” rather than “fixing” horse and rider, crookedness gradually crystallizes out more and more up to a point where it dissolves and solves itself.”
Alignment Riding Therapy™ deals with the root cause of crookedness - one-sidedness - at its very core. It then goes on to train the rider how to counterbalance crookedness and unsoundness, both in rider and horse, at the same time, during riding. It is a new therapy pioneered by myself and only available through me or one of my registered teachers.
Joni Bentley in discussion with Dr Gerd Heuschmann.
“We've never had more beautiful horses than we have nowadays. And we've never had so many horse physiotherapists, veterinarians, osteopaths, chiropractors.
Everyone is working on the horse for problems the rider creates. Yet very few people ask if they are the reason for the problems in their horses. They just look for a solution to the problem, as if the horse was a machine. The horse won't bend to the right? Call in the chiropractor. If that doesn't work, ask the vet for injections in the back.
We do have orthopaedic problems and we do have to treat them, but we have to ask why we have these problems. As long as we stand there and repair and don't ask why the problems are there, we will not come out of this. 90% of the problems are created by bad riding and bad training. As you say Joni, we have to calm down and start to feel instead of thinking so much and working so hard." Dr Gerd Heuschmann
Schooling starts with the rider.
Winter is coming! To help you pamper yourself a little through the long cold winter months and still keep your training going to enhance your riding performance next summer – and to help keep your horse sound! – I’m planning several ART™ dismounted workshops. These workshops will be held in nice warm halls around the country at very affordable prices.
The workshops teach you how to:
• Understand your own individual crookedness
• Understand your horse’s individual crookednes
• Use your own and your horse’s diagonal pathways to unlock one-sidedness
• Allow both yourself and your horse to come naturally back into the centre point where the diagonal pathways cross
• Prepare yourself to experience simple, effective, powerful, classical riding!
ART™ winter workshops and DVD a thoughtful Christmas present!
Dismounted night school classes. Cost: £10 per night school class when you sign up for the 6 or 10 lesson term or £15 a class if you take them individually.
Half day workshops. £25 per half day includes 2 night school classes
Day workshops. £45 per day workshop; includes 4 night school classes.
ART™ Training DVD home-study course is now available.
This program is very thorough and very simple to understand.
It starts with 2 DVDs packed full of clearly-demonstrated, easy-to-follow exercises for you and your horse.
The first DVD shows how you can straighten and re-align yourself. The second DVD illustrates mounted work you’ll use to bring yourself and your horse into alignment together.
If you are interested in private riding lessons at your place or mine, hosting a workshop or lessons on your own or my mechanical horse, please call 07771811561 for a chat or email me jonibentley@btinternet.com.
Please note: (If you emailed me last month please resend it as a virus gobbled it up.)
You can also download a free workbook and watch lots of free video on my website www.jonibentley.co.uk.
