How to Position Legs for Dressage

The English equestrian sport of dressage, described as "dancing with your horse," focuses on the rider and the horse moving together as one unit over a designated series of figures and gaits. Evolved from the training of medieval war horses, the modern sport of dressage requires that both horse and equestrian develop a physical relationship that allows them to communicate through the rider's hand, seat and leg movements -- called aids. Knowing how and where to position your legs on your horse is an integral part of learning this sport.

Instructions

    • 1

      Climb on your horse and sit in the saddle with your feet out of the stirrups.

    • 2

      Adjust the length of the stirrups so the irons on both feet hit just at the bottom of your heels.

    • 3

      Place your feet in the stirrups with the ball of your foot resting on the irons and your toes perpendicular to your horse's sides.

    • 4

      Align your ears, shoulders, hipbones and heels in a straight line down the animal's sides. Straighten your shoulders, pull your stomach muscles toward your backbone and sit deep on your seat bones, the boney projections in your buttocks that you feel when you sit on a hard chair. Use your hamstring muscles to pull your heels back in line with your hips.

    • 5

      Relax your muscles in your legs, allowing your thighs and calves to wrap around the horse's barrel and your heel to drop lower than your toe in the irons.

    • 6

      Move off at the walk by relaxing your seat and pressing first one, then the other heel against your horse's sides at the girth. Keep your legs long beside the girth as the horse walks off, relaxing your hip muscles, and swinging your pelvis with the motion of the horse.

    • 7

      Press both legs evenly at the girth to ask for the trot. As the horse moves off, you can either sit the trot or post. To sit the trot, drop your heels deeper into the stirrup irons, relax your pelvis and shoulders and allow the horse's forward movement to roll your hips back and forth. To post the trot, keep your legs soft and quiet along the horse's sides and raise your hips out of the saddle on every other beat of the gait.

    • 8

      Ask for the canter by holding your inside leg -- the leg not on the side of the arena fence -- at the girth, and moving your outside leg to a spot just behind the girth. Gently press your outside heel into the horse's flank whenever you're ready to pick up the canter.

    • 9

      Hold your legs in the same position -- inside leg at the girth, outside leg just behind the girth -- to ask for lateral moves and to bend the horse into the corners of the dressage figure. By keeping your legs in this position, you allow the horse to bend its body around your inside leg and align its haunches and shoulders to stay within the circle of its body without falling out of the necessary line.