Riders and Horses Perform Better with the Alexander Technique
Riders in San Diego and around the world use the Alexander Technique to increase their skill and refine their horsemanship abilities. Whether you ride Dressage or Western, whether for show or pleasure, you will benefit from studying the Alexander Technique with Eileen Troberman. Riders gain effortless perfect posture, lightness, control, poise and refined reactions. Horses too, pick up on the rider's body usage. They are sensitive to our muscular patterns, whether it is in how you signal them to change their movements and direction, or how the pressure of your body coming through the bottom of your hip bones effects the freedom of the movement of their spine. Horses respond to our habits with their own form of imitation.
A rider with a less refined use of their own musculature will cause a horse to have a less refined use. A rider with a tense downward pressure in their spines or a stiff neck or held up use of their bodies will cause the horse to move with slight stiffness, agitation and less grace. Riders learn to have a freely balanced poised head, a relaxed neck, a buoyant, light calm responsive back, smooth easy use of arms and hands and efficient use of leg pressure and direction.
Rider's commonly unrecognized stiff tension and/or dulled coordination can be easily changed to a smooth refined coordination by studying the Alexander Technique. The Alexander Technique teaches the rider an ease and grace with a power that comes from overall coordination, much like what is natural to the horse. Come and take a lesson with Eileen Troberman at Alexander Technique of San Diego and find out for yourself. It will improve the way you ride and your horse will thank you for it!
Sally Swift, a member of the U.S. Dressage Federation's "Hall of Fame," credits the Alexander Technique as "enabled her to discard the back brace she had worn for ten years."
