Bodywork and Groundwork

By Carlita Picard

One Afternoon: Three Hours of Bodywork and Groundwork with Two Women.

The plan and what we did

I had the opportunity to teach two women, Doro, and Kirsten, who were both riders and both around 40 years old. My focus was to give them a better feeling for their riding seat so that they could play with it at home on their horses. One of the women who was taking lessons from me every two weeks, really showed improvement after this little workshop by integrating so many things into her body. This helped her to understand me better during later lessons when she was sitting on her horse or doing groundwork.

At first, I spoke with them about the Connected Riding Method, my fascination with the method, and why I chose to learn it. With the handout (see below), we spoke about the riding seat, the position of the sternum and the sacrum, the neutral position, dead and live weight. I explained how all these things influence our mobility on a horse. If connection starts between the horse and the rider, there is a communication which speaks to the body and soul of both; this is referred to as awareness and understanding. So, if we work with a horse in connected riding, it influences his whole body and behavior.

I started with them on a chair.

First exercise was to find the breathing in the abdomen, the diaphragm, and the rib cage, finding out what changed in their breathing if they changed their seat position, and letting them find the buoy movement.
Both could feel that they could not breathe deeply when they were not in the neutral position.
Balance test. They had to work together, and one woman was balancing the other one on the chair. I did the following tests with them:
- Pressed on the sacrum
- Pressed on the sternum
- Pressed on the upper arm to check the stability from side to side.
- Pressed on the forearm when they were holding their arms like holding the reins.
- Pressed on the upper leg while doing a little marching movement with the legs.
  Before I did that exercise, we spoke about making sure we have permission to touch the other person – better to get the “ok” from someone before laying hands on their body.
  They did these checks in the three seat positions.
  In the end, when they returned to the neutral position, I had them play again with their breathing so they could feel how stable they were when they were still breathing. What happens if you hold your breath, and someone presses on you? What happens if you really breathe deeply in your diaphragm and flow forward?
Sitting alone on a chair, facing the backrest. This was the exercise they could practice many times at home and use in the saddle.
- Pressing with their hand against the back of the chair. · Pulling or going in contact with the back of the chair.
  I had them consider these questions: How does the contact feel with the back of the chair? Is it pulling or pushing, or can you get a soft contact? How does it feel in the three seat positions? If you hold your breath? And what happens with your pelvic bones? If you are in the neutral position, your pelvic bones will feel like they go deeper down into the seat, and you feel stable. But if you are slumped over or arched, the pelvic bones will roll forward or backward.
  I talked about how they can take this into the saddle with the pommel or mane test.
Working together again. One woman (the rider) had to sit on the upper leg of the other women (horse), who had to do a little marching movement with her legs. The “rider” sat in the three positions so that the “horse” could feel the difference it made to her movability.
We laughed a lot with comments of “Oh no, how heavy are you?” but it clearly illustrated what is meant by a live weight and a dead weight.

We had a little break and spoke about first “aha” moments.

After that, I discussed groundwork and spoke at first about the picture in the handout. I showed how horses can be trained to get stiff in the neck and let their hind legs drag behind in just the few moments prior to starting to walk with a horse. Then we looked at what we can change that so that the horse can relax in the neck, bringing his back up and his hind legs under.

I had the ladies stand against the wall to find neutral in standing. I had them think through the same things they did while sitting backwards on the chair. How does the contact feel in your hand if you stand in the three positions? Also, I had them do the crease release, laying their hand in the crease at the top of their leg and lift their knee. I think next time I will have them stand and feel what it’s like with relaxed knees or locked knees, to notice how their crease feels before lifting their knee.

Groundwork between humans

One person had a line around two hands and was led by the other person. The exercise was to start walking with contact and without contact.
They had to stay in the three positions with the person, holding a contact on the line, and feel the difference.

Groundwork with the horse.

Staying with the horse, drawing the bow, and letting the line slowly slide out. They were to try to notice if the horse can melt with his head.
Start walking in contact and go in little S lines drawing the bow and sliding out the line.
In standing, the Caterpillar. I explained it like a circle-system with two hands. In the start position one hand is on the line close by the halter and the other one on the base of neck. In the next step, both hands slide out; the hand on the line comes toward your bellybutton while the other hand walks up the neck. The thumb’s orientation is on the choke line (German: Drossellinie)

We talked about how all three of these exercises relax the neck and the base of the neck, allowing the horse to stretch forward-downward. Then the horse can stretch his neckband which brings the back up and the horse will start to draw his bow in his self and comes into self-carry.

After all of that, we came together in an “end circle.” The women had time to write down notes about what was most important for them during these three hours – what they would take away from the workshop. They also gave me feedback.

Doro: She had a lot of fun and learned a lot. For her, it was interesting to play with the sitting positions and she was really impressed with how much each one affects the horse. The groundwork was too short for her, and she was still trying to figure out why she should do this. So, I explained again that it is really to work your horse from the ground and prepare the right muscles for riding.

Kirsten: She had a breakthrough in realizing how powerful the breathing is. (She got unstable in the seat check when Doro pressed on her; then I let her float a little bit more forward and reminded her to use the deep breathing into the belly and diaphragm, blowing a balloon in the torso or letting her sternum and sacrum stretch out as she inhaled.)She also got in touch with how much our sitting positions effect the horse but that also made her worry a little about this high sensitivity.

Now she has the feeling that someone can push her (on her body), but nobody can unsettle her. She was really looking forward to riding now and putting everything she learned during this workshop into practice with her horse. She will use the chair exercise in her daily life. The things she learned will help her sit better and ride a horse more relaxed and without fear.

Case Study: Bodywork and Groundwork — The Connected Riding and Groundwork Books for them to look at,
a halter for sale, tea, and cake for the afternoon.

Reflecting on the class

I was very happy that the ladies had some “Oh really” and “aha” moments. I was pleased that I explained in a way that they understood and could do the exercises. It was a feeling of, “Yes! It worked!“ It was good to go through my plan with Christoph, my boyfriend, the evening before to check if someone else could understand my explanations.

I felt good teaching this method because I stand behind this idea and can speak about how it inspires me, which draws people in.
In a next workshop, I would narrow the focus. Three hours are too short for getting a first understanding of the seat and groundwork. Really, you can fill three hours with only a little bit of bodywork and the people are happy. The bodywork offers so much new information that it is enough.

You can see evidence of this in Doro’s feedback. It was not easy for her to step into the groundwork part because she never did this work before. For Kirsten, it was not so difficult because she had single lessons before this workshop. So, if I have people who have never had contact with the method before, I need a more time for each part. The groundwork part was a little bit pressed in the end.

It was good for me to create a handout. That gave me a focus and a deeper way into the work by searching for the right pictures, translating the text, etc.

So, I created two new workshops. Both are 3 hours long and they are only riding on a chair or on the yoga mat.

Workshop 1 Concept:

Exercise 1: finding your breathing
Exercise 2: your breathing in 3 sit positions
Exercise 3: neutral pelvis, finding and testing / checks in 3 sit positions/ finding the middle
Exercise 4: what does the horse feel / one person is sitting on the upper leg of another

Break for the Group.
Self-checks for at home

Exercise 5: pressing against the backside of the chair
Exercise 6: pressing against the backside of the chair/ plus rotation
Exercise 7: Pullover test
Exercise 8: The horse needs more training/ how does your horse feel, one person on hand and knees on the floor.

I will not do every Self-check exercise; I’ll observe what the group needs or how much time we have.

Workshop 2 Concept:

Pre-requisite: Completion of Workshop 1

Exercise 1: finding your neutral position again on the chair
Exercise 2: wiggle in the 3 seat positions; how movable is your leg?
Exercise 3: meet and melt, in teams with hands and reins
Exercise 4: combing reins and new way of rein contact
Exercise 5: Stamped on the floor

Bodywork with Margit and Sylvia

Timeframe: 1 hour

Backgrounds:
Margit: Social pedagogy, Psychmotorik (Psychomotor education), Feldenkrais and Riding, Teacher of therapeutic riding for 20 years
Sylvia: Centered Riding Teacher lev. 1, nonviolence conversation coach, western riding teacher

Margit, Sylvia, and I help and inspire each other in our work with horses.

What we did: I used the 3 following exercises for this one-hour workshop like I did in the workshop with the other two women and used the same handout. The original plan was for us to do more hours together with me teaching connected riding for my case study, but we did only this hour.

First exercise was to find their own breathing in their abdomen, diaphragm, and rib cage, finding out what changed in their breathing if they changed their seat position, and letting them find the buoy movement.
Balance test. I did the following tests with them in the three seat positions:
- Pressed on the sacrum
- Pressed on the sternum
- Pressed on the upper arm, to check the stability from site to site.
- Pressed on the forearm, when holding arms like holding the reins.
- Pressed on the upper leg while doing a little marching movement with the legs.
  In the end, when they returned to the neutral position, I had them play again with their breathing so they could feel how stable they were when they were still breathing. What happened when they held their breath, and someone pressed on them? What happened when they really breathed deeply in their diaphragm and flowed forward?
Working together again. One woman (the rider) had to sit on the upper leg of the other women (horse), who had to do a little marching movement with her legs. The “rider” sat in the three positions so that the “horse” could feel the difference it made to her movability.
We laughed a lot, but it really made it clear what a live weight and a dead weight means.

Feedback

Margit:

She can feel the tension in her sternum. She realizes she needs to let it go and start relaxing in this area. Before this workshop, she was insensitive in her sternum. Now she is aware and can feel how she is holding it.
She cannot feel her middle back very well.
If she has her breathing, then everything is good, so she wants to put more awareness on her breathing.
She clearly understands that her big issue is to let go.

Sylvia:

She gained a clearer understanding in the feeling and meaning of melting and flowing forward in her upper body. She had read about it in the books and heard it at a demonstration from Peggy. In the little exercise – meeting my hand and if I am releasing, melting forward with your hand, following my hand – it became clear and concrete.
She had lot of tension in her back when she came to our lesson. Because of this new way of sitting “straight” her back relaxed and she left our time together without pain. Filling her back and floating forward, especially the floating, brought the release.

Reflecting on the class: