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Did you know that yoga can help you become a better rider? Here are the top three exercises from Jeannette Glerup.
It's not just the horse that needs to be symmetrical, strong, stable, and flexible. This applies to us riders as well. When you, as a rider, work with your horse, that work starts with you. It begins with your intention and thoughts, which are then conveyed to your physical aid. If one or more of these aids are out of balance, you can think all the right thoughts as a rider but still not achieve the desired result. If you sit crookedly on the horse, many exercises can become unnecessarily difficult and create conflicts and frustrations in your work together. Equestrian yoga can help you become aware of and correct some of the physical challenges we carry as riders.
Read also: From the gym to the saddle: Fitness equipment that can be used in the stable
Jeannette Glerup Skaarup is the author of this article. She runs the business "Sunde & Holdbare Rideheste v/ Jeannette Glerup". She graduated as a physiotherapeutic horse therapist from the Center for Animal Therapy in 2015, a BBH basic instructor from Blue Berry Hill in 2015, and a BBH trainer specializing in therapeutic training from Blue Berry Hill in 2019. Additionally, she is an internationally certified 200+ RYT Power Vinyasa Yin/Yang yoga teacher from Yoga Huset Aalborg in 2023. She also works as a yoga instructor, conducting yoga courses and sessions.
She offers mentoring programs that combine training and therapy, as well as courses and lectures, both physically and online. Furthermore, she is the founder of the Facebook group "Hestenørderi-Gruppen: Vejen til en sund & holdbar ridehest".
You can follow Jeannette on Facebook, Instagram, her website, and in this group.
“With my background as a horse therapist and riding instructor, I am very focused on asking why our horses do what they do and what we as riders can do to train our horses with the lightest and finest aids, so the aids become almost invisible. We have become very good at asking ourselves why the horse cannot canter or perform a desired exercise with the same flow on the right as on the left circle. More and more riders use the many skilled body therapists for their horses, and often there is nothing concrete to reveal why the horse has difficulty with a given exercise or making a smooth transition.”
For many of us, the focus starts with the horse—what can I do and optimize to give my horse the best conditions? And that’s where we should still start and think. But there's also another important piece of the “team” puzzle, namely the rider.
“I don’t think we are used to considering how much we actually influence the horse with our thoughts, seat, and presence. I often see that when the rider comes into better balance and has a better understanding of their own body, they can preempt many small conflicts, balance themselves better in the saddle, and thus help the horse as best as possible. But it starts much earlier— with the mindset you bring to the stable.”
“If you arrive at the stable with your head full of thoughts about everything you need to do, everything that needs to be done at home, or something pressing at work, you’re already sending out a lot of signals to your horse. The horse cannot distinguish between thoughts about the past, the present, or the future. Therefore, it’s very beneficial to take just a minute to settle into the stable, whether it’s in the car, on your bike, or in the tack room, before you fetch your horse. Your breathing is a direct shortcut to being present, it is called Pranayama in the yoga world.”
If the surroundings allow it, start by closing your eyes. Feel how your current breath feels. Is it deep? Is it shallow? Or is it somewhere in between? Let your inhales and exhales occur through your nose with your mouth closed.
On an inhale, count to 4 in your head, gently hold your breath for 4, exhale for 4, and remain empty for 4. Repeat this “box breathing” at least 4 times. Then let your breath come and go naturally through your nose. Feel again. How does your breath feel now?
This pranayama can also be done on horseback and is ideal to do at a walk, where most riders will notice their horse takes fewer but longer strides, extends its topline more, and takes one or more deep snorts as a result of the rider becoming more present with their breath.
Once you, as a rider, have settled your mind, it’s also about the physical body. This has a great responsibility for how your horse can work under you. The horse has to compensate for and balance out the imbalances and asymmetries the rider brings, in addition to the horse’s own natural and learned asymmetries. Therefore, the rider will always directly influence the horse’s body and movements. This is where equestrian yoga can make a huge difference.
“When you practice the physical yoga postures (asanas) as a rider, you become very aware of how the poses look and feel when you move from your right and left side of the body. The poses will have different variations and adjustments in your body from the right vs. the left side—and that’s perfectly okay. We are looking for how the poses feel, and what you discover and experience in the poses. Maybe you find a pose feels ‘easy’ on the left side, but on the right side, it feels ‘hard’.”
“WE NEED TO FOCUS MUCH MORE ON HOW RIDING SHOULD FEEL AND BE EXPERIENCED, RATHER THAN HOW IT SHOULD LOOK. THE HORSE SHOULD ALWAYS BE OUR PARTNER.”
Jeannette Glerup Skaarup
“When I teach both, riding and yoga, the most important thing for me is that no one should have to fit into a mold. And neither should the horse. We should look at the individual rider and horse’s body and see what is physically possible rather than being forced into a given form. Many horses try to communicate with their body language, but this is often overlooked. Not because the rider doesn’t want to listen, but because we are trained to think much more about the horse’s body shape than its function. Only when we let function be the guiding principle that horse training can become therapeutic, and this also applies to the yoga practice for the rider. As a rider, you don’t gain more from a yoga pose by pushing yourself to the extreme; in fact, it often results in you not being able to breathe, and then it’s no longer yoga.”
“When working with horses, there are endless possibilities and areas to explore—and we should absolutely continue doing so. That being said, one of the areas where I see the most challenges stem from is the rider. It’s the rider’s mental state, balance, flexibility, stability, and symmetry, all of which directly affect the seat and the ability to balance all the aids in harmony. So, our thoughts are set to turn right, the hand indicates right with the rein, and the seat creates the space to turn right.”
Does this mean we should stop training and riding our horses until we are perfectly symmetrical, super flexible, strong in our core, and well-balanced?
“No, it means we need to focus much more on the significant role of the rider and why equestrian yoga is an important component in horse training. We need to focus on getting into a feeling, into a state. And that’s actually what the word yoga means: state, union, merging—just like a horse and rider pair. So, we need to get into a state where we work together with the horse and can feel both our own body and the horse’s body, so we can land in a good place together and create conditions for both parties to move better, stronger, and healthier—so the training benefits both parties.”
For Jeannette Glerup, yoga started with a desire to become more flexible, but over time, it has evolved to be about much more than flexibility.
“I thought if I became more flexible, I would sit better on my horse. Then I discovered all the other things yoga can and is. The more balanced you can be, the easier it becomes for the horse to carry you and have you on its back,” she explains and continues:
“When you can feel your own body and understand when your body is symmetrical and balanced—or close to it—it becomes easier for the horse. We can avoid many frustrations and conflicts in horse training when we can work better with our horses because we understand our own bodies better. We need to be aware of how our imbalances affect the horse and our riding.”
That’s exactly what yoga can do for riders. It can make us aware of our own body, and the state of mind we are in when we get in the saddle. The goal should always be to become the best rider for our horses.
Here are three exercises from the Rider Yoga Flow, which includes eight poses designed to improve your posture in the saddle. You can access all eight exercises and the recorded flow through this link (Note that this link will be in danish).
Sit on your seat bones, possibly on the edge of a blanket so that your seat bones are angled forward. On an inhale, find a long spine, on an exhale fold forward, allowing your back to round first, when you are as far forward as you can go. Feel free to use a belt for the position. The position helps to give more flexible and longer hamstrings, so you can land deeper in the saddle.
Lie flat on your back. As you inhale, bring your arms up over your head. As you exhale, let your arms reach far to one side. Then, let your feet go to the same side as your arms. You can grab the opposite wrist and let your heel reach over your ankle. This position lengthens you, creates better conditions for your breathing, and helps with problems like collapsing in the saddle.
Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor and your knees bent. On an inhale, lift one leg up. On an exhale, bring the ankle of the lifted leg to the opposite thigh just below the knee, feeling as if you are sending the bent knee away without pushing it away with your hand. You can land here or lift your leg and interlace your fingers behind your knees.
This pose stretches the glutes and is a hip opener that helps you sink deeper and heavier into your horse in the saddle.
