Correct Hands & Supple Wrists!

SUPPLE WRISTS AND CORRECT HANDS/ARMS

"Supple wrists" - Einar would say this time and time again, without good hands you could not ride his horses.

The correct and enduring way to ride correctly be it classically, hacking or any form of equitation vis a vis the hands is as follows:

Arms hanging down naturally and held in front of the torso, wrists supple, as if cupping cups of hot chocolate (as gentle as holding a bird), with pliable fingers. The hands held closer to the body and their height depending on the level of schooling of the horse.

The movement is only in supple wrists, and pliable fingers- and all the masters agreed on this. There should not be a straight line from elbow to wrist as this will ensure a hard and stiff hand against the horses mouth -and one should never row or rock the hands with the horse - for every time the arms shoot forward they come back against the horses mouth.

Any and all movement should come gently via a supple wrist from the fingers - and you should in theory - as ESJ taught us be able to ride with a silk thread (a la Guerinere) and if the hand and fingers are to be used it should be as gentle as squeezing water from a sponge. L'Hotte said (I believe and ESJ cited him often) it is like dipping your hands in egg whites!

Some examples, and you will notice the consistency - Look at the hands, they don't move or rock they stay still !!

Streken, Polack, Schmit-Jensen, Lorke, Schulethis, OM Stensbeck, myself.