Don't Change Direction by Rosie McCall

Bustle wobbled up the straight line across the arena, trying bravely to compensate for the blobby torso sitting on her back.
‘Don’t change direction’ she mutters to herself, giving a snort of impatience and stretching her head down to relieve the tension in her back. ‘I’ll give her don’t change direction’ and does a little jinks to the right.
‘It would help if the human learnt how to stand properly before she sat on my back’, the aggrieved mare thought to herself. ‘I can walk in a straight line but I bet she can’t’, she continued to ruminate to herself.
The blobby human vainly strived to sit in the saddle using her sit bones and keeping her pesky hips in place following the detailed instructions been given from the ground. The perfectly balanced male in the middle of the arena, looking cool and relaxed, sighed to himself and decided a little more ground work might help the blobby human.
Now then, weight on the balls of your feet, hips slightly back, ankles slightly bent, and breathe letting gravity do the work and not the muscles. Sounded easy but years of misspent standing, hip shot, leaning backwards was not to be forgotten in one lesson. How can a body sit properly in the saddle if they cannot stand properly on the ground? The importance of how the human controlled its balance and weight was emphasized. Every in balance in the human is felt by the horse. Poor horse having to spend years trying to compensate for the unbalanced human on its back.
Bustle walked calmly across the arena demonstrating a perfect straight line without this wobbly, blobby person on her back. So humiliating for the human.
Dismayed, Bustle was asked to allow the human on her back for another go. Sit bones realigned, breathing deeply into the stomach – or the posh name Dian Tian, reins loose on the neck the human was asked to smile and think Bustle forward with intent and on an inhale of breathe.
‘Hey’ Bustle thought to herself ‘now that was easy, I can do that’. Off she moved in a straight line, then felt a wobble on her back so immediately tried to compensate with a back leg moving up and round under her. ‘Not my fault I am changing direction’ she muttered to herself. The Human aware on a deeper level of her weight and her sit bones, corrected herself and put a little more weight into the offending sit bone and Bustle straightened herself up.
Bustle and the human started to move in rhythm with each other, the human’s body mimicking the flow of motion from Bustle, feeling the power of the hind leg coming up under each sit bone and allowing the sit bone to move with the leg. Bustle walked a straight line up the centre of the arena.
Bustle and human moved out into the big wide world daring to aim across a wide and large stubble field. ‘Will she hold her direction’ the human thought to herself allowing Bustle the freedom to walk at a brisk pace.
‘Oh my god’ Bustle’s head shot up, ‘is that a deer I see in the hedgerow?’ ‘Better take evasive action, you never know with these deer’. Bustle started to move in a different direction, the human shifted the weight on her sit bones, turned her sternum to line back up the way they were going and Bustle settled back down to the original direction. The slow deep breathing and the following hips of the human, relaxing Bustle. They walked across the field at a steady pace, minute adjustments to direction and speed being communicated between horse and human with soft movements of bones and breath.
‘ok’ the human thought, ‘I will aim for a downward transition and a halt’. Not being able to look and think at the same time, she closed her eyes, breathed deeply let her sit bones sink into the saddle and exhaled to a halt. Bustle obligingly came to a stop, one front foot at a time, lining them up precisely. The human overjoyed at the success opened her eyes to be confronted by a large tree and some branches in her face! Oh well, she thought ‘I did not actually tell Bustle where to stop, but to stop so guess she picked the best place for her’. Bustle added a little snack to the days efforts.

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Riding a horse is an ongoing conversation between horse and human.
Before we are critical of a horse changing direction, we need to check that inadvertently we are not giving him indication to do so with our bodies.
Anybody who has seen a horse gallop freely across a field will know that a horse can hold a direction without any difficulty. It is when the human element is introduced that the horse struggles to understand the conflicting messages received from hand, leg and body. The right hand says go right, the left leg pushes out, the body leans back and out, now what is the horse to make of that?