We Ride Sport and Trail Magazine September 2017

34 / Sport and Trail Magazine

These are some of the first questions you’ll then ask yourself and after them, we can move on to more precision in your abilities to analyze and adjust for better results and better questions.

As in:

1) What is my position relative to the horse when I’m

shooting my arrows?

2) When, at what point, do I adopt that position?

3) Have I analyzed the response of the horse to this

position?

4) What part does balance play or am I pinching with

my knees and counting on my stirrups and saddle

to keep myself in position?

5) Am I blindly following advice I haven’t challenged?

I’m going to give you some concepts and situations for your consideration relative to these initial questions so that you can apply it to your answers for you and your horse.

Many people are taught to lean into the bow while shooting and of course there are reasons to approach it with these words, but we must, must, must (not a typo) place a high value on the degree to which we lean. Check yourself. How far would you lean if you were standing on the ground? And a lean can be anything from a slight shift of weight in the upper body while dropped into your balanced core, to looking like you’re tilted up on your front foot and… completely out of balance. Would you think it would be a good idea to be out of balance on your horse? And if you didn’t have stirrups, a saddle and pinchy knees, would you be able to maintain that position? If not, could it be correct?

Also for your consideration, if you’re leaning way forward over the horse’s neck when shooting, just where are you going? There’s a good chance that you’re making the horse feel like you’re ahead of her and that she needs to speed up to get up under you. Do you want your horse to speed up? If she thinks this and you don’t say otherwise, you are indeed causing your horse to run faster. If you’re close to flossing your teeth on your horse’s mane, I’d say you’d better straighten up. Don’t get ahead of the horse’s driveline.

If you lean forward and toward the targets i.e. your weight is heavy in that stirrup and your seat bones are also up, out of the saddle and shifted into the lean… shouldn’t your horse, who you’ve hopefully trained to give to pressure, shift or track toward the outside? Might that cause your foot to catch in the track barrier rope or your horse to go off course just doing what your body is telling him to do?

Aren’t these pretty darned important questions? To help you challenge assumptions and get yourself straightened out, start on the ground with a shooting stance and see what you tend to do.

1) Are your hips centered over your stance? Are you dropped

into your core?

2) Is your stance balanced? Or do you have more weight

on the front foot?

3) How much are you leaning in from the hips? Shoulders? Neck and head?

If you’ve seen the recent Bridgestone Tire commercials with the Olympic archery shooters – there isn’t even a hint of leaning. I’ve included this for your consideration.

Now, THINK about sitting on your horse – preferably bareback. But, if you must use a saddle at least drop your stirrups. After all we’re just in your mind here.

1) What CAN you do differently to challenge where you currently are in your position?

Please keep in mind that these are discovery experiments. Don’t get stuck on how you think you were taught or how you’ve “always done it”. Our job is to get you better from here. And what got you here isn’t going to get you to the next level. You need to up your skills, preparation and MINDSET.

Try #1 > something DIFFERENT > get an unexpected reality > get more curious.

Try #2 > something DIFFERENT > get a NEW unexpected reality > get more curious.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

These might be way big different things or it could be as small as a tad less leaning into your bow or cocking your head just bit down the arrow.

Now, go get on your horse and apply what you challenged yourself with while mounted. Don’t get all chompie to shoot and let yourself get off track. Ha! Little mounted archery joke there, particularly if you’re pushing your horse off with that weight imbalance and a heavy leg pushing into his side while your heel kind of digs in as you attempt to keep yourself upright.

Have you come this far to only come this far? I think NOT!

There is nothing to lose. You’re experimenting. You’re on an adventure. Lets go for Exceptional!

Lauren has been teaching and training for over 40 years and is the author of two books that are pure magic for horsemanship – “Curbside Service” and “Balky, Balky, I Ain’t Goin’”. Find out how to be strategic in your best next steps to Exceptional Horsemanship for Mounted Archery by grabbing her “Wouldn’t It Be Great If ____?” Quiz to check your perspective and propel your horsemanship on her exceptionalhorsemanship.com site.

Where is Your Tipping Point?

By Lauren Woodard

There are of course a lot of opinions out there on the right way to do almost anything, true or true?

Thank Goodness I’m here to give you the ONE RIGHT WAY! Did you hear the angelic choir break out as light shone from the sentence. No? Oh… Well, I was just kidding anyway.

What I’m going to do is ask you to ask yourself some very important questions. The answers aren’t very important at all until you come up with better questions. For instance, you could ask, what color is the sky? And there are several correct options. But is it important? Maybe to a 2 year-old learning colors, but not to us. So, no lame questions for you! And frankly, it can take some thought to come up with really good questions. You may start out a bit lame and challenge yourself with your important question question (not a typo), as in, “was that the best question I could come up with?”

Discovery is asking a question you can’t answer.

Now that you’ve bought in to getting the best out of yourself… we’ll narrow down the subject to – yep – your tipping point.

Since different trainers teach different ways, it’s important and your responsibility to assess whether or not that is the best answer for you and your horse by asking some opening questions. Does it make sense? Might it need modification? To WHAT DEGREE? Why? “Why” is such a great question. It’s a good idea to frequently ask WHY 3 times. Why was I told to do this? Take your answer and ask WHY again. Take THAT answer and ask WHY again. Then you can get going with breaking down your next action steps and questions.

These are some of the first questions you’ll then ask yourself and after them, we can move on to more precision in your abilities to analyze and adjust for better results and better questions.

As in:

1)What is my position relative to the horse when I’m shooting my arrows?

2)When, at what point, do I adopt that position?

3)Have I analyzed the response of the horse to this position?

4)What part does balance play or am I pinching with my knees and counting on my stirrups and saddle to keep myself in position?

5)Am I blindly following advice I haven’t challenged?

I’m going to give you some concepts and situations for your consideration relative to these initial questions so that you can apply it to your answers for you and your horse.

Hmmmmmmm… Aren’t these pretty darned important questions?

And because every great hmmmmmm… deserves a great how (my line) I’ll just start you off with some action steps to get your baseline. To help you challenge assumptions and get yourself straightened out, start on the ground with a shooting stance and see what you tend to do.

1)Are your hips centered over your stance? Are you dropped into your core?

2)Is your stance balanced? Or do you have more weight on the front foot?

3)How much are you leaning in from the hips? Shoulders? Neck and head?