As if I needed evidence of Rocket's general willingness to do the right thing and to be helpful, he has started doing this thing that I find absolutely adorable. A couple of weeks ago I used a bucket to get on him. I placed it next to him and then stood on it. He stepped sideways and nearly knocked me right off of it. 

I wondered if perhaps he was trying to line himself up. We do that against fences and rocks and logs sometimes and I have been working on giving him cues about exactly where to stand so I can get on easily.

And he did it again yesterday. I had put a bridle at him (with a bosal this time) while we were in his stall. I brought a bucket in and set it next to him in exactly the right place to get on him. I got up on the bucket and he stepped sideways to get closer to me, again knocking me off my balance. It was wrong, but also very cute. I could see that he wanted to get me on top of his back, so he stepped sideways thinking that that would transfer me from being next to him to being top of him.

So I adjusted the bucket and let him know that I was amused and that he needed to do something slightly different. When he got truly lined up exactly where I wanted him I praised him and told to stand still. He did, and I scrambled up onto his back (getting on bareback is an awkward process for me while I try to do it using just my left arm).

Riding Bareback

Gawani Pony Boy takes riding bareback seriously, and writes about it in his book Horse, Follow Closely. Also, Stacy Westfall is amazing. I have included this video before, but for those of you who haven't seen it, this is definitely worth seeing.

Unfortunately, in Competitive Trail Riding, a saddle must be used. I don't know about endurance riding. But for pleasure riding and general trail riding bareback is an excellent choice. So below, I've summarized some of the things that I know about bareback riding. I learned to ride bareback rather than with a saddle, and I have been riding bareback since I was seven years old.

Relax -- It may seem counterintuitive, because when you're riding bareback you want to hang on with your legs. But this is a mistake. When you hang on with your legs, you transmit tension and stress to the horse and also up your body. It puts you out of sync with your horse's movements and eliminates the wonderful shock absorption powers of your waist. So if you're having a choppy ride bareback, relax. Relax your legs (stop hanging on) and loosen your waist; imagine that your whole lower half from your waist down is part of your horse. Your other half, from your waist up, floats above your horse. When you ride bareback, you can even relax your posture a bit 

Turns -- Turns are much nicer when you ride bareback. If your horse turns suddenly to the left, for example, when you're riding in a saddle, your weight gets thrown to the right. I don't know exactly why this happens, but when you ride bareback and your horse makes a sudden turn to the left, your body tends to flow more naturally with the horse. This means that your horse has a much easier time turning.

Courage -- Saddles feel more safe. They feel like they hold you on. And actually, they do, when they are working properly. Western saddles especially are designed to help you keep your seat. So it takes a certain amount of courage to ride without saddle. On the other hand, saddles are dangerous. Your safety depends on your equipment working properly, no matter how good a rider you are. But when you ride bareback, it is you and the horse. No cinches can break, no stirrups can fly off your feet leaving you frantically adjusting your seat to compensate, and if you do fall, you fall cleanly.

Trotting -- The myth is that trotting is less comfortable without a saddle. Now, this varies from horse to horse, but I have found that trotting is more comfortable, not less, when you ride bareback. This connects back to what I said about relaxation and courage, but if you are relaxed on your horse then you can have a very smooth and comfortable sitting trot.

Posting -- Most people don't know that you can post even when you ride bareback. Posting happens because one side of your horse's rump rises as his rear leg on that side moves forward. That action moves you up and forward a little bit -- the beginning of the post. And then, the rump on the other side is up and forward. When you post bareback, you don't go up and down, a you go sort of side to side and front to back. The little bit of up-and-down that you do is very closely connected to your horse's up-and-down. Again, it is essential to have a relaxed torso and upper legs for this to work.

Cantering -- Cantering and galloping bareback are wonderful. If you are relaxed, you will feel like you are floating. The only disadvantage to cantering and galloping bareback is stopping. The one thing that I don't like about cantering bareback is that for some horses, cantering means feeling spooky or it many horses are more likely to jump sideways when they are cantering. This is very hard to handle without saddle to help you. Even so, I have been on many horses that jumped sideways at a canter and stayed on just fine. I'm not sure what my body does when my horse's body communicates fear, but whatever it is, it's very quick and usually effective. I've learned to trust myself.

Slowing down -- the most difficult transition in bareback riding (and in fact riding with any kind of tack) is slowing down from the canter or gallop to a trot. I have still not completely mastered this. However, I am learning that leaning back with your lower half when you feel a slowdown coming -- or even to communicate to your horse that you want to slow down -- is a really good idea. This is hard to describe, but picture yourself leaning backwards up to your torso and leaning slightly forward above that. Grabbing on hard with your legs usually throws your top half forward and then you end up grabbing hold of the mane and stiffening even more to keep from  flying over your horse's head. This is instinctive, but absolutely the worst thing you could do. It rattles your teeth and throws you up into the air, and then you want to grab even harder and a nasty cycle begins and only ends when you and your horse become sensible enough to get back into sync with one another. For many horses, grabbing on with your legs signals that they should speed up again, and if you're also hauling on the reins to slow them down they can become  confused. Then it feels like their four feet suddenly explode out into four different directions, stiffening at the same time, like four stiff machine-like pistons. This is the opposite of what you want. I will write more about this as I learn.

The essence of riding in general, but especially riding bareback, is that you and your horse are one being -- a centaur. Rather than thinking about instructions such as the above as separate pieces of information to employ individually, keep in the front of your mind an image of you and your horse together as a centaur. Think of the energy flowing around your horse and you as uniting you both into a single creature: one creature with a single point of balance, a single focus of thought, wrapped within and held together by love.