Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114964 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-27
• Binding: Paperback
• 134 pages

Synopsis
"Invisible Riding" offers tried-and-tested classical formulas to enable riders who may have reached a point in their riding where they are no longer progressing, to transcend to greater heights. With the emphasis always on natural riding to help the horse, these techniques, used for thousands of years by the classical riding masters of Europe, can help ordinary riders ride in a way which is, indeed, virtually invisible to the naked eye. The aim is to help riders - and horses - to achieve a greater understanding. With "Invisible Riding", riders can ride the way their horses want them to - freeing both to a point where there are no boundaries. With mystique stripped away, for every rider who has asked the question, "What next?" "Invisible Riding" should provide the answer, written in a format which is easy to understand and put into practice.

Customer Reviews

Less is more
Sylvia Loch’s books, articles and videos have inspired countless riders over the past two decades, and brought the correctness, subtlety and beauty of classical riding within the reach of all of us, no matter what our natural abilities may be. At first sight her latest book may seem relatively modest when compared with her other books, but this is deceptive. Like her first book, The Classical Seat (which it complements beautifully), Invisible Riding is a mine of wisdom, common sense, theoretical knowledge and practical application of that knowledge.
Most of us who ride have at some time or another been taught that our aids should be almost invisible, yet how many of us manage to achieve that ideal? To judge by the contortions and athletics so often seen in the saddle, even at advanced levels, very few; yet the fault lies not so much with riders themselves as with a system of riding instruction that tends to teach the aids parrot-fashion, without explaining the logic behind them. As Sylvia herself in the book, ‘It’s not good enough just to know the aids parrot-fashion. To be good riders and produce fail-safe results, we need to appreciate what the horse needs to feel from us in order to understand.’ Invisible Riding will help the rider to do just that. It explains exactly what the author means by ‘invisible riding’, or ‘minimalist riding’, and stresses that it is not just something practised by the most gifted of riders, but something to which we can all aspire, and that it is in fact an essential part of effective, humane riding: in other words, it is the key to success in riding.
Using straightforward language and clear examples, the author describes the ‘natural aids’, not simply in terms of what the rider does, but how and why, in the process explaining precisely what is meant by the weight aids, setting out the principles of balance, and demonstrating the effects of unbalanced riding. She discusses and clarifies the various nuances and shades of difference which underlie many apparently contradictory terms and expressions used in riding; explains how the rider can use the force of gravity to their and the horse’s advantage in channelling the energy flow, and stresses the importance of ‘feel’ in ways that will enable riders to achieve that elusive quality.
The first chapter contains a series of self-assessment questions, a theme continued elsewhere in the book. Each chapter also includes a list of the things that can go wrong and why, with advice on how to correct (or better still, avoid) them. The book covers the aids from the simplest basics right up to advanced work, with a chapter on safe effective riding outside the school. There is a helpful ‘question-and-answer’ section in which real-life problems are aired and Sylvia’s advice given in response. Extremely valuable are the explanations of how the rider can relate what they do on the ground to what they should be doing in the saddle (read the book, and this will become crystal clear!).
Beautifully illustrated with photographs of Sylvia’s horses ridden by herself and her pupils, the book is a must for the thinking rider. If you are struggling to make progress, but find most of the textbooks on training and riding daunting (and even if you don’t!), then struggle no more. This book is for you!