When you first begin posting, you don’t need to worry about which diagonal you are on. We want you to master the technique first of rising and sitting properly.
Once you have this technique down pretty well and you are comfortable, it now becomes important to know WHEN to rise and WHEN to sit.
Horsemen have a saying, “Rise and fall with the shoulder on the wall”. This is a convenient way to remember which diagonal you need to ride on when you are traveling around the arena.
If you are riding clock-wise (the direction a clock’s hands move), you are “Tracking Right”, i.e. your right shoulder points towards the center of the arena.
If you are riding counter clock-wise (the opposite direction a clock’s hands move), you are “Tracking Left”, i.e. your left shoulder points towards the center of the arena.
If you are Tracking Right, you need to rise when the horses left front leg (the one next to the rail or “against the wall”) comes forward.
If you are Tracking Left, you need to rise when the horse’s right front leg (the one next to the rail or “against the wall”) comes forward.
The reason for this is when traveling in a circle (or oval) the inside leg of the horse doesn’t travel as far as the outside leg, therefore it does less work. Rising on the proper diagonal, gives that outside leg a slight rest as you come out of the saddle and evens out the work load on the horse’s legs.
Let’s do a review….