FeldenHip Workshop with Catherine McCrum
This FeldenHip Workshop series runs October 14-18, 2024.
Accompany Catherine McCrum, Feldenkrais Practitioner as she plays around with the movements and imagery that are working in her riding right now.
We all know that having independent aids is vital to ride well. But did you know that in order to have independent aids, you must FIRST have independent legs and hips?
Independent legs and hips means:
- You're able to feel and control the weight on each of your seat bones independently.
- You can purposefully weight or lift each seat bone independently without working hard or becoming unbalanced.
- You're able to feel and influence each hip joint separately, or together, at will.
- You're able to swing your pelvis equally well in each direction
- You're able to articulate your hips and pelvis in sync with the horse's back movement without gripping or unwanted movement in your legs
- Your hip flexors are able to open and close freely with the movement of the horse.
- You have freedom of movement in your legs with no gripping or bracing.
- You can lift each leg independently off of the horse without tension and disorganization.
- You're able to rotate your pelvis while maintaining purposeful control over the weight you have on each seat bone.
- You are able to lengthen your inside leg or outside leg without disturbing the alignment of your spine.
- You can drape your legs softly around your horse's sides and subtly control your leg aids at varying points of your legs where they contact the horse.
- You can apply fine spur aids with whisper-soft precision.
- You can control the mechanics of stirrup-stepping aids without causing rigidity in your torso.
By improving alignment and body awareness through simple movement patterns done with awareness and attention, you can restore your ability to feel, influence, and control each leg and hip joint independently. You can even restore full range of motion to your hip joint, enabling improved capacity to move fully and effortlessly with the movement of the horse.
These sessions are about more than just your seat. They have the potential to reorganise the whole of you, your entire body, your system, in such a way that you will glimpse, or perhaps even learn what it feels like to be weightless in relationship to gravity, which is what Catherine calls ‘lightness in action’.
In practice, what does this mean for us and our horses?
Here’s Catherine’s experience which she wants to share with you in this Workshop…
“QQ, my horse, was very crooked. When I rode left circles they got smaller and smaller. And when I rode right circles… well I ended up cruising straight into a corner and getting stuck! How come I knew how to co-ordinate my body for symmetrical ski turns, but I couldn’t for the life of me apply my awareness to my horse?!
Frustrated I started to explore…and explore… and explore. One day I found I found the missing pathway - the magic ingredients of leg, hip and pelvis.
As a result, QQ completely rebalanced underneath me. His whole left side softened and he had a beautiful even curve from his tail to his head. At last I could ride equally easily in either direction without struggling and fighting with him.”
It was this simple, yet profound experience that prompted Catherine to make this Workshop to share it with you.
For this 5-Day workshop, Catherine has curated a series of Feldenkrais lessons so you can have your own at-home exploration.
The lessons are teamed up with a Live Q&A session where you can get your questions answered, and finishes with some recorded 'live' lessons to show you how to take this work out into the saddle and get hands-on to feel the impact on your horse.
In addition, you get three bonuses:
BONUS 1, FeldenRide - Rotating the Femur (16:38): In this practical lesson Catherine is assisted by Jacky Davies and QQ (the horse).
BONUS 2, Bonus Hand on Lesson (8:22): Here I show the movements of rotation of the leg in your hip joint in a 'hands on' lesson with a student.
BONUS 3, The FeldenHip Podcast: An exclusive podcast of the recordings from this workshop so you can listen anytime, anywhere (especially while on your horse) with just your phone. So easy!!
💡 Full, Lifetime Access to all recordings, course materials, and the Facebook Group beyond the 5 days of the Workshop.
