Horse Riding Tips: Improving the horseback rider's balance

Tips for Improving Rider Balance

So much of our horsemanship can be improved in the time spent bringing awareness to our behaviors and thoughts before we ever involve the horse.
The reality is most people don't have the option of enough time in the saddle. We are often disconnected from our thoughts, and we have very little body awareness.
Many of western society's daily routines involve our physical balance being brought forward and a bit "collapsed"- such as sitting at a desk, working at a computer, and often when driving a vehicle.
Start to practice every time you approach a door at a store or a mirror in your home, that you look to make eye contact with yourself in your reflection.
This simple act will begin to draw your body upward and centered with your shoulders over your hips, balaced and centered over your feet.
Relearn finding your "center" without sitting on a horse, will improve your balance in the saddle, without having to think about it.
It will also allow you to recognize earlier when you are not aligned, and you will begin to make adjustments, without diminishing the quality of the conversation.
Practice looking, especially when driving, turning your chin towards your shoulder in the direction you are about to turn, without leaning forward or towards that direction.
Many riders lose connection with their seat bones when sitting in the saddle because they use their entire upper body to turn the horse, rather than being able to first turn their head, then use their rein, without having to lean in the direction they'd like the horse to turn. (Losing stirrups in the act of turning is a result of "unplugged seat bones" when in the saddle.)
I know these sound like two very simple tasks that seem basic, but I cannot tell you how many times folks initially chuckle at these suggestions, and then wind up realizing how often they are using their entire body to communicate with the horse, rather than being able to independently communicate with each body part.
Once you begin to bring awareness to your own physical behaviors without the horse, you can start to first recognize, then make changes in your own patterns or mannerisms in your movement.
This way when you add in the horse, it does not feel so overwhelming to "remember" all the details about your own body and how you are sitting.