Rider training: breathing

Breathing allows you to manage stress and avoid unnecessary muscular tensions. It sharpens your focus and reduce tiredness.

When something goes wrong, the first thing that gets altered is the breath rhythm, which is related to your whole body and mind reaction, and creates, as a response, muscular tensions. This “alert mode” is transmitted to your horse, who will alter his pace rhythm and tense his muscles too.

Of course this all happens at a subtle level, but it becomes palpable when both, the horse and yourself, are affected.

Most of the time, only being aware of your breath, is enough for you to come back to yourself, to your body, your balance, and reconnect.

We easily can link all these benefits to better coordination, accuracy of movements and body awareness.

A calm breath is the indicator that you are ready to perform at your best with a maximum range of movement.

You can train yourself to be aware of your breath, and deepen it, through Yoga practice. Breathing exercises are called Pranayama.

Practice Pranayama for 10-15min before a competition. You’ll see how available and sharp you become.