 So I want to sit up here naturally flowing, right? First thing I want to get with my horse is I'd like to be calm, forward, straight. Calm, forward, straight. He's reaching up, he's stepping up. My body sits in such a way that I can encourage his motion to step forward. So if you notice, I'm over my legs. So I could stand up, sit down. I can stand up, and I can sit down. If I were forking my leg up, my horse, you see him get tense, his head came up. If I were forking my leg up, watch me try to stand up. I can't do it. When I fork my leg forward, you'll almost always see riders tense their shoulders. And you'll almost always see their hands come back. And so now I'm riding with my hands. I'm locking, and I'm blocking, and I'm bracing, and my horse can't flow and swing and nod. So I need to get up over my feet. So I'll practice my thigh coming off the saddle and setting it back down, left thigh off, right thigh off. I'll think about bringing my femur down and back. And I'll ride with my leg maybe a little bit behind me here to begin with. But I'll practice this up, down, with my leg. I want to feel a long stretch. You'll feel it in your hip flexors. And this is something we all have to work up to. If you're stiff in the hips, you're going to ride with your legs up here. And if you ride with your legs up here, every time he walks, his shoulder blades articulate, and it forces me back out of the saddle, my leg is in the way of his shoulder. When I get back here, the shoulder can swing. My back, my lower back, and my seat, and my weight can swing. Watch the hips. Do you notice they go back, forward, back, forward, back, forward, back, forward? Now if I want to walk faster, I would sit tall to convey energy, life, just like other horses in the herd. When they get lively, their head comes up, their tail comes up, and they all go, whew, we're lively. So to convey energy and movement and life, I sit up, and then I take my seat, and I nudge the saddle forward towards the ears. And I think about back, forward, back, forward, back, forward, and I can slow him down, or I can speed him up with that motion. I sit tall, the hips say, more movement. As I turn, I just think about a headlight being right here on my sternum. And I'll shine that headlight to where I would like to go. And if you relax your shoulders, your hands naturally come with your headlight, your torso. So if I'm riding two-handed, if I look to the left and I just shine my headlight, he rounds off and makes that turn. A lot of folks, they twist their body, and they kind of overdo, they contort. And what they will do is they'll twist like this, and their horse tends to fall out, because you're twisting. And when I twist, it's driving him out. Don't overdo it. Don't twist your body up too much. Stay straight. So we're calm, we're forward, we're straight, we're flowing, we're swinging. Do you see his head go up and down? That nods, doesn't it? The head bobs. Up, down, up, down. And it goes up and down, and it goes side to side. As his head goes down left, I could swing a turn to the left. Watch my hands. I'm gonna be a little exaggerated in my body on purpose to show you the timing. So I swing, soft, and swing, soft, and swing, soft, and swing, soft, and forward, and following. And I follow with my hands. My hands go forward with the head and neck. My reins and my hands and my shoulders and my arms follow the head and neck of the horse. My hips follow his back. The timing is different between my hands and my hips. My hips come back and my hands go forward. Watch. What happens is they open apart. So here it is, open, open, open. So my hands go forward and my hips come back. And then they come together. Now watch when my hips and my hands come together, together, together, together, together. So what I recommend you do at first is you start on a long rein and kind of let your horse get long and low. And you sit up tall like you're being lifted up with a string off your horse. You soften your lower back and you ride. And you let the horse guide your hips back forward, back forward, back forward, back forward. Can you all see it? Back to front, back to front, back to front. See that? The second thing is you take your hands. Put your hands on the horse's neck. You might have to lean forward a little bit. So don't live this way forever. But notice my hands go forward, forward, forward, forward. I pick them up, and it's forward, forward, forward, forward, forward. You see that? So if I want to slow everything down, I'm going to pretend I'm going to get punched in the stomach. And I'm going to tighten up my abdomen. And I'm going to squeeze the rain like water out of a sponge. And I'm going to tighten up my abdomen. And I'm going to squeeze my rump. And all together, squeeze, release, squeeze, release, squeeze, release, squeeze, release. And what I'll get is I'll slow down or I'll halt. So to flow, we sit up, and there's a range of motion. I expand. My hips go more. He goes more. My hands go more. More motion. More, more, more. And to shorten stride, following is less, less. When you ride tents, how many of you have either done this or seen this? You see riders that are like shoulders up to the ears. And their horse is tense because what they're doing, they're tight in the shoulders. Have you ever heard of heavy hands or light hands? OK, it's just an expression. It's the shoulders. It's not the hands. Do you have soft shoulders? Or do you have tight shoulders? Can you picture what I'm saying? If you're doing this, my hands don't follow. Therefore, my hips don't follow. If my seat doesn't follow, his back can't swing, and his head can't swing, and your horse will lift its head up, and it'll get braced. So most bracing is caused by us in the horse. So I want to sit up here naturally flowing, right?