Rider Biomechanics

Practical exercises, enhanced with copious photographs anddiagrams, show how to balance your front and back, left and right—yieldingskills that simultaneously address the equivalent imbalances in your horse. Note, this book was first published in the USA as New Anatomy of Rider Connection. For thepast 30-plus years, Mary Wanless and her bestselling Ride with Your Mind booksand videos have helped revolutionize the art and science of riding horses. Nowshe takes her pioneering techniques—which combine a lifetime’s influences fromthe fields of psychology, biofeedback, neuro-linguistic programming, theAlexander and Feldenkrais techniques, Tai Chi, massage, dance, anatomy, sportspsychology, and educational kinesiology—to a whole new level. In her newestbook, Wanless teams up with Anatomy Trains® creator and author Thomas Myers to examinehow the “fabric” of our bodies (fascia) can potentially allow us to generateboth stability and what so many riders find elusive even after years in thesaddle—“feel.”

Recent research shows how the body-wide “net” offascia that both wraps each muscle and connects your skin to your bones can bethe source of postural imbalances and the resulting restrictions in yourmovement. Wanless posits that the difference between “average” and “elite”riders lies in the quality of connection and awareness within this fascial net,and she gives us the means to take practical and meaningful steps towardaddressing such issues, resulting in extraordinary change in the way we lookand feel on horseback.