Your hand position matters (a lot) and here's why

When we think about contact, we're often thinking about what the horse is doing - is there too much weight in the reins? Too little? Is the horse on the bit? Is their head tilting?

While we're doing that, we're forgetting to think about the fundamental key to contact - our hand position.

And so we might struggle with the same issue for years in our horse, only to find that once we make a small change in our hand position, the issue is suddenly fixed!

So, how do you know whether your have a hand position issue or a horse issue? Simply put, if your hands are not in the correct position, then it's quite likely that addressing this would also help with the contact issues.

What is the correct hand position? And who said so? Actually, there is a classical, universally accepted "correct" hand position - and not because it looks pretty (well, that too) but because it is the most biomechanically optimal and allows the rider to give clear signals without unintentionally blocking the horse.

The hands should be held the width of the bit apart, with the thumbs facing on top, and the hand, wrist and lower arm in line with an imaginary line drawn from the bit to the rider's elbow. That's it!

So if it's so simple, why is it so hard to do? One of the reasons is because as humans, we do a lot with our hands (our sensory perception of our hands takes up the biggest part of our brain compared to other body parts!). So if there's something we're trying to fix in our horse, we'll usually use our hands first - often without the desired effect, and meanwhile compromising their correct positioning. 

Secondly, hand position is largely determined by our seat and torso, so sometimes despite our best efforts, we just can't seem to get it right. One example would be slouching the shoulders, which automatically pushes our elbows out and makes our wrists turn over (ie "pram" or "piano" hands).

Try it now! Sitting upright in a chair, let your arms fall down naturally by your side, and now slouch your shoulders. See how your whole arm is affected, down to your wrists? Now sit upright again in good posture, and note how your arms come into the right position.

It also works the other way! Sitting upright again and pretending to hold the reins (correctly at first!), turn your hands over so your knuckles face the sky. Can you feel how that causes your shoulders to want to slump? You can imagine how that would have an effect on the rest of your seat.

So that's the link between hand position and seat.

Now the other point is that if your hand position is incorrect, it makes it very hard (or impossible even) to give clear signals to our horse. 

If our hands are too low with a stiff elbow, then our rein pressure is directed on the bars of the horse's mouth, which they will often try to escape by raising the head. Sometimes the rider then puts their hands even lower, and the problem gets worse! 

If our hands are too wide apart, it also causes our elbows to stiffen, and we're unable to maintain that beautiful elastic feeling with our horse's mouth. Just note that although the textbook position is for the hands to be the same width as the bit, in young horses it can be OK to have them slightly wider in order to give very clear, obvious directional signals. 

If our hands are unlevel, whether on the up-down or forward-backward plane, we are unintentionally putting uneven pressures (or pressures on a different part of the mouth on each side) on our horse, and naturally, they respond by tilting or going crooked.

If our hands are turned over so our knuckles are facing the ground, our wrists and elbows become locked, and it is very hard to have a consistently elastic connection. Sometimes riders take up more contact to make up for it, but little do they realise how much easier it would be if they just fixed the way their hands are facing!

These are just some of the common hand position faults and their most usual consequences. Of course, once our hands are in the correct position, we also need to use them correctly, which we will cover in the next article.

If you are struggling with some of these hand position habits, we need to let you know about SteadyHands gloves, because they were designed to help riders with any of these hand faults (and more). The gloves provide the right feedback and boundaries to train your hands to the correct position and fix these pesky habits for good. If you've tried for a long time to get your hands under control and are still struggling with some of these issues, then don't give up! Give SteadyHands gloves a go and you'll be amazed at the difference, even during your first ride with them.