Who knows what a "diagonal" is when you are horse riding?

Question

Who knows what a "diagonal" is when you are horse riding?

Answer 1

Okayy.

I am guessing you are a beginner.

but that's okayy!

So, when you are posting, ( a trot where you sit up and down ) There are two steps in a trot. So that means there is always one front foot forward and one front foot backwards. Now the whole point of a posting trot is so you flow with the horse and by having your diaganol, you flow better with the horse. So when a horse's OUTSIDE leg is going forward during a trot THAT is when you stan or sit up out of the saddle. Now, here's the thing though, diagnols are EXTREMELY challenging to get right and take a long time to master so just be patient! and soon you'll learn. But if you know that you have the right diaganol, but then change directions than you MUST change your diaganol, changing your diaganol is simple, just sit twice and your diaganol has been changed! But remember this is only in english riding not western! But it is a good piece of info to know if your horsey!

Good luck!

Hope this helped!

best answer please!

Bye!

Answer 2

When a horse trots, it moves two legs at the same time... the back leg on one side and the front leg on the opposite side... then he moves the other two together.  The two legs that the horse is moving is called a diagonal pair because the two legs that are moving are diagonally across the horse from each other.

When you're posting the trot, you are moving up at the same time as one of those diagonal pairs is moving forward.  Since the trot is a 2 beat gait, you're either moving with one diagonal or the other.

You've probably heard about posting with the correct diagonal...  The correct one is the front outside leg... you want to "rise and fall with the leg on the wall."  As that front outside leg goes forward, you should be rising.  That necessarily means that you'll also be rising and falling with the inside back leg.

Ideally you want to be able to feel which diagonal you're moving with, but it's a hard thing to learn and most people learn by looking down at the front outside leg.

As the other answer said, if you're trotting and you turn around, make sure that you change your diagonal... because the outside leg will become the inside leg when you turn around.

If you realize that you're on the wrong diagonal (or if you need to change directions), you should change your diagonal by sitting twice.  As you post, you always sit one bounce, then post one bounce.  If you're trying to change diagonals, you'll be sitting two bounces and then posting one bounce, sitting once, posting once and continue.

Here's another good explanation with diagrams to help you. http://lorienstable.com/articles/riding/...

Posting is a hard thing to learn... it'll take a few months before you're confident that you're doing it well.  Stick with it... good luck!