March 31, 2016 
Good base, bad base, good base, bad base, good base, bad base, good base.
It takes time to learn how to ride, and it often requires decent teaching. I learned how to fix my jumping position by watching slow motion movies of good riders, compared them to these bad photos of myself, and figured out the difference.
And, interestingly, Jack Le Goff never said anything to me, although he must not have approved of my wrong basics. My guess is that he was one of those intuitively good riders who just “knew”, but didn’t break the process into component parts. (Or, maybe he didn’t say anything about my bad posture because he didn’t think there was any hope.)
Lighting Magic, 1965, leg terrible
Cat, 1970, leg bad
You are, at any given time, what you are. That’s reality. But it is ALSO reality that you are not FIXED there. You can get much worse. You can get much better. You can stay about the same.
But do not think that you can’t change. Because you can, up or down, depending upon what you want, and how willing you are to push yourself.
Which comes back to the worthless toad analogy—Is you, or is you ain’t?
1977. The dreaded knee pinch strikes again!
2014
Some years ago, Bruce Davidson wrote an article for Practical Horseman Magazine, and just behind the girth, just at the level of the rider’s Achilles tendon/knobby ankle bone/spur mount part of the lower leg, he painted small yellow circles.
These, as I recall, he called “The control buttons”, and for the control buttons to function, that part of the lower leg just described had to physically touch the buttons. If you put that part on the button (try it), your knee will come off the saddle slightly. It you put your knee on, your lower leg will come off the button.
Unless you have your leg surgically broken (not recommended) and re-knit crooked, you can’t touch both at once.
So if you want to stabilize your leg, remember what Bruce said. Put your LOWER legs “on the button” and leave the little bastards there! As you jump! Got it?!
Like these photos on Foxie, not like the ones before I learned how to do this.
