Use Cue Words to Improve Your Performance

Description

Let me share an intimate personal story with you... A long time ago, I went through a brief phase in my riding, where my horse's very big jumping efforts in the Show Jumping were jostling me out of my position. As you can see from these photos, Felix would often clear his oxers by a couple of feet:







The problem would then be compounded, as I approached each big jump (especially big, square oxers) anticipating being thrown out of position, and I would unconsciously react by becoming tense and rigid, bracing myself against the jump on the takoff. This of course meant that the shock absorbing quality of my joints would be locked. And I would have NO chance of staying with his rocket launch style of jumping with locked shock absorbers! So things would go from bad to worse. And a vicious circle ensued. 

I knew what the problem was, but I was having a hard time making myself stay supple and relaxed on the takeoff, so that I had a chance of going with my horse's jumping motion more smoothly. So, what I did to fix this problem was...