How SymmFit Helps You Ride a Better Circle: Seeing Is Believing

Jennifer Symms
May 23
6 min read

When you’re riding a circle, your body- not just your hands- needs to guide the horse. That means aligning your pelvis and upper body in the direction of travel. You don’t need to over-rotate or force anything, but you do need to take your whole torso with you. When you do that, it allows the horse’s inside hind to step under more freely, and the bend, balance, and flow all improve (Clayton & Hobbs, 2017). Being able to ride a better circle is the goal of many riders.

What’s Really Going On: It Feels Right, But It’s Not

When it’s not working and the rider is told to do ‘X/Y/Z’ to help - it doesn’t always work, potentially leaving the rider and coach frustrated. But why, when it’s the correct correction, does the rider not just do it?

Part of the problem is that the rider doesn't really believe what their coach or instructor is saying- they trust them, but it feels like what they’re doing already matches the instruction, so they don’t understand the discrepancy. And if they do try to apply the feedback, the change is often so small that it doesn’t achieve the intended correction.

Common things a rider does on a circle :

Drop the inside shoulder, which side-flexes the spine, compresses the joints that allow rotation, and limits their ability to turn. Often they’ll lean back a little and feel like they’ve turned in, but their torso and pelvis haven’t followed and then often end up leaning back instead to try and get that movement needed.
Protracted shoulder position (rounded forward from posture, injury, or habit). When asked to "turn in" or "open the chest," they might bring the inside shoulder to neutral and push the outside shoulder forward- creating a twist in their body reducing the ability of body to absorb force, not a true rotation of torso and pelvis together which is what is wanted. (Byström et al., 2018).

In both cases, the rider feels like they’re doing what’s being asked. But they’re not and the misalignment continues to affect the horse’s ability to bend and balance. Maybe the coach /instructor gets them doing it correctly in their session but the rider is unable to maintain and repeat it on their own and so the problem is present at the next coaching session.

The rider can also add in all sorts of compensations and aids to try and get the horse to bend or step through properly- but it doesn’t work as effectively, because the body isn’t aligned.

💡 It’s important not to just move the upper body and leave the lower back or pelvis behind. The goal isn’t to twist the ribcage- it’s to open the chest and shoulders to allow the pelvis to follow into the direction of travel. When the upper body is closed off, the pelvis can’t rotate properly. But when the trunk opens and aligns, the hips follow- creating a much clearer signal to the horse.

How this rider tried to ride a better circle

Rider biomechanics training on a circle using SymmFit visual feedback — Right shoulder is forward—notice how little grey is visible in front of the blue sleeve line.

Horse and rider in trot with SymmFit top highlighting shoulder and trunk position — Shoulder more in neutral- can see grey in front of blue line on sleeve. Head is turning but not rotation of body

Rider demonstrating correct posture on a circle wearing SymmFit top and jodhpurs — Open body position with logo facing inwards and can even see the level blue line across from inside sleeve to outside sleeve

Common Rider Compensations When Alignment Is Off

When riders don’t rotate the pelvis and trunk correctly, they often try to "fix" things using their hands, legs, or seat in ways that don’t help- or even make it worse:

Overusing the inside rein to try and “pull” the bend
Pushing with the outside leg instead of guiding with aligned body
Collapsing the inside hip to mimic bend, which actually blocks the horse
Tipping the upper body inward rather than turning through a centered posture

These compensations confuse the horse and can lead to resistance, hollowing, or loss of rhythm. With SymmFit, you correct the source- posture first, then refine the aids.

What Riders Are Told- and Why It Doesn’t Always Work

Instructors often use cues like:

"Turn your shoulder out."
"Open your body."
"Face inside the circle."
"Don’t just turn your head."
"Bring your inside hand back."

These cues are intended to help the rider create an open, aligned position- but here’s the issue: riders often think they’re already doing it or don't know how to do it.

They don’t truly believe anything is wrong because it feels right. Or when they try to apply the feedback, it feels so extreme or odd that they can’t believe it’s correct. Or they just aren't sure what needs to move where for it to work.

That’s where SymmFit comes in.

With this rider, you can see the progression in her trot position, she had practiced in the walk and now needed to try and apply the same theory in the trot. Here she needed the visual feedback from the SymmFit top and jodhpurs again to understand that what she felt wasn't what was happening:

When she felt neutral- her shoulder was still forward.
When she thought she was rotating- she was only turning her head and leaning back.
When she thought she was rotating "a lot"- it was only a little.
When she finally opened her chest to show the logo to the inside of the circle—that was the correct position.
Each step, the visual feedback helped her consolidate the gap between feeling and seeing. The colours and logo allowed her brain to process what the coach had been seeing all along. It gave her an external cue: "Grey inside sleeve visible to the me, logo facing the centre" as a task, not just an abstract body movement.

This kind of task-based coaching is more effective. Once she could see the change and feel the horse move better, it reinforced that the correction was right.

This aligns with motor learning research, which shows that external focus cues lead to better postural control and improved performance than internal instructions (Wulf et al., 2001). That positive feedback loop with the horse moving better helped to consolidate the movement.

When the Horse Confirms It, the Rider Starts to Believe It

When the rider sees the correction- then feels the difference in the horse- they believe it. The horse moves more clearly, bends more easily, and feels softer.

The thing that felt wrong becomes the thing that works.

Repeat that correction, and it becomes habit- especially with visual tools and external cues that build rider awareness and confidence.

What SymmFit Reveals

SymmFit gives riders and coaches real-time visual feedback:

Dropped shoulder? Chest line disappears or tilts.
Protracted posture? Front logo shifts around the side.
No rotation? Head turns but chest and pelvis stay square.

Once the rider can see it, they begin to feel it- and that’s where real change happens.

How Coaches Can Use SymmFit in Lessons

For coaches, SymmFit makes postural correction more accessible and effective:

Use colour lines to highlight asymmetry and body collapse
Give task-based external cues: “Show your logo to X” " Get those pink lines parallel"
Reinforce body awareness during live training without video playback
Support riders in developing long-term motor habits based on visual feedback

It helps coaches say less and show more—with better, faster results.

The Research Confirms It

A 2018 study in Gait & Posture (Desantis et al., 2018) found:

"The majority of riders changed their trunk angle rather than the pelvic angle.

That means many riders twist through the upper body while the pelvis stays stuck- creating disconnect, imbalance, and blocked aids. Other studies show many riders also have asymmetrical rotation patterns, being more mobile on one side than the other (Peham et al., 2004; Symes & Ellis, 2009).

These movement habits are often unnoticed without tools like SymmFit.

Ready to Train With SymmFit?

Whether you're a coach looking to improve how you teach posture or a rider who wants to feel more balanced and effective in the saddle, SymmFit gives you the feedback you need: