Tip 36: Proper Lower Leg Angle - Probably the key to a great polo seat. The old hunt/polo seat saw a much longer stirrup and a straight leg that resulted in what they call a deep seat. The riders were usually more to the rear of the saddle. Those polo players of yesteryear even used to turn their mallet a quarter revolution clockwise in their hands to make up for the fact that they weren’t getting up in a hitting position and turning their shoulders as we do now, well, at least some of us, ahem.
Now we are actually rising up in our leg, out of our seat, very similar to the two-point position that riders use when jumping fences. We are not standing in our stirrups, we are up in our leg so to speak. If you were to first stand in your stirrups, you would then sink as low in your heels as possible, and then lower yourself through your leg to as close as you can get to the saddle without sitting. To do this, you must let your lower leg angle go back some. If you straighten your lower leg, you will fall back into your seat. If you bring your lower leg back further, you should be able to stay up in your hitting position with relative ease. You will see some players who do not have a good lower leg angle (thigh to calf) will bend the upper body more forward at the hip. If you do not get a good lower leg angle, the only other way is to bend further forward and produce a similar angle with your upper body. Instead of the thigh/calf angle, a rider may duplicate a similar angle with their thigh and upper body through their hip. The problem with too much upper body angle is that you are not in a good hitting position and you are not very well balanced, as you are too forward. Unless you enjoy executing multiple “bug on the windshield” kind of dismounts, I suggest you put more focus on lower leg angle and less on your upper body angle.
Now being up in your leg will not feel very secure until you practice some, but once you develop your lower leg, you will have found the key to riding and hitting. To review a former article, your weight is driven past your ball of your foot into your heels. You then turn your sole of your entire foot out to the side which will also draw your knee in tighter to the saddle. This is more effective than telling a rider to squeeze with their knees. Try it yourself. If you squeeze with your knees your weight comes out of the stirrups, not a good thing. If you pressure first into your heels and then turn the soul of your foot out, your knees will automatically come against the saddle. However, your weight is also down into your heels, that is a good thing. Your lower leg should drop back to where the back side of your thigh and calf produce an angle somewhere close to a 90 degree angle. Your upper body should be fairly erect with just a slight angle forward. You are right to the front of the saddle. This position is the secured position that you need to feel more comfortable at speed both in your riding and your hitting. You should practice controlling and directing your horse while remaining up in the hitting position for as long as you are able to tolerate it. Once you build yourself up to a point where you can remain in that hitting position through your lower leg angle for extended periods of time, you will have found that “one thing” that Curly references in the movie “City Slickers”. Of course, they were talking about life, whereas we are talking polo. But if we had a life, would we be playing polo ?? So until you find that one thing in your life ( and I hope you have or do), the “one thing” in polo is lower leg angle. Happy Polo !!
