Chicken Or The Egg

I have gotten into a bit of a cycle with Stinker and my position.  He gets upright and flails and my position slips.  Once my position slips it is difficult to get it back and without getting it back it is difficult to get him back.  Then I tense and ride backwards and he says WTF and gets even more upright.

His build does not do us any favors.  He is capable of dropping his back about six inches below his withers.  Even with an appropriately fitting saddle when he drops his back like that it automatically tips me so my legs slide forwards, my upper body comes forward, and I grab with my hands.  Obviously this causes him to drop his back even more and it continues until I get my shit together and remember to ride.

Even so, we are slowly getting more consistent.  Yesterday was a bad day, but we still managed to grab some nice moments.  He still curls behind the vertical when he lifts his back, but again it is more of a strength thing.  He just doesn't have the muscle support to properly carry correctly for very long.

I also need to let go with my lower back.  I carry a ton of tension there.  And he is quite susceptible to tension in my body.  If anyone wants to watch a five minute video of us fumbling through the trot, you can see that things start off pretty rough, but he settles, then he starts to get tired and we struggle a bit more.  The right is also much harder than the left, but it is alright when I get him straight.