pic by Katie Mortimore
On approaches to fences:
David O’Connor: “Don’t try to find the distance with your hand.”
Ken Clawson: “the hands are the enemy of the eye.”
And my all-time favourite, which I have heard in quite a few lecture-demos:
“The hands are a reflection of the mind.”
What the hands are doing usually betrays how confident the rider is.
In 99% of situations the best answer is more LEG, but the human brain instinctively goes to the hand (it was explained to me thus: we are in essence apes (!), so we grab things with our hands)… BUT, this is something that can be overridden with a lot of good training and effort!
Good tip 🙂