Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the March 2000 issue of Horse & Rider. Sally Swift earned the seventh Equine Industry Vision Award from Pfizer Animal Health and American Horse Publications in June 2008 at the age of 95.
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- Sally Swift can see even at a distance where a rider's body needs suppling.
- Photo by Darrell Dodds
Susan Harris, the renowned clinician and author of the classic, Grooming to Win, wasn't sure what to think when she first learned of Sally Swift's "centered riding" approach, a sort of Zen and the art of horseback riding.
"I was skeptical," she admits. "It was the mid-'80s, and I'd already been teaching riding for 20 years. In fact, I was the head of a school for riding instructors. But I went out to the barn to give it a try with the horse I was working with at the time. Colonel was a wonderful fox hunter, but I could not sit his trot--his back, and mine, too, probably, were locked. I applied some of Sally's principles--proper breathing, precise balance, 'releasing' both sides of my body, left and right--and lo and behold, I could sit Colonel's trot."
Harris says what impressed her most about Centered Riding was that it explained how to do "all those wonderful classical things riding teachers are always talking about. For once, it was a way to discuss--and to teach--the elusive concept of feel."
Swift's groundbreaking book, Centered Riding, was published in 1985. It detailed in words and images her revolutionary approach to developing the balanced seat and two-way communication that are at the heart of all effective riding, regardless of discipline. Since then, Centered Riding has expanded into a network of over 300 trained instructors nationwide. At last count, more than 40,000 riders of various disciplines had attended a Centered Riding clinic.
"It just grew like Topsy," chuckles its founder, a Vermonter who began what became her life's work after her "retirement" in 1975, at age 62. In November 2000, Swift spoke at the first international symposium on Centered Riding, held at the University of Delaware. Her much anticipated sequel, Centered Riding 2: Further Exploration, was published in 2001. Not bad for an 86-year-old. But then, Sally Swift isn't your average octogenarian.
Little Old Lady--Not
A cross between your grandmother and that schoolteacher who always had your number, Swift has a larger-than-life persona that's belied by her appearance. I learned this at a Centered Riding clinic in May of 1998. (See "Getting Centered," Your Story, H&R December '98.) Here was this small, stooped, frail-looking woman, leaning unsteadily on two canes. The moment she opened her mouth, however, my image of her morphed from little old lady to general-in-command--her voice is that compelling.
"She is imposing," says Saundra Cabell, one of Swift's first apprentices and now an upper-level Centered Riding clinician based at Delaware Valley College in Pennsylvania. "She's not someone you'd mess with. But she's like a grandmother to me, and I still call her for personal advice."
Now dealing with neuropathy in her legs, Swift has struggled with scoliosis-lateral curvature of the spine all her life. Rather than letting it keep her from riding, however, she experimented with different ways of using her body to achieve harmony in the saddle. In fact, the things she learned about the mechanics of the human body, as well as the "body work" therapies she received for her condition, eventually led her to the principles of Centered Riding. (See "Centering on the Basics" at the end of this article.) They also helped to make her the teacher she is today.
"Sally is gifted in her ability to understand the mind-body connection and to help people deal with the body they have," says Harris, who apprenticed with Swift in 1989 and is the illustrator of her second book. "Having a difficult body has improved her powers of communication, both verbally and kinesthetically--with her hands."
In a Centered Riding clinic, much of the work is unmounted, with the instructor demonstrating various exercises and, when needed, pushing or prodding a student into position. Swift excels at this. During mounted sessions, she'll grasp a rider's leg and spend several moments moving it in tiny increments. "Can you feel where your hip joint is?" she'll query, then urge the rider to feel the deepening of her seat bone, lowering of her knee, and proper positioning of her lower leg under her center of balance. The effect is almost hypnotic--and very effective.
"She has talented hands," affirms Cabell, "stemming from a lifetime of touching and being touched. Another of her gifts is listening. Everything in her first book is something she learned from her students. Her scoliosis taught her about the human body, and the feedback from the students she's had over the years helped her discover how best to teach others what she's learned."
