Miguel Gutierrez at Eldorado PC.
Tip 10 – Near-side Forehander-The Brussel Sprouts of Polo
Originally published May 5th, ’05
By Tom Goodspeed
One of the most common topics that makes the desired agenda by students in my clinics is the dreaded near-side forehander. The following tips will help you make the best of the weakest shot in polo. First, why is it the weakest? The nearside forehander, when executed correctly, is more of an arm shot as opposed to a shoulder and hip rotation that is available to us in the other shots, including the near-side backhander. Our body rotation is what gives us power in the stroke combined with the stride of the horse.
However, pull up to a stop and try to launch a near-side forehander and you will quickly see that this one shot lacks power, because of our restricted body movement.
Why is it so restricted? I love to have a student stand up in front of the orientation part of my clinics. I ask then to demonstrate the body movement of a near-side forehander. They immediately drop their left hand behind their back, as they are not on a horse, and they twist their upper torso to the left fairly easily. But then I remind them about their left arm. We do not have the luxury of letting go of the reins and placing our left arm behind us. We have to guide the horse. So that means our right arm and our left arm are working against each other trying to execute the near-side forehander.
The other major factor in the difficulty of the near-side forehander is that our right arm wants to quickly return to the side that it is attached, our right shoulder, or the right side of the horse. How often does your near-side forehander go to the right? It is usually because our follow through pulls to the right. We also tend to turn our mallet head too quickly as we hit that shot, further pulling the ball to the right (from the rider’s view).
We need to focus on two things.
1) We need to get our shoulders around even though our rein arm is making it difficult to do so.
2) We need to finish the near-side follow through on the near-side of the horse and pay more attention to the position of our mallethead as we finish our swing. However the mallethead is positioned as the ball leaves the mallethead will determine the direction of the ball.
Ok, sounds easy, but is it? Another couple of tips that might help. Make sure you choose your mallet size for your near-side comfort and then adjust some on your off-side. In other words, consider a longer mallet. You should also ride with a shorter stirrup, which will allow you to turn better in the saddle. Your horse will tend to drift more into your near-side forehander because we tend to lean too hard into that left stirrup. It is important to steady your horse with your hands and leg while you make the stroke so that your horse stays straight through the ball. You need to think about pushing off of your left stirrup a bit back into your right stirrup when reaching to the left. This will help you balance both yourself and the horse. This is not an easy task, but you will get more comfortable with the shot if you follow the advice I am offering to you and you start to practice at more controlled speeds initially. Happy Polo !!
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