Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Cavalry of the Army / of the United States 1917. To be also used by Engineer Companies (Mounted) for Cavalry Instruction and Training

by United States. War Department

All action of the aids should diminish in intensity when obedience begins and cease entirely as soon as the desired result is secured.

Troopers must be thoroughly trained in riding with the reins in one hand.

208. The instructor, in teaching troopers to avail themselves of their legs and reins, is governed by the preceding considerations, and from the first watches vigilantly the action of the aids.

The hand should always be kept low. The most thoughtful care should be exercised in the combined application of the aids, so that they may not be opposed to each other in their action; that is, one favoring the intended movement, the other opposing it.

The instructor impresses upon the troopers that their hands must be kept still; that is, free from bobbing up and down, and pulling, and from giving and taking when there is no reason therefor.

Likewise their legs should remain in light contact with the horse's sides and the heels not be used to kick the horse constantly in a nervous manner.

Moreover, that the effects of the aids may be perfectly clear, and that there may be no contradiction between them, there should never be simultaneous action of the direct reins demanding slowing up or halting and of the legs provoking a forward movement. This condition is essential for preserving the composure indispensable to the horses of the troop.

242. Posting: Posting is habitually employed when the troopers have stirrups and understand their use.

It is executed as follows: The horse moving at a trot, the trooper inclines the upper part of his body forward, then supporting himself on the stirrups while maintaining the clinging of his knees he rises under the impulsion of the horse, maintains his position detached from the saddle while the succeeding impulse is produced, again sits down in the saddle, and continues in this way, avoiding alternate impulses.

At the beginning the mechanism of posting is made easier to the trooper by causing him to stroke the horse's neck or to grasp a lock of the mane with either hand, thus determining the forward inclination of the body.