Ultimate shoulder rides

The web master of shoulderridingclub.com makes some claims of shoulder riding in history and among various cultures but I have not been able to independently verify his claims such as "Cleopatra"  liked to shoulder ride, the "Texas Rodeo," the festival of horses in Mexico, etc. My guess is chivalry began with cave men and women when the man would sacrifice his own life to protect that of his women and children, he shoulder carried them through swamps and tall grass to try to protect the women and children from snakes, etc.

Well, I think we all heard about Aristoteles, who was supposed to love to be ridden, although on all four, we also heard of these Hawain, or polynesian tribes, who practised SR as a sign of supremacy ( for the persons on top, of course) and we may suppose it dated back to very ancient times, but as a whole, I'm afraid WE KNOW NOTHING FOR SURE AND PROVEN about the origins of SR ...

I very much doubt Sam's asumption of cavemen being chevaleresque with their females .... :(
Mastadon's point of view is probably a lot closer to Neandertal's real world !

In fact, I believe that no SR could exist at all in Neandertal's world, if only because SR is weakening the carrier, without strengthening the rider, so, it is totally contrary to the hard rules of the "struggle for life" in mother Nature, where only the fastest, strongest, smartest ..etc are given a (faint) chance to survive, provided they don't play such silly "games" which would weaken them and jeopardize their survival ...

I believe that SR appears only when civilisation appears, i.e when three basic ingredients are put together : Fire, agriculture, slavery. These three dimensions will allow better feeding for all, and some freedom for some, and this freedom will be used to IMAGINE ... Imagine what ? Well ... Gods, technologies, games, everything  ... Among those games, I'm sure, SR!

Well .. It's just my two cents ( Of Euro ... ! 1.39 bettre than in $ ............ :))

Equidum

mastadon99 wrote:

Be careful Sam-you could be showing your age here- my experience of cave men is that the men were far more likely to drag the women through the swamp by their hair and when they got to a dry bit- wait for them to come back from McDonalds with dinner.
Not forgetting that they would eaten the snakes on the way as a snack.

Reveal my age? I am so old that television was in black and white and all actors on it were still alive at the time. Maybe shoulder riding, chivalry, and civilization all began about the same time. It does appear that when a man protects his woman and children as I previously discussed, the human race has a better chance of surviving for the long term just as most of the people of the United Kingdom will sacrifice their lives to protect that of the Royal Family just as the people of Japan will do the same to protect their Royal Family which I believe prolongs the existence of the United Kingdom and of Japan. That is my few cents or a part of a Euro.

I think we had better get our facts straight on this-Some 2 million years ago-Homo erectus left Africa and started to migrate north towards Europe.
Now, he was much stronger than his predecessor-being about 1.79m and very capable of lifting heavy weights.
He was in fact a hunter gatherer and it is most probable that he used the lighter members of the tribe to be raised up in order to gather edible fruits to eat.
The lighter menbers of the tribe being the females-it is logical that they would be lifted and used in this way.
So sr is at least 2 million years old.

Last edited by mastadon99 (2009-06-01 17:49:33)

Great find, nysiosdio ! I never READ such an exhaustive study on Aristote's little "kinks" ! Thank you !

I think historic topics can be really fascinating and I like fascinating things. Such as the fact that the reposts to this topic "sr in history" had so far an average members age of nearly 65 years. Don't take it amiss, it was just obvious. However "in the eons of time" we are all only a second old. Or some maybe two.
What I am trying to say is that everyone in any age can share his or her thoughts here, most of them will remain assumptions as we can not proove things like this of the past anyway unless anyone would have a time machine (which I would galdly use for such a "historic discovery" ). But if we manage to find any transcriptions, maybe even of official nature it will be welcome of course. And worth a bonus membership for those who don't post pics for instance...
Personally I like the idea with picking fruits. And that some day people found out it was also fun. I think that sr in the times of the Greek were mostly done as mom (olympic thought), the Romans were known for having orgies and wild parties, wom riding (at least on all fours) would be easy to imagine there.

That's right, Mastadon ! I still remenber with utter emotion the wild taste of mammoth-soup ! In those blessed times, young puppies like namaegaaru didn' t even dare open their traps when the veterans would preach ..... 

btw, I think I knew your mother quite well ... Lucy was Her name, wasn't it ?

Equidum

equidum wrote:

That's right, Mastadon ! I still remenber with utter emotion the wild taste of mammoth-soup ! In those blessed times, young puppies like namaegaaru didn' t even dare open their traps when the veterans would preach ..... 

btw, I think I knew your mother quite well ... Lucy was Her name, wasn't it ?

Equidum

Equidum, yes Equidum. Understood, Equidum.

Honestly I am very honoured and pleased to have mature members in our community who are willing to participate in such an active way! As you are in a group like this I can only assume that you all must have had plenty of nice sr experiences in your lives and so I would like to encourage you again to share more of those with us here. We can maybe learn a lot of your valuable experiences.
By the way, nysiosdio, congratulations! 74, I am certain you have to have a lot  experiences to share. You can change your age in your profile if you want to too.

Thank you gentlemen for being part of this community!

mastadon99 wrote:

Why should the poor man want to change his age-74 is a fine age to be-he is much more withit-than a load of young whipper-snappers.

nysiosdio, I am truly sorry - two lines of your message were deleted, I wanted to quote this line of you and unintentionally pressed the button edit instead of quote ... it was no bad intention. My mistake.

I meant to say that given the information in the profile nysiosdio is 73 but he pointed out he is 74, I mentioned he could change that himself in his profile information. But he doesn't need to if he doesn't want to. The age in my eyes is the least relevant information in a member's profile.

Wonderful story Dio, a truly valuable contribution to hear a story like this from the past. It's exciting to know that some women already climbed on mens shoulders on their own idea back in your time. I like it!
Thanks a lot!

"back in your time" doesn't mean any disrespect, people who know me personally can confirm that I am treating the older (older than me) naturally with respect. It was a probably clumsy way to tell that you have had a great experience at a time when sr wasn't that regular taking place as these days for instance.