Re: hand postitions :-/

believe it or not once you get a feel for jumping it does acctually come quite natural because you dont want to jab the horse in the mouth, but i'd say for whilst your learning, see if you can ride with a neck strap or if you have a martingale hold that strap, and try to fold although it has to come at the right time, too early and you'll loose balance to late and you'll get left behind and loose balance - im going back on myself here but dont think too hard about folding or either of those two things could happenwait for the jump sit upright and relax when you feel your pony about to take of  fold your upper body forward then sit back down again, when i first learned to jump i was really sad and used to stradle the 5bar gate and practice lifting my bum out the saddle, folding my top half and trying to balance, dont know wether it worked or not but it made up for not jumping very often! good luck :) - holding a neckstrap will help with your hands in answer to your question when you get more used to jumping you wont need it anymore as you'll know where your hands need to go :)