12/08/2024
More on the German phrase that says “riding is only learned by sweeping.”
I remember an example of this one night, about 40 years ago, when I was spending a month at Walter Christensen’s dressage training stable, Stal Tasdorf, in Tasdorf, Germany. (photo of Walter teaching)
Walter’s main barn had a cobblestone type of floor, hard to keep clean because of all the indentations, and in various corners were funny little Hansel and Gretel type brooms, straight handles with what looked like a bunch of twigs wired to one end.
Everyone had left, all the working students, all the riders, and here was the master, then coach of the Swedish Olympic dressage team, vigorously giving the aisle one last cleanup before turning out the lights.
In the great scheme of things, why would it matter one iota whether the aisle was immaculate? Early next morning, when all the horses were being fed, hay and straw would get spilled all around, and who was going to see that floor in the middle of the night?
But that’s not the point, is it? And for those who do see the point, they probably would have been at one end of the broom. And for those who can’t grasp why it mattered to Walter, they’d have left it as it was.
To what extent can pride in a way of doing things be taught? Because that’s what’s at play here, I think.
And pride in one detail spills over into pride about other details, until it creates a mindset, a way of being. Or not---And in that way, sweeping teaches riding, tenuous as the connection might seem.
