30/06/2019
Iām going to share a few moments I experienced with a new student during our first lesson. I asked if she would mind my writing about it and very generously, she granted permission.
I knew we were in for a lively time when we first spoke.
āIām a dressage rider but Iām not looking for you to teach me dressage,ā she began. Oh. What makes you think I can help you? I wondered aloud.
āI want you to teach me how to get off my horseās face!ā We talked further and agreed to meet. Both the woman and her horse were lovely. I explained that they should just go ahead with their usual warm-up and I would observe. When I had a feel for their partnership, I would speak.
The warmblood gelding was a tremendous mover. Powerful and athletic, with every stride, you could see his rider trying to absorb his thrust. With every step, you could see her head wobbling atop her neck. I made note of her fit-but-petite physique in comparison to his and the fact that within moments of being in the saddle, she had him onto a strong contact with the bit.
Despite the fact that I was meant to be watching her hands, my eyes kept straying to her seat. More specifically, I was drawn to her saddle.
I have learned by now to trust my eye. If I am repeatedly feeling my gaze going to a spot on a horse, I now know that this is the spot that is sore, or the root of the trouble. I used to ignore my āwandering eyeā, to talk myself out of where it wanted to go, but now I pay attention. I watched for a few more minutes, then called her to the centre of the ring.
Dressage saddles have changed drastically in the thirty-plus years since I have ridden one. This, I think, is because our horses have changed from the Thoroughbreds and cross-breds that we once rode and competed on, to todayās super-horses with their powerful movement. I explained that my studentās horse was so beautiful, so impressive, that I was certain that I would be unable to stick his trot. I honestly felt that sheād got into the understandable habit of āhanging on to her horseās faceā, to use her words, in order to stay with him.
The thigh blocks on my studentās saddle were meant to place her knee as low and far back as possible, in a secure position. Unfortunately, this saddle placed the rider completely vertical. She was practically standing on her horse. Worse, she often leaned back to gain purchase, much like a water skier. There was no angulation to her hip, her knee, or her ankleā¦ it was all about that long, long leg. When I explained that a slight bit of angulation might mean that her joints would be better able to absorb the thrust of her horse, she shook her head.
āThatād be impossible,ā she said. The thigh blocks on her saddle prevented her from adjusting her stirrups shorter, to getting any angle in her knee. Her legs were literally put in this one position. Iām not a dressage trainer but I have found that when my body is held in any one place, tension grows. Itās as though I am trapped. I wanted to try an experiment.
She dismounted and unsaddled her big horse while I ran to find and blow the dust off my very outdated Kieffer. I'll tell you how old this saddle is: it's BROWN. Iād last ridden it in the early 1980s.
We kitted out the horse with my plain, old saddle. The plan was for her to ride her horse around on a long rein at the walk. She would ride, without stirrups, stretching her legs down and back, then vigorously scissor them to and fro from the hips, while he relaxed. I instructed her to also do the āclockworkā exercise with her ankles, rotating them very slowly outwards like the hands of a clock, clockwise with the right ankle, counter-clockwise with the left. Then, to reverse their direction. She was to stretch and do these exercises until her legs were just beginning to tire.
With her legs in a natural position, her seat in the deepest part of the saddle, she would take up her irons and we would adjust them to support that position. She settled on a length with a slight flex in her hips and knees. Her ankles were soft but the heels were neither raised nor forced downā¦ they were just comfortable. She then asked the horse to trot.
āJust rise with him,ā I explained. āDonāt worry about anything but keeping your helmet still, as though itās on rails.ā As her body was able to absorb the horseās stride, her head no longer wobbled. I asked her to bend slightly forward, to forget for a while about pushing her hips ahead. Now, to slowly, slowly float her arms ahead from her shoulders and softly-bent elbowsā¦ creeping up, up, up toward his crest. The gelding rounded his top line as he stretched, with newfound freedom, in an arch. He was still on a contact with the bit. As he stretched, his strides lost their jarring force and became elastic. He was truly magnificent.
āHeās on wheels!ā she called to me and I knew just what she meant. āBut why is he moving so slow?ā was her only question. I explained that he felt as though he was pedaling slower because finally, he was using his full range of movement. He was allowing his feet to touch the ground, to flex his joints fully and absorb energy, before pushing off again. What had been feeling like impulsion before, was simply, speed.
I also explained that when she allowed him to stretch fully at walk, trot and canter, he was honestly lengthening. To put it simply, her horse and indeed, any horse, is incapable of stepping beyond its nose. By hanging on to him so fiercely, mainly to stay with him, she was shortening his stride from its full glory. If ever there was incentive to trust and allow forwardness, this was it!
āWhat about my hands?ā she finally asked. Well, what about them? In releasing tension, in flexing her major joints, she had solved the issue. She had, without even thinking about it, āgot off her horseās faceā. A rider's seatāits deepness, elasticity, lack of forced movement or stillnessāholds the answer to almost everything, whether we want to believe this or not. The new goal would be to find the balance point where her horse was ridden ahead of her but where she could stay with him, rather than leaning back or relying on her hands to hold on.
My only other suggestion was to use less patting and more riding 'on the buckle' for praise. Man or beast, we all understand comfort and the building of trust.
After the lesson, we compared stirrup leathers on the two saddles. Her chosen place was found in riding two holes shorter than what she had worked so hard to achieve! Yes, the long leg is a mark of good horsemanship, training and fitness in dressage. But it can come at a price. It can put us on a ācrotch seatā, if weāre not careful, whereby we sacrifice our stability. It can take our shock-absorbing joints and replace them with braciness, requiring us to make our spines do all the work. My student remarked that her usual lower back pain and headache were both markedly absent. I suspect that she, while riding, has often been mildly concussed.
So, the fix for the miserly hands will be in continuing to stretch and soften her hips, knees and anklesā¦ then, her shoulders and elbows. To ride with more forwards/giving, rather than backwards/taking, intent. She may have to find a saddler who can move (or remove) her thigh blocks to allow more angulation to her upper thighā¦ or else, look for a more āopenā saddle with more room. In finding a saddle that holds us in place, we risk losing our natural ability to give, to move ever-so-slightly in the saddle's seat and to absorb.
Oh, I know, I know. To ride like Charlotte, like Isabell! I understand.
For generations, when weāve needed to increase our athleticism and security in the saddle, weāve increased our leg angles. In contradiction, weāve asked todayās riders to sit absolutely vertically, while riding the most athletic horses known to man! Those of us not so blessed with super-human ability and singlemindedness might just need a little help, is all. I do not wish to fly in the face of those who are knowledgeable in competitive dressage. I merely watched, percolated and served up some cowboy logic.
In the end, both she and her horse grew in harmony, relaxed and happy in their work. That, alone, should see their scores much improved.
Our illustration, of course, shows the incomparable Richard Waetjen (1891-1966), from his book Dressage Riding. I grew up watching home movies of this man and his horses. They were made by his student, who, decades later, became my teacher. And so it goes.
