The Foundation for the Equestrian Arts exists to preserve and encourage the artistic exploration of the horse/human connection.
(6)
The Foundation for the Equestrian Arts exists to preserve and encourage an artistic exploration of the horse/human connection.
18/04/2024
Craig Stevens, one of our founders, died in March 2024. Craig's memorial at our farm in Snohomish is up now on YouTube. It was a beautiful day.
The memorial starts with an introduction, it's a little hard to hear but we fix that in a little bit...
Then a beautiful song by Linnea
Then a montage of photos and memories and music...
Then remembrances.
And finally a special award: Marie Haglund receives her certification as a Foundation for the Equestrian Arts instructor, carrying the work forward... it's a huge accomplishment and a joyful reminder that the work goes on.
Thank you Craig, for all that you gave us.
This is the tribute that we gave at the home he lived in at NSAE, in Snohomish, for Craig P. Stevens.He was a man who loved horses. From Craig's origins in N...
13/12/2022
It's the end of the year, and time for fundraising. We're a non-profit and your donations can be used at tax time, if you're a US resident. And- regardless- it goes to a worthy cause, supporting the teaching of this ancient form of equitation. Please send in your donations today!
Help support Foundation for the Equestrian Arts by donating or sharing with your friends.
02/05/2022
With excitement and anticipation for great things to come... the Foundation for the Equestrian Arts welcomes Anneli Eriksson, Allison Lekas, and Tiffany Kreider to the board. And we extend a huge thank you-- (and we look forward to seeing what your new member at large status brings) to two of our founding board members, Dr. Kelli Taylor and Christie Fisher, who are stepping down to let others step up.
Welcome new board members!
So: the new board is now Kathy Richardson, Mary Anne Campbell, Anneli Eriksson, Allison Lekas, and Tiffany Kreider.
More changes expected: keep tuned in here! And watch, as we anticipate more ways to interact with one another and to share the work that Craig Stevens inspired in forming the FEA.
This is going to be fun.
20/04/2022
A clinic coming up in Snohomish Washington, USA with Mary Anne Campbell, a member of our board of directors.
In French Classical work the hand is the primary aid. But the subtle and magical reality is that it is the connection between two minds, two hearts, two beings-- that directs the hand.
Mary Anne is teaching the foundational old world work, the Mediterranean Clinic, on the last Saturday of April, will you join us on the 30th to explore the idea of a sustainable connection with your horse?
We'd love to see you here. [email protected].
16/04/2022
Arbete vid hand hjälper ofta både ryttare och häst att lättare hitta de finstämda hjälperna. Ryttaren kan slappna av bättre och kan dessutom lättare se vad som händer i hästens kropp vid de olika hjälpgivningarna. Hästen kan slappna av bättre utan en eventuellt spänd eller inte helt balanserad ryttare på sin rygg. Det är lika viktigt för ryttaren att hitta sin egen balans och hållning vid arbete från marken som vid uppsuttet arbete.
Work in hand is often helpful for both animals - human and horse - when it comes to finding the fineness in the aids. The human can relax more and it's easier to actually see what happens in the horses body when giving this aid or that. The horse can relax more without a potentially tense or maybe not fully balanced rider up. It is as important for the rider to find his own balance and position when working from the ground as it is when riding.
25/01/2022
On Leadership in this benighted age... and classical riding. From Mary Anne Campbell at her barn in Snohomish Washington.
Riding in the French Classical tradition is not just about a hobby on horse back or a day out in the fresh air.
Classical work demands-- and offers-- so much more. I am daily awestruck- more- filled with gratitude- at what the engaged interaction with the horse offers the honest rider. Both horses AND riders are so beautiful at the core.
To ride well means to be in control of another larger animal.
"In Control".
As a riding mentor I find that students subscribe to one of two forms of thought around 'control.' There are riders who think that taking control means "And now I will become the most dangerous animal in the room",
or there are riders who think that taking control means "be so weak and sweetly appealing that the most dangerous animal can't waste its time on bullying you."
Riders are stuck being either the bully or the victim. Each is the mirror of the other but they’re both stuck in the same paradigm.
In the form of work we practice at Blue River Farm we learn another option that leaves that old grotesque lurching dance of opposites to wither on the vine.
The rider discovers that effective leadership means listening so profoundly that you can find the opening to guide the connection in a healthier, stronger, more beautiful direction than you OR your partner could imagine alone.
It’s bigger than ‘riding’ and it’s bigger than ‘being nice to your horse’ and it’s bigger than ‘haute école’… it’s the best in the horse and the best in the human being finding and calling out something truly extraordinary in the other.
We are as an animal a seriously skillful listener, we come pre-installed with deliciously sensitive sensations, and we also have a tendency to block out the most sensitive of our connections to the world in favor of what we already ‘know.’ We want certainty. We are drawn to shutting the door and tying the knot and bolting things into place:
This Is What’s So. (WHEW! I can stop engaging! I don’t have to feel all that uncertainty and I don’t have to wonder any more. I. Know.)
But if anything the last few years have taught us that we had better wonder, and we’d best wonder effectively and with deep curiosity and with our whole hearts. We better wonder and ask questions and be ready to hear new ideas and to surf changes out of a deep, honest sense of principles—not out of a code of righteous arrogance but out of a sense of humbleness at the enormous potential all around and within us.
We had better know that we have NO idea what the whole picture is, we are personally inconsequential… and at the same time (like all living beings) we are as worthwhile as the mountains or the stars themselves, we are only made so small by our blindness, our unconscious biases and our limiting beliefs. Not by who we were born to be.
And we can, and really truly now we must, get seriously good at being present right now to what’s here, in this moment, and to acting with integrity and balance and compassion into the right here right now.
So the thing is that this work tends to do that. It's riding horses. It's also cracking open the lock box we have around fear and courage and balance and leadership. And this world NEEDS that box unlocked. We NEED to stop siding with bullies or with victims. We NEED to be better than that-- and we are.
When your deepest study is about perfecting dynamic balance, truly controlling yourself and staying present and whole in potentially life threatening situations, AND we're doing this study while in the presence of something we love as much as we come to love our horses...
something intense and truly real starts to happen.
And that reality? Yes, it gives us a wonderful riding experience. But also...
That being present to what is so can bring us truly home.
This is a good thing.
And...
Even if you just want a day in the fresh air...
You'll find we see your beautiful self, and you are truly home here.
Come ride with us.
The Foundation continues to contribute to the work of retaining this lovely old form...
Mary Anne Campbell is now teaching at her new enterprise, Blue River Farm, www.blue-river-farm.com, or on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BlueRiverFamilyFarm
with her daughter, Katharine Campbell Bernard and a group of skilled and supportive long-term students and friends.
Another generation is learning: the most charismatic riding comes from serious balance and deep listening.
Blue River Farm is a community of people who teach and train French Classical riding.
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Foundation for the Equestrian Arts posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Contact The Business
Send a message to The Foundation for the Equestrian Arts:
Want your business to be the top-listed Pet Store/pet Service?
Share
Our Story
The Foundation for the Equestrian Arts exists to preserve and encourage the ancient French classical exploration of the horse/human connection. It was started by students of Craig Stevens, a trainer who has worked for his entire life to more deeply understand this older method, training hundreds of horses, learning to read French to study it more deeply, translating rare writing that you can no longer find in English so that more of us can learn. It’s carried on by teachers who’ve done the intense training to become certified in this older way of working, and who in their own right continue the work of exploring more deeply this ancient paradigm.
So... what is it?
“French Classical” can mean a lot of things! What we’re speaking of is the line of teaching that began around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea millennia ago that became the basis for dressage in the renaissance in Italy, and then traveled with trainers in the 16th century to France. In France this old form of training became the cornerstone of an equitation so beautiful and so precise, so clean and so effective, so breathtaking and so engaging.... that for 200 years France was the epicenter of excellence in equitation.
Great trainers from all over Europe had their origins in France.
When competition became the driving force in the equitation industry, this older way of working, which takes time, disciplined practice, and mental focus, began to lose its central standing in the equestrian community.
Competition is not inherently wrong, it can be a lot of fun. And... it tends to turn the rider’s gaze from ‘what is the quality of this moment, here, now, with this horse’ towards ‘is this going to cost me the win?’ It’s a different center of concern. There are ‘unsuitable’ horses and ‘riders who can’t make the cut’ and ‘the wrong breed’ and ‘too short’ and on and on.
When we work in this older classical form, every horse and every rider is interesting and unique. When we work in this older classical form, the quirky, weird, odd and slightly difficult horses become fascinating teachers: we learn a kind of equitation that helps every horse to find its own best movement, its own best balance, its own true beauty. The beautifully conformed horses become simple.
In this old way of working we benefit the horse rather than cause it problems. Horses ridden this way were expected to have a life under saddle of around 20-25 years. The military training developed in the 19th century, on the other hand, lowered that under-saddle-life to 9-12 years. Military training was fast, easy to transmit from one person to another-- but it was known at the time of its inception that it would cost the horse. The trainers of that time no longer had the luxury to teach and train over the years it takes to develop a truly great rider, a beautifully trained horse.
The old classical work was known to offer lifetime benefits so that the horse felt healthier and moved better.
Almost all contemporary riding methods are based on military training of the 19th century.
Classical Training also had benefits for the human practitioner. This older way of working creates a rider who understands that leadership comes from listening. That we can’t bully or bluster our way through a situation. That harmony, synchrony, and (dare we say it) love, are not a garnish on the side of the ride but the central core that guides horse and rider to a more and more perfect, more and more precise, more and more beautiful way of working.
You don’t have to pack up your love for the horse when you ask for its highest level work. In fact, to find the best in both of you, you get to fall in love with what drew you to them in the first place.
