There are four skills involved in dressage; pacify, energize, magnetize and release. These are the perfection of skillful means. The aids serve no other purpose than to manifest these four. To think of the aids as a means to control the horse is the lowest manifestation of dressage. We begin with gentleness and balance of the masculine and feminine principle when we energize or magnetize. This is flow but not fully so until release can occur. This dance is not just communication but an openness which manifests as compassion for the horse. To succeed in this is to work from a strong center which is the principle of the seat. Here is the horse and the horse persons world. It is complete because balance and cadence prevail; lightness is found and is always soft and kind. Here is harmony in action. It is always a circle, a dance of the finite and the infinite which is never fixed. Good dressage is never about appearance because it is first about the inner state and only later does the external enter in. To put appearance above everything is to miss the whole point and so it is that the dressage that is commonly practiced today totally misses the point. Compassion for the horse is always the center of good dressage. The seat and aids are the means but communication is the purpose. Harmony is the proof; calmness in action. This is goodness in dressage.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:52:29 +0000
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