Self-carriage: Yours and the Horse's

It is important to develop a sense of personal integrity. In riding we should not be leaning, pulling, bracing, clamping. We must first come to understand that we must hold ourselves up and we must move with ourselves. When we adopt an attitude of this personal integrity, we give our horse a sense of holding himself up! Always then, think about helping the horse find a central place before giving the next direction.
Out of necessity when I lived in England I learned to drive a standard shift transmission. That was a life changing experience. Riding is a lot like driving a car....especially the gear changes, using a clutch, creating varying levels of power for different purposes.
Sadly, people who do not drive a standard never get to appreciate what could be learned from doing so. Anyway, because my Dad did not teach me, and is the authority on all such things(!), he pointed out to me(some 20 years ago) that I had faulty shifting! When I asked how so-----the answer was not what I would have imagined! He said simply that when changing gears I did not pass through a neutral position. That message stuck with me. I was so determined to get this right and really pleased him the next time he was in my car with me. The lesson I learned from this went well beyond driving a car and impressed upon me that whenever I shift gears on a horse or re-direct his energy, it is best to reposition him into a place of ease and neutrality before giving him the next direction.
This neutral(central) place is a ready reminder to the horse that he is an individual in the partnership. He holds himself up, not depending on me to keep him on his feet. The more I remind him of this integrity, the more graceful he becomes. He begins to consider more carefully what he does with his feet.
Sometimes when horses first learn some new positions to move their bodies in, they may step on themelves, stumble, fall or even run into objects. If muscles have been trained a certain way for a long time, a new body position can feel so awkward that they lean on objects or even on their strongest limbs to deal with this awkwardness. Gently reminding the horse to 'reset' to neutral frequently enough helps him find the neurological pathways to self-carriage much easier.
Our part goes beyond telling the horse how to fix himself. WE must demonstrate for HIM what self-carriage means by the way we carry ourselves. Are we considering which direction we point our toes when we walk, do we roll over heel to toe as we move or do we throw ourselves onto our toes and tense parts of our bodies to make up for this forward balance? Do we hunch over or stiffen our legs or hold our arms too far away from our torso?
Much confusion and clutter in training can be cleared away if we can stop trying to control every muscle the horse moves and simply 'expect' him to hold himself up, trust that he can (and will) and get on with the business of mastering ones own self-carriage.
The horse as an integral being implies that he has his own circulation patterns and inner stirrings of chi. As a partner, he has to bring his energy to a place where we can interact with it. Likewise, we must pull ourselves together for the task so we have a way to offer our own energy to the dance.

The Energy of Fear and Energy of Joy

It is well documented that horses naturally carry more of their weight with the forehand. For the horse to lift himself into what we call elevated self-carriage, some of the weight normally distributed over the front legs will be re-distributed to the rear legs as the joints of the hind limbs articulate more and accept this additional burden. The forehand is still bearing more weight than the hind end but it is freer to assist with the upward mobilization of the front end.
In a state of fear, much more weight shifts to the rear as the back flattens and grows rigid in a posture preparing for speed of flight. The hind quarters draw more energy(accumulating it) from the core of the animal in prepartion for a precise and propulsive getaway.
A state of joy is filled with tension as well. It is a differenet emotion, however, so the tension is in different places. In this state the back mounts, the withers rise, the core muscles engage and hind quarters do not absorb the bulk of energy as they would in a state of fear. Joyful tension is what we are seeking. To say we are wanting a relaxed state is slightly inaccurate. It takes incredible muscular control and tone to manage the advanced movements in dressage. What we want is joyful tension and not fearful tension. In joy we have a looseness and agility suitable for exuberant dance-like play.
We all want to live out to the end of a ride so we are not wise to set the horse up for play which we could not manage to stay with. So we must use prudence in this area, training ourselves to be more in control of our mind, our own body, and how our mind directs the body. We want the horse to feel free to express this joy in the partnership, so our job is to make ourselves ready to allow the horse to move as he should. We will learn to absorb the horse's wayward energy , suggestively re-position him, and re-direct this energy in another way.
But if we cannot deal with the motion the horse presents, it is as though we clip his wings just as he gloriously takes to the sky. Relying on saddlery to 'hold us' in place in some ideal position is entirely the wrong approach to take. We must learn to deal with our bodies in motion, developing the tone necessary not only to stay centered over the saddle but also to create the openings and closings of our joints and the muscular pulsations we will use to absorb or deflect or re-direct energy.

Chi - Yin and Yang

To understand more about energy(or chi) we need to grasp the concept of yin and yang. These 2 words are the basis of flow and how to build it, slow it, change its course and shape it. Yin and Yang are complimentary opposites of quality and of quantity. They express how energy is manifesting itself at a given moment. The Chinese look at all of life in terms of these opposites and strive to keep them in an acceptable equilibrium. In the course of life we experience this phenomenon as 'ups and downs'. Things may be going along well for a year and suddenly for the next 10 months things go badly. Then something turns around and all is well for another 10 months and so the cycle goes. Some of life can be controlled while some things cannot. Let's say we launch out to work harder but we then work so hard we do harm to oursevles. Working more but not so much that it harms us is ideal but our egos get so enmeshed in what we need to correct that we overcorrect.....until it's too late.
The image this brings to mind for me is a cycle, a wave, a vibration, a whirling dance which, if kept in check, can go on indefinitely to maintain ease and wholesomeness. The Chinese believe that too much build-up makes too much energy accumulation and so a release(or breakdown) is inevitable. Likewise, when breakdown wastes and expends so much energy, there will be such a vacuum of emptiness that somehow energy will rush into it, filling it and re-building it, and so the cycle continues. If either the accumulation or evacuation of energy continues ad infinitum, the indivdual will snap and cease to exist. It cannot sustain in a state of so much or so little.
Some examples to help you grasp the symbolism of Yin and Yang are as follows:

YIN/ YANG

in/ out
small/ big
black/ white
closed/ open
quiet/ loud
cold/ hot

The interesting thing about Yin and Yang is that in order to have one you need the other! Also, the terms are relative and not absolutes. Yang feeds off Yin until Yin needs to feed off Yang to make more Yin!!! A little thought about this and you will easily see how motion is created through this interplay between Yin and Yang.
One example of how we can use this concept in riding is in the use of breath in the halt transitions. Apart from other aspects involving posture, fine muscular movements and energy exchange which will be discussed at another time, simply by inhaling we can assist the horse in coming to a halt. Inhaling is a Yin activity, whereas exhaling is Yang. We would then exhale when moving off from a halt into motion.
Thinking of the halt this way brings new light to the quality of energy a good halt might possess....ready, filled, poised for action....YIN. The halt seems motionless but is filled with invisible motion....a stirring, whirling, mixing, building of energy! Hold your breath in a halt and you stifle that energy so when it is needed it cannot flow forth.

Is Classical Dressage enough?

I was asked one time what the difference was between my approach and classical dressage training. I would say that the similarity is in what is left unsaid that I attempt to say. The difference, however, is that classical implies time-honored and time-tested which this really is not. For that matter, most dressage we see today cannot be called classical either. Let it also be said that classical does not imply 'kindness'. Many of the classical figures of the past were brutes and some of the practices of the past were anything but kind to horses. Just look at old paintings and drawings at the fear in the faces of so many of the animals; gaping mouths, terrified eyes. There was good and bad then, just as there is now.
So why can't 'good' classical dressage be sufficient? I believe it could be wholly sufficient but under only specific circumstances, namely that riders could develop on the absolute best trained school horses of ideal conformation and temperament, that the teaching would be available on a near daily basis, that it would be the highest quality instruction from gifted masters and that any training projects taken on would be with horses specifically chosen that are of excellent health and suitability for dressage. Training would only be allowed under the strict guidance of a gifted master. This all sounds very limiting. And it is! It is even unrealistic to expect that every parent could afford this for their children. And what might become of horses that didn't fit into the suitability category? These are problems that necessitate further thought.
Why is such strictness even suggested? Surely, many agree that we need more quality riding schools to teach people 'correctly'. If you were to read some of the classical bodies of written work you would get the sense that quite a lot is left unsaid. Why is this? Did those writers expect that we would use their understanding under the guidance of a master? Or did they expect that only a master would read their work? I rather think the latter is the case because the master would have the wisdom and maturity to convey the unwritten and guide the willing student to a special understanding of horse and rider partnership.
Taking these thoughts one step further, I believe the problem with training is mainly that we do not have a thorough enough grasp or appreciation for the deeper nature of the horse.....how intelligent he is, how sensitive, how emotional, how communicative, how willing. If we have come to love horses and find them friendly and obedient we have come a long way, but if we have forgotten or disbelieve that horses are ultimately prey animals with a hardwired sense for danger, we have missed the most significant clue for decifering good from bad training. We may even have accepted one training system because IT WORKS! That kind of training may be fear-based training. It works with nearly all horses but with a few, it does not. THESE are the horses that have spoken to me of another way. I will hope that anyone reading this has found this way without waiting for the resistant and impossible horse to show up in their midst. BUT if not, then I will also hope that what these horses have challenged me with is what they want everyone to know about all the other horses less fortunate who have not spoken.