We all need to stop talking about classical equestrian ideals….that just makes us dressage fundamentalists. Be Here, Now. We’re not stuck in the boxes created by previous century masters. This is not the Renaissance…it is This Moment. The art de vivre is alive…and so are our horses. Trying to ride dressage from your head kills it…and when dressage dies, so does the horse.You don’t ride a theory…a method…or a style. You ride the horse…and it is you that does the riding. It is not “your body”. You are more than just your body….and, when you ride the the horse, s/he is extremely affected by you. No-one can teach you how to ride. No-one can tell you what to do. All a good teacher can do is be a finger pointing at the Moon.
Dressage is the Moon. I can point you toward it, but that is all. You have to find it on your own. We each own our individual experiences. Until we stop insisting that a teacher do it for us…and begin to find it on our own….we are like caged rats. I see students run from teacher to teacher…book to book….video to video….in a search for dressage. What they don’t do is feel, experience, gestalt. Until the student really rides….from within…s/he will remain the caged rat. Ride, ride, ride until your sense of feel wakes up. Get out of your head and into YOU. Deconstruct everything that you have ever been taught and reconstruct it as you experience it. Own it.
