There are a few things I have been reflecting on lately. Sometimes words are very hard to find. My suspicions about this “wordless” state are that these reflections there is a connection with a very pure primordial dressage.

There are a few things I have been reflecting on lately. Sometimes words are very hard to find. My suspicions about this “wordless” state are that these reflections there is a connection with a very pure primordial dressage.

There are a few things I have been reflecting on lately. Sometimes words are very hard to find. My suspicions about this “wordless” state are that these reflections there is a connection with a very pure primordial dressage.

There are a few things I have been reflecting on lately. Sometimes words are very hard to find. My suspicions about this “wordless” state are that these reflections there is a connection with a very pure primordial dressage.

There are a few things I have been reflecting on lately. Sometimes words are very hard to find. My suspicions about this “wordless” state are that these reflections there is a connection with a very pure primordial dressage.

There are a few things I have been reflecting on lately. Sometimes words are very hard to find. My suspicions about this “wordless” state are that these reflections there is a connection with a very pure primordial dressage.

There are a few things I have been reflecting on lately. Sometimes words are very hard to find. My suspicions about this “wordless” state are that these reflections there is a connection with a very pure primordial dressage.

There are a few things I have been reflecting on lately. Sometimes words are very hard to find. My suspicions about this “wordless” state are that these reflections there is a connection with a very pure primordial dressage.

Experienced horse people use many devices to avoid admitting to themselves or others their fears with and around the horse. Not always, but usually, beginners are more willing to admit to their fears.

We step into an area with a horse. A stall a paddock enables us to have contact with one horse. If we step into a field which contains more than one horse, we no longer experience a horse but now experience horses. That, of course, may be similar but it is different and for our purpose we will only consider the singular case.

Space in the old ways is the fifth element. The other elements (earth, water, fire and air) were considered substantive and hence give preference in the minds of the ancients in western culture. In eastern culture, space was considered as more important because it is what unites the other elements.

Good dressage starts when you begin to realize there is something good and constructive about being you as yourself. You extend yourself to your horse and through this experience you find a devotion and faith to make a journey.

Training difficulties have several aspects to them. There are basic difficulties, projected difficulties and created difficulties. When educated properly, dressage only needs to involve basic difficulties. So let us look closer at how this works.

In order to learn dressage and to train the horse properly, blamelessness is a very simple but important thing to understand. Mistakes are more important to the process than correctness. There is no work that you can do with a horse or yourself for that matter which starts in perfection.

The point of the cultivation of excellence in dressage is that the human/horse relationship can be worked out in such a way that both beings benefit. This is a simple matter but not necessarily easy.

The aids we create are as real as our perceptions of them. The aids the horse makes are what is real for the horse. Between the two is an awareness; a feeling and a thought, these come and go but here is the world which is found in touch.

Formal practice in dressage has many aspects but it breakdowns into a practice guided by how we move in harmony with the horse through three basic gestures of feeling, being, and touching. To add to this are the ten directions which are the eight points of the compass plus up and down.

The practical study of dressage can be divided into a threefold practice of: ethical, technical and reflective dressage. Ethical dressage refers to the manner of practicing so as to not create harm to the horse/ human ensemble, so as to be of benefit to both beings. In this we produce a true calm based on trust.

The 14th century, Dom Duarte, King of Portugal’s work, “Livro da ensinanca de bem cavalagar toda sela” is the first detailed treatise on equitation since Xenophon’s books. It was summarized by a 19th century Portuguese scholar in one sentence, “no one can be a good rider without mental and spiritual preparation.

So I got off my last horse of the day, thinking about each of my horses in training and what gifts they have given me this year. It has been yet another amazing year. I have received so much. I always think that this work cannot get any lighter, gentler and kinder and yet again it does.