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| So what is dressage, anyway? |
by Elana Bertram
It is a good idea to establish what on earth that French word is really all about.
At its base, dressage literally means "training" in French. After Xenophon (highly recommended), the French were arguably the first to put in writing a manual of how their master trainers got their horses to "dance." The Germans must concede that their word “dressur” is not Germanic in origin, but Romantic!
When you watch dressage at the Olympics, you can still see some of those dancing movements -- pirouettes, half-pass at the trot and canter, flying changes of lead as often as every stride, the breathtaking extended trot, and highly coiled piaffe, or trot in place.
In Austria, there are the famous Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna -- there was a Disney movie called “The Miracle of the White Stallions,” during WWII about how General Patton came to rescue the rare horses from ending up as food for the attacking armies. Lipizzans tour the world performing what we call "airs above ground" or the amazing leaping and kicking movements that were taught to cavalry horses so the horse was as much a weapon as his rider, able to rear, jump from a standstill, and kick at infantry soldiers.
What modern horsemen mean when they talk about competitive dressage is a judged pattern of movements -- not at all unlike a reining pattern -- which was used to compare the fitness and obedience of cavalry horses ages ago. The goal is (again, not unlike reining) to demonstrate that horse and rider can move in any direction at any speed. Without the appearance of forceful cues, the horse is to respond energetically. He steps deep under his center of mass with his hind legs to free up and elevate his shoulders. Because of the abdominal and back muscles needed to achieve these quick changes of speed and direction, the modern dressage horse carries his neck in a high curve with his poll at the highest point, his relaxed jaw lets his forehead fall on a line perpendicular to the ground. European "warmblood" horses -- or crosses between hot breeds and draft horses -- typically have very flashy, springy gaits, spending a lot of energy pushing their bodies up between strides. This is the opposite of ideal HUS movement, where no energy is to be wasted.
All horses, technically, are taught a degree of dressage. You ride "dressage" each time you ask your horse to alter his movement from what he wants to what you want, no matter what saddle or bridle he wears -- from something as simple as extending the jog to working a gate in a trail class.
When trainers talk about cross training a horse with dressage exercises, they usually mean using lateral movements to strengthen the horse's abdominal and torso muscles and encouraging him to step his hind feet deeper under his body to carry his center of mass. This is something all ridden horses can benefit from!!
So there are three answers, in short.
Classical Dressage is performing movements reminiscent of what a warhorse would need, demonstrating that the rider can direct and control each footfall the horse takes and that the horse is physically conditioned to ride into battle and escape unharmed. Breeds like the Lusitanos and Andalusians also use these high-school movements for bullfighting in Europe.
Competitive Dressage is less theoretical and a demonstration of specific movements, showing off the responsiveness, obedience, and physical prowess of the horse, hoping it will be closer to perfect than the other riders. This is scored as a percent of 100.
Across both of these high-level extremes are the basic principles that any horse who must respond to a rider's cues must be strong and flexible, and the exercises that develop either Classical or Competitive horses are also dressage training movements, like leg-yield and shoulder-in.
This text is copyrighted by Elana Alexandria Bertram, 2006. Originally published at www.quarterhorsedressage.com. Do not excerpt or duplicate without permission from the author.
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