Online Equine course

A invite will be sent to your email for the group.

The most advanced movements are regarded as the privilege of superior athletes. Most horses than we think have the athleticism for higher level movements. They cannot perform them because the lower-level movements have been executed to fit the judging standards instead of being taught and use for the efficient education and coordination of the horse’s physique.

The horse in the short video is a selle Franççais named Lafayette. He was at the date of this video an elderly retired jumper who could no longer jump due to injury but liked his daily training. He was a great jumper but he was not a dressage horse. I used the Dressage Movements as gymnastic exercises to keep him mentally and physically healthy. He was 26 years old at the date of this recording.

Paraphrasing Nuno Oliviera we can enjoy the true pleasure of feeling how a horse cooperates without constraint, as a friend. It is not about obedience to the aids; it is a conversation understanding and respecting the horse difficulties and providing suggestions guiding the horse’s mental and physical intelligence toward efficient orchestration of the horse’s physique. 

The chronologic order, Shoulder For, Shoulder In, Half Pass, is metric thinking. It assumes that by the operation of the holy spirit, the horse will figure from the rider’s aids, how to coordinate efficiently his physique for the effort. The horse tries to please but his survival instinct instructs him to protect muscle imbalance or other dysfunction. The compromise alters the excellence of the performance and aggravated the dysfunction.

We need to know more than the rules of presentation. Dressage movements are originally gymnastic exercises. They damage a dysfunctional horse, or they correct the dysfunction if we understand the athletic demand and how the horse’s physique needs to be coordinate to benefit from the movement.

You can Join Wisdom 3, 9 Dressage Movements, one study per month. Discussion in the SOM Wisdom 3 Forum. $300.00 for IHTC students

and $350, for non IHTC students.