Contributors

Dressage


Dressage (a French term meaning "training") is a path and destination of competitive horse training, with competitions held at all levels from amateur to the Olympics. Its fundamental purpose is to develop, through standardized progressive training methods, a horse's natural athletic ability and willingness to perform, thereby maximizing its potential as a riding horse. At the peak of a dressage horse's gymnastic development, it can smoothly respond to a skilled rider's minimal aids by performing the requested movement while remaining relaxed and appearing effortless. Dressage is occasionally referred to as "Horse Ballet." Although the discipline has its roots in classical Greek horsemanship, mainly through the influence of Xenophon, dressage was first recognized as an important equestrian pursuit during the Renaissance in Western Europe. The great European riding masters of that period developed a sequential training system that has changed little since then and classical dressage is still considered the basis of trained modern dressage.

Early European aristocrats displayed their horses' training in equestrian pageants, but in modern dressage competition, successful training at the various levels is demonstrated through the performance of "tests," or prescribed series of movements within a standard arena. Judges evaluate each movement on the basis of an objective standard appropriate to the level of the test and assign each movement a score from zero to ten - zero being "not executed" and ten being "excellent." A score of nine (or "very good") is considered a particularly high mark, while a competitor achieving all sixes (or 60% overall) should be considering moving on to the next level.

Monday, January 21, 2019

Long Over Due

 Hi there,
          This is long over due and I apologize for this. I have moved to Florida and took on more horses in training, this leaves less time for these other aspects of my life I am working to expand. Old habits die hard. I love training horses and it is easy to get lost in it, especially when I have such great horses to ride and wonderful students to work with.
           I am still committed to my webinars which we are doing bimonthly and continue to go great! I am also expanding to do a live coaching here in Florida this wednesday. I am super excited about this.
             I believe that being live will give me the opportunity to connect even more with the girls, create better awareness and ultimately personal success for them.
            I feel the more technology there is the farther away from ourselves we get. As much as I love it! And I love learning, and there are so many awesome opportunities for learning on the internet, I feel we need to go out, breath in the air, connect with our horses, our bodies and our friends in person! So doing this group coaching in person is exciting for me, and being here in Florida where there are a lot of youth riders should be a great place to put together an ambitious group.
               The horses are going well. My Glorious did his first competition last weekend at Global. He was great in the Prix St George. We were second with 69%. I was super happy. He is getting stronger, I was thinking a bit too much about how I wanted to sit, or more specifically that I was not sitting how I wanted to sit! in the 4 tempis, so I could not count and sit at the same time, takes practice! and I did not start my extended walk in the right place.....and then lived a bit too long in the mistake, so we definitely have room for improvement!
               This past weekend I rode with Rein Van der Schaft, thank you very much Dottie Morkis for organizing. I was meant to show on Sunday, however, the lessons went well, but also took me away from my normal show strategy with Glorious. So I decided to work again with Rein and not go down center line. This is always a difficult decision for me. I love showing, and I also get a lot of confidence and motivation from the process. In addition I had a couple of my clients and parents in town who were looking forward to watching me show.  It actually took me into a funny mind struggle to first consider not showing and then to decide it was the right way to go.  In the end, my lesson with Rein was even better than the day before, we really got a lot accomplished, and I believe it helped him to understand Glorious better. I have to stay true to my relationship with Glorious and talking with Rein about strategy and future goals made a big difference in our work together, This is not always easy, but I tell my kids that communication is key, so I need to put my money where my mouth is, and it worked, it just took a bit of relaxation and introspection.
              I hope where ever you are reading this that you are happy in your day, I know the weather is challenging many of my horse friends up North. I am sending strength and resilience your way. Breath deep and know that spring is coming, and it will feel so much better after such an appreciation of winter.
                 Be youthful in your approach ..... to everything!
                     Remember anything is possible! ..........Yes good things as well!!
                          Connection is the key!            Start with connecting to yourself!

                              Nancy
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