Harmonic Dressage

Harmonic Dressage is a term invented by myself. It means respect for your horse, work with your horse instead of against it, listen to your horse and to understand your horse. Harmony between you and your horse.

Although we now describe it as a system, it is not a fixed system. I believe that you can't force horses into a fixed system, but that you must adapt yourself to the horse you are working with. By understanding the biomechanics of the horse, that what actually happens in the horse's body when we ride particular exercises and WHY we do certain things. Put some logic into riding so you understand what you are doing. In this way you create the foundation for systematically building up muscle groups, the flexibility in your horse and the strength and suppleness to ride the exercises without damaging your horse.

We need to see for each horse what it needs to be happier in his work with people. And that is our duty. That means watch closely, how does the horse move, what happens in the body, where are the blockages, what things go well, from which point can we start with this horse? And especially, how do we do that without stress, force, and fight battles. In short: How do we make this horse with this rider that great team that comes to an optimal performance?

In almost all cases the problem is (missing) suppleness in the horse, or memories that the horse has stored and from which he still reacts. Often these are negative memories to former riders or experiences the horse went through in the past. In case of physical discomfort the horse is blocked somewhere, causing the horse to move in a certain position where he feels the pain the least. Or he has learned a certain type of behavior to avoid pain or to indicate that he has pain or fear. The signals that the horse gives to express his discomfort are often unnoticed or dismissed as difficult behavior, and punished. We as people should be thankful that the horse is a being so forgiving that many horses would rather die running than disobey. Would they just happened to be less forgiving than many more accidents with horses would happen. And there's no need for that if we only learn to help our horse.

Listen to your horse. Creep into his mind and try to understand him. He can not learn the human language, but we as humans can do our best to learn his  language  and train him in a positive way.

Loosening the body is for me the first goal. A horse can only start working when his body is able to. A rider can only sit good when his horse can carry him the right way. Posture of the rider is important, but firts we have to loosen the horse. Of course we then have to work hard on posture too so that the overall picture is even more beautiful and complete.

Many instructors do the opposite, I see it this way: If your horse does not let you sit because his back is blocked, you are always clinging to remain in balance, result: More stress and blockage for the horse. it will not help you or your horse if you are sitting pretty on your horse(only for the eye), when  he feels terribly uncomfortable and can hardly move. So we first work on the horse and then on the seat. Often you see an immediate improvement of the seat of the rider  once the horse is looser, although I didn't say anything about the seat. Simply because the horse moves better and the rider can sit relaxed.