The Natural Dressage Forum

Just spent a fabulous weekend at an eventing camp in ID. While there, I had 3 dressage lessons with Carol Lynn McArdle (reserve dressage rider for Seoul and Barcelona Olympics and was long listed for the Eventing Olympic Team in the late 80s/early 90's) from Whitby Island, WA. She specializes in the "french"/"iberian" methods of classical dressage ala Phillipe Karl and riding with her was an eye opening experience.

I have spent a lot of time with PKs book and DVDs and have dabbled a bit with some of the information presented, but felt I really needed a "practitioner" to give me some "hands-on" lessons to help me really grasp how to apply the theory to my riding and my horse. Now I have had those lessons.

In only three short, private lessons, my horse and I have made more progress towards what I want in my dressage that we have in all our previous work. I felt the beginnings of true engagement/sit/collection (in walk and trot, and even a tiny bit in canter) and feel that I now really understand the meaning of a horse being up in front of you, leg without hands/hands without legs, and balance before movement. The changes in my horse were remarkable - we were effortlessly perform lateral movements that we had only just started working on and were very difficult for us (eg. left travers), beautiful trots that were light in the hand but with still a steady contact (we had been getting steady contact since our lessons with Peter DiMulder, but not with this kind of lightness and lift in front - mostly he helped me with my contact issues, not the horse's lightness/balance), lovely canter transitions with real sit and equally great canter/trot transitions with sit (never gotten these before with this horse), beautiful quarter and half walk pirouettes, and a few steps of truly balanced canter!! Much of the work was very slow (counted walk!) and "small", but the power wasn't lost - once we had better balance, we had a lovely lengthened trot without loss of balance and without change in speed/tempo. MOst of the work was done off weight/seat aids, supported by leg aids, with the lightest of rein aids given "at the end".

I can't wait to try all this at home to see if I can recreate these feelings and solidify this work.

I really feel I have found my "way" foward...but Carol is 6 hours away from me! I am working on a way to clinic with her monthly - it would almost be worth driving all the way to her place if not for the mountain range in the way and the problem of snow in winter!

I am not sure how this is all going to work when we go to the KR clinic later this month, but I am sure it will all work out in the end?!

Just wanted to share this revelation! Anyone else ridden with someone like PK or truly "French/Iberian" classical? Thoughts?

Another revealing experience was the demo given during the camp this weekend. Carol got on two Iberian horses she had never ridden before (one PRE/Lusitano and one pure Lusitano) and talked about their history and her riding philosophy, etc. These horses were somewhere between 1st/2nd/3rd level in past training, but neither were working at that level with their current riders (who were mostly Training-First level). One was pretty laid back, but the other was very tense about the crowd watching and the general setting (much more sensitive in general). Watching Carol ride them was like watching a dance - everything looked effortless, expressive, and willing.

After Carol's demo, one of the other clinicians rode a 6yo Dutch Warmblood she had recently imported for re-sale. She spoke about her methods and the history of the dutch horses. She was clearly more "german" trained, although her experience was in Holland rather than Germany, and specifically very pro-Anky. The difference was very obvious. Carol almost never went straight for more than a few strides while the other clinician never rode anything smaller than a 15-20m circle and all the (minimal) lateral work was done on straight lines. The horse was huge and beautiful and had lovely movement, but it constantly looked slight "held" in front compared to the horses Carol rode and it was almost always just behind the vertical. Nothing looked effortless, easy, or dance-like although the horse was certainly impressive. Now that my eye is tuned in, it was clear that the horse was almost constantly slightly on its forehand. The difference between balance before movement and movement before balance was striking - my preference is definitely for the former.

OK...I should stop rattling on and go to bed!!! Smile

Can you explain what you were 'missing' from the DVD to the lesson?

I have his DVDs and would be interested in hearing some 'technical feedback'-if you can put it in words (I know that can be impossible sometimes)

Thanks for writing! I can't wait to hear more. I'm trying something like that too, "new to me," and I'm having a heck of a time changing MY way of riding laterals. I know I'm blocking her front end, but by the time I get myself where I think I should be, I feel like a corkscrew.

this is all very exciting to hear about your continued breakthroughs!

some of what you saw demo'd and learned from clinic correlates with material presented by Bettina Drummond for NEDA spring symposium-
( she had a concern/ criticism about seeing the PRE's and Lusitanos being shown competitively and being "ridden like warmbloods" and not respecting their breed variation )

Read a bunch of Practical Horsemen issues this past holiday weekend- and someone said The Walk is to build muscle, the trot to build balance and the canter to build stamina....
ANother quote was "don't do anything at a faster gait that you can't do at the walk"
and the "de La G" classic is to do all that work at the walk in the square patterns
so in this very hot humid weather- I am doing "shade" walk work to build muscle in the small amt of shade in the arena and then out under the trees around the farm along the fence lines!

this is all very exciting to hear about your continued breakthroughs!

some of what you saw demo'd and learned from clinic correlates with material presented by Bettina Drummond for NEDA spring symposium-
( she had a concern/ criticism about seeing the PRE's and Lusitanos being shown competitively and being "ridden like warmbloods" and not respecting their breed variation )

Read a bunch of Practical Horsemen issues this past holiday weekend- and someone said The Walk is to build muscle, the trot to build balance and the canter to build stamina....
ANother quote was "don't do anything at a faster gait that you can't do at the walk"
and the "de La G" classic is to do all that work at the walk in the square patterns
so in this very hot humid weather- I am doing "shade" walk work to build muscle in the small amt of shade in the arena and then out under the trees around the farm along the fence lines!

My clinician is a friend/acquaintance of PK and follows very similar and I would almost say the same methods, and I have had many conversations with him on this topic before.

One of the things I have heard him repeatedly stress when he is talking about the PK dvds is how much preparatory work goes into the horse before it gets to the stage that PK shows there. PK blows through really important steps with maybe a sentence to nod to them, sometimes not even that. There are nuances that are not explained. I'm not knocking them, there simply wasn't room on them to go into detail.

They are a compliment, that is to say that they should be combined with a solid understanding of riding to be truly effective.

And everything must be followed in a certain order as well. "Make haste slowly."

Alrighty, Leheath! Now your cooking (as WAZ says) Thank you so much. Please keep us up on how this is working for you!

Great insight Leheath. And of course any more details you can give would be great.

When I first started dabbling more in French type riding I didn't really have horses that needed it, but now it seems all the horses I am working with really need it so I am using more laterals in walk, higher head, more weight shifted back, etc.

I think a component I was missing is that when you lift the head from the ground the horse neeeds to do it and not rest on you- I was allowing them to be heavy in my hand even though they had shifted the weight back. So I am going back to in hand stuff again and aiming for lighter on the bit.

I spoke to Carol about the "types of horses this method is suitable for" and her response was that it works for all types of horses - she rides everything from iberians to warmbloods to TBs this way. The actually techniques (or rather, how and when the different exercises are used) may differ between horses based on their natural tendencies and issues, but the method and focus is still the same.

Gala is not prone to being heavy in the hand, but she does "prefer" to be on the forehand. The lifting starts with the body (asking the horse to follow you up and back), with the reins just supporting the body/weight aid. If they properly shift the weight to their hindquarters (to the degree commensurate with their physical abilities), they cannot be heavy in the hand because the reins just suggest the position and then maintain the light contact. The "release" is critical - if the horse loses balance again in a few minutes (or a few seconds), you repeat the aids, but you have to aim for self carriage so you must lift until you get a change, then release to a light contact (not drop the horse all together). The moment they get heavy, you lift the reins because the heaviness is just an indication that the balance has been lost.

I think all horses could benefit from any good program but each program has certain types it works best for, so I try to find whichever style suits a horse best.

If you guys could dwell on the nuances of prep work that would be wonderful :-)

Actually I think all horses benefit from crosstraining-a focus some days on balance first, others days getting the engine going, other days a mix of both.

Not pigeon holing any horse or any ideas.

I think you are beautifully primed to take all this experience to the KR clinic ( and her recent newsletter certainly seemed complimentary to your recent learnings too ( special article about the walk)) so can't wait to hear back from you -with KR's sweet spot dialogue of relaxation, energy and balance- in perspective with all that you have progressed with this spring!
In re reading your posts- I keep thinking that all these issues are "chicken and the egg" which comes first-? ( both ;-) )--- if you hadn't found the contact improvement with the other guy- would you have been able to be AS successful with this recent work that achieved better balance ? I think your post above sums it up....... we need it all but can only keep making improvements in increments and that keeps pushing us up the ladder....
( sometimes ever so slowly......sometimes - the confluence of achievement gets us up a couple rungs!)

I don't think we should overtake this thread on what horses it's best for- that can be a seperate thread if anyone REALLY wants I discuss it.