In the midst of preparing an article on how to teach the rider what they should feel when asking for the ultimate yield from the horse, an aha moment came. The awareness came that maybe this is what we are seeing when we see riders asking for a yield from the horse at any price. Maybe in the end, we are all seeking the same thing.

Interesting that understanding to a question that has haunted us for years came about as we were in the midst of preparing an article for our Volume 59, on how to teach the rider to have the correct feel of what it is like when there is complete yield from rider to horse and from horse to rider through the rein.

Trying to describe about how hypnotic, this feel becomes, the words that rose to mind was that you could almost liken it to an addiction. It becomes the standard against which every other moment of riding becomes measured against. So much so, that it we began to wonder, is this maybe where some riders might get stuck? Is this what we might be seeing from some riders? That they feel that incredible feeling of the horse yield more and more to their hands and that this feeling is so incredible addictive to them, that they will not, can not, ever agree to give up any training method that gives them this feeling? That they cannot possibly fathom how any training method that gives them even a hint of this could possibly be wrong?

Perhaps this is what we are seeing when we watch one rider, take and take and take from the horse until the horse is rolled through the neck and he is almost touching his own chest with his teeth. And we sit there shouting at the rider on our computer monitor, wondering how the rider can still be asking the horse to yield even more.

Perhaps this is what we are seeing when we watch a trainer tie up or hang onto one rein, asking the horse to bring his neck around until his mouth could almost touch the rider’s boot, and often asks the horse to hold his neck until the rider feels a complete release to the hand.

Perhaps this is what we are seeing when we see a rider ask for the horse to yield to their hand when the horse’s mouth is already gaping wide open.

Perhaps this what we are seeing when we see horses continually mouthing the bits as riders play and manipulate the reins looking for any kind of a release from their horses.

Maybe we can begin to understand that they feel something that feels good, or potentially good, that in their hearts they know exists and they really are almost desperate to find.

Hopefully the more we can understand that every rider is going for exactly the same thing, Wwestern, Eenglish, reining, or dressage, we can help riders find success, find that incredible beautiful yielding from horse to rider.

If we understand what they are going for, we can maybe help with concepts, ideas that help find what they really are looking for. Even simple concepts such as expressing how, as partnership and trust develops, brings understanding that both are key components of the true ultimate yield between horse and rider.

Ironic in a way, when you think about it, that in the search for the ultimate yield between horse and rider, that there are so many methods that ask for the horse to give first.

“Very few modern riders are taught the old and perfectly correct cavalry way of holding the reins.

That is both curb reins in one hand, but the bridoon reins separated.

In itself, the present day customary 2:2 division of the reins is not wrong, but riders ought to understand that it imposes perfect stillness of the hands; the curb rein must never be used for giving direction and position. If in the course of training one may sometimes have to “bend the horse forcibly” it is absolutely essential to put the curb rein out of action for the moment and to use only the bridoon rein. It follows that if one rides with a curb rein in each hand, it is almost entirely with seat and legs that the horse has to be directed since the curb rein should not be used for this purpose except to give the barest indication of change of position.” Kurt Albrecht

The key phrase here being that the curb rein must never be used for giving direction or position.

Riding with the Curb in Two Hands Means our Hands MUST Be STILL.

This imposes huge restrictions upon the rider when he chooses to ride in the customary 2:2 division of the reins. With the curb bit in each hand, the rider must have stillness and symmetry between both hands. The curb bit and rein infers a horse that is finished to a degree that we no longer need to use the rein for either direction or positioning. The curb bit being a solid bit cannot be used seperately from one side to the other, and thus the two hands of the rider cannot be doing seperate things. It is thus quite correct to request perfect quietness of the hand when one rides 2:2.

From December 2005 Albrect: The Double Bridle

Lately, I have been ruminating on the word, ‘expression’. It started with an article in Dressage Today by Michael Klimke, son of the late Reiner Klimke, and a trainer and successful competitor in his own right. The article is titled ‘A Horse That Goes On His Own’, but on the cover it is represented as ‘Allow the Horse Freedom of Expression’. That got my attention. How often does one hear that? We hear a great deal about expressive movement and expressive gaits, but how often do we hear about allowing the horse the one thing all of us in the free world take for granted? Freedom of individual expression.

Very early on in the article, Klimke reminds us that the horse needs to find the balance to be ‘on the seat’, and to ‘carry himself and go on his own’. As riders and trainers, we have to develop the horse to move freely ‘without too much pressure from our legs and rein aids’, and that this allows the horse to ‘work more freely in self-carriage’. But most interestingly to me, he states that ‘The most important benefit is the often overlooked development of the horse’s personality.” He goes on to say that ‘…it is easy for trainers to forget about this interior aspect of the horse’s growth, but it pays to concentrate on each horse’s individuality.’

Somebody buy this guy a beer. Make it a case. In a dressage world increasingly in danger of churning out mechanical puppet, cookie cutter dressage horses, in a world still largely concerned with the deadly evils of the anthropomorphizing of animals, he speaks of the individuality of horses. Of learning to ride better from our seats to allow them to develop their own personal expression. And how this relates to their inner growth and development.

At the very end of the article, Klimke suggests that “In your daily riding, don’t think the horse must learn your way. Concentrate on riding primarily with your seat, and you will succeed in learning your horse’s way…..”

This reminds me of a tenet in movement therapy that I learned from Feldenkrais practitioner and SENSE Method creator, Mary Debono. When I asked her about the effects of Rollkur on the inner systems and biomechanics of the horse, she simply replied “Movement benefits from choice.”

In other words, put a body in a straightjacket and you severely limit that body’s options in how to answer any question asked of it. More often than not, this means that while you may get an apparently acceptable answer, it is rarely, if ever, the correct or most desirable answer for that body, its individual biomechanics and conformational eccentricities. I think of this kind of training as drinking grape juice and calling it wine.

When our aids become a closed prison cell for the horse, we deny him any number of choices that would lead to his optimum means of expression, physical and otherwise. We also deny ourselves the pleasure of surprises and outright miracles in our mounts’ responses.

From the Article Freedom of Expression
by Susannah Cord from the Torchlight Series
Volume 35