The Art of Natural Dressage

While browsing the web, I just discovered that there's going to be a dvd on the book of Gerd Heuschmann on the biomechanics of the horse, and how the rollkur effects that.

There already is a short clip of it on the website, which gives an idea of the great computergraphics that are going to be used:

http://www.stimmen-der-pferde.com/index ... ?STLWEB=en

The film will be out in December, both in English and in German and is called Stimmen der Pferde. I think it will be super to be able to look inside the horses' body like that by the computer models, I just hope that the rest of the dvd won't be too depressing or gruelling about the horrors of the rollkur...

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

a heavy short film but the compu sights were good. I know that he was preparing of this kind of thing i had read it somewere.
i hope the same as you that it won't be to hard to watch.
The video the visible horse is also very nice and not cruel but it has a different background.
He has a real statement or how do you say that in english?

He does have a sort of 'Visible Horse' (painted white horse) clips in his video clip here too, doesn't he?

I'm really interested in how all the muscles and bones relate to each other in movement, and can't wait to see that in moving animations, so that for me will be the real reason to watch the dvd. I couldn't watch it with sound right now so I don't know what has been said in this short clip, but from some of the shots I got the feeling that sometimes it might tend to be a bit like the Nevzorov movies with the horror, drama and negativism about how bad 'The Dark Side' is treating their horses. Let's hope that's not the case, because I would love to learn more about bones and muscles and what on earth they are doing in the ponies during dressage!

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

yep they say indeed in a way of nevzorovs dvd..sorry you did not wanted to hear that
but i would like to see it too.
But if you wanted to see the DVD invisible horse i have it
i still use it sometimes to check

BRILLIANT!

I have listened to Gerd twice - last year.

He described how he literally fell of his chair when the FEI deemed that Rolkur was an OK training method!!!!! And that the back had MORE flexion!! Which of course it does not. It just moves up and down more because it is stiff and hard and there is no flexion at all.

I am delighted to see this!

I was aghast myself when, on the first page in the official BHS quarterly magazine they had five or so top trainers basically saying that Rolkur was an advanced training method and, as such, was acceptable in appropriate hands!!!!!! Jeez!

I am so happy that he is exploring this further and I know he will come up with the undeniable facts!

Training and competing at the top levels has become, in my view, highly disturbing.

Brilliant! Go Gerd!!

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To put down everything I think I know about horses and to listen!

Well, its december- anyone get the video yet???

If anyone in the US has any material on Philippe Karl I could borrow I sure would appreciate it.

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Learning to put the relationship first.

not the video just bought the book...

Since the first time I read a paper of his in translation I've been an avid fan of this brave man who confronts the stubbornly thick on this subject.

A simple book of horse anatomy, watching a few horses play at liberty, listening to the wheezing of older horses that have been held in Rolkur for too many years for too long a period.

One of the rarest of moves for a horse at liberty is the overbent position at the 4th or 5th vertebrae. Bent at the poll? Yes, horses do that but even then they don't hold it for very long. Maybe a few meters in excitement.

Anything back of the vertical to me is cruel. Even there it's asking much of the horse to hold it for an hour's riding or training almost without let up.

The quickest horse's I've ever known or ridden have been cutting horses, and reiners, and they tend to, at the fastest work, have their noses out in front of the vertical slightly, BUT ARE COLLECTED TO THE EXTREME, or they could not do the turns, and spins, the stops, and dodges over a cow they do, and survive for long.

There IS such a thing as collected with the horse's head and neck relaxed. I rode it, I taught it for many years to many people.

In the album picture from the sixties of the four mounted riders, young women, my students, you'll see every horse had his nose in front of the vertical, yet all had a nice collected trot going. You can tell because no one is caught in the up posting position. They are sitting a nice soft collected trot.

And those horses were once rodeo broncs. They loved being treated kindly and not over flexed or "driven into the bit," as virtually all other competitors in that class were doing. Their horses barely in control, jigging about, nervous, frantic over their bits, frothing at the mouth.

Ours quiet, relaxed, and apparently quite happy.

Rolkur is safe my fanny.

The pressure of steel on the bars is no different in my mind to putting the spurs in a horse and holding them hard into the horse's side.

Misuse of equipment. Misuse of the horse.

Anyone here that can speak directly to Dr. Heuschmann feel free to tell him he has yet another American fan.

I think we should boycott competitions of FEI until they stop this cruel nonsense.

There must be an end to patience with fools. They simply take advantage of it to continue their idiocy unchallenged.

Gerd speaks out, why not the rest of the aware horseworld?

Donald

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Love is Trust, trust is All
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So say Don, Altea, and Bonnie the Wonder Filly.

I just bought Tug of War and read it in one night! That included note taking and highliting and rereading difficult paragraphs as I turned back and forth to th coresponding diagrams. Love it!

It didn't give me any new information that I wans't already aware of, but gave me better undrstanding maybe?? Somthing.

Anyways, it sounds like he a Phillippe Karl are friends yet I tought PK did practice a form of absolute elevation as he felt it ws better than no elevation at all- I must be missing something huge here.

I think rolkur has it's place- at a halt dismounted with a carrot between the legs. Heck, You could ask a horse to hold it for thirty to sixty seconds and I wouldn't complain! But for an hour while doing passage and extened canters???? Absolutly not.

Even Gerd's book did say hyper flexion does most definitly lift the back but in a stiff way. I wish he would have elaborated more on "stiff." Does it move up and down or not?? I was undr teh impression that it noes not- it forms a stiff solid bridge, with no swing or elasticity. It also said the HQ can not come under. this makes sense.

What I do onder about is reining horses doing slides. When horse have their head down in a slide that is the most back flexion one can ever see in a horse! Now I am sure the back is stiff in this case as well but the horse is halting and the movement lasts no more than two seconds. Keeping hocks and stifles out of it, I wonder if the slide is benefical for the back due to the flexion and stretch or bad for the back because of the stiffness. I think being it is of such duration it could be good, but the horse is undergoing the trama of a hard halt at the same time.

Hmmm. Why does one or two answers breed ten to twenty questions???

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Learning to put the relationship first.

I think if horses gave out awards for MIH (Most Important Human) Gerd would certainly be in the running.

As for sliding stops with reining horses, having done a great deal of it back when head down, looped reins, were uncommonly seen in stock horse contests, I have some comments.

The stiffness of the back depends on the rider, the horse's training, and the horse's capacity athletically. The shoeing and ground preparation matters too a great deal when it comes to safe and well executed slides.

I've worked horses that could not keep from lockin up in front. And others that could "walk" through a spectacularly long slide. Obviously the latter had the most flexible most well flexed back, as in "rounded-up." With their head down.

But the worst abuses I saw had to do with repeating hard sliding stops far too frequently. Those horse's always burnt out (as in lost their ability to slide) and often suffered injuries.

My own training routine in the past, and what I see as best practice currently, is to train for the big long slide, but perform it rarely. That's how and when the truly beautiful slides can take place.

I focused on voice command only and dropping the reins as the goal. In other words, cues that release rather than restrain.

Let the horse position his own head. If I'm balanced laterally, get my back pockets down into the saddle, keep the heels down, and sit straight up, the horse can do the rest. And will.

A "stiff," back isn't a fault. It's a momentary tensioning of muscle and tendon. As with any athletic movement. It's using the muscles, bone, tendons, ligaments.

Because I came from stock horse, working on a ranch, through racing I got very into how the horse uses himself. And what conditioning he must have to do so with grace and power. And what kind of riding and training (as in "cuing") brought out the best with the least chance of injury.

And questions of "collection," weren't given much thought. What was the focus was "range of motion." What I think of now as both extension and collection as the horse goes through certain activities.

And what is even more fascinating and not well explored I think is that the horse has two ends.

That is, as one sees in a well executed slide, a well under haunches, but and extended neck and front legs reaching forward. Being extended and collected at the same time.

In fact, the slide, to be acceptable, must be executed from a gallop, and extended gait, into the collection of tucking under the haunches and bringing the hind legs well under and holding them in place, nearly still and braced -- which is about as 'collected' as one end of a horse can get, while keeping the forehand open, moving, and active, which is about as extended as the other end of the horse can get.

Which is what I refer to when I point out "range of motion," should be the goal in so much performance work.

I ache physically watching modern Dressage because of so little actual extended work seen. Even the "extended" trot is not. Unless both ends of the horse are "extended," it's simply a contortion of collection.

Unless Gerd is incorrect (and I do not believe so) the horse cannot flex and lift the belly and raise the back (by bending around it -- you are right it doesn't raise, the rest of the horse simply lowers) with the angle of the neck high in rollkur.

If I had my way, being Emperor of the Universe, the horse would be conditioned through range of motion and all performance work would be around athleticism that restricted events to activities that required
range of motion. And judging would be based on that capacity to use their entire body range.

It is coming to that.

And if horses were bred for it we would see a return to the horse as it existed in the wild. Where the ones with athletic full range of motion were the dominate type.

Donald

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Love is Trust, trust is All
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So say Don, Altea, and Bonnie the Wonder Filly.

i agree with you, not new information but the coin was fallen or how do you say that in english?? By seeinig the pics and his discription and i mix it with a DVD of horses in motion. it is more and more clear to me....

Danee, I wonder if this falls in the same category as all my wondering about relaxed polls in relation to self collection vs "on contact" vs forced collection (constantly tight rein)?

In part, this question came about because I wondered about the "obedience" of the released poll. A horse with a very released poll and a loose neck (like in modern western reining) is being very obedient, but in some way I think it's an easier state of obedience to attain, because it feels good for the horse (in this argument, one has to leave off all possible injury from asking too much). When I watch videos of people training reining horses, the poll is about as floppy as one can get. This means that the back is also "fluid", doesn't it?

I wondered if a horse carries himself in ramener, is the poll actually relaxed in the same way? Well, yes and no - and both at the same time (or alternating). It flexes and releases as necessary for the movement they are doing. The horse self regulates as he tries to hold his head where we'd like it to be (because he has been rewarded for doing it), but is also free to allow it to move as he needs it to.

I am wondering if same can't be said of the way the reining horse carries his back...yes it will tense as it needs to, but with the extreme relaxed state of the head and neck, and the fact that contact is not made on the mouth (at least that is the end goal), then is the horse not free to flex, tense and relax the back as he needs to when executing movements? So the back can braced for the slide, but in a strong "give and take" through the movement. I doubt very much if one could see the spine and muscles as the horse did a slide that anything would remain stiff and static within the movement.

And of course conformation has a lot to do with whether or not the horse finds it easy or difficult to do. Tam has a very short back...so those curled under, head down sliding stops are probably not something he would find comfortable to do. Cisco, maybe. He has the longer back, and yet his back is slightly lowered, so even he doesn't have the perfect conformation for it. But if a horse is built for it, conditioned for it, and they are working well - head down on a slack rein, and "allowed" to stop, rather than pulled to a stop, then the back will simply do what it should do, when it needs to do it?

It makes some sort of sense to me, although I haven't the experience to say it is or isn't true.

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Ha, I finally received the Gerd Heuschmann dvd two weeks ago, watched it in one go - and then forgot to post about it over here...

My findings:
What I thought was really just too bad, was the fact that all those great moving computer graphs you see in the internet movie shots, for some reason seem to be all the computer graphs that are in the entire movie. If I remember correctly, there was only one moving muscle/skeleton horse, at walk, for about one second filmed out of an akward angle. There are a lot of computer photos of a skeleton and muscles and they are really nice to get to know all the muscle functions of back and neck. However... The same really is in the book, and as I learn better from reading than from hearing a voice while looking at a motionless picture, I rather prefer the latter. And really the most important reason for me to buy the dvd, was the hope that I would finally see the pictures move, see what the skeleton is doing inside the horse when he lifts a leg and how he uses his muscles when he collects. I know the pictures, but what does the movement look like?

So actually more than half of the 70 minutes movie exists of looking at static computer images (and they really do say the same as the book has done). Then there are a lot of talking heads - very interesting people, but nevertheless it would have been nice if you would have heard them while looking at horses doing that what they are talking about at the same time. There actually is only one 'real' horse in the video (next to some shots of roll-kur riders, and at the opening scenes a horse who's being operated), and he should be an example of a well ridden classical horse and how his gaits change when you put him in the wrong posture. I really liked that idea, but every time they did something 'wrong' to show it's effect, the conclusion was that sadly, this horse didn't really show that malformation of his movements that much. Good for the horse (and good of the rider, to have prepared the horse so well classically! ), but somewhat of a pity for the dvd-watcher.

The final thing that annoyed me (but I might have also been in an somewhat annoying mood back then ) was that I thought the rider wasn't really riding that well classically speaking. Of course it's tough when all the video footage is slow-motioned as then all the slight mistakes in hands and legs are exaggerated, but I was somewhat distracted by his legs squeezing the horse at every step in walk and trot, and by the fact that he was playing with his hands all the time with reincontact being on-off every few steps. I do realise though that I'm becoming more and more allergic to cues (and bits) because of watching all of us doing everything without, so in reality his riding wasn't that bad. But I would think that if you want to prove with a dvd how perfect, pressure-free and small-cued you can ride a horse without rollkur, it would be nice to really provide that perfect image as an example. I don't know who the rider was and I do realise that they made it more difficult for themselves as he was riding a young horse with little experience, but it felt somehow like a missed chance for the case they were trying to make.

A good thing though, is that it's not half as horror/Nevzorov-like as all the small internet movies seemed to promise! And I do think that if you don't like reading books, then the dvd in itself is a good alternative as all the pictures and explanations of how muscles work that are in the book, are also in the dvd. And then the ideas and the knowledge you can draw from it are very profound. So I guess the only real downside is that the dvd feels exactly like it's the book - and I had read that already.

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

thanks for your reply...
and thank me that i did not have bought the DVD only the book.

a stable friend does read it now and she understands now what some Vets have said in Utrecht some years ago.
She have a mix arabian, new forest and he have a very thin back or how do you say that? She had rode for some years ago endurance and her horse get a big lump on his back. She did not now were this came from and it didn't hurt the horse, but she wanted to know so she had vissit Utrecht.
There was tolt that the horse have made heavy backmuscles and that you could see them now very clear. These lump was exacly on the crossing of several muscles. Sorry forgotten the right names. Now she read the book she understands what the vets have said.
Now the horse is 18 and she doesn't ride endurance anymore and the lump is gone (almost)

I have told her about the DVD also, but now i know i would not buy it, so i will pass this through. Then is the DVD the visible horse better i think.
(this is not a ridden horse just lounging)

As far as a relaxed poll- the poll is bone and ligaments- not muslce, so teh poll itself cannot relax- the muscles attached to it need to relax in order to produce a "loose poll." Collection is not relaxation- sleeping is relaxation.
A horse in collection and a reining horse are both expelling a lot of energy, but definitly in a different way. I think it is easier to have a relaxed/lifted back in reining since the forhand is fairly "slack." The horse is not lifting its spine between it's shoulder blades except for transitions. Even if the back is tight during those moments, it is so loose the rst of the time that the tightness can probably be safely overlooked. The dressage horse is lifting constantly so is much much more prone to muscle spasms, reduced blod flow to muscles, and general muscle ache.

Hmm, I really need to take some reining lessons! I think going back and forth between the two would be incredible. That is why I like Karen Rohlf's style. Her horses may not be super duper fancy, but they are so loose at a moment's notice!!!

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Learning to put the relationship first.