Self carriage is an incredibly important foundation in any sort of riding. But specially in dressage, it is essential to have self carriage before we can have real collection.
In everything from pleasure riding to Grand Prix dressage, self carriage will give you a comfortable ride and a long lived, free from injury, happy horse.
A horse is in self carriage when he is moving forward freely and rhythmically, when his feet hit the ground softly and when his back is elevated to carry us comfortably and with strength.
And he does all that, with no rein and no leg to frame him up. It is truly the horse carrying himself – with no need for us to interfere.
And it’s seriously nice to ride!
When they are in self carriage, it is possible for our horse to carry our weight on their backs much, much more comfortably than otherwise. I was re-assured when I put on heaps of weight when I stopped smoking, to realize that with my horse’s back elevated, he could carry me with ease. Injuries and back problems are dramatically reduced, if not eliminated. In fact, I have noticed that old injuries can actually heal when a horse is free from fear and in self carriage.
So how can we get it?
Well, that’s the thing – we (the human) can’t get it. The horse has to get it – it’s the horse’s self carriage.
When our horse is in their comfort zone, they move in self carriage, naturally. And a horse is in their comfort zone when they are free from fear. Thus, when a horse is free from fear, they move in self carriage.
Self carriage is destroyed by any kind of force, which is why the hyper flexed, rollkured horses do not have the elevated backs of self carriage or the correctly elevated backs of real collection. In fact, lack of proper back elevation is one of the ways that you can pick a horse who has been trained with rollkur.
Now that I know how to achieve self carriage so simply, it’s easy for me to sit here and say “how come everyone doesn’t know how to do this?” I am laughing to myself as I write this. I see even beginner riders achieving it sometimes in days, sometimes in weeks, depending on how much fear they need to work out with their horse.
It’s quite simple, you get self carriage, the first and absolutely essential foundation to collection, by making it possible for your horse to live every aspect of his life without fear – on the ground and in the saddle.
Printed with kind permission of Jenny Pearce, author of “Zen Connection With Horses – a practical guide to inter-species communication”
I got in touch with Jenny after reading her post here on Dressage Disgrace. Then got her Zen Connection book and the cd of as-you-go-lessons. If anyone wants to do the opposite of what we are seeing in international competition, or indeed what we are seeing in the average riding school/lesson, the place to start is with Jenny’s book, it has been a true breakthrough for me, and hopefully to my horse too, once I’ve got my self in order…. It is so so easy to get a horse to comply with the rider’s wishes through bullying and force, but it is true horse-person-ship to do it in harmony and without force or fear, something that I challenge any ‘top’ competition rider to do…….
Thank you Jenny for your eloquent description of the enormous benefits we can all enjoy when we enter into relationship with our horses that are free from fear, pain, force and dominance. I have just watched the blue tongue video again, perhaps each time I see it there is a small part of me that hopes it will not be as shocking, not bring up tears and confusion, unfortunately every time is the same. I cannot help but feel quite powerless and at the same time grateful that my ego does not dominate my life or that of those around me. I hope the work of people like yourself grows in comparison to the mistruths we are often taught about how to train horses and that a significant shift in human consciousness alerts each and everyone of us to the spiritual power afforded us when we connect authentically with a horse. Horses appear to be yet again carrying us through a silent spititual war as we each feel the inner conflict of external experiences that cut us off from ‘being’ and determine pain and suffering in our own lives which we then project onto our horses. The horse has long represented great freedom and power throughout history, it is our hearts that yearn to return to this state of grace and humility but unfortunately we pay more attention to what our minds tell us to do. The journey from our heads to our hearts does not have to be so arduous when made on the back of a horse. Their self carriage, when allowed to develop naturally, appears to have a great deal to teach us about our own.