Wish I had known….
As a 10 year old tomboy, in jeans and worn riding boots, I spent many an afternoon sitting slouched at a piano bench trying to develop some musical talent. My Grandmother was a concert pianist and she had high hopes for me….she expected me to move my hands one way, press my feet on the pedals, read the scales and do all this in rhythm in time to a tick-tocking metronome. Impossible. Couldn’t, wouldn’t and certainly shouldn’t be done, especially when my pony was outside the window eating my Grandmother’s carefully tended lilac bushes. I just wanted to ride Sugar Cookie and never see a piano again.
Thirty –five years have passed since my patient grandmother gave up on my piano lessons and began paying for my riding lessons. It was a relief for me, no more practicing scales! The fun began, jumping, galloping in fields, showing my pony. Then my riding began to develop. The simplicity of Pony Club games soon turned into the complexities of trying to proceed up the levels of dressage. Ultimately reaching Grand Prix, my nemesis came back to haunt me: timing and rhythm.
Rhythm is the foundation of the German Training Scale. I found it is not just the rhythm in relationship to the beats of the stride that is important; it is the “right time” within the stride to give your aids so that they have the optimum effect on the horse. This is where timing plays such a vital part. I had often heard that great dressage riders were born with a natural, innate sense of timing and rhythm that really could not be taught, any more than a composer could be taught to have perfect pitch. The natural riders make it look so easy; trying to emulate them is not!
From Training Level through Grand Prix, timing is of the utmost importance. When to take a half-halt, when to ask for more engagement, when to bend more or less? Then, at the upper levels you have to count and ride! 4 tempi’s, 3 tempi’s , 2 tempi’s, the dreaded one tempi’s and then the canter zigzag half passes make playing the piano look easy. It only gets more complicated…
The German School uses well trained, veteran schoolmasters to teach the lower level students feel and timing. A rider learns when he/she is “doing things right” because the willing and forgiving schoolmaster reinforces when the aids are correct by responding correctly. Students learn by positive reinforcement. My own basic education was based in the German School. Without a schoolmaster, I was told it would take three times as long. With the help of some very dedicated and patient instructors, over the course of 8 years, I trained my wonderful horse, Iggy, to Grand Prix. I got stuck for a while learning 4, 3 and 2 tempi’s; then I got stuck for a long time learning the one tempi’s. I am not sure I ever “mastered” the canter zigzag. I brought a few more horses up the levels and assisted many of my own students on their own journeys up the levels, but I was still feeling there was an element of trial and error in the process.
The amazing thing about this sport is that the learning never ends. Klaus Balkenhol says it takes two lifetimes to learn how to ride… I continue in this lifetime to “fill in the blanks” by furthering my own education. In this quest, I have encountered Karl Mikolka. His systematic exercises, drawn from the Spanish Riding School, are remarkably similar to piano scales. Through repetition, they focus on the rhythm and timing of your aids within the rhythm. In the beginning, it felt like I was at the piano again…. And scales were not my favorite part of playing the piano! But the results quickly became apparent. My horse started to think…and actually understand the exercises. Anticipation was used in a positive way, where my horse understood what was coming next. My muscle memory started to kick in and the exercises took less and less brainpower. They became second nature, similar to how posting the trot becomes second nature. Pretty soon, canter zigzags were like a dance, instead of a nightmare.
At about the same time, I was also exposed to the body-brain teachings of Eckart Meyners.His body movement exercises on and off the horse awaken and develop the muscle memory and timing necessary to make your body work with the rhythmical movement of the horse. Eckart’s exercise program places body movement and control into your subconscious, so you are free to think of other things besides your position when riding. The exercises are easily incorporated into my teaching and riding. I am finding my students are making the journey up the levels much faster than I did. I have found that timing and feel can actually be taught, instead of envied. When, following the tradition German training Scale, I reach a point of feeling like my training or teaching is headed toward”trail or error”, I make and assessment: Is it the rider? Then I used one of Eckart exercises. Is it the horse and rider? Then I use one of Karl’s exercises. These exercises create the feel that a well trained schoolmaster gives you. Many times I combine the genius of both training systems. I have now finally learned that to “compose” the music of dressage movements, from smooth trot canter transitions at training level, to learning the one tempis at Grand Prix, rhythm and timing within the rhythm is everything.
And horses, as well as piano teachers, are much happier and less frustrated when you are “in the beat”.