The Quest for Balance

Let us take the matter of Ethical Horsemanship seriously!

Achieving a concerted, energetic Balance situation makes the Art of Riding a very beautiful, but also a very difficult task, which can never be fully completed - meaning one or several human life spans would not suffice to master it perfectly. Furthermore, we do not learn art and science while we sleep and neither by complacency. It is true that some students come equipped with above-average talent. However, talent alone is not enough to learn how to ride well. Quite a few talents are left behind in their equestrian education by a rider with average talent - and that is no exception! Many special skills can indeed be learned. Only our own diligence, work and striving in continuous exercises and repetitions will lead us toward the kind of harmony that merges two opposing nervous systems of such different creatures as horse and human being for the purpose of creating successful unity.

My teacher Egon von Neindorff viewed the classical approach - which has, over the course of centuries, been proven effective as a successful, systematic training route that keeps horses healthy - as the only correct approach and termed it "the cause". I also agree with the validity of this statement 100 % and therefore will use the term the "cause" throughout this text.

Up to a certain extent, for example up to the topic of contact in the training scale, anyone should be able to achieve this harmonious unity. To get there, we must persevere through a long haul and must give our best. A real, dedicated rider is able to do this! Many "modern" riders, however, do not want to walk this strenuous path. Instead, we see them engaged in idle chatter and equipped with fashionable riding accessories, which are to show the world how significant those riders are, and which serve to highlight the gloss of their vain but ignorant rider performance.

In contrast, is it not true that when we look at our daily work environment, the business world or science, that people working in these settings spend eight to ten years or all their lives engaged in a learning process? And in the arts, one human life span does not suffice either, to approach perfection. Riding, in fact, is one of the hardest arts of all. Fact is, this is where two personalities come together. Nevertheless, there are a myriad of alleged riding experts, who claim to have amassed the same vast amount of knowledge in the shortest period of time, as a fully schooled rider could hope to acquire during his entire lifespan. One quickly then purchases the most expensive horses, which are expected to guarantee the anticipated success - no matter how they are ridden. If that was indeed how it works, all wealthy individuals would be able to easily purchase the qualities of a good rider. They only fool themselves, however, because the Art of Riding and correct handling of the horse are anything but easy!

We now need a kind of Renaissance of pure culture.

At the current moment, all eyes are on the forehand, especially on the neck and head position of the horse - quasi overlooking the rest of the animal. This - in my opinion - is rooted in the fact that today's rider is seduced by an unfiltered flood of images and films and assume these to be correct, without using due diligence to question processes and their context. If we were to view the images and movements armed with more knowledge and in more detail, we would come to a more nuanced conclusion. The most suitable approach to improve the ability to judge what is presented, would be to assess the horse with regard to Balance and harmony.

When we speak of Balance, we speak of the physical process of balancing centrifugal forces (working from the inside out) and their centripetal force (the opposite direction, working from the outside in) under consideration of gravity. These opposing forces are only in Balance when they compensate one another. When this is the case, the normal force (perpendicular to gravity) that relates to the center of gravity of any body, pulls us deep into the saddle and therefore into the horse's movement.

Christoph Ackermann on his successful horse Champus, beautifully drawn by Renate Blank. The core requirement for riders: To bring our horses into the correct Balance in all gaits and movements and to maintain this Balance.

What do I have to know to get there?

From the physical perspective, every body is in a specific position at any given time. Therefore, every body has an exact center of gravity, the position of which can be changed. The position of the center of gravity determines a body's Balance. When a body is in motion, it continuously changes the position of its center of gravity in space and time in a linear fashion. This is called the line of gravity. To deliver the energy and propulsion required to make fine riding possible, the horse must be in a suitable Balanced state. However, riding involves not only one body, but two.

I chose the title for this book very intentionally - echoing Louis Seeger's justifiably critical view. Seeger was one of the great and important master riders of the 19th century. In his book "Mr. Baucher and His Arts - A Serious Word with Germany's Riders" (1852), he decried riding methods that do not agree with the needs of the horse and inflict damage on the reputation of all Ethical Horsemanship.

In his books "System of Horsemanship" and "Mr. Baucher and His Methods", Louis Seeger explains the important role of the Balance situation in the horse. Here he describes the horizontal Balance in great detail and why it plays a key position in the systematic Art of Riding. His student was Gustav Steinbrecht, whose knowledge strongly influenced the German "Reitvorschrift" (H.d.V. 12 German Cavalry Manual on Training Horse & Rider). In that, he also directly influenced today's Principles of Riding, published by the German Equestrian Federation (Fédération Équestre Nationale, FN). The second volume of these Guidelines names Louis Seeger as a divinely gifted Instructor and highlights one of his statements, which will hold true for all eternity: "Always remember that forward movement is the soul of the Art of Riding and that the required impulsion originates in the hindquarters." This also means that the hindquarters are the crucial starting point, when it comes to training the Balance of the horse.

In 1837, Ernst Friedrich Seidler highlights in his book Guidelines for Systematic Training of a War and Work Horse with the subtitle: under special consideration of young horses, whose body is not yet fully developed, that the rider's first and foremost duty is to work on the Balance of the horse. He warns of the trend - which already existed in those times - of fooling the rider into the belief, that riding can be learned easily and effortlessly. He begins his deliberations by describing how young horses are started in a way that allows them to regain their natural Balance. In his book, he repeatedly highlights the topic of Balance and presupposes respective knowledge around the topic as fundamental.

And even earlier - around 1800 - Ludwig Hünersdorf already described in his book Instructions for the Most Natural and Easy Way to Train Horses, how unreasonable it was to exhaust horses and disturb their Balance. This practice caused considerable damage to the horse. He considered it a core principle that a well-ridden horse looks for contact and that contact is used to bring the horse into Balance.

At the end of the 19th century, Gustav Steinbrecht's view was: "The rider has fulfilled his task and completely schooled his horse when he has fully developed the two forces originating in the hindquarters - namely the pushing and carrying powers - and the latter in combination with the elastic force and can at will and with precision Balance their effects and their proportionality."

Therefore, the entire system of the Art of Riding rests on two corner stones: Balance and consequently pliability, which should be the precondition for all lessons and rules. Because the active elements - agility and lightness - originate in Balance. And based on supple pliability, the rider can develop dexterity and obedience in the horse.

In the Principles of Riding (volume 2, 1990), the authors insist that the following classically phrased sentence by François Robichon de La Guérinière maintains its full validity to the present day: "The purpose of the horse's education is to make it calm, agile, and obedient by means of systematic work. As a result, it will become pleasant in its movements and comfortable for the rider."

In addition, the author explains how important it is to understand that the fundamental basic schooling of the horse must be firmly established. Furthermore, the rider must absolutely fulfill the requirement of having developed a correctly Balanced seat, which is the pivotal precondition for giving precise and correct aids. Moreover, the riding instructor must master not...