Classic Eventing Nation

A good idea has to give way to a better idea. It happens every day in some way. It is the way of the world. It was what stimulated me to invent the Micklem bridle and about 30 years ago led me to put together the training structure that I call the Constants and Variables. There are five CONSTANTS, so called because they are all constantly required, and five VARIABLES, which are all required in varying amounts and ways according to the individual needs of each progressive exercise being used.

It is a structure and recipe that works for all levels of riding and training. It owes much to those two great coaches, Jack Le Goff and Bert de Nemethy, and there are also some connections to the German scales of training, but it is simpler, more memorable, and less open to varying interpretations.

At the heart of the five Constants are what I call the three musketeers, CALMNESS, FORWARDNESS and STRAIGHTNESS, and to these are added ACCEPTANCE and PURITY to make a circle of strength.

Acceptance

The meaning of Calmness, Forwardness and Straightness is fairly obvious, but “submission” is the term more normally used instead of acceptance. I use the term acceptance because there is an important distinction between the two words.

Acceptance leads to trust, partnership and agreement, and requires that the horse understands what is required, while submission produces an unquestioning follower. The difference between acceptance and submission is the difference between a horse that knows he could react differently but chooses not to, and a horse that knows there is no other option.

Purity

I use the word purity to encapsulate not just the rhythm and regularity but also the natural paces and natural outline of the horse, avoiding anything in the way of going that is unnatural or superfluous. It is the golden thread running through every movement and exercise and refers to the whole way of going in each pace — what the Germans call “reinheitergange,” which translates as purity.

We have to be constantly aware of maintaining the Purity of the paces, because physically everything begins and ends with the purity of the paces. As the Portugese dressage maestro Nuno Oliveira said, “Look for the purity of the three gaits. The rest will follow easily.” (The same applies to the purity of the jump.)

Purity can only be achieved if the horse can use their back … often not easy when a rider is sitting on it. If your horse is stiff or dropped in the back you can use lungeing, rising trot and a light seat in canter, combined with simple and easy exercises to allow the back to begin to work.

In addition you can make life easier by working in areas where there is already purity. If the right tempo and regularity of steps exists only in the working trot then this is what you must work in initially, but if your horse has no period of suspension in the canter you only do a minimum of canter to begin with.

To do otherwise would run the risk of confirming the fault because practice makes permanent, not perfect. In this way every main exercise you do should develop and improve the purity of the paces, because you will not accept any work where the regularity of the paces or natural outline and way of going is lost.

Acceptance, Calmness & Forwardness Together

Acceptance, calmness and forwardness are all primarily mental qualities, and their foundation is understanding, combined with the rider not asking their horse to do things beyond which they are capable. This is a key point and leads us from the start to reject the mechanical and forced. If you force things then almost certainly the horse will be restricted both mentally and physically.

The beginning and ongoing demand of our daily training journey has to be acceptance, as we ask our horses to accept the varied and what to them must seem the often strange demands of our sport. If only calmness was required then our horses could stay in the field. Instead we work with each horse, using a solid understanding of the nature of horses and humane, effective methods, progressing a step at a time that allows trust to be developed. Then calmness will go hand in hand with acceptance.

The basis for calmness comes from an environment that is as natural as possible, including equine company and regular steady work. Calmness becomes a habit if the trainer gives the horse sufficient time to settle before progressing with new demands, and is willing to back off and make things easier if tension appears.

It would also be normal to have rest periods during a riding session and keep returning to easy work with an easy rein. In addition lungeing is great for calmness, as is hacking, turning out, being calm yourself, and never abusing the horse’s trust and abilities.

During work each horse has to be very clearly and positively asked and allowed to go forwards, but horses are fundamentally very willing to do this for their riders if they understand what is required, have confidence in their ability and are free of pain. If this were not the case we would never have developed equestrian sports as we know them. As we ask for more forwardness there may be some loss of acceptance and calmness, so a step back is taken.

Equally as you achieve better calmness with slow regular work, it is possible that your horse will become a little backward thinking, so immediately you prioritize forwardness by riding out in company, or cantering with a light seat, or possibly jumping.

But probably nothing encourages forwardness more than an enthusiastic rider with a good balance and a soft allowing rein contact.  Then if the calmness is being lost you can once again make the work less exciting. In this way you can gradually progress with both calmness and forwardness.

Therefore there is a continual need for awareness of the changing state of the horse’s mind and on our part a willingness to act and react, asking a little more or a little less according to the situation.

Calmness, Forwardness & Straightness Together

All levels of horses should be calm, forwards and straight, and there is no phrase in equestrian education and literature that is used more frequently than this. They are continually identified as the supreme priorities, and they work as team.

Calmness without forwardness does not get you off the starting blocks, while forwardness without calmness can lead to speed but never to impulsion. When forwardness is added to the acceptance and calmness the horse will have everything in place that is required for improving the straightness.

But straightness in any quadruped is always a rarity and not easy to achieve. It is initially done by achieving an even bend on both reins in walk and trot and then, as your horse comes between the aids, by beginning a very small degree of shoulder-in (called position to the inside). As control of the positioning of the shoulders is achieved on both reins then straightness on straight lines also becomes possible.

As a horse becomes more advanced and medium paces are introduced they may become a little crooked once again. Then as we work to straighten them it has a tendency to reduce the forwardness. So it is necessary to keep alternating between riding forwards and straightening, until you can ride forwards with a straight horse. This is a process you will repeat often.

But whatever you do to improve a particular constant you also have to guard the purity. For example it is hugely damaging either to get acceptance by using a gadget that produces an unnatural way of going, or to force straightness and therefore lose the regularity of the steps or the period of suspension. Unfortunately this is a common sight in show jumping.

Controlled Impulsion

The five Constants can be established from the beginning even with young horses on the lunge. Then they will all work together to produce what is the gold medal of dressage training, the key ingredient for performance, controlled IMPULSION. Whether it is for dressage, show jumping or cross country we need this controlled impulsion, or another way to say this is that the horse needs to be “in gear.”

Lungeing is not an easy skill to do well but it is a great tool to establish the basics so that retraining is not required … and what a huge difference good lungeing can make to the longterm potential of a horse and to their attitude to work. But beware lungeing pens because they make a horse crooked as they cling to the outside wall. Horse walkers have the opposite effect, which is good for straightness, as the horse gravitates to the inside wall.  Because of this they are naturally “position to the inside.”

We need to maintain all the Constants as we work through the beautiful progression of exercises. But the most important point and simply brilliant result of this is that we can keep building controlled impulsion. Quality work requires bags of impulsion, with the horse using the back and working as one connected athletic unit.

However the other side of this coin is that even if one of the Constants is insufficient good controlled impulsion is simply not possible. Without acceptance it will not be controlled, and without calmness the impulsion is inevitably restricted by the paralysing effect of tension.

Without forwardness impulsion cannot exist, as willingness to go forward is the basis for impulsion, and without straightness impulsion is restricted, as one side of the horse is used less than the other. Finally without purity the horse does not work naturally, with a natural outline and paces, as one whole connected unit, which is essential for both impulsion and for “classical” and humane training.

If any of the constants are weak or missing the controlled impulsion immediately deteriorates, therefore we have to continually revisit and guard the constants in the daily training. In every training session you will start by first re-establishing the acceptance, calmness and forwardness in the warm up period, before going on to add and confirm the straightness in the suppling period, before carrying all the constants into your main work as you develop more impulsion and athleticism.

Then this process is carried out in reverse as you cool a horse down and finish with them happy and accepting. The practise of revision and re-establishing the basics is part and parcel of daily horse training, part of a circle using all the five Constants.  Then in competition the variable components take priority as the constants should be automatically maintained without any actions from the rider.

First and Foremost Training Priority

Is this all easy? No! But it is very possible, especially if you have a little patience and empathy with the horse. As Alois Pojaisky said, “The first and foremost training priority is to have empathy with your student.” Add a balanced, harmonious position and a guided trip along the beautiful progression of exercises and you can turn a wide variety of horses into happy athletes.

It is also to a large extent an art, which is why Guérinière, who invented shoulder-in, had this carved on the entrance to his arena: “Where art ends, brutality begins.”

Next Time: Part 2 – The Variables of Dressage

Ingrid Klimke and FRH Escada JS at Aachen CICO3* 2015. Photo by Jenni Autry.

The German scales of training have become predominant in dressage training in every European country in recent years. There is not a coaching manual or book that does not mention them, but on examination there is sufficient confusion and misunderstanding to ask if they really are the best structure for us to use for dressage training.

The sheer number of contradictory books on the scales of training, the rejection of the scale by experts in biomechanics, and the major concerns of those two hugely well respected equestrian professors, Dr. Thomas Ritter and Dr. Andrew McLean, all suggest we should at least keep looking for improvements. In particular we need to find ways to make this type of information more accessible and memorable to those with an interest in dressage.

A Search for a Better Way

In the dressage world Herbert Rehbein was considered the professional’s professional — a humble genius. He won the Hamburg Dressage Derby eight times and seven titles in the German Professionals Championships. He was also voted Trainer of the Year by the International Trainers Club in 1991 and in 1994, and the German Federation conferred on him the title of Riding Master.

In the 1970s I was lucky enough to spend two short periods at his training stables, Gronwoldhof, when he explained to me that most people misunderstood and incorrectly translated the scales of training. This started a personal quest to study the subject and led to me producing a new structure 30 years ago that I call “the Constants and the Variables.” The bones of this structure are described in my book The Complete Horse Riding Manual published in 2003.

Rehbein pointed out a number of things to me, the first of which was that the scales are not classical principles in the real sense, because at that time they were barely 50 years old. He said they had only recently gained such credibility because coaches and riders everywhere were desperate to grab on to something that was simple and credible in a dressage world that at that time was being pulled apart by contradictions and conflicts between different dressage schools and traditions.

However, even today our student coaches are told that they are classical principles. The three fundamental classical principles dating from Xenophon, 2,400 years ago, are that force should not be used, that the horse should be developed naturally and that the result should be beautiful and beautifully easy.

Since that time the poor horse has gone through centuries of abuse, much in the name of classical equitation, that has seen the use of the strongest bits, sharpest spurs and all manners of gadgets. So attaching the word “classical” is often more marketing than truth.

A Training Dynasty

I was delighted to find that one of the retired equine residents at Gronwoldhof was Alwin Schockemöhle’s great show jumping World Champion Donald Rex. However I was even more delighted to watch an athletic 4-year-old working, who was the apple of Herbert’s eye — his name was Pik Bube.

It was no surprise that he went on to become world famous, both as a multiple Grand Prix winner and as a dressage stallion. His success further cemented the reputation of the Hannoverian stud book, despite the fact that he was half Thoroughbred, as was Reiner Klimke’s greatest dressage horse, the “Westphalian” Ahlerich.

Herbert Rehbein trained with Bubi Gunther, who together with Willie Schulteis and Joseph Neckermann were trained by the father of modern German dressage, Otto Lorke. They in turn trained Harry Boldt, Reiner Klimke and the majority of today’s top trainers including, Conrad Schumacher and Jean Bemelmans. What a dynasty! What they have collectively achieved means their words have huge significance.

Not Perfect by Any Means

What we must acknowledge is that the scales are not always perfect in concept or use and that students should be encouraged to keep an open mind and test things to see if they are good or if they can be improved. As Jean Bemelans said at the Global Dressage Forum in 2007:

“In Germany we have the classical training scale. … If you have a perfect horse with a perfect character with no problems, then you can stay on the classical scale of riding, and step by step you come to the Grand Prix. But there is no perfect horse! You can have a nervous horse, there are many problems, then you have to find out the right way to come to the end with that horse. We have our rules where we go step by step, but on the other side we cannot be like a policeman and say, ‘there is only one way!’”

Conrad Schumacher echoed this in September 2008: “As a trainer of trainers I want to help other trainers find the best way to help his or her students, and sometimes that means being less standard in their approach and more creative in their application of the scales of training and traditional training techniques to get the best result.” Now that’s an open door!

A Different Order

There are six scales of training, presented in a linear form, the first of which is RHYTHM, followed in strict order by LOSGELASSENHEIT (currently translated as suppleness or looseness), CONTACT, SCHWUNG (currently translated as impulsion), STRAIGHTNESS and finally COLLECTION.

It is now commonly suggested that the order of the scales can be improved. From both a practical training and a biomechanical point of view there is a growing consensus that straightness should come before schwung and there are many who put losgelassenheit ahead of rhythm.

For example Reiner Klimke always put losgelassenheit first. Now his hugely successful daughter Ingrid, who was lucky enough to learn to ride on a Connemara pony, says the same. Her conveyor belt of top horses shows that the Klimke system works and it is of huge value to look at their personal three top training priorities.

Ingrid says, “My Father always strived for Olympic glory, but he was well aware that he would not reach this goal if he took shortcuts. He knew it was better to wait than rush a horse’s training. Our highest aim is to make our horses more beautiful and keep them healthy through their training. To achieve this the three daily priorities with all horses are 1) take small steps, 2) keep variety in the training and 3) foster the horse’s personality … which means we should never dominate our horses.

Translating Losgelassenheit 

The first real difficulty in the scales of training is the translation of losgelassenheit. What does it mean? It is now usually translated as looseness or suppleness and at times relaxation, but in German looseness is “lockerheit,” suppleness is “geschmeidigkeit” and relaxation is “entspannung.” So why was the specific term losgelassenheit used?

It is a noun that has been created from the verb loslassen, meaning “to let go,” therefore losgelassen “to have let go” or “be comfortable mentally.” Heit is just an ending that changes verbs and adjectives into nouns. The key point is that it refers to a mental not physical state. This makes much more sense, as it is obviously vital to have acceptance and calmness as a basic prerequisite for good physical performance.

Rehbein confirmed this by saying that suppleness is what you develop in a horse over a long period of time using the progression of exercises as you work towards impulsion. As you will see the latter part of this sentence about impulsion is of huge importance in defining schwung.

Schwung Is Not Impulsion

The definition of contact, the third in the scale, is less contentious but it’s meaning has definitely changed as emphasis is now put on both leg and rein contacts, rather than just the rein contact as in the original German manual. However the definition of the fourth in the scale, schwung, is really interesting and worthy of special thought.

The majority in the English speaking world describe this as “impulsion,” but I believe this is wrong.  It means “spring” and it is close in meaning to that now less used word “cadence,” which is about a bigger period of suspension and a shorter stance time for each step. This is confirmed by the fact that it clearly states in the German manual that you cannot have schwung in walk, because there is no period of suspension. Yet we can obviously have impulsion in the walk.

I believe that where the German manual talks of “developing propulsive force” is what we mean by impulsion, and that impulsion comes as a result of putting in place all the elements of the scales of training. This gets to the heart of the problem of incorrectly describing the scales as a pyramid rather than a scale. A scale is like the notes on a piano that are all used together for top results.

The development of controlled propulsive force, or controlled impulsion, is in practice the main aim of the scales as a whole. And they are scales, to go up and down continuously. Hence the name scales, not pyramid! A pyramid makes a very pretty illustration but it is fundamentally wrong to look at the scales in this way. This is certainly different from many people’s understanding of the scales but it makes obvious logical sense and can be seen in the original German manual.

Thankfully we have moved on from the early aims of so-called “classical” dressage, which did have collection as the ultimate and single aim. This resulted in disastrous and often cruel consequences for horses. No, surely our ultimate aim is to have a happy athlete doing a whole range of exercises within a range of both collected and extended paces and varied activities, all of which fundamentally require impulsion.

Let’s Keep Talking and Thinking

I am only too aware that this subject stirs the passions, however it is important not to get too emotional. None benefit if there is a breakdown of constructive discussion and research or we lose our sense of humour. A very bright local Pony Club rider, having heard me talking about the scales of training, emphasised this when looking at the flaking skin of a dressage coach that had seen too much sun and too little moisturiser.  “Look,” she said, “the scales of training!”