This message is from: Lori Albrough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Beaver Dam Farm wrote:
Lori,
I don't know why this bothers you so much. -- You tell me we should not
use the word dressage. Why not? It's not a holy word!
It's NOT?! Oh boy that challenges my world view :-) Kidding.
Seriously though, Beth explained this more clearly when she
differentiated between the word "dressage" (derived from the french verb
dresser and all that stuff) and the equestrian discipline "Dressage" -
comprising the systematic gymnastic development of the horse.
Beth also did a good job of explaining the difference between the basic
levels of Dressage (USDF intro, training, first), medium level (second
and third), and then comes advanced and international levels (USDF
fourth level leading into FEI: Prix St Georges, I-1, I-2, and the
Olympic level of Grand Prix). Beth pointed out that most horses and most
riders never get to medium level dressage let alone to
advanced/international.
The movements of passage and piaffe that Anne allowed Dagrun, Beth and I
to have a little taste of with Wez are Grand Prix movements, only
trained and shown at the current pinnacle of the Big-D Dressage
development. Movements only mastered by a small number of horses (who
certainly do not grow on trees, and their owners do NOT normally let
"just anyone" ride them), and only experienced by a small number of
(very lucky and very grateful) riders.
So there we were, discussing the years of effort which go into learning
big-D Dressage and you chime in equating THIS to what you do with your
babies. That's what I firmly disagree with and find misleading and
dangerous.
The reason is, to quote Beth again, semantics is important when
discussing horse training on a forum like this. We are here to share
information, so suppose someone admires you Carol, reads what you wrote,
and wants to emulate you. So there they are, out there with their
babies, yearlings, whatever, trying to achieve the six levels of the
Dressage training scale in hand. That is not, as Beth said, a pretty
picture. Danger Will Robinson indeed. Please don't go there.
Or suppose someone reads what you wrote, and interprets it because of
the wording used, as: BDF is actually doing all this oh-so-impressive
high-falooting Dressage training with their youngsters. Now that person
feels inferior because all THEIR babies/younghorses are trained to do is
walk happily and confidently around beside their handlers and deal with
experiences with some degree of poise. That would be a shame if they
felt that way, because in reality they would be right on course and
should be pleased.
That's why I feel it is so important to be accurate with the terminology
used.
Regards,
Lori
