On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 08:34:17AM -0400, Karen Thomas wrote:
> >>>> oh, for goodness' sake. i don't think the french-link snaffle i was
> told to use on stjarni was "restrictive tack". ... for the record, gudmar
> told me i *did* need an icelandic saddle - not for a gait, but so stjarni
> would have one wide enough for his enormous, potato-shaped back.
>
> Vicka, I don't think you're following us here. This is not a thread about
> you and Stjarni. If you have good experiences, great, but this is an "in
> general" thread. I am not sure why you always insist on bringing Gudmar's
> name into the general topic threads. It's not always about you and Stjarni.
> Please don't take things personally that are NOT intended to be personal.
because i know where i got my information from, and i want to make it
brutally clear why i think what i do. i don't think it's more fair to
take a selection of pictures from "the show world" than it is to take
one's own first-hand experience as occuring. and in particular i
pointed to gudmar's site because i think it shows how he, an icelander,
*chooses* to depict icelandics when it's only up to him.
> If you REALLY like Gudmar, fine - but remember that your blind insistence
> that he can do no wrong (and that's how it has struck me over the past 8-10
> months) is going to make some people even more determined to really SEE what
> he's doing, at shows, at evaluations, whatever.
as long as that "whatever" includes him at home with his horses, that's
cool. as long as it is restricted to "the show world", all i can say is
that it's a narrow slice of him as a horseman. heck, there are four or
five pictures of me at horse shows out there, and i daresay they don't
really give a full picture of how i ride or treat horses, either.
> >>>> for which i think we owe centered riding more than anything.
>
> Do you mean "Centered Riding"? Your lack of caps is confusing to me, but I
yes. i don't capitalize b/c i have nerve damage in the outside of my
hands, and it hurts to hit the shift keys. however, i do think that
that movement has vastly changed how riding is taught in this country.
i rode back in the 70's/80's and started again in this decade, but i had
read the original "centered riding" (capitalize in your head) book which
came out around the time i first stopped riding. when i started again,
i was amazed at how the concepts therein -- breathing, keeping the body
aligned, turning from one's center -- had entered the discipline at
large. i had only *read* about them twenty years before, but i still
had the book, and when i brought it out i went "a-ha!" while i'm sure
that xenophon and the mongols may have had similar practices, pretty
much every instructor i've encountered since has cited sally swift and
used her terminology ("building blocks", "soft eyes", &c).
i did attend a centered-riding-for-icelandics clinic a few weeks ago,
but i confess the best new thing i learned there was the opening rein,
which i don't recall as a "centered riding basic" (although it may be in
there somewhere; i haven't read the book now in two years or so).
--vicka
