"This is what classical riding represents, throwing light into darkness, order into chaos - finding through classical dressage theory and practice and above all, FEEL - the answers to all those questions. It's so logical!

Once you open yourself to knowledge, things change. The more you question, the more answers you receive. The more you seek, the more self-fulfilling the quest. Things start to happen. It's not just your riding, your whole attitude is changing. You're in touch with your body, with Nature, with the greater scheme of things. Is there someone out there helping? Perhaps..."
Sylvia Loch

While there may be many negatives out there when it comes to dressage from riders who have learned not to have fun -- boring, feeling inadequate from poor instructors -- dressage in reality offers us so much more!

Dressage offers us "the light". The light, the something more that we all truly want from our horses.

Have you ever gazed in admiration at the beauty of horses galloping out in the pasture, watched horses jumping -- the beauty, the power so absolute? Remembering when you were a little child, you dreamed endlessly of beautiful horses, so proud, so free, so incredibly beautiful?

Have you ever watched a stallion challenge the world, prancing in his corral, the wind furling his mane in the wind like a flag of the castles of days gone by, his nostrils flared, drinking in the wind?

Is this what you see, when you look in your arena where you ride?

Is this what you feel when you ride?

Chances are probably not.

You see riding that is forced, tense, strong. Holding on, pushing the horse up with whip and spur, cavessons tight, horse's head bowed in submission, but never raised in pride.

How sad is that?

Does riding in the arena transport you to a place where you feel you could be that Bedouin chief on his prize stallion challenging the desert, as he rears and challenges the sky?

Think of the pride, of the power, of the beauty that we know resides in each and every horse. Is that what you are riding?

Dressage, good dressage, basic dressage, can provide you with "the light", provide you with the tools for you to find, that fierce pride, that joy in just being alive, that we can find together with our horses.

There are days I wish I could find another word besides dressage. It seems to have left such a bad taste in so many people's mouths. Today we hear, I've decided I just want to have fun, so.. I'm giving up dressage.

Whoever said dressage wasn't fun has not experienced all that dressage was really meant to be..

It is the basics of everything we can do, and what we want to do with our horses. Creating a synergy between two that empowers both of us. Or it can...

Maybe it is time to start a new vision of dressage, one that has always been there, but one that we seem to have lost somewhere along the way. But maybe together we can find our way back towards the light.