Susan Medenica: On the Lighter Side Variations on “The Master’s Leg”

In sports other than dressage, the leg is used in rather ordinary ways. It is an appendage for walking, running, lifting, jumping, gliding over ice and snow, and kicking. These are simple manoeuvres that we accomplish early in life.

In dressage, however the leg must be educated. It becomes the paramount appendage for sending wishes to our horses. The leg is so important, in fact that a recent dressage tack catalo festooned its cover with nothing but a breached and booted leg. NO head. No torso. Just a leg! The title of the drawings was “The Leg Of The Master,” and it certainly was a nice one. Its serenity belied the fact that at any given time, it could be called upon to push, hold, energize, pulsate, grab, squeeze, clamp, drive, or clutch. The leg does move in a mysterious ways,



Just like the leg of the horse which we scrutinize so carefully, the leg of the human represents wide differentiations from the norm. These are skeletal differences, so the experts tell us, but for our purposes, distinguishing features have to be described to tell us what is actually going on with this all-important limb. We need pictures to impress us with our own variety.

It is generally agreed upon that the quiet leg is the goal of all riding, but what happens along the way to that goal?