The Western Dressage world is abuzz with dressage talk. The hot topic of the moment seems to be progressive training, especially as it has to do with pyramids and scales. Pyramids are extremely stable structures that rely on strong, broad foundations and which rise to a point, a pinnacle if you will that represents a point of focus. Without the foundation, the pyramid loses strength. The intrinsic nature of the structure itself necessitates culmination in a point.  The pyramid is the perfect structure to help define things which need a strong base of support and which seek to obtain a specific goal, the ultimate goal which a process is designed to lead to. 

Music has scales. Scales are considered the foundation of musical genius of all kinds. Scales teach budding musicians manual dexterity, muscle memory, familiarity, chord families, note recognition and progression, key recognition and many other important fundamental skills that are needed before one becomes accomplished on any instrument. One must play Mary had a Little Lamb before Beethoven’s 5th Symphony!  Playing scales is an important exercise that classical musicians use to simply warm up once the scales have been learned. But do scales have a practical application in music? Yes, in as much as they form component parts of melodies, arpeggios, baroque trills and other musical elements that incorporate them.  But with the exception of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee” most music is not primarily composed strictly of scales. They are one tool via which we obtain mastery of an instrument and that mastery is what ultimately allows artistry to shine.

Progressive training has been described in more than one way. Christoph Hess mentioned to Linda Parelli that the German Training Scale is now 100 years old in a program I just saw on RFDTV. The USDF has put considerable energy into defining the progressive nature of dressage via the “Training Pyramid” and Col. K.A. von Ziegner described progressive training concepts as a tree in his book “The Basics.”  Classical authors have described the training process as a web of interconnected concepts and as a spiral of concepts that we use both forward and back, around and through all the time in riding.  All these models have one thing in common. They outline a conceptual system that is designed to move a horse from basic training through concepts that allow them to become riding horses. Research, experience, time, failure AND success have all colored the way we think of the progressive nature of solid training that has been shown over decades, even centuries to produce riding horses who have long, sound working lives. 

I think of the words used in these models as concepts and ideas that are as fundamental to training as playing scales was to learning classical flute.  Scales are exercises. The concepts on the pyramid are developed via exercises we do with the horses that are designed to promote and develop each concept. When we ride straight lines and big circles with our young horses, we develop rhythm and relaxation.  As we bend and straighten the forward moving horse, we develop balance which in turn requires increased activity to maintain. As we activate the hind legs we increase the horses desire to stretch forward and seek contact, thus developing and solidifying connection. The foundation that was laid early (rhythm, relaxation and balance) must be maintained as part of each successive concept. Smaller bending figures begin to develop suppleness which is further developed by lateral work that in turn develops better balance, engagement, and impulsion. When combined with transitions between and within each gait, these exercises ultimately lead to the concepts of both the true collection and maximum expression each horse is capable of producing.  All the time we are moving the horse back and forth through the concepts on the pyramid, up and down the scale of training, so that if we lose suppleness, we can go back and re-establish relaxation and thereby regain rhythm, relaxation, balance, contact and connection while we re-establish that suppleness.  When we work horses this way, a very particular way of going is cultivated, one that is beautiful, relaxed, balanced and that produces a horse that is truly a responsive, willing partner.  When accomplished in a stock saddle, a Western Dressage horse.

When we understand the exercises and understand how the exercises bring about the existence of the concepts, we understand that the pyramid itself is the conceptual map for training as well as a gauge of the quality of our training. It is much like mastering scales so that we can make music. By trying to understand both the exercises and the concepts and then the dynamic relationship between the two, we may hope eventually, to develop some mastery. In mastery, there is art, regardless of the type of saddle the horse wears.

I welcome your input regarding anything you have read in this blog, your rescue horse’s story as well as your western dressage story at mbinder@northamericanwesterndressage.

Michelle Binder is the founder of the Relational Riding Academy. Relational Riding is a program that utilizes dressage as fundamental training for all horses performing in all disciplines. She has been an ARIA certified Instructor since 1989. She is currently working on her second book “Relational Riding: A Horsemanship Tutorial,” and has completed work on two professional video productions, “Any Horse, Any Rider: Relational Riding: A Universal Foundation” and "Understand Riding From the Ground Up."