Part 1 - The Path to the Beginning
I’m sure many of us can remember that one teacher from high school or that one college professor who’s passion for the subject and personal charisma were so compelling that they enlivened a spark within us that has never since completely extinguished. Sometimes it’s not the teacher’s love for their craft or area of expertise that’s inspiring, but their ability to see us -that is to know us; and an innate ability on their part to understand how to bring us to new heights of self knowledge, to be a facilitator for the development of talents or personal desires which we ourselves may not have even known were there. When we encounter someone like this our lives can be completely transformed, as our own innate creativity is enlivened. I’ve had the unique fortune to have found just such a person in Sylvia Loch.
When I first became interested in Dressage I was fortunate to have the opportunity to co-own a Grand Prix schoolmaster that no one else seemed to want, probably due to his age and breeding (he was a 20 yo. Arab-Appaloosa Cross). I lessoned regularly with the best instructors in my area, as well as with well known clinicians. I owe a debt of gratitude for all that I learned, but I craved for more. I had several young horses I was training and I quickly learned that when one of my horses seemed unable to ‘learn’ something new, either I was inadvertently blocking my horse with my own body, my aids were slightly mistimed, or I had simply asked the horse for something it was not yet physically ready for. I became obsessed with perfecting a correct seat and the coordination of my aids. I found that when I was correct, my horses were able to follow my lead, much like a sensitive dance partner.
In clinics, the focus was mostly on ‘making’ my horse do this or that. Instruction was often contradictory from one clinician to the next, and when I’d ask questions to clarify my understanding, I received no real answers.I began reading and watching video, and soon came across Sylvia Loch. Her love and respect for horses were obvious. She explained with logic and clarity what seemed too complicated to put into words. She used mental images that help the rider visualize the biomechanics of balance. Unedited video of her schooling younger horses as well as her schoolmasters, showed me not just what the ideal looked like, but addressed the training issues that actually came up in my own riding. Later when I began to teach, I gained much from watching the segments of her lessons with more novice riders, and I found myself using exercises and images directly from her videos in my own lessons.
I decided I must go and study with her in person, and I contacted her and made arrangements. I have to say, if I anticipated finally gaining clarification to all the questions that constantly swirled in my mind, and if I had hoped to refine and advance my riding, the reality far exceeded expectation. It was like a door had been opened, beyond which was clarity. The muddled bits of information in my head were becoming connected. With Sylvia's two schoolmasters as 'co-teachers', I began to comprehend and to 'feel' what the underlying principles of dressage were. After I returned home, I would ride in a clinic with one of our Olympians, and found it no longer mattered that the instructor was such a talented rider that they were unable to explain precisely in words the how or why of what they were hoping to see in my lesson. I could examine the exercise or correction myself and now knew what its purpose was based on what I had learned from Sylvia. Not only that, but I began to examine everything through the filter of what I had learned in Scotland. The horse is always right, and as the years went by I realized that what Sylvia taught always turned out to be correct for my horses. They will always tell you if you have taught them in a way that they can understand and that has lasting benefit, or if you are attempting to force them into a machine-like compliance.
I think of dressage almost as a means of training myself, rather than my horse. When I have mastered myself (my own ego), then I can engage with my horse in a way that allows me to be a facilitator for my horse’s own expression of his natural beauty. But, I am also a mass of physical and spiritual energy sitting on top of another mass of physical and spiritual energy (10 times my size). The biomechanics of a human sitting on a quadriped are also technical. If you add to this the asymmetries inherent in all living beings, and the differences of temperament and conformation in horses and people, there becomes an infinite number of minute adjustments to the baseline of the fundamental principles - dressage takes quite a bit of technical skill. True, it is not until the technical skill becomes internalized to the point that we merely ‘are’ and no longer think of ‘how to be’ that we are really riding, but the technical skill must be there first. I decided I needed to return to Scotland for more study.
I noticed that Sylvia had just begun a Classical Instructors Certification Program through CRC. I wrote to her and asked her if she would consider accepting me. My deepest hope was not only to gain this knowledge and skill for myself, but to pass it on to others - like a precious heirloom handed down through generations. I think every one of us who becomes involved with horses does so because of the horse’s noble inner beauty and deeply intuitive and emotive nature. Owners long to bond with their horses and to express this bond by being united with them in ‘dance’ . When I attend competitions and see some competitors attempting to ride horses through domination and aggressive use of hands and legs, I realize these kind and serious horse owners may find they have no one to learn from. I wanted to do for others what Sylvia had done for me, and hopefully help a few horses along the way.
Sylvia responded positively to my aspirations, and said she was inclined to want to help me, but with the caveat that it is quite a commitment to take on a new apprentice. She wanted to watch the recent video I sent of myself and would make a final decision. I think I must have been like a schoolgirl waiting for a college admissions letter, checking my e-mail daily with bated breath. Finally she got back with me - not only was the answer a yes, it was an unequivocally enthusiastic yes! I should interject, I am now middle aged and more or less immune to the vicissitudes of praise, but I have to say, I was literally walking on a cloud for weeks. When I came down, I realized with some sobriety that I too now had a serious obligation. For Sylvia to devote so much time and energy for my education and development, she too hoped to gain something - a vehicle to pass on what she herself had labored to learn so the art of dressage may remain alive long after its masters have left us. I felt quite a sense of responsibility and took seriously the confidence she placed in me.
Part 2 posted July 3rd, 2012
