Welcome to the first of a series of articles in which I interview the well-known German veterinarian Dr. Gerd Heuschmann, who’s also the author of Tug of War: Classical versus “Modern” Dressage.
Driven
by his passion for helping the dressage world to become more aware of the
terrible damage being done to horses in today’s competitive riding circuit,
Heuschmann has become an international speaker and teacher on the biomechanics
of the horse.
Heuschmann’s work has been a key influence on supporting my Bentley FACT, functional anatomy correction training system, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to talk with him – and to share the experience with you.
Joni: What you say about good functional connections between the head, neck, and back in the horse was discovered 100 years ago in people by F.M. Alexander – the originator of the Alexander Technique. It’s very exciting for me as an Alexander teacher and horse trainer to see how your teachings on the biomechanics of the horse support what I’ve been saying – and doing – for 20 years.
I’m particularly interested in your theory that good training encourages the base of the horse’s neck to lift and move forwards up and out of the shoulders. That takes on the responsibility of supporting the rider’s weight, leaving the locomotion muscles free to do their work. Would you elaborate on that?
Gerd: This question is key!
Good riding creates a balanced horse. Balance means you keep the whole body working well as a unit. In this, there’s no difference between a warm blood or a quarter horse, or between an American, French, or German trainer.
The centre of movement in a horse is the back – the long back muscles are made to move the horse, not carry a rider. Yet the rider sits on the horse’s back. So we need to use different parts of the horse’s body to bring his back up into balance.
Another key, as Philippe Karl author of, “Twisted Truths of modern dressage” says, is the rider’s contact with the mouth. The back can’t be supple and the hind legs can’t step under if the mouth, poll, and neck aren’t supple. If the mouth isn’t chewing, the neck doesn’t flex laterally, and the horse won’t open his throatlatch and search for the bit. So the key is for the poll to be supple, flexible, and soft. Then you get the rest.
Joni:
As an Alexander teacher, what you’re saying is familiar. Alexander discovered
that for a human to achieve good posture, the neck must be free and allowed to
lengthen up out of the shoulders. Then the head can move forwards and up while
the back lengthens and widens in an opposing stretch down to the ground. In
developing my training techniques, I took Alexander’s approach and applied it to
horses and riders together. It’s been a powerful way of re-educating riders to
work with the way their bodies and their horses’ bodies naturally move.
Gerd: That’s right. I, like you, work with many damaged horses that have mostly draw rein experiences. They’re compressed even further by riders with stiff seats and ridged hands. I learned that if you offer a very soft contact, not caring about the head and neck position, and you try to get the hind leg with a listening seat, you can make the horse chew.
Joni: Many riders come to my workshops trying to use Philippe Karl’s technique of relaxing the jaw as described in his book and badly misinterpreting his technique. The first thing I notice is they have no awareness of how they are using their hands and how the horse is reacting in his mouth. I put this down to a short fall in our riding education. Riders need, as we both agree, to do less and feel more. To think and give the horse time and space to react.
This is the first lesson I teach on my workshops. Without this training these frustrated riders, feeling nothing is happening, start to force the horse and as Philippe said to me “then the horse defends in the mouth his whole body goes into contraction and it is all over, you may as well put the horse back in the stable.” With the horse and rider in a battle of wills I find it better to start with what you refer to as first grade of bending. To do this I use voltes. When you bend the horse with the outside rein, the voltes stretch the outside of the horse and work the inside hind. That relaxes tightness and one-sidedness, and as a natural consequence the horse starts to stretch his head and neck down to the ground, seeking the contact, softening his jaw and chewing. Then you can go on to the second-grade bending where Philippe starts. The best thing about starting with first grade bending is that you don’t have to be a very experienced rider to do this if it’s done our way, and that’s important because we need to work this way from the beginning. Philippe said to me on this subject of the mobility of the mouth that is ridiculous that trainers ignore the mobility and softness of the jaw and tongue. Many trainers get it more at the level of piaffe, but it should be at the beginning not the end of training!
Gerd: Yes! This is very similar to my training, and it’s key. And this misinterpretation you mention – it’s a big problem. When these concepts we’re describing are misinterpreted, the training doesn’t work. Then the trainers get frustrated and start forcing the horse. Many people feel that they want to work on the horse actively, and there I see a problem. In reality, the more you come forward in your own education as you are suggesting the less you need to do, not more.
Joni:
I want to tell you – your DVD “If Horses Could Speak” is a godsend. I play it
for my students at the beginning of every workshop I teach. Everyone’s in a
completely different space afterwards, and I can reach them. Before, I had
problems with riders asking me why I wasn’t putting the horse on the bit. What
they’re used to seeing, what they think is on the bit, was actually behind
the bit. So they thought they were more advanced than this, and that made them
write me off. It’s been wonderful to have you on my side, with the authority
you have as a veterinarian and an international speaker.
Gerd: There’s a story about that DVD! We expected to have a Grand Prix horse, but at the last minute we couldn’t get it. So we had all the equipment, and a cameraman, and all we had was a four-year-old who was a bit behind the bit and not through to the contact. But this is what we have every day, so in the end it worked.
You’re right, Joni. We have to create more understanding. We have to educate people and make them aware that this is important. It’s difficult because in our society the emphasis is on showmanship. But the rider has to start to feel, to wait, and to think, and not to do.
Joni: And to enjoy and love what he’s doing, and that precious relationship with the horse.
Gerd: That’s it! Do you remember the quote from Xenophon? The horse should be your friend, not your slave. I heard this from a cowboy in Montana! He needs to be your friend, and then he does everything happily for you.
Joni: In my work, the Grand Prix riders are the most challenging. They enter the arena with the horse’s head pulled in, winding the head and neck from side to side, the horse is not through its back and the quarters are weak and trailing. Then when we start to work on relaxing the jaw and mobilising the mouth, softening the horse’s back so they can step through from behind into the bit, they just can’t let go of over-domination with their hands. And this causes the horse to lock up in the mouth rendering them into slavery. Now you’ve come along as a vet, teacher and lover of horses, and people are starting to take it seriously.
These advanced riders have spent years of training and lots of money honing their technique, their horse’s position, their position as the rider. Then when we try to help them change, it’s difficult because they feel out of control – they’ve been taken away from everything they’ve known. They feel they don’t have the time to learn this new style. Like you say, they really do have time, but it’s so difficult for them to drop their ideal and let the horse work. Especially when it seems like the entire world is doing it the other way. If they took the time they would spend more time enjoying riding and less time hitting brick walls and fudging movement.
Gerd: And let the horse think! This is the problem throughout the world. We have the wrong examples.
We have to admit we really don’t ride dressage any more. The horse who won the European championships Moorlands Totilas – in a magazine in Germany, we had a big headline saying, “Welcome to the Circus.” I got an email just after the championships from a vet in the U.S. He said, can you imagine that we have circus lessons now in our Grand Prix, and they’re scoring 10s!
A hundred years ago, they said – be careful with the flying trot because you’ll harm your horse. And now it’s this flashy movement that everyone is thrilled by.
Joni: Is the flying trot when you see excessive shoulder movement like that, with poor engagement behind?
Gerd: Yes. This horse was just a leg mover, and they decided to put another layer onto it. Now they call it the flying trot, but it’s just a circus lesson. And our judges give them 10s. It’s unbelievable
Joni: Do you know anything about the soundness of that horse?
Gerd: I only know what everybody knows – he didn’t pass the first vet check and had to come back. I don’t know why he failed, but I have an idea what it must be.
Come back for next month’s article, Part II of the interview, where Gerd and
I talk about his biomechanical studies, and about his thoughts on why this horse
failed his initial veterinary check.
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