April 2007 - Essai about teaching - P. Farnault

Posted Sun, 09/10/2011 - 18:42

    Editorial  Avril 2007          Essai about teaching

from Mr Philippe FARNAULT, translated by Ms Jane MITCHELL

      “A teacher holds the same rank as father”. This Chinese proverb speaks of the bond between master and student.

      “Love seems to be the intangible quality that separates the great from the not so great. The greatest quality a horseman can possess is that of being humane.” George Morris

      These two quotes powerfully describe the state of mind required in a teacher, who remembers his own experience as a student, and in the student of any level.
 
       It is a clear responsibility of the instructor to link learning to ride with the well being of the horse in the mind of his young rider.  This allows the student, at a later stage, to evaluate his own work by observing the effects of his actions on the horse. Guiding the student toward such a state of being demands of the instructor a profound and supported understanding of his art.
 
      The rigours of such an education don’t leave room for ideas that unconsciously reduce the quality of transmission of equestrian knowledge. For example the idea that a horse needs support in order to muscle his back is not acceptable in a method whose goals are to develop the horse in lightness.
 
      The need to believe in something can lead to the illusion of knowledge and it is important to avoid a bias that might insidiously re-define tradition. Since “it is preferable to teach a virtue than to condemn a vice”, let us not criticize but let us oversee that the teaching of equitation creates the necessary conditions for working a horse in the correct way.
 
      For instance, a condition that interests all levels is that the horse when released from the restrictions of the rider is naturally supple. The ability of the rider to follow the movement of the horse (particularly the forward movement) seems to be one of the keys to suppleness.
 
      Recognition of this is important at all levels. For his part, the student takes responsibility for developing his own acquisition of autonomy and the knowledgeable teacher trusts that if his student consistently avoids restricting the movement, lightness in the hand becomes inevitable (a consequence).

      The teacher helps the student discover that working a horse while respecting his forward movement is the first sensation of freedom he can transmit to his horse.
 
      With pleasure, the instructor then guides his student in the discovery of the harmony he is creating. He unveils for his student the formative role the behaviour of the rider has for the horse: his following and adjustment to the movements of the horse are the base of his communication in a “community of impulsions”.

      I will also mention the importance of the “impulsion” of the rider which is often neglected in teaching. The horse will mix and mimic the rider’s way of going thinking it is what he is being asked to do.
 
      This approach to teaching and riding is not habitual for riders who would like to think it’s never their fault…  Instruction must awaken riders to observe and qualify the effects of their actions in their attempts to develop their “loyal companion”.  The benevolence of man begins with the notion of adjusting his body in response to the movement of the horse in order to make the horse’s job easier.
 
      A great distance is covered in understanding this essential principle of equitation.
 
      Man, “rider” and horse, “loyal companion” can both begin to serve lightness in knowing it’s source.
 
       May the party begin!