Article de M. d'Orgeix dans la bulletin n°1/Artic
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M. d\'Orgeix s\'imagine juge de dressage et expose qu\'il mettrait la plus haute note pour un piaffer "de métronome" accompli par un cheval encapuchonné. Il donne cet exemple - si je l\'ai bien compris - pour illustrer sa conviction qu\'en compétition, on juge seulement un résultat.
C\'est vrai pour l\'obstacle : la barre tombe ou ne tombe pas. Si elle ne tombe pas parce que, le matin même, le cheval a été sauvagement barré et qu\'il lève les membres en conséquence, quelle importance qu\'il soit complétement sur les épaules ?
En dressage par contre, il y a les actions - un passage, un piaffer, une extension au trot et tant d\'autres - et il y a les états : ce cheval est-il en avant ? Est-il engagé ? Est-il léger ? S\'incurve-t-il bien : ici l\'action rejoint l\'état car une bonne volte suppose une bonne incurvation en acte. La distinction que j\'opère n\'est pas une séparation mais cette distinction est fort importante car - tous les lecteurs approuveront -
le premier travail du cavalier est de mettre son cheval dans les états convenables. Les actions viennent ensuite en conséquence.
Or si le dressage est inexistant en France dans les clubs où les cavaliers pourraient en prendre le goût, c\'est que l\'état des chevaux n\'intéresse personne et les actions remplissent les reprises d\'école; inévitablement avec des tractions de main qui gâtent définitivement l\'esprit et les aides des cavaliers. Nous pourrions donner chacun des exemples navrants de malheureuses jeunes filles - à ce niveau tous les cavaliers sont des cavalières - qui, pendant des années, le mercredi, le samedi et pendant les stages des vacances, manipulent des chevaux qui ne sont pas en avant, ne sont pas engagés, ne s\'incurvent pas.
Mais elles les tordent indéfiniment- sur l\'ordre de moniteurs cyniques, lassés ou incompétents - et cela se momme "hanches à l\'intérieur, épaule en dedans, appuyé, reculer" et alia hujus modi. Quand le cheval personnel arrive, c\'est le même régime et en avant pour le concours complet. Les résultats sont terrifiants : on voit des femmes de quarante ans qui depuis toujours - et sans imaginer autre chose - essaient de truquer leurs propres montures avec des effets de rêne.
Je crois donc que le chevalier d\'Orgeix - pour lui donner avec sympathie le nom qu\'il portait dans sa jeunesse avant son mariage - se trompe dans sa supposition et que le suivre serait nuisible à l\'équitation de dressage, Ce sont les états du cheval qu\'il faut privilégier surtout au bas de l\'échelle. Le reste nous sera donné par surcroît.
Olivier Collomb
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About article by Mr. d\'Orgeix in Newsletter n°1
Mr. d\'Orgeix imagines that he was a dressage judge and says that he would give the highest score to a piaffe with "metronome" regularity performed by an overbent horse. If I understood him properly, he gives this example to convey his belief that in competition, one judges only the result.
It is true in jumping: the bar falls or it does not. If it does not fall it is because, the same morning, the horse has been savagely barred and lifts his legs accordingly, does it matter that he is totally on the shoulders?
On the other hand, in dressage, there are the movements - a passage, a piaffe, an extension at the trot and so many more - and there are the conditions: is this horse forward? Is he engaged? Is he light? Does he bend properly : here the movement is combined with the condition since a good volte assumes a correct bend in its execution. The distinction I make is not a separation but it is a very important distinction since - all the readers will approve - the first duty of the rider is to place his horse in suitable conditions. Then the movements ensue accordingly.
If dressage does not exist in France in the clubs where the riders could acquire an affinity for it, it is because the conditions in which the horses executes the movements are nobody\'s concern and the lessons are filled with movements; inevitably using pulls with the hand that spoils definitively the mentality and the aids of the riders. We could mention each of the sad examples of poor young girls - at this level all the riders are female riders - that, for many years, on Wednesday, Saturday and during summer training programs, handle horses that are not forward, are not engaged, do not bend.
But they twist them endlessly - under the command of cynical, bored and incompetent instructors - and this is called "haunches in, shoulder in, half pass, backing" and "alia hujus modi". When they get their own horse, it is the same process heading for eventing. The results are horrifying: we see 40 year-old women who have always tried - without considering anything else - to trick their own mounts with reins actions.
Thus, I believe that "Chevalier" d\'Orgeix - to call him by the name he had when he was young before his wedding - is wrong in is assumption and that following him would be detrimental to dressage equitation. It is especially at the bottom of the ladder that we must be taught to give priority to the importance of the conditions the horse executes the movements. The rest will be given to us on top of it.
Olivier Collomb
(par Olivier Collomb)
bonjour, je suis entièrement d\'accord avec votre point de vue. Je ne connais pas assez la méthode d\'Orgeix pour participer au débat, en revanche, vous avez évoqué la difficulté d\'intéresser les cavaliers au dressage. Effectivement je faisais partie des cavaliers qui ne s\'y intéressaient pas, pour la seule raison qu\'on ne m\'en a jamais expliqué l\'utilité ! C\'est depuis que j\'ai acquis un petit cheval bourré de défauts que je me suis creusé la tête et pioché dans les livres pour développer l\'art du dressage.
A présent que je suis une mordue d\'art équestre, mon souci serait d\'enseigner l\'équitation depuis le galop 1 en apprenant que "provoquer l\'impulsion, c\'est provoquer le bien-être du cheval au travail". Mais cela me fend le coeur de passer mes galops avec un enseignement "à côté de la plaque". Connaissez-vous des clubs où l\'on arrête d\'utiliser la force au détriment du tact ? Je sais que c\'est chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin, mais au moins j\'aurais essayé.
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Hello, I am in total agreement with your point of view. I do not know well enough the method of C. d\'Orgeix to participate to the debate, however, you have mentioned the difficulty to develop the interest of riders for dressage. Actually I belonged to the group of riders that had no interest for it, only because no one ever explained its usefulness to me! It is only after I bought a small horse full of bad habits that I thought hard about what to do and dug in the books ways to develop the art of dressage.
Now that I am enthusiastic about equestrian art, my concern would be to teach equitation as early as \'galop 1\' to learn that "provoking impulsion, is provoking the well being of the horse at work". But it breaks my heart to get my \'galops\' with an education that "misses the point". Do you know some clubs where they stop using force at the expense of tact? I know that is looking for a needle in a hay stack, but at least I tried.
(par Caroline Robin)
Returning from a trip, I read dear sir your intervention regarding my article in the letter n°1 d\'Allege-Ideal.
I think that we are in perfect agreement on the intent if not on the way to express it.
Look first for the total suppleness of the horse that manifests itself at the poll and by the mobility of the jaw; try to have the horse light in responding as well to the actions of the hands as to the legs (otherwise impulsion would be lacking); be able to play with the balance to adjust it to each desired movement, what Baucher used to call "positioning the horse"; always bend on each curve and maintain absolute straightness between the curves; control the haunches and, maintain the poll at the highest point, be able to get them lower in order to avail to the horse the entirety of his propulsive power...
I think that we agree that this depicts any great equitation.
We differ because for me the best judging criterion lies in the possibility for the rider to be able to demonstrate to which point he may "control the muscular forces of the horse".
Since rightfully, if the rider does not have a supple control of the entire mass, he will not be able to practice an equitation of truly high level.
You compare it with jumping. Let me tell you that there, in my opinion, you are wrong. You believe that we can obtain results in "barring" horses? Not at all! Barring in my opinion is make belief.
If the horse is, like you say "poorly engaged", or in technically faulty conditions, he will not, even if he wants it, avoid making some mistakes.
I guarantee you that watching a high level competition course, we can almost always predict ahead of time when a rider will cause a fault; that because the technical conditions in which his horse moves make it quasi unavoidable.
If, in "dressage" we would honor again the "great airs" from way back, the riders would be forced to practice a high quality equitation to be able to perform them.
If all the great international jumpers ride light today it is because it is the only way their horses have their whole potential at the take off.
I would like to see a "dressage" rider who could perform a true passage while backing, high and cadenced (I go back to that move because it seems to be a key stone of academic equitation), or backing at the canter, that would not be performed in lightness with a horse whose poll wouldn\'t be at the highest point. I want to see that!
In my opinion the error the dressage officials make is exactly to reduce the difficulties in the tests and of the moves (now we accept that a horse may "MOVE FORWARD" in piaffe!!!). This way we allow a lesser quality equitation to get some results thanks to...human judgments.
Since on this subject, after witnessing too many examples during my life, I cannot give any credit to human subjectivity, even in very good faith. Let\'s look at an example:
The Jousseaume, Watel, Lesage or others Saint-Phalle, to mention only the most recent ones were SITTING in their saddles and their legs came down vertically. Today, the rider must be "balanced on his ischium", the thigh coming down vertically thus with the lower part of the leg going back.
In the old days the arms came down naturally and the hands were very near the body of the rider. Today the hands must be forward thus on shorter reins; e.g., I know a young rider who got a low score in a test because "she had her reins too long"... (!!!?)
Therefore today a Jousseaume, a Saint-Phalle would have poor scores for their position...!
Understand that if I resume talking about "old riders", it is not by a religious respect for the past. I would not do it if the academic equestrian art had evolved and gave us today an increasingly more beautiful equitation. But unfortunately - and that\'s the truth that no one likes to talk about that should be proclaimed and known... if we want at least SERVE dressage equitation ... - it is nowadays, absolutely the ONLY sportive discipline that has regressed during the last 50 years. All the sports, all human activities have progressed, only ONE: dressage, whose participants today cannot any longer perform the "airs" achieved by the old riders. It seems to me that if we like and respect equestrian art, we must investigate and understand its reasons.
In jumping, a nation that unquestionably does not have the same results than 20 years ago: the USA.
Since they practice a lot of "hunter" competitions for which the ranking is set according to judges scores relating to "position", "style", etc.
But obviously these scores do not correspond absolutely to the realities of jumping equitation.
Be aware against human judgments, often influenced by specific criteria, and especially the "fads"... that tend to alter as time goes by.
This is why I wrote, causing your upset, that IF I would see a rider perform a remarkable piaffe on an overbent horse, I would give him a good score. Personally, I do not think that it is possible to execute great"airs" if the poll is not at the highest point.
But if a rider demonstrates to me the contrary could I have the right to condemn him because the "form" is not correct?
This is actually what many modern dressage judges do when they watch uniquely the "form" that they have arbitrarilly set instead of adopting only as judging criterion the "facts": the precision, the quality, the elegance with which a competitor executes each movement.
And unfortunately I believe that this way they do not serve the great academic equitation that the dressage tests must preserve and even contribute to its degradation .
(par Jean d'Orgeix/ translation)
autre personne, heureuse d´avoir mangé des pâtes avec vous, dans sa vie, engagée dans le même combat, pour défendre avec ses moyens, en premier sa Femme, ses Enfants, etc...
(par vous savez qui)
Allège Ideal
If I understand you correctly the assumption of C. dÓrgeix is that there can be a certain objective standard in dressage competion?
You think that is not so, and that the attempt would be detrimental to dressage equitation.
Especially at low levels.
My own experience from judging is not long, but I have thought a lot about the method. An objective standard seems a faraway goal, and the movement versus condition difficulty is very real./Margareta W ( in Sweden)
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Si je vous comprends correctement l\'acceptation du C. dÓrgeix est-elle qu\'il peut y a une certaine norme objective dans le competion de dressage?
Vous pensez qui ne sont pas aussi, et qui la tentative serait nuisible à l\'equitation de dressage. Particulièrement aux niveaux bas.
Ma propre expérience de juger n\'est pas longue, mais j\'ai pensé beaucoup à la méthode. Une norme objective semble un but lointain, et le mouvement contre la difficulté de condition est très vrai. Margareta W (en Suede - translation par Babelfish....)
(par Margareta Westlin)