Dressage – How do you learn what you need to learn?

You only really know something when you know it in all the ways there are to know it. Alexandra Bruggisser reports on her first lesson with Clemens Dierks…

Never before have I ended my holidays with homework!! But after a weekend clinic with Clemens Dierks I find I need to put Harry Potter aside and concentrate on The Principles of Riding.

I know elite sports demand not only qualities like perseverance and talent but also a large base of technical content, critical to the top performance of an athlete. Elite Equestrian pursuits are no different. I have decided they are even more complex due to the difficult task of communicating with our partnered athlete, our horse.

My coach, Erica Henderson, seemed to have given up encouraging me to have lessons with other people so that I could learn from their different perspectives. It was one of those things that I had been meaning to look into, but never quite got round to. I am quite within my comfort zone in my fortnightly lessons especially having had a few successes lately and the opportunity never seemed to come up. However, following a chance wash-bay conversation at a competition where I met Carolyn Begg I found myself enrolled in a clinic with Clemens Dierks, packing the truck again and heading off to Taree some four hours drive away. Anticipation always seems to make a journey feel longer and as Dad and I drove the time really did seem to drag (and there were still two sleeps until the final Harry Potter would be released).

Our arrival at Carolyn Begg’s, Wallaby Park, (where the namesakes bound around unperturbed by their four legged friends) is welcomed with a fantastic dinner of lamb shanks – “Clemens has been lifting the pot lid and keeping an eye on them all day,” Carolyn informed me. With so much conversation over food I realised Clemens was in fact another typical male as much interested in his stomach as I was in him as an Olympian producing Reitmaster. I felt quite comfortable until he asked me “So, can you ride?” How do you respond to that!?? I eventually stammered something like “I guess you will see tomorrow.” Oh dear, why did I tell him my first lesson was on my five year old Thoroughbred… “I am teaching a Thoroughbred!” Oh and thanks Dad for telling him I’d like my lessons in German!

Next day, my first lesson is on Will. I am in trouble already and we have barely started!

“Just keep walking, halt in front of me. Side on, so that I see you side on. Take your feet out of your stirrups. OK. Put your feet back… hang on… without lifting your knee up, because where your knee is now, that’s the perfect position for your leg. If you have to lift up your knee by picking up the stirrups then they are too short because your knees come over the front of the saddle flap. Just put your feet back. And you have to basically keep your lower leg down.”

“All right now there is one more problem, your seat. How old are you, eighteen? Nineteen, and you are already hunched like a grandmother… shoulders back, upper arms vertical… and your hands 4 inches away of your tummy. That brings your elbows back, that brings your shoulders back and that allows you to use your back to drive. Because your back is part of your driving aids. You know your driving aids? Legs, back, weight – these three make up your seat. And you cannot use it properly if you do not sit properly, you see? Auf Deutsch deine Rücken muss angespannt sein, your back must be braced.”

Figuring there is little point in dismay, I memorise this textbook version of how the position must be. Later in the lesson Clemens says: “Your seat is very good now, I think I must have looked at the wrong moment because you cannot improve this quickly,” and my heart leaps with joy.

I encourage big steps and Will loosens up.

“Ride forward, always impulsion, but not running… Ride a little more into the corners.”

At some stage through the warm-up Clemens took over and the exercises began in earnest: “C down centreline, leg yielding right back to P. Your horse moves off your right leg moving to the left. Only flexed, not bent. The horse is flexed to the inside. Forehand is leading, forehand a bit more in front, a bit more flexion in the poll. That was good.”

His constant explanations correcting me as soon as I made an error and simultaneously guiding me through what was expected, produce a wonderful state of mind. It was an amazing sensation as I lost myself and my nervousness in what felt like seamless learning.

Back to Earth.

“The only other thing is you must turn down the centreline, you always overshoot the centreline. Do it again, if you cannot do it in training you cannot do it in a test… You must be more precise. Now turn exactly precise that you get on the centreline and not after. It’s hard you know. And now I am not happy. Turn left, turn left and start again because the hindquarters were leading. What you do is come down the centreline and continue the turn and look to P and only when your shoulder is leading you start your leg yielding. Because you had your hindquarters leading. Inside leg, inside leg. Mmm… Ooohh, shoulder more in front, ok you try too hard. We do it again and this time you ride to P. No leg yielding just continue the turn to P. Little bit more impulsion, forward, good. Keep riding to P… Now leg yielding, right flexion, there forward… Now bigger strides. See how that was better – you didn’t drift to the right.”

Having put us through our paces for a good ten minutes Clemens asked what level Will was at. This was the stage I had been dreading as not only was I worried that I would make a fool of myself, as I am also fairly green, especially where higher level movements are concerned, but also because we had a competition the following weekend. Reluctantly I admitted that we were schooling changes and other medium work but that I would prefer not to do changes as he gets quite tense and they are still a little wild. Clemens seemed to accept this and to my relief we moved on.

Quick to pick up on our weaknesses, “I couldn’t really see a medium trot, has your horse got a medium trot? (“Not very good”) Have you ever tried? (“Yes”) Have a go, deep into the corner, extend the hind legs, more up and move, more, more, come back and go again let’s have a look at it. Up, now give a little bit and push more…”

“What you have to do in this case, is go fast, they can only go so fast and then they have to suspend, and that slows them down. You can’t hold them to stop them running, you have to push more than you hold so that they can extend… It doesn’t matter that he canters at the moment. This horse could have a medium trot, it just hasn’t been ridden out yet.”

Picking up on our problem areas immediately Clemens finally expressed an interest in what happened in our changes.

“I personally would love to see what he does when you do a flying change. And I personally would love to see how you do a flying change.”

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and before I knew what was happening, and seduced by the confidence Clemens was exuding, I listened and flowed with the instructions.

“First no increase of speed… then when you do the change your new outside rein has to keep the neck dead straight, your new inside rein can allow the flying change basically. Your new outside leg comes behind your girth… and then don’t try to flex him right in front, keep the neck dead straight – that’s where your outside rein comes into it and with your new outside leg you try to push the hind leg a little bit to the right as if you want to ride suddenly in travers right.”

“Change on the diagonal. Keep a perfect straight line… it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t change I just don’t want an increase of speed… Now hold your left rein very firm, take your left leg back and push the hind leg right…. Okay, when he doesn’t change, don’t keep asking for change, because that’s what stirs the horse up… that he didn’t change is not a problem because that indicates no reaction to what you want, the problem is that he increased the speed which I told you not to do.”

“Now we do it a little different this time. E, like Emu, turn left and ride a dead straight line to B. Bit more collection, slow him, down, left leg very firm… okay give him a pat, that’s enough changes but I can see he will have not a problem with it if you do it right.”

Not that I ever expected Clemens to love Will as much as I do, and especially because of his initial reservation about my Thoroughbred, I was ecstatic after my lesson when he said “This horse is actually a good horse… once he is through his camel first ten minutes”.

For my last lesson with Clemens he insisted it be “On your good horse” – he means Harry, my four year old Hanoverian by Anamour (bred at Dalwin Park). Clemens took a different approach to the lesson with a younger, immature horse concentrating on improving the quality of the pace and transitions.

In the trot “Forward, impulsion, not running” and “Even, always even”. In the trot/canter transitions Harry went to come above the vertical and… “OK, just, a little rounder, wait, now over bend him a little on purpose, then give. Better give him a pat. Whenever anything is good, you give him a pat. But if it’s wrong then you repeat. Then, it was your fault… to a degree but he’s only just learning.”

On with the training scale Clemens explains to me how the first three Rhythm/Beat (Tact), Looseness (Losgelassenheit) and Contact work together.

“That’s all there, with the losgelassenheit, there are a few tense moments as he looks around, then he’s tense not loose. The contact and the rhythm… still needs work because every movement against contact changes the beat… all three principles… are one item, one cannot be done without the other one. You get horses where you first get contact, then the rhythm improves.”

Harry tends to come behind the vertical as he is very soft and I find it difficult to keep him out on a steady contact. Clemens’ explanation that a horse can only be jammed if it is pulling, hit home and helped me stay conscious of encouraging him to carry himself.

For me this was a perfect example of how the same concept explained with different words seems revolutionary. I am sure I have heard the same thing at least a dozen times but in these words it felt like I was hearing it for the first time and it made sense in a different way. I understood another perspective.

For six months I have been battling to make this big, leggy baby control his massive stride and maintain his expression. My new insight into self-carriage and Clemens’ insistence on: “Back, back, back more” and “Push more… you had two desserts last night you should be strong enough!” helped his canter and frame compress and his new collection felt soft and coiled like a spring.

Even now several days after the clinic his trot is more engaged and I can collect his canter, so something stuck with me.

Again we finished on a high note and with equal pride I heard the once frightening Reitmaster exclaim… “I cannot fault this horse… I should take this horse home to Judy.”

It had been an intense two days but we got through and even though I felt more than a little hopeless at times as I waffled explanations to his questions (often being a little creative in my responses). Clemens was not discouraged by my faltering, as he put it “I don’t have a problem that you don’t know, if no one has ever told you how should you know? …but next time I come I expect you to have read the book (The Principles of Riding) and then you will know.”

Back at home Harry Potter will have to wait, he may help me weave magic, but next time I see Clemens I can’t be off with the fairies.

Dierks, Clemens