Leonie Bramall talks about positive tension, is keeping the rhythm, an important  part of it?
“It also relates to balance. It is not one thing – THE BASICS – it is a combination of balance with the rhythm, with the riders possibly being an interfering part of balance and rhythm. So it is teaching the rider to hook up into those concepts, and keep up with the horse.”

Tell me about balance, are we talking self-carriage?

“It’s a relative self-carriage. A very young horse in a longer frame can be in self-carriage, a horse in a piaffe can be in self-carriage, in an extreme amount of collection. It has to do with the balance, and for me, the balance has to do with the quality of the pressure within the horse’s own body, that we influence positively or negatively.”

Isabell Werth and Welcome at the World Cup in Stockholm

“Balance is for me is a three dimensional phase that I am trying to push into. So I have longitudinal balance which is from the tail to the ears – which is a young horse, – then I have to start teaching that young horse lateral balance, which is like moving from a leg yield sideways, then I start to combine longitudinal and lateral balance, which is where I get the idea of pushing the horse into the third dimension.

Isabell at home with Satchmo

And competing at Aachen

I am not just looking at a flat television screen, but I am seeing the horse like a bow that I can push up through the withers, that’s the highest balance point, up through the withers, and then I bend him within that and he stays up in the withers in the bend.”

And with one of her current stars, Bella Rose

“That is for example what happens when Isabell Werth does that amazing half pass with her horses, that we all love, she just lifts up through the withers and the carrying power behind is transferred all the way through and allowed to swing through the front end – that is the epitome of that longitudinal and lateral balance at the same moment.”

https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2016/02/talking-dressage-with-leonie-bramall/