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What Lightness Is Not - And What It Is.
Horsemanship is certainly one of the most difficult things to teach. Some people would like the instructor to give them formulas, or recipes, or programs, so that they could have it made the easy way. But how boring would horsemanship be, if it could be reduced to a list of programs? Fortunately, our horses are constantly challenging us, proposing to us new riddles, provoking our thoughts at a deeper and deeper level.
Although there can be no formula, or recipe, or program to find one's way out of a labyrinth, there sometimes is a thread of Ariadne. The Ariadne's thread to find our way out of this maze which is horsemanship, is lightness. Lightness is the "Open, Sesame" of the horse's schooling.
But one must know what lightness is about.
And first, what it is not about. Lightness is not abandoning the horse. Lightness is leaving the horse at liberty on parole after he has been given the position and the action. In other words, lightness comes after, although it is a prerequisite; seems paradoxical.
Lightness, considered as the whole process of positioning the horse first, and then leaving him alone, is certainly a prerequisite to any movement, because balance fosters movement, and not the other way around, or, as would say Baucher, "position precedes action."
But since that whole process, in the beginning, implies an action from the rider, and since, depending on the circumstances, the horse and the state of advancement of his training, this action may require strength (the action always matches the resistance of the horse), lightness considered as the result of the whole process, that is the absence of effort, the horse keeping his balance on the weight of the reins, this lightness comes after. Clear? I hope.
In other words, if before the horse's yielding, you had twenty grams in the hands, and if, after the horse's yielding, you still have twenty grams in the hands, you ride heavy. But if, before the horse's yielding, you had one English ton in the hands, and if, upon the horse's yielding, you have zilch, you ride light.
I certainly meet in the clinics I give all around the USA well intended riders who ride with no hands at all; and their horses are generally all sprawled out, stiff in their poll, disengaged in their rear end, dragging their feet. This is not lightness.
And then, I ride their horse and after a period of preparation which may last up to twenty minutes, I give them collection, and I keep
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