Dressage for fun

08/03/2026

Cool.

07/19/2026

The hardest thing to teach in dressage isn’t piaffe. It isn’t flying changes. It isn’t pirouettes.

It’s feel.

People often think becoming a better rider is about learning more movements or riding a higher level. Those things matter, of course, but they’re actually the easy part. I can explain how to ride a shoulder-in, where your legs go for a flying change, or the aids for a half pass.

Feel is different.

Feel is knowing whether the horse is truly in front of your leg or just moving faster.

It’s recognizing the difference between a horse that’s soft because it’s honestly carrying itself and one that’s simply dropped behind the contact.

It’s noticing the instant a horse starts to brace and knowing why… before it becomes a problem.

It’s knowing exactly when to ask for more and, even more importantly, when to leave the horse alone because you’ve already achieved what you were after.

Now, before anyone jumps in, I do think some people are naturally gifted with feel. Just like some people have a natural ear for music or an instinctive athletic ability, there are riders who seem to “get it” almost immediately.

But natural talent is only the starting point.

The rider born with incredible feel still has to refine it. The rider who wasn’t born with as much can absolutely develop it. Time in the saddle, thoughtful instruction, riding a variety of horses, paying attention to every response the horse gives, and constantly asking why all build feel over time.

And here’s the really fascinating part: feel is a moving target.

The feel that allows you to ride a Training Level test well is not the same feel required for Third Level. The feel that gets you through the early FEI levels evolves again at Grand Prix. Every horse teaches you something different. Every challenge sharpens your awareness.

No matter how experienced you become, your feel is never “finished.” It’s something you continue to refine throughout your entire riding career. In many ways, that’s what makes this sport so addictive. There’s always another layer of understanding, another subtle conversation to have with the horse.

A good coach will help you develop feel. They can point out what you missed, explain what the horse is telling you, and help sharpen your timing. But eventually, you also have to learn to recognize those moments for yourself.

The riders with the greatest feel aren’t necessarily the ones riding the fanciest movements. They’re the ones who notice the smallest changes. They appreciate the basics. They ride with curiosity, constantly listening to the horse instead of simply talking at it.

The horse is always giving you feedback.

The question is… are you learning to recognize what they’re saying?

Credit; Janine Little

05/24/2026

03/20/2026

Preparation before movement 💃

The importance of activating the deep prevertebral (muscles closest to the skeleton) before activation of the larger superficial muscles (bit of a long sciencey post but I've tried to keep it simple!).

I am referencing this information from Dr Nichole Rombach on Motor Control Based Rehabilitation for Equine Spine Dysfunction. One of the topics she discussed was the function of the deep prevertebral muscles and their importance in dynamic stability.

Bear in mind a lot of this information is still mostly anecdotal and primarily based on human studies but it is likely that similar principles apply in the horse.

Nichole explained the theory of Dynamic stability which is achieved by a combination of feed-forward ↪ and feed-back ↩actions.

Feed-forward 🧠➡🐎 action is the anticipatory function allowing deep muscles to activate before movement, they 'prepare/stabilise' the body.
Feed-back 🧠⬅🐎action responds to sensory input from mechanoreceptors, nociceptors (pain), proprioceptors and gives feedback to the brain on where the body is, and how movement should be executed.

Feed-forward and feed-back actions must function together 🔄 for optimal movement. Dysfunction may occur when feed-forward activation of the paravertebral muscles doesn't occur, therefore, communication with the feed-back action is lost...therefore stability is lost😵‍💫. When there is a lack of stability, the proprioception mechanism is affected and results in hypo (less) or hyper (more) mobility.

When deep muscles atrophy, superficial muscles tighten to compensate for the lack of stability which should be the primary role of the deep muscles. This is where we may see horses that have overdeveloped superficial muscles, such as the brachiocephalic (underdeck muscles) as they now need to work as stabilisers AND movers, which they are not designed to do (this also has to do with muscle fibre type but I won't delve into that). This is also why these muscles are often sore as they are working over time.

If you're completely lost after all of that🤯, in a nutshell, the deep skeletal muscles are important for stability💪 and need to be activated first in order to complete a larger motion. This can be achieved through slow and specific exercises which I am able to teach you during a session (shift back and rebalance is a common one I teach). Think of it as strengthening the chassis of a car so the wheels can turn and move safely and easily. Below is an image highlighting some of these larger superficial muscles and some of the paravertebral muscles in the neck.

02/10/2026

I was 4 Coke Zero's in when I asked Angela.

Not because we were hopped on caffeine and aspartame, we weren't, but because that's when conversations stop being polite and start getting strange. The kind of strange where you're suddenly debating what the opposite of dressage is at 11pm on a Tuesday in a Boston Pizza.

"Everything has an opposite," I said, gesturing with my glass. "Love and hate. Up and down. Fast and slow. Good and evil. So what's the opposite of dressage?"

She didn't even hesitate.

"Wu Wei."

I blinked. "What?"

"Wu Wei. It's this Taoist thing. Effortless action. Action through inaction." She was warming up now, the way you do when you think you've nailed something. "Dressage is all control, right? Every muscle tensed. The rider's hands and legs constantly talking to the horse, pushing it into these movements. It's beautiful, but it's... imposed. Artificial."

I was nodding, so she kept going.

"Wu Wei is the opposite. It's strategic surrender. You stop forcing. You let the natural momentum carry you. You stop talking and start listening."

She sat back. Pretty satisfied with herself.

I looked at Angela for a long second.

"You know what's crazy though?"

"What?"

"The best riders I know actually ride more like Wu Wei."

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

"Like... Wu Wei isn't the opposite of dressage," I continued. "It's the whole fu***ng point."
_______________________

I told her about watching Steffen Peters school his horses.

"When you watch him ride, it looks like he's doing nothing. Like he's just... sitting there. Barely moving. But the horse is dancing through the most difficult lines: piaffe, passage, flying changes, and it looks completely effortless. Like the horse is doing it because it wants to."

"Okay, but—"

"The beginner? The beginner is yanking and gripping and micromanaging every single stride. You can see the effort. The horse's body is tense, the rider's shoulders are up around their ears, everything is resistant."

I leaned forward.

"But the master? The master has done so much work, years of work, that the control becomes invisible. The horse isn't being forced into position anymore. The horse is offering it. Because the rider created the conditions where that movement became the place of perfect balance."

She just stared at me.

"Wu Wei isn't the opposite of dressage," I said again. "Wu Wei is what happens when you've done the work long enough that the work disappears."

___________________

I've been chewing on this for days.

Because here's the thing: I'm terrible at letting go.

I still feel like a beginner sometimes. Hands too heavy. Gripping too tight. Micromanaging every stride because I don't trust the horse, or myself, enough to just... ride.

And it can be exhausting.

I keep thinking I need to find the opposite of what I'm doing. I need to let go. I need to embrace Wu Wei. I need to stop controlling everything.

But maybe that's the wrong question.

Maybe the question isn't "How do I do the opposite?"

Maybe the question is: "Have I done enough of the hard work yet that I've earned the right to let go?"

Because effortlessness isn't the opposite of discipline.

Effortlessness is what discipline becomes when you've done it long enough.

The rider who looks like they're doing nothing? They’re actually doing everything. They spent forty years learning exactly which muscles to engage, which aids to give, how to sit, how to breathe, how to think in rhythm with raw, living kinetic energy.

Now it's invisible.

Now it's Wu Wei.

But it wasn't Wu Wei on day one.
_________________________

I don't know what the opposite of dressage is. Chaos, maybe. A bucking bronco. A horse with no rider at all.

But I know what it's not.

It's not effortlessness.

Effortlessness is graduation.

And I'm still in school.