Although the majority of quotes on this list come from the classical tradition strictu sensu, I don't want to ignore François Baucher and his school, since he has had such a tremendous impact on dressage in the last two centuries. While he himself distanced himself clearly from the old classical school, he has become a bit of a classic in his own right, since his methods are still being practiced and taught by a certain percentage of dressage riders all over the world. Because of his radical departure from traditional training techniques as well as his astounding successes with his horses, he has divided the equestrian world more than any other horseman in history. Most riders either admire him blindly and uncritically or they condemn him and his methods without taking the time to take a closer look at his goals and the details of his method. Very few people have an objective, balanced view that acknowledges the strengths as well as the weaknesses of Baucher's system. One of these riders is Nuno Oliveira who created his very own, unique way of riding by blending useful elements of all the different European traditions, De la Gueriniere and Steinbrecht side by side with Baucher and Faverot de Kerbrech. Another one is General Albert Decarpentry, an internationally respected rider and judge and author. Most modern readers will be familiar with him through his "Academic Equitation" and "Piaffer and Passage" that are currently available in English translations. Decarpentry has written several other books in addition that have never been translated and are long since out of print. One of them is a report on the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, and another one is entitled "Baucher et son ecole", Paris 1948. Decarpentry was more entitled to writing about Baucher than almost anybody else, because he not only understands the method due to his own great expertise in the saddle, but because he had access to information that is unavailable to most other authors, since his grand father Eugène Caron was one of Baucher's earliest students.
I personally prefer Decarpentry's account of Baucher's method over Jean Claude Racinet's "Racinet explains Baucher", because Decarpentry's evaluation is more objective, in spite of the fact that he considers Baucher to be le plus grand écuyer de tous les temps (the best horseman of all times).
I want to select a few chapters from his book that describe Baucher's method without trying to deny or cover up its weaknesses. Since this cannot be done on just a few pages, I will do it in several instalments. This week begins with an account of the effet d'ensemble.
General Albert Decarpentry, Baucher et son ecole, Paris 1948, pp. 49-54:
"The fundamental technique of Baucher's method is the effet d'ensemble, which pursues the primary goal of his formula: to annul the instinctive forces.
"It consists of the simultaneous application of the driving and restraining aids, in such a way that the opposition of forces makes the latter annul the effects of the former completely.
"Thus, driven forward by the legs, while being pulled back by the hand (footnote: "pulled" appears to be the right word to characterize the action of the hands in the effet d'ensemble, as it is defined in these terms in the 'Derniers Enseignements' ...'approaching the torso with the bridle hand' p. 21 - and this definition is difficult to reconcile with his: 'always this, never this' of Baucher's final moments), the horse must remain completely immobilized by the effet d'ensemble.
"This opposition has to be done gradually. The forces used by the rider, 'always equivalent', must be as small as necessary in the beginning, in order to avoid any disturbance. By and by, the rider intensifies them, until he reaches the maximum strength in their application, while the horse's immobility remains unchanged at the halt, and the gait remains unchanged, if he is in motion.
"Before researching this balance of opposing forces, Baucher prepares it by proceeding separately for the forehand and the hindquarters, for the regulation and the development of the strength of the superior and inferior aids.
"By regulating their direction, he assures himself of the means of disallowing the horse any use of his body which would deflect the opposition of these forces that must be neutralized by the opposition.
"With their development, he takes the power of the effet d'ensemble to its limit. By bringing the horse's forces into play, demanding them up to their limit and containing them, he lets him experience the futility of any efforts to escape the constraints of the aids. The absolute domination over his instinctive forces, and, consequently, over his morale, is thus realized. The horse has "all four legs tied", as Baucher put it. Convinced of his helplessness, he is "tamed", and the effet d'ensemble is thus similar to the containment gadgets that were invented for the same purpose, from the twitch to the Barnum longe, via the pillars, the 'work' of the marechals, the system of Rarey, and the hippo-lasso of Raabe.
"The preparatory procedures for the effet d'ensemble are basically the 'flexions' of the forehand and of the hindquarters. Their common purpose is to make sure the rider has the means to place either exactly in the direction and position he intends to give them.
"The rigorous imposition of the opposite direction renders it impossible for any forces to escape by deviation. The imposition of the posture determines the intensity of their effort and makes it possible to carry the latter to the degree that corresponds to the imposed posture.
"As far as the forehand is concerned, it is the shortening of the lever arm that is formed by the neck, its 'coiling up' towards the torso, which achieves the backward shift of the center of gravity that slows down the forward progression of the body mass, when it is pushed forward by the hindquarters.
"This is the result that the 'direct flexion' aims for, which leads towards the Ramener (poll flexion, TR), where the rein action has the advantage of addressing the bars perpendicularly when the hand is in the normal position, resulting in maximal efficiency.
"The lateral flexions essentially aim at ensuring the straightness of the neck, by providing the means to combat any lateral neck bend, through bending in the opposite direction. Incidentally, they contribute to stretching a part of the muscles that prevent the ramener, and in addition, they thus prepare the direct flexion.
"The horse still possessess in his jaw a center of resistance against the constraints of the hand, regardless of his neck position, which he uses, e.g., when he coils up. Reducing this ability to resist is the object of the 'jaw flexions', which force the horse to yield to the pressure of the bit by opening his mouth, when the tongue is mobilized right at its root underneath the poll, which thus becomes relaxed so that it, in turn, facilitates the direct flexion.
"In the progression of these three basic flexions, the ramener must of necessity come last, because its success depends in part on the results of the two others.
"Thus "flexed" - the opponents would call it: displaced, disconnected - the neck can no longer evade the ramener, nor can the jaw evade the relaxation. Together they form an adjustable brake whose braking power can be increased to the point of blocking completely the forward release of the springs of the hindquarters.
"But Baucher is not content with having made the hand an unsurmountable barrier. He also wants it to have a power that is directed backward, that is able to move the body mass backwards, and to impose the continuity of its backward displacement.
"It is the exercise of the reinback that accomplishes this. But he does not begin with his exercise until after the lateral mobilisation of the haunches, which on the one hand facilitates their backward movement, and on the other hand allows the rider to prevent their escape to the side.
"For the haunches, the flexions consist of rotations of the croup around the shoulders, which enable the rider to displace the former with respect to the latter at will, so that the haunches are forced to dispense their efforts exactly in the direction of the shoulders.
"The rotations therefore play the same role for the haunches as the lateral flexions for the forehand.
"The reinback is to the haunches what the direct flexion is to the neck in some respect. One of its effects is to increase the effort of closing the joint angles of the haunches, thus bringing about an increase in the compression of its springs, whose release then determines the intensity of the impulsion.
"The comparison between these two preparations, that of the forehand and that of the haunches, brings out a certain correspondence between them, which ought to lead to an equivalent development of the forces that are intended to counterbalance each other in the effet d'ensemble.
"Now, this equivalence in the result of their preparation can well be considered accomplished with respect to straightening out lateral evasions, through the effect of the lateral flexions that are applied to the forehand as well as the hindquarters. But the equivalence ends here, and the situation is far from being the same where the development of their forces is concerned.
"After shifting the center of gravity backwards as a result of the ramener, the hand furthermore receives through the reinback a decisive power from front to back. On the other hand, nothing comparable is achieved in the preparation of the hindquarters. No exercise is practiced in order to develop the intensity of the forward release of the haunches, and to give the hind legs a propulsive force that is equivalent to the retropulsive force of the hand.
...
"There is no exercise of moving forward from the leg in Baucher's method that corresponds to the moving backward from the hand which the reinback imposes. (footnote: This inequality of the preparations of the forehand and the hindquarters has preoccupied many of Baucher's students, even the best ones. Gerhardt suggests the 'frequent use of free gaits' as a remedy, as well as 'quick starts upon spur attacks'. Count Alexis d'Abzac recommends giving the horse a 'good gallop' immediately after the flexions. On finds nothing of the sort in Baucher's writings. Only in his 'derniers enseignements': 'If one touches with both calves, and their simple contact does not immediately bring or restore the desired result, one touches with both spurs at once, without opposition from the hand. One repeats these little attacks until the desired result is obtained... That way, one gives the horse a great finesse towards the legs...' Finesse, certainly, but power?)
"The 'equivalence' of the forces, which is so insistently recommended by Baucher in the effet d'ensemble, can thus hardly be completely established in their opposition, and the difference in their intensity can only result in the detriment of the impulsion.
"This is one of the pitfalls of the method, and many of Baucher's students were unable to avoid it. The forces that are developed by the hand, pulling or resistance to pulling, are very different by nature from the forces that are developed by the legs, pressures or kicks, so that the rider can find a dynamometer for them in himself. It is therefore by their effect on the horse that he must judge their equivalence. Can he always realize when his mount meets the indications of his hand with enthusiastiasm but those of his legs with reticence, although they are supposedly equivalent? Under the eye of Baucher, yes certainly, thanks to the attention given by the master. But if the student is left to his own devices, the evasion may escape his notice. Under the domination of the effet d'ensemble, the horse doubtlessly abandons all of his efforts *against* his rider. But his efforts *for* him may very well be lacking as well."
pp. 54-58:
"When the submission to the effet d'ensemble is well on its way at the halt, Baucher starts to work in forward motion.
"To him, it is essential that his student never leaves the ramener combined with the mobility of the jaw, both of which form the 'mise en main' together. If the 'légèreté', which is characterized by this mise en main in his understanding, changes, it has to be restored immediately by the effet d'ensemble, first without interrupting the gait, then, if the resistance persists, at the halt, until the horse yields before moving off again.
"This succession of stop and go, which necessarily follow each other in quick succession in the beginning, can obviously only be practiced at a sufficiently slow walk, because here the alternation of motion and immobility can flow without abrupt transitions. This is why the walk becomes 'the mother of all gaits' for Baucher, instead of the trot, to which the old masters had attributed this quality. His horse is trained at the walk in all changes of direction up to the tightest ones, and he is worked on one as well as on two tracks.
"When the légèreté is confirmed at the walk, the trot work begins under the same conditions of measured slowness as at the walk, and transitions between walk and trot are practiced.
"This is the point at which Baucher begins the exercise of the 'Rassembler', which in his mind is meant to increase the horse's mobility in every sense by reducing his support base.
"Having yielded with his skeleton to the aids, having been prepared by the flexions, confirmed in his légèreté at the halt as well as in motion, driven forward by the legs and held back by the hand, the horse moves his hind legs closer to his front legs, which, to the author of the method, is the quintessence of the rassembler (13th edition, p. 160). (footnote: It must be remarked that this definition of the Rassembler differs considerably from that of the old School).
"The rider must now animate the horse in this position in order to be able to use him, and that is another pitfall that the students of the Master have been unable to avoid.
"It is quite obvious that the aids of the hands and legs cannot be the same in the effet d'ensemble as in the rassembler, since the horse has to be immobilized in the first case and activated in the second case. But one searches the first twelve editions of the method in vain for a clear and precise explanation of the difference between the two, which must undoubtedly have existed.
"It is only in Baucher's 'testament', his 'final teachings', published almost twenty years after his death, that this essential distinction is clearly explained with the necessary precision: (footnote : It is difficult not to attribute the tardy clarification of this aspect of the method that had remained obscure for 40 years in part to General Faverot de Kerbrech, the editor of these 'teachings'.). In the effet d'ensemble, the legs are applied constantly and persistantly, by pressure. In the rassembler, their aids are brief and intermittent, repeated attacks. (footnote: Baucher did not indicate the placement of the leg aids for the effet d'ensemble and the rassembler. It was his student Raabe who claimed the spurs had to be applied at the girth for the effet d'ensemble and further back on the flanks for impulsion and the rassembler.). The same difference exists for the rein aids in both cases: continuous for the effet d'ensemble, but intermittent for the rassembler. Furthermore, the hand that 'pushes back' in the effet d'ensemble merely 'contains' in the rassembler.
"Without a doubt, Baucher explained this difference clearly to his students during their lessons. But they must have had difficulties finding the instruction they had received in the arena again in the Master's book. For he writes several times up to the 13th edition that the 'horse's immobility, which is brought about by the effet d'ensemble must remain complete even under the most energetic attacks.'
"That is an error, no doubt, but one that must have confused his students.
"Having understood this difference intellectually, putting it into effect presented serious difficulties, because the agility of the hand allows to differentiate its backward pull clearly from its passive resistance, so that the intermittence of its actions can easily be regulated. But the agility of the legs is far smaller, and the necessary accord between hands and legs is not always easy to achieve.
"What is more, the horse that has so far been trained in the effet d'ensemble and that has been rewarded for his immobility in response to the leg aids for a long time will consequently mistake the meaning of the leg aids, especially if he is lazy, as a result of the reward for his standing still. Baucher himself had to make this painful experience, as General L'Hotte tells us (Un Officier de Cavalerie. Le cheval baucherisé en 1849, pp. 109ff.).
"... Impulsion is difficult to obtain .. "... The horse ends up becoming blasé, enduring the spurs ... "... In order to relieve his legs, Baucher used the whip ... with repeated taps of greater or lesser force...
"Seeger, in turn, writes in 1852, after the demonstrations in the Circus Dejean in Berlin: 'The whip seems to be a necessary instrument for Mr. Baucher. One never sees him without it, nor riding without using it ... Mr. Baucher uses it with extraordinary severity.'
"If Baucher himself had such difficulties in re-awakening the impulsion that had been stifled by the effet d'ensemble, how great must the difficulties have been that his students experienced in order to succeed? It comes as no surprise that many of them did not succeed at all.
"With the hot horse, the risk would be smaller, since he does not compromise his impulsion directly. Instead, the confusion manifests itself in a reversed sense: Brought back into the effet d'ensemble after the exercise of the rassembler, the horse 'forgets' the immobility that he had previously obtained and substitutes it with the mobility he had learned in the rassembler. Most of the time, one may well prevent him from getting crooked, but not from stomping, or from piaffing: the control would be compromised.
"Shaped by the flexions, dominated through the effet d'ensemble, mobilised in the highest degree in every sense by the rassembler, Baucher's horse would execute every movement his body would permit, upon the lightest indication, even those he never exhibited in his normal activities.
"It was enough to give him the 'position', as the Master said, which enabled him to perform the movement and the 'action', which determined the execution. Practice then formed the habit, second nature.
"The results of the method require a separate study, which will be the topic of one of the following chapters.
"In its continued evolution, portrayed later on, the method preserved most of its fundamental procedures without radical modifications.
"Some of them, however, underwent alterations that were profound enough to make them look like complete transformations, or even 'recantations'. In reality, they were merely revised in order to adapt them into the new layout of the methodical progression.
"The evolution is most visible in the order of the succession of the procedures' application. It is difficult, however, to determine exactly at what point in the Master's oral teachings, which often differed from his writings, the order of the succession was precisely the one outlined above.
"Certainly within the time period during which Baucher worked at the circus (1838-1855), this epoch postdates the first trials of the method by the army (1842). The memoirs of General L'Hotte, who received his first lessons from Baucher in 1849, allow us to place it around 1850."
This concludes the chapter on Baucher's First Manner in Albert Decarpentry's book "Baucher et son Ecole". Next I want to add the description of the Second Manner, for completeness' sake.
pp.113-118:
"It is common usage in the equestrian literature to refer to the procedures advocated by Baucher from the 12th edition of his Method, published in 1864, onward as the 'Second Manner'.
"In reality, this 'manner' is only the latest in a series of improvements that the Master had continually made in his work during his long career.
"One certainly does not find a trace of them in the first 11 editions, because they are more or less reprints of the 1842 text, conforming to a clause in Baucher's contract with his editors, that did not expire until 1863. However, one only has to look at the books of his students in order to find in chronological order the modifications that the Master had made in his oral teachings, reproduced in the works of Daudel (1857), Gerhardt (1859), Wachter (1862), e.g.
"General L'Hotte wrote about the character of the continual creation, which left certain students confused who did not possess the mental flexibility nor the talent to surpass a certain stage in which they were stuck: 'Baucher explored the art down to its last secrets, pushed back the frontiers, and conducted incessant research, leading to an uninterrupted succession of discoveries that have made him an innovator of unparalleled productiveness.'
"One can only subscribe to this judgement wholeheartedly. But one has to remark that the research into the pursuit of the ideal was not exclusively dedicated to this progressive evolution. On the one hand, trying to make the application of the method easier for riders with modest capabilities and ambitions, and on the other hand, Baucher's inability to apply the aids with the same strength after his accident, certainly both contributed to the modification of the means he used.
"For it was merely a modification of the means. The entire core of the method, its principles, its spirit, remained intact in the 'second manner'. The core of the method is the 'mise en main' and the 'effet d'ensemble' which remained at the heart of the system in 1864 just as much as in 1842. But the means of obtaining them were modified as far as their nature, their application, and their intensity were concerned.
"For the mise en main, the lightening of the front, which had hitherto been accomplished exclusively by the ramener, is now achieved by lifting the neck first, which also causes a weight shift towards the back, like the ramener. With the elevated neck and a relaxed jaw the same degree of lightness is obtained almost without ramener, or at least with a much less pronounced ramener than if the latter had to achieve the shortening of the lever arm of the neck and the resulting lightening of the forehand by itself.
"Now, the raising of the neck is much more easily and quickly obtained than the ramener. This new procedure enables the rider with much less effort and time than the first manner to obtain a position of his horse which guarantees a balance that is quite sufficient for the requirements of practical equitation.
"The ramener remains indispensable as soon as the rider wants to augment his control, be it to ride a difficult horse, or be it to embark on artistic equitation. To obtain this control, Baucher now rejects pulling the horse's nose slowly towards his chest, like he used to do in his first flexions. Instead, it is the horse's body that advances step by step towards his head which is fixed by the rider in this new manner, and that gradually increases the poll flexion and the verticality of the head as a byproduct of the increased suppleness. Gained this way, the ramener ceases to be independent of the posture of the entire horse. It is, on the contrary, tied to the beginning of the rassembler, always at risk of getting lost again in the direction of the initial shift of the mass which produced it: towards the front.
"For the effet d'ensemble, the means of obtaining it are only modified by a refinement of the precautions in familiarizing the horse with the pressure of the legs and the spurs, and by the use eventually of the cavesson for suppressing the defenses during this progression.
"But the effet d'ensemble, which had constituted the normal and habitual means of re-establishing lightness in the first manner, is now used only in exceptional cases, when the resistance is of a "moral" nature, and turns into defensiveness. Even in these cases, the effet d'ensemble remains within the limits that have been assigned to it from now on: it is the ultimate means of domination.
"It is the hand who is alone in charge of re-establishing lightness in the new manner, and Baucher distinguishes two ways of using it for this purpose: the half halt to relieve the excess load on the forehand, and the vibration to 'melt' the muscular tensions.
"The essential feature of the new manner is precisely the systematic rejection of the permanently simultaneous use of the hand and the legs. Hence the formula: 'Hand without legs, legs without hand.'
"Now, the coordination of the aids in their simultaneous use constitutes the greatest difficulty in horsemanship. If the harmony is disturbed by an excessive use of the hand, e.g., it can seemingly be restored by an action of the legs, but only seemingly. In the best case scenario, the rider has provoked an ill-timed rassembler which does not correspond to his first intentions, he modifies the balance of his mount without wanting it, and it becomes a new source of difficulties on account of its mismatch with the work that is demanded of the horse.
"Also, the 'support' of the aids leads him too often, according to Baucher, 'to pay with one aid for the mistakes of the other', to the detriment of the balance and the order.
"By suppressing this mutual support and prescribing, on the contrary, the application of the formula 'legs without hand, hand without legs', the second manner at the same time suppresses the all too frequent occasions of their interference.
"While the hand alone assumes the regulation and the distribution of the action, the legs alone are in charge of producing impulsion, and, in order to ensure that this is the case even in the effet d'ensemble, each of these effects must be terminated, once the submission is obtained. As soon as the hand drops its barrier, the horse must depart freely, if the legs continue their pressure or if they increase it, even supplemented by an attack in case of a hesitation or laziness.
"This is an improvement of the greatest importance, which makes the pitfall disappear into which so many students of the first manner had fallen: this tendency of the horse to 'fall asleep on the spur' after the effet d'ensemble, which had been mentioned by General L'Hotte in his 'portrait du cheval bauchérisé en 1849'.
"For the practical horseman, the application of the new formula thus constitutes a simplification and a guarantee of considerable extent.
"For the écuyer, the advantages of the second manner are even more important. In all of the School work that does not contain the rassembler, and in which the precision of the movements constitutes the essential form of the art, the isolated use of one aid bluntly illuminates any mistake it may commit, whereas in the coordination of several aids this mistake would be 'drowned' out in the confusion of their actions and effects. If this same aid is applied by itself, and if it is alone responsible for an eventual disorder, it is only by correcting its own action that the disorder can be repaired, in order to avoid it in the future, depending on the experience and the progress in the skills of the rider.
"In order to trace, e.g. a perfectly round volte, exactly placed and measured, with the aids of only one rein, one needs a correctness, finesse, and dexterity in the actions of the hand, which the simultaneous use of both reins and both legs in the system of compensations and compromises does not permit to discover, and even less to acquire.
"When the research of the rassembler makes it necessary in the following to use both legs and the hand, the refinement of their actions that was acquired previously in the course of their isolated application now places a gamut of nuances in their effects at the rider's disposal which allows him not only to avoid all dischord, but to obtain perfect harmony.
"Drafted in the 12th edition of his method, in 1864, the new manner was refined in the 13th edition in 1867. It is detailed with the entire development it had undergone by 1870 for all the branches of horsemanship in the 'Derniers enseignements de Baucher', published by General Faverot de Kerbrech. In this admirable work, which is as clear as it is precise, but which did not appear until 1891, it is legitimate to think that, in spite of the student's adherence to the instruction of his teacher, the personal experience of the General after 20 years of practicing the new manner did not fail to contribute to the perfection of this brilliant description of Baucher's last thoughts.
"The reduced and simplified progression of the new procedures which sufficed for the preparation of the horse with respect to the campaign school was also described by General de Kerbrech in a pamphlet that appeared in 1907 under the title 'Dressage du cheval de dehors.' Before him, Lenoble du Teil had treated the same subject, but with less details. Finally, it is necessary to remark that Rul, published a booklet in 1870 entitled 'Progression méthodique du dressage à l'aide d'un simple filet de tous les cheveaux de la Cavalerie'. That was a very succinct description of the new manner. It is above all interesting that it was bought from its author by the Minister of War, although Baucher's method had been banned and was never admitted."
