Since Shana and I just saw a USDF instructors' riding and training workshop, I have selected some pertaining passages from Otto de la Croix's book "Natuerliche Reitkunst" from 1910. In the workshop, the focus was entirely on the head and neck carriage. The buzz words were "bridge" and "deep". The idea was that by manipulating the head and neck into a low position with active hands the back would work better somehow. The activity of the hind legs never entered the consideration, and the "bridge" (a newly invented term) did not refer to the classical swinging back, but to a back that was braced upward against the rider, because the horse was more or less compressed between the rider's hands and legs. What is interesting in this context is that horses that are ridden with the "bridge" and a "non allowing hand" frequently have sore backs, whereas horses that are trained classically virtually never get sore backs. Otto de la Croix has some very interesting things to say about these issues, since they are not new, of course. Riders of all ages have looked for shortcuts and tried to force the head and neck into a certain position with their hands, instead of gaining control over the hind legs through their seat and leg aids.
p. 14:
"The passivity of the hand is the A and O of the entire dressage training." This is one of De la Croix's main principles, and it stands in stark contrast to modern mainstream dressage, where the excessively active hand is by far the most dominant aid.
p. 21:
"Never forget that the secret of the development of the poll flexion, as of horsemanship in general, lies in the rider's command over his driving aids, especially his seat aids, and not in the activity of his hands.
"From the rider's perspective, there is only a single aid from day one, driving the horse's haunches forward, into and underneath his own body weight. As the 'driving force' in the horse, it alone creates everything one has come to refer to as working the neck and the poll."
What De la Croix is referring to here is that we can only shape the neck and poll by driving the horse's hind legs underneath the body mass first and bending them with our own weight. As soon as they start to yield underneath the weight, the poll will relax and yield as well. Today, many trainers tell their student to shape the neck with their hands first, and not to worry about the hind end. That is the reason why so many dressage horses break down prematurely, and why there are so many rogue horses that would not put up with being "trapped" (the clinician's revealing words for her interpretation of a horse on the aids).
p. 61:
"Any pressure that exceeds the normal one that corresponds to the gait, is sent back by the seat and the hand, by tightening to the exact same degree as the horse, but relaxing their tone exactly as the horse ceases to push.
"However, the seat is by far the more important and more decisive aid. As soon as the horse does not want to collect any more, he will try, as explained in chapter 1, to rotate around the rider's seat in the sense that he will lower the forehand and raise the croup. Only the seat is able to prevent this, not the hand, because the horse's pressure originates in the hind legs that are pushing powerfully against the ground!
"Quite justifiably, one says therefore, when a horse has yielded correctly to the passive hand, i.e. as a consequence of driving aids: 'The horse has yielded to the seat!' Because it is only the scattered remnants of the thrust from the hind legs that still reach the hand after its main force has long been absorbed by the seat."
This is an extremely important principle. When the horse pushes his croup up against the rider and leans on the bit in order to avoid flexing his haunches, the only thing the rider can do to correct it is to briefly resist every thrust from the hind leg by tightening the muscle ring around his lumbar back with his elbows well closed against his hips. That way, the hands become extensions of the seat bones. The rider then merely has to close his fingers more as the thrust from the hind leg on the same side makes itself felt. The tightening lasts only for a split second and is followed by a long release, only to be renewed during the following stride, if necessary. If the rider's midsection lacks muscle tone, on the other hand, he will inevitably start pulling on the reins, because the seat is too weak.
p. 68f.:
"It must not be allowed that in the orchestra of the aids the rein and calf aids play the first violin, while the seat is comparable only to be large kettle drum that contributes the least to the overall harmony. If you enter a modern day arena, however, you will hear much about the hand and rein, a little about the calf, but nothing or almost nothing about the seat and its aids.
"This fact betrays an erroneous understanding of the nature of horsemanship. The truth is that the hand, of which we will speak later, has an exclusively passive role. The calf supports the correctly placed weight. Placing the rider's weight correctly, however, and applying the seat aids out of the correct seat is the true nature of horsemanship.
"The calf must bring especially the as yet unfinished horse into a frame in which the seat can take control and change the horse so that he becomes enabled to maintain this frame permanently. Only this role of the calf explains the commonly accepted demand that the calf aids should diminish more and more in the course of the training."
The complaint about riding teachers talking a lot about the hand, a little about the leg, and not at all about the seat is probably as old as horsemanship itself, and apparently it was quite widespread in the past as well.
p. 71ff.:
"It (the hand, TR) merely forms a barrier that prevents excessive thrust by the horse. It is never a lever to work against the horse.
"As long as the horse's natural desire to go forward or the driving aids do not send an impulse towards it, the hand has no raison d'etre. It has no right to force itself upon the horse's muscle placement. Only when the impulsion from the hind legs reaches it, the hand participates - passively - in the work by simply receiving the weight that is placed on it.
"This realization contains the beginning of all equestrian wisdom, because the horse is not supposed to learn to suck back in the dressage training, but to go forward with impulsion and determination.
"If we reject any activity of the hand, any backward work with it, we emphasize all the more its steadiness with the correct rein length. .
"In this position, the hand lies soft and relaxed in its joint, as long as the horse does not lean on it. When this happens, it must tighten in order to maintain its steadiness, or better: When it remains steady, it is the horse who tightens the hand precisely according to his pressure, without its active participation. When the pressure against the hand ceases because the horse has yielded, it relaxes again automatically.
"The steadiness in the latter sense, i.e. that the hand does not remain tight, much less move backward when the horse relieves it by yielding, but that it remains steady in a backward direction, is almost more important than the steadiness against the forward pressure. It is only through this kind of steadiness that the horse learns that yielding his poll and the cessation of the pressure against his bars are one and the same thing, and on this realization rests the horse's willingness above all else.
"Our definition of the 'light' hand can be derived from this description. Such a light hand, that many riders interpret, unfortunately, as never being allowed to carry anything, is only thinkable when the horse approaches the final stage of a successful dressage training. Otherwise, the horse himself determines the amount of the rein contact. When the horse is light, the hand is light! However, whatever impulsion is sent towards it from the hind legs, must be diligently received by it!
"Especially in dressage!
"For a weak or mediocre back the bit becomes in a sense the horizontal bar on which the back does its pull-ups, in order gradually to gain strength through them.
"The rapport that is necessary for this must be provided by the hand which rests quietly in its position, willingly receiving the thrust. If it always evades, there is no place that helps the horse felx his muscles."
One of the consequences of this explanation is that the rowing motion of the hand that is advocated by many trainers today is really incorrect. A hand that constantly moves back and forth cannot feel the hind leg, much less support the seat in bending the grounded hind leg in order to gymnasticize it.
p. 74f.:
"But is it really the hand that has to do the main work in these cases (pulling horse, TR)?? We think not! It is the rider's abdominal and back muscles as well! After all, the hands are attached to the torso via the arms and shoulders. And the main difficulty, when a horse pulls, is not to let the hand stand, but to keep the abdominal and back muscles so imperturbably steady that the powerful pressure of the haunches against the forehand does not force them to yield. Then the horse would have won, since his haunches would be free and he would send his entire weight rolling forward downward over the powerless hand.
"However, if the abdominal and back muscles succeed in restricting the haunches' attempt to free themselves, the horse will still lean onto the hand, but only for a moment. Then he will have to realize his helplessness against the immovable abdominal and back muscles that sit down the thrusting force and yield to the hand again. ...
"The hand can therefore not exist without the abdominal and back muscles. If the latter yield, the hand also yields eo ipso. Without good use of the abdominal and back muscles, a good hand is unthinkable.
p. 105f.:
"When the back and neck muscles are truly relaxed, the nose drops automatically. If it does not drop by itself, the relaxation of the muscles is lacking as well, or the still unfinished rider has failed to place more weight onto the hind legs due to a lack of the driving aids or a lack of control over his abdominal and back muscles.
"Even when working with a very low neck and head carriage, the latter must be achieved without any backward action of the hand. Here it is important for the teacher as well to make sure that the hind legs really step far underneath in response to the driving aids, which can only be done in rare cases without the spur, even on noble horses. Because we do not claim that the horse steps more under, because the head and neck position has become lower! But the horse lowers his neck, because he steps more underneath the load of the rider!"
This is where the modern "deep" riding goes wrong in most cases. Riders get obsessed with pulling the head and neck down instead of driving the hind legs underneath the load first. Otto de la Croix reminds the reader again and again that the head and neck carriage and the rein contact are merely symptoms of what the hind legs are doing. Any flaw in the rein contact can be traced directly to a faulty use of the hind legs. Therefore, a faulty rein contact is not corrected by addressing the head and neck directly, but by driving the hind legs underneath and bending them in their upper joints!
