(This is posted out of order. It was published in November of 2019)

BILL— to a degree, most everything, but my secret pet peeve is when novice riders describe their horses’ random bad behaviors in classical terms. I’m sorry, your nervous, neurotic horse was not piaffing on the trail. He was just anxiously prancing about, most likely in no coherent rhythm.
Nor did he perform a levade, a balanced “crouching,” very collected movement with extreme bending of his hocks. He was just standing on his hind legs. That’s very different!
These are not just semantic disparities. To endow them with classical names doesn’t give credit to the time it takes and the degree of difficulty involved in training those actual movements. Read More

BILL— Among beginnerish riders it’s probably because it’s the instinctive way that they think they should turn their horse. Fairly early on riders get past that stage, yet the problem persists. This is usually because they underuse their supporting outside aids. We have all heard many, many times “inside leg to outside hand,” but this mantra neglects the importance of the outside leg which keeps the horse from bulging out. Read More

BILL— In dressage seat equitation there is mention of the posting diagonal, nowhere else in our discipline. Consequently there is no such thing as an “incorrect diagonal.” In several books of eastern European origin a theory is even espouse that riders should rise on the inside diagonal. Read More