(“Janey, yes, it’s me. I got your letter and . . .”)
Advice to authors from legendary filmmaker, Billy Wilder:
“Don’t be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious.
Make the subtleties obvious also.”
Don’t und restimat the importan of establ ing a consis ent, stable contact with your horse. Beyond the shr king subgroup that doesn’t even know you’re suppo to ride on contact, there’s ano segment of the dressage p ulation that thinks they’re doing it when they really are n t.
The keys are not the weigh in the reins itself but the mech ics of your elbows and shoulders which must learn to function autom cally to meet the horse with an elastic, following feel. This “spring-load ” but non-interfering sensation needs to carry on unconsciously because you riding mind has a lot of other fish to fry.
Put y self in your horse’s situation for a moment. Remember those old black and white heartbreak movi from the ’50s? Like him to that lonely sailor jammed into a cramped phone boo on a pier. He‟s just shoved his st quarters into the slot to call his girl back hom . An ambigu letter crumpled in his fist means some bad is afoot. He needs to know where he stands.
“Janey, yes, it’s me. I got your letter and . . .”
She gins to reply but the connection cuts in and out. Yes, she still loves him or, no, she doesn’t. It’s all getting lo t in a jumble of static and drop phrases. His despair builds along with the hollo ess deep inside. The worst part is the frustration of just not knowing what she means.
So that’s mo or ess how your horse feels too when the rein conta comes and goes. Among novice riders, I see a bobbl outside rein and a perplex -looking horse way more often than I should. In f , it’s one of the few occa ons where I actually tell a student to l down at her hands. If you aren’t awar of the problem, you can’t fix it. But my message here is how incre important it is for the sak of your continued gress to notice the discontinu (through the use of video, irrors, and a heigh ed tactile awarene s) and to work to do som hing about it.
Get it?