Talk:Classical dressage

Deleted discussion
Maybe I don't understand correctly, but as this page is about Classical dressage, in my opinion it should contain an overview of what it viewed as classical dressage by trainers nowadays. Bitless and bridleless are viewed as classical dressage by a growing number of people (at least in the Netherlands). Therefore I added the chapter about classical dressage without bridle as a discussion to the page. It not only discusses the point of view of the classical dressage riders who are all for it, but also of those who are against it, and it gave a balanced view of the current discussion in classical dressage. At least, that was what I felt. If you think that the balance should be better (more arguments of opponents I presume?), maybe it is better to add them to the chapter than delete it in itself. --193.172.136.100 (talk) WNM 10:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Name one classical riding master who went bridleless. Bridleless work is a gimmick. Bridleless work belongs in the natural horsemanship article. Softness to the bit is one of the most significant aspects of classical training. Bridleless work is showbiz. You are promoting a theory that cannot be sourced to the masters. It isn't even worth including in this article as it is not "classical," nor is it "dressage." Montanabw (talk) 20:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

We obviously look at classical dressage at a different point of view. I see as the aim of classical dressage the collection of the horse, and all the tack and cues surrounding it as teaching tools for the learning process. For me, classical dressage is about the horses' body and how that carries itself, not about reins, bits legs or hands of the rider. In Poland two international dressage trainer train their horses bridleless too - turning to bridles when competing again. I'll look up their names for you and post them here, they have a video on the internet too. Other classical dressage riders use brideless dressage in between to test their horses responses, like some western riders do too. An example is Alfons J. Dietz, who describes this with a photo in his book Die Klassische Bodenarbeit.

If you read the books of the masters of Classical dressage, for example de la Gueriniere, the Duke of Cavendish or even Grisone or Christophorus Lieb, you see that they do use reins and do promote a soft hand - but also that their ultimate goal is to ride without contactreins, with the bit carrying nothing but the weight of the reins. The reins spring into action when the horse has done something wrong or is taught something new, or when he has ignored the more subtle cues from the seat and legs of the rider. And they are used like that - but the goal is self-carriage of the horse with no direct rein contact. This means that the reins were used as a teaching tool, not as a component to actively maintain the collection with. Of course you can take the stand that as the reins were the traditional teaching tools then, they should still be used now because otherwise you cannot call it classical dressage, but that would mean that you would need to use the same shankbits, saddles and sometimes quite harsh training methods too in order to be able to call yourself a classical dressage rider. Some people really are consequent in that, like Wolfgang Krischke and Bent Branderup, who use the texts of the classical masters to the letter on various horses. But whenever you even start mixing two methods of just two masters, you will be doing something that isn't sourced back to any master.

If you as modern classical dressage rider use a snaffle instead of the long curb bits, you'ce changed the tools that the original classical dressage masters taught the horse collection with. When you choose positive reinforcement ((food)rewards) over reins, you're doing the same: you've changed the tools. The goal: teaching your horse collection and self-carriage that he will maintain on his own, is the same. The difference is that nowadays we know more of cognitive psychology, and of the biomechanics of the horses' mouth, and instead of sticking to old methods just because they are tradition, we've put the welfare of the horse in the first place and improved the training situation for him.

However, I do realise that you have put yourself forward as the guardian of this page in such a way that it will express only your definition of 'classical dressage'. Probably therefore it will never cover the real scope of what is understood as classical dressage nowadays, which ranges from baroque dressage riders, new-born baucherists, bitless classical dressage, Doma Classica, and dressage at liberty. As everything else than your opinion of what 'Classical dressage' should mean is labeled as tricks, circus training, no real collection, not classical and not dressage so it shouldn't be mentioned here. I'm not proposing to just radically promote them over here, and haven't done so in my addition either. Instead I think that the current (and past!) discussions on the definition of classical dressage should be included here. Now you just skip the fact that the meaning of this term has always been cause of dispute - read the Duke of Cavendish: the first 50 pages are nothing but criticism on other riders. Look at the 1960's, when the classical dressage world was split in two because one half thought that riding low &forwards was the basis of classical dressage, while others took other books and showed the world that the head should always be minimal at breast-height and never below. The question of what Classical dressage is, has been asked for centuries, right from the first ecruiers. If you take the stand that only your opinion of what Classical dressage is is right, and that only that is allowed to be on this Wikipedia page, then in itself by doing so you stand in a long tradition. But a personal opinion is not what an encyclopaedia is about, or what Wikipedia is meant to be. You obviously have a very strong point of view of how classical dressage should be seen. That's not bad, but instead of turning this page into a monologue, we could turn it into a real reflection of what the term classical dressage has always been: a discussion about what dressage really is, seen from all sides. Even though this page already is very interesting and a good read, it's most certainly POV. --84.31.102.120 (talk) 13:06, 22 December 2007 (UTC)WNM


 * After all that, you still do not cite ONE SINGLE VERIFIABLE SOURCE for your contentions that bridleless riding is in any way "classical dressage." This article was created by those wanting to differentiate between modern competitive dressage as it has been practiced, as you noted, since about the 1960's, (actually it's a bit earlier, in part a post WWII phenomenon related to the ascendance of Warmbloods over Baroque horses in competition, but close enough) The deletion of commentary on bridleless riding is not just my opinion, it is in keeping with the direction of the article.  I was not the creator of this article, and I actually have not made significant edits to it.   I simply exercise quality control and remove unsuitable content.  And a citation is not simply your interpretation of a phrase taken out of context, it means title, author, publisher, edition, year and page number so anyone with access to the internet or to a public library capable of obtaining a hardcopy version can look it up for themselves.


 * And even then, it is critical to understand the complete context of what they wrote, and not twisting their words to fit a particular bias.  The masters writing about lightness of the horse had to do with a light mouth, light hands, and so on.  It had nothing to do with throwing away the bridle altogether, which you apparently advocate.  I am afraid that your contributions constitute POV problems for this article, and while I am the only one at the moment who is responding, I am perfectly capable of running this past the significant number of contributors to the main Dressage articles if needed.


 * I have no problem if you wanted to start an article called, for example bridleless dressage or something and you could propound your theories there to your heart's content (with NPOV tone and verifiable citations, at least). I wouldn't even toss out a wikilink from that page to this one. But there is not a significant debate among practitioners over whether proper use and training with a bit and bridle is part of the classical tradition; lightness is a core concept, and revisionist interpretations, particularly absent any way of being independently verified, do not belong in this particular article. Montanabw (talk) 01:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Watch POV
Removed POV comments about Anky, this article is about classical dressage, not modern dressage, and when it comes to Anky's training methiods, expecially rollkur, this is a war we just don't want to start in this particular article, it can be dealt with elsewhere, IMHO. Montanabw 17:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal
The Dressage page is much more detailed and informative, more or less with similar contents. I think that merging the content of this page to Dressage page, and changing this page into a Redirect, could be a good idea. --Alex_brollo Talk|Contrib 14:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe, but let's look at the page history. Someone cared enough to break out the two.  Let's be sure we understand what the original dispute was, perhaps the other article has been edited since to remove whatever the initial problem happened to be...?  Montanabw (talk) 16:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I didn't consider at all the page history. I'll take a llook too to talk page of Dressage. Nevertheless, I think better to wait for some other opinions, before deleting the Merger tag.Alex_brollo Talk|Contrib 20:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Its always very easy to get carried away by ones own enthusiasms ( even if its just an enthusiasm for simplicity!). There does seem to be a distinction between "Classical" or "Baroque" style dressage and the more modern competitive dressage. The horses used,the final results (eg the aerial movements),and indeed the practitioners differ markedly, albeit with some degree of overlap. There are also splinter groups ( such as side-saddlers - is that a word? ).

My opinion is that the articles discribe slightly different subjects. (A competitive dressage rider hoping to go to the Olympics would be dissappointed to read that it entails an adalusian horse doing the levade.I run a small dressage directory and have split it into 2 websites - a classical one and a 'normal' one to cater for the two areas)

My opinion is that it should stay as two topics, although maybe linked a bit more comprehensively in the text of both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.188.69.9 (talk) 00:27, August 30, 2007 (UTC)


 * I encourage anyone who wants to wikify this article more to do so. Another idea might be to break the Dressage article into "Classical" and "Competitive" sections...?  or maybe create a "Competitive Dressage" article and make the current article sort of a generic overview of the basics??  Just thoughts.  Montanabw (talk) 03:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

AND Wikipedia project
This page has been selected as a "test page" for AND Wikipedia project. AND (Art of Natural Dressage) is a small web community, interested into not-competitive dressage and Haute Ecole; its principles are somehow similar to NHE ones (see their forum ).

The AND Wikipedia project aims to discuss and edit some relevant wiki articles into their web forum, and to post into wiki the final result. I'm the "wiki expert" (more or less) there.

An anonymous user posted here some time ago this text:

"Nowadays another form of Classical Dressage appears: The Art of Natural Dressage(AND), the art which up holds all the noble causes of the Classical Dressage Art and The Old Masters but without any form of force, cruelty, punishment and dominance. Thus without bits, spurs and even without bridle for a more advanced level."

Such a newbye edit doesn't follows many of wiki rules, and its deletion is right. Nevertheless, the meaning of such an update is very interesting in my opinion; a mention of the work of some groups of rides and trainers who are trying to obtain Haute Ecole results with new, R+ methods (NHE, AND) deserves a mention and the refusal of competition is an important point that they have in common with Classical Dressage and Haute Ecole, and a deep difference with Competitive Dressage, mainly covered into Dressage article. Obviously a mention to AND only could seem self-promotional: some search for a more comprehensive list of such groups is mandatory.--Alex_brollo Talk|Contrib 09:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


 * IMHO "Natural" dressage is a silly term, ALL Dressage is supposed to be "natural" and without cruelty, that is inherent in the meaning of the term Dressage. To ride without a bridle is just a gimmick, any halfway decent trainer can teach that, and frankly, is not really "dressage" because it does not teach proper use of the hands and development of soft, quiet communication with the mouth.  "Classical" dressage is enough of a split, primarily one of philosophy more than technique, people basically unhappy with some of the judging preferences that have developed with modern competitive dressage.  But to imply that dressage--either type--is somehow not classic or somehow cruel -- there are jerks in every sport who are abusive, and practices like Rollkur are deservedly controversial, but the "natural" thing is juist silly stuff someone has some up with to make money, and it's offensive because it implies that all traditional methods are cruel, when in fact there is virtually no difference other than a marketing spin between them.  (I have the same beef with "natural" horsemanship in the western crowd, I can point you to books wirtten in the 1930s that advocate the same methodology. Arrrggh!) Asa always, wikipedia is not a soapbox and demands NPOV.   Montanabw (talk) 16:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I applaud your stance on NH, bitless and so forth, Montanabw. Having dressage split as classical and competitive is more than fine. I do wonder, however, when and how you will approach "Western dressage". Which, to me, is just vaquero-style riding with a new label. Can't win. Roan Art (talk) 14:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Don't get me started. At least it's an antidote to the NH nonsense, however recycled and relabeled.   Montanabw (talk) 21:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Dr. Ritter
Dr. Ritter is no longer in the United States. He moved back to Germany a couple of years ago with his wife and son. I don't think he ever applied for or received US citizenship? Roan Art (talk) 14:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC) (forgot to log in)