Feeling Dressage

Rating:
Summary: Ho Hum
Review: If you are a reader, studier and/or practitioner of dressage, this book is probably not going to knock your socks off. It's pretty much the same old thing. From the title, I was hoping it would provide some interesting insight into feelings, attitude, etc. about dressage, riding, horses, and the horse/human relationship. It actually is a step by step review of the basics. If you already have basic dresage references and you want something deeper and philosophical to enhance your understanding, try Paul Belasik, Sylvia Loch Jane Savoie. We all need to work on the basics, regardless of our level of knowledge or riding - I just had different expectations for this one!

If you have not read anything about dressage, and have little experience training in dressage, and you are interested in gaining some basic understanding of the concepts, this is a good gook. The discussions are quite clear and thorough. It's a good start for your dressage library.

Personally, I'm not crazy about the frequent references of <"WE" do it this way> ("we" being the germans, I assume). I'm also not crazy about the fairly frequent references to <"in order to translate this book to english ..." I had to lose some critical meaning>. It just sounds a little germanocentric. I think the combination of this and the less-than-illuminating content makes it sound a little patronizing overall.

Rating:
Summary: Ho Hum
Review: If you are a reader, studier and/or practitioner of dressage, this book is probably not going to knock your socks off. It's pretty much the same old thing. From the title, I was hoping it would provide some interesting insight into feelings, attitude, etc. about dressage, riding, horses, and the horse/human relationship. It actually is a step by step review of the basics. If you already have basic dresage references and you want something deeper and philosophical to enhance your understanding, try Paul Belasik, Sylvia Loch Jane Savoie. We all need to work on the basics, regardless of our level of knowledge or riding - I just had different expectations for this one!

If you have not read anything about dressage, and have little experience training in dressage, and you are interested in gaining some basic understanding of the concepts, this is a good gook. The discussions are quite clear and thorough. It's a good start for your dressage library.

Personally, I'm not crazy about the frequent references of <"WE" do it this way> ("we" being the germans, I assume). I'm also not crazy about the fairly frequent references to <"in order to translate this book to english ..." I had to lose some critical meaning>. It just sounds a little germanocentric. I think the combination of this and the less-than-illuminating content makes it sound a little patronizing overall.

Rating:
Summary: Very Helpful
Review: Readers of this book will find a very useful guide in learning the art of Dressage by listening to your and your horse's body- feeling correctnees instead of overthinking it. I often use the book as a guide to help fix my riding problems, horse behavior problems or just to fine tune a movement- i.e. shoulder in or half pass because of the clear concise explanations. Enjoy!