Harmony, Lightness and Horses

Copyright ©2018 Ylvie Fros

All rights reserved. This material is protected by copyright. This book or parts thereof including its illustrations may not be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the author. You may use the information in this book for your own private use only.

Published by The Art of Riding by Ylvie Fros

www.artofriding.org

www.ylviefros.nl

First edition

ISBN: 978-90-829404-0-4

ISBN: 978-19-487171-0-6 (e-book)

Layout Design by Fenke Fros

Illustrations copyright ©2017, 2018 Christine Leemans

Chapter illustrations SveslaTasla/shutterstock.com

Cover illustration AnfisaFocusova/shutterstock.com

Back cover illustration copyright © Fenke Fros

Photographs copyright ©2016, 2017, 2018 Maybel van der Linden

Photographs copyright ©2012 Janneke Koekhoven

Photographs AbramovaKseniya/shutterstock.com

Used by permission. All rights reserved.

As a horse trainer and instructor, I live to develop my mind, my body and the mind and body of my horses. I am passionate about passing on my knowledge and experience to other horse lovers so that we can keep our horses happy and healthy, and together send positive energy into this world.

This book is for my horses, my greatest teachers

Acknowledgments

So many great instructors, colleagues and friends have helped me gather all the knowledge and experiences that resulted in the blog articles that became this book. I have studied horseback riding since I was a child and have ventured through most of the mainstream disciplines, where I met many inspiring people along the way. My rescue horses showed me the way toward the Academic Art of Riding. In this discipline, I learned to understand horse biomechanics and sound (classical) dressage training to help improve my horses’ bodies and minds. And I developed an interest in moving beyond the mechanical, into the realm of art and true connection.

To understand the mind-body connection of the rider, I studied – and am still studying – Centered Riding®, Martial Arts, the Alexander Technique, Zentherapy® and am currently working as both a riding teacher/clinician and a bodyworker to assist riders in releasing both emotional and physical trauma, loosen stuck tissue and become more free, stable and flexible both on and off the horse.

While preparing this book I have gained so many valuable insights from so many people that it is perhaps unavoidable that I will forget to give credit to some. However, a few people really stand out; those who have mentored me for many years, who have been sparring partners in my quest, and have provided me with such valuable feedback and insights, that without them these thoughts would never have found their way onto paper.

Among them is my patient teacher in the Academic Art of Riding, Bent Branderup, who was the first to explain to me clearly how correct dressage exercises arise from correct biomechanics. As I continue to train for him, I am still amazed by the wealth of knowledge Bent possesses; from the history of riding, to biomechanics and the lineages of old baroque horse breeds. His eye for detail and his never-ending thirst for more knowledge are a great inspiration.

This book would never have become what is it today without my friend and mentor Tom Nagel, who taught me that how bodies work off the horse is how they work on the horse. I am most thankful that Tom introduced me to the world of Zen and bodywork.

And Karen Irland, Level IV Centered Riding® instructor, I thank her for helping me find the connections between classical riding, the biomechanics of the horse and the biomechanics of the rider. But most of all for showing me the example of a truly centered teacher who lives by the concept ‘less is more.’ I have never seen anyone carrying the energy of a full clinic group with so much intent and so few words.

Then there are my many friends and colleagues in Centered Riding®, Zen, bodywork, the martial arts and the Academic Art of Riding by Bent Branderup®, with whom I have trained, shared ideas and shared laughter and pain during this journey, and who hopefully will continue to do so for a very long time. And of course my many horses and students, who asked questions, were available for my experiments, provided feedback and trusted me to assist them and learn from them on their own individual journeys. I cannot begin to express my gratitude for having met these special people and horses, for the trust they gave me, and all the lessons they taught me.

A special thanks to Nicole Lariviere for her help with developing Centered Groundwork. And last but not least, to Yanick, for supporting me many years in my horse studies and never complaining about all the hours I spent on my own development.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Contents

The Riders Mind

Ride in the Space between Your Thoughts

It All Starts with Awareness

Survival Responses

Always Back to Basics!

Empty Shells

Now Is the Moment!

Imagine...

What Do You Fear?

The Riders Body

Who Needs Fixing?

When Crooked Feels Straight…

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

Defining ‘the Seat’

The Development of the Seat throughout History

Four Cornerstones in Riding

Seat Training?

Comparable Parts

Being Centered, also from the Ground

The Spiraling Spine

The Pelvis and the True Core

Seat Bones for Him and Her

Move to Sit Still!

Breathing in All Directions

Breathe into Your Half Halt

Pushing Hands

‘The Swipe’

Wag Your Tail!

The Making of a Good Rider

The Inside Hand and Rein

What to Do with That Outside Rein

Trotting with Your Nose

The Biomechanics and Training of the Horse

Preconditions to Training

The Development of Balance

The Movement of Horse and Rider

This Thing about Collection

To Bit or Not to Bit

Six Important Factors to be Effective in Your Communication

Playing With Focus, Relaxation and Energy Using Materials

About The Author

Foreword by Bent Branderup

What is the Art in the Academic Art of Riding? For me, riding is only art, when two spirits want to do, what two bodies can. From experience I can tell, that it is seldom the horses body or mind that sets the limits. The limits on your journey to the Academic Art of Riding that hold you back from being the best rider you can be, are the limits of your own body and mind. If you decide to become a traveller on the way to the Academic Art of Riding, you decide to challenge yourself in order to move your own boundaries so you can be in a better contact to your horse.

Ylvie Fros has been my student for many years now and she is one of the licensed Bent Branderup® Trainers. She is a dedicated rider and trainer and has been experimenting with different approaches that can help riders to master the challenges they face on their journey to the Art. A rider who gets stuck on his journey will often find the solution in a change of perspective. Ylvie has been experimenting with different approaches in teaching and coaching humans on their way to the Academic Art of Riding. This book gives insight, how Zen, Centered Riding and the Academic Art of Riding can give guidance in order to develop a better connection between the human and the horse. The purpose of art is not to make an ideal become perfect reality, but to enlighten reality.

-Bent Branderup-

Introduction

My initial plan was to write a book about the seat of the rider. An anatomical and technical guide for riders, explaining the correct way to use and move your body. But in the course of my own development in riding and while writing my blog posts, I realized that, yes, while the technique and anatomy behind a good seat is very important to know, in the end it is not theoretical knowledge that makes you a good rider; it is the good use of your body and mind that does. Without the right mindset and intent, your body will not do what you ask it to do. A mind that is in the moment and allows you to feel will benefit you far more when you are around horses compared to an over-thinking, analytical brain that blocks out all signals from your body.

They say that you can only teach what you know. I believe you can only teach what you have truly experienced. There is a massive difference between knowing something and having experienced it. Riding is all about experiences. Theoretical understanding is important, but there are many good trainers out there who can teach you about the techniques of dressage exercises, which muscles to train and why. Also, some great trainers out there do a fantastic job teaching people about rider biomechanics. Many books have been written about these subjects. But you still have to go out and collect your own experience beyond this theoretical knowledge.

The experience that I try to pass on to my students, and through my blog posts and this book to all of you riders out there, is that it requires training of both mind and body to become the best rider you can be. There are things you need to understand, things you need to feel and things you need to experience in order to develop. The connection and integration of your body and mind so that they work as one is what most of us have lost and what eastern philosophies such as Zen teach you to re-find.

I will give you a variety of ideas on how you can work on your body and your mind. With the ultimate goal to become free of fear, pain, stress and negative beliefs and to improve balance, stability, freedom of movement, patience, awareness and upright posture while being with your horse(s). By developing our own bodies and minds we will be able to help our horses to carry us in harmony and lightness, with joy and mutual understanding.

This book is not a ‘how-to’ book in the usual sense. It does not tell you how to train the shoulder-in, how to train collection or how to do a flying change. It does not even tell you how you should handle your horse. But it does tell you what you can work on in your own body and how you can train your mind in order to improve your riding and your relationship with your horse. It gives you some ideas to try out on your horse. But this book is not meant to give you a complete structure or overview of a riding ‘method’.

Instead of a practical step-by-step guide on how to use your body and aids, this book is a collection of thoughts, ideas and experiences that will give you various perspectives on the same topics: the body and mind of the horse rider. This collection may alter, expand and be revised as time goes by. With each new experience, my riding and teaching evolves. As do my thoughts about riding.

Happy reading!

- Ylvie

The Power of Samadhi: Ride in the Space between Your Thoughts

My training is in the Art of Riding, which is in fact the art of becoming one with the body and soul of another being – the horse – and through that connection, to become one