“Pushing Forward with the Stomach and Inwards with the Loins”

In the two weeks since my last post I rode only once.  Our glorious rain, that has filled the lakes, ponds, rivers and creeks, has really interfered with my riding.  Then last weekend I went with my husband on one of his frequent business trips up to the Northern area of Virginia near D.C..  As usual we went by various used book stores and I found a copy of “Dressage--The Art of Classical Riding” by Sylvia Loch.  I spent all last weekend reading this book while waiting around for my husband to do his work. 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.  It covers classical riding from Xenophon to modern competition dressage.  What really struck me was Sylvia Loch’s coverage of the early dressage masters, with comments about their procedures and their descriptions of the proper seat.  In this essay I will have to quote from Sylvia Loch’s book because all my copies of the long ago dressage books by Pluvinel, the Duke of Newcastle and de la Gueriniere are packed away.  Back when I originally read these books I noticed that their descriptions of the proper seat on horseback differed somewhat from what I had read (and probably misunderstood) in several modern books on dressage.

First, a note on the words used.  The old masters used the words “twist” or “fork” where now we use the word “crotch.”  They used the words “loins” or “kidneys” to refer to the small of the back, the area between the thorax (the ribs) and the pelvis.

First came the discussion on Pluvinel, the riding master for the French kings Henri IV and Louis XIII, who wrote the book “The Maneige Royal”  in 1625.  Sylvia Loch gives a short description of Pluvinel’s seat on page 64, “Pluvinel advocated pushing forward with the stomach and inward with the loins in keeping with the later La Gueriniere and other classical masters.”  I really wish my copy of Pluvinel was not packed away so I could quote exactly what he wrote!

Next Sylvia Loch writes on de la Gueriniere’s book, “School of Horsemanship.”  She quoted, and I presume translated, from the “Ecole de Cavalerie” written in French in the year 1733.  These quotes are from pages 72-73 in Sylvia Loch’s book. 

“Let the horseman then place himself on his twist sitting exactly in the middle of the saddle, let him support this posture in which the twist alone seems to sustain the weight of the whole body by moderately leaning upon his buttocks, let his thighs be turned inwards and rest flat upon the sides of the saddle, and in order to do this, let the turn of the thighs proceed directly from the hips….I demand but a moderate stress upon the buttocks, because a man that sits full upon them can never turn his thighs flat upon the saddle and the thighs should always lie flat.”

“The horseman should present or advance his breast; by that his whole figure opens and displays itself; he should have a small hollow in his back and push his waist forward to the pommel of the saddle, because this position corresponds with and unites him to all the motions of the horse.  Throwing the shoulders back, produces all these effects…”

Next comes a discussion on the Portuguese school of riding dressage.  On page 77 Sylvia Loch quotes from a book, “Luz da Liberal e Nobre Arte da Cavllaria” (1790) by Manuel Carlos Andrade, ecuyer of the Marquess of Marialva who “laid down a set code of rules for mounted bullfighting, which are still used today.”   “A detailed description of the seat similar in all aspects to that of La Gueriniere is given…“The Master should recommend is pupil to keep his shoulders down and to put them backwards, firm and straight, since the shoulders control the movements of the breast, kidneys and waist.  The rider should carry his breast forwards, although not exaggerated, and the kidneys (lower back) should also be carried forward since this will achieve the best equilibrium.”

Then Sylvia Loch then goes back in time to William Cavendish, the Duke of Newcastle.  De la Gueriniere considered the Duke of Newcastle one of his main inspirations along with de la Broue.  The Duke of Newcastle’s book “A General System of Horsemanship in All its Branches” was originally published in French in 1658.    On page 86 of Sylvia Loch’s book she writes “Newcastle was a stickler for position…Newcastle chides the rider who sits only upon the buttocks ‘though most people think they were made by nature to do this, recommending the rider to sit ‘upon the twist…leaving a hand’s breadth between his backside and the arch of the saddle (cantle).’”

Sylvia Loch describes the seats of the old Masters of Dressage, and writes on page 206 “where the emphasis has been on mainly very collected work in the pursuit of the High School the three point, hollowed loin seat, first outlined by Newcastle and La Gueriniere, has continued and developed into that of Baucher, Oliveira, Frederiksen, de Kunffy and Albrecht.”  The three points of the seat are the pubic bone (crotch) and the two seat bones.

In this three point, hollowed loin seat, the back is “braced” differently than I was taught originally by instructors inspired by the book “Riding Logic” by Museler.  I was taught to “brace my back” by rotating my pelvis to the rear, digging my seat bones into the saddle and flattening my back.  On page 158 Sylvia Loch writes, first, Museler’s description of a seat where “The body should rest vertically upon the two pelvic bones and the crotch, on three points of support, exactly at the lowest point of the saddle.”  But then she gets into how Museler braced the back, and “Where previous writers only advocated an upright position of the rider at all times, with the spine retaining its natural S shape and bracing occurring forward by pushing the waist towards the hands, Museler produced diagrams to indicate a totally new idea at that time.  These indicate a flattening of the lower spine, the pelvis rotated clockwise so that only the rear point of the seat bones are in contact with the saddle, and the rider sitting well behind the vertical.”

Oh me, oh my, this statement makes me so glad I completely switched to the Forward Seat, since it explains why my horses got so very, very, very unhappy with me when I braced my back ala Museler.  Every time I attempted to ride dressage I got told to straighten my back and sit back on my seat bones, and that my hollow loin was a grievous fault.  My horses told me that this was uncomfortable for them, so ignoring my teachers and listening to my horses, I completely disowned the modern dressage seat.  Hey, “everyone” told me that this was the “classical” dressage seat, but it turns out that “everyone” was wrong.  Museler’s method of “bracing” the back is MODERN, not classical.

Ironically the best descriptions I found of HOW to get my back so it resembled the descriptions of Pluvinel, de la Gueriniere and the Duke of Newcastle, were in the book “School for Riding” by Sergei Kournakoff, Littauer’s partner in developing what is now the American Forward Seat.  I described these in my blogs (urls below) “Fixing my Shoulders” (2-24-2010) and “Maybe Now I Can Fix my Head” (1-16-2011). 

I want to make a comment about looking between the horse’s ears here.  Whenever I try to look between the horse’s ears my head looks DOWN and my back collapses and my back becomes straight instead of having its natural curve.  When I keep my head up my back keeps its curve in the loin.  I am now translating the “looking between the horse’s ears” meme to one of that my face should face in the same direction as the horse’s head, while I look towards the horizon, not down to the horse’s ears.

Hopefully I will get to ride soon.  It will be interesting what the horses tell me about my “new” way of bracing my back.  While the horses always obeyed my “driving” seat ala Museler, they always acted like they were compelled instead of relaxing and going with the flow, and their movement got worse.  Riders who have problems, like I did, with keeping the flat of their thighs against the saddle, might want to meditate on the above quote from de la Gueriniere, “I demand but a moderate stress upon the buttocks because a man that sits full on them can never turn his thighs flat upon the saddle.”

Have a great ride!

Jackie Cochran

“Dressage--The Art of Classical Riding” by Sylvia Loch,  ã 1990, Trafalgar Square Publishing, North Pomfret, Vermont, ISBN 0-943955-32-7.

My blogs:

“Fixing My Shoulders”

Fixing My Shoulders

“Maybe Now I Can Fix My Head”

Maybe Now I Can Fix My Head