Commentary Editorial Archives

Kip May 20, 2023

The Great Unities and Why We Must Keep Them Alive

[“Morning Exercise in the Hofreitschule” by Julius von Blaas, 1890]

In early March of this year 2023, news went around the world that Chief Rider of the Spanish Riding School, Andreas Hausberger, had been relieved of his position after 40 years of service within the school. Persons not familiar with the politics of Vienna and the school itself had a difficult time understanding the issues at hand, let alone why this could have happened to an admired and trusted member of the school, who on top of it all, was the last rider left from the last generation trained under the original classical protocols and methods. Who now would carry the torch for the true, centuries-old traditions?

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Kip January 24, 2022

“Time Escapes Me”: The Gift of Taking Time in Horsemanship

(© Kip Mistral 2022. Image “Time Escapes Me” by Betsy C. Knapp used with permission of the artist.)

At the beginning of this New Year 2022, many of us are busy making New Year’s resolutions and other forms of road maps for our goals and what we otherwise want to accomplish during the coming year.

Note I said busy. Because being busy is the opposite of taking time.

When I look around it seems that the majority of people are engaged in busyness, activities that include a horse, or their horse, and they have a more or less proscriptive approach to the inter-relationship. The popular model is that the horse must always be submissive no matter what.

What I really like to see is people just simply spending companionable time with their horse, to deepen the bond between them.

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Kip August 12, 2021

To Become a Great Rider, You Must First Become the Horse

(Horsewoman with a Red Horse, Marc Chagall)

“To write a great book, you must first become the book.” ~ Naval Ravikant

When I read this quote this morning, immediately my horse-loving mind turned it around into something about the horse, because really, what Ravikant said is true of anything. So this is a great thought, to me…”To become a great rider, you must first become the horse.”

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Kip August 1, 2021

What We Can Give…

Classical riding was and is an aristocratic pursuit, both literally and figuratively. Someone who understands this knows that we can’t add water and stir to make a schoolmaster horse…it takes many years of patient work and experience-building to create an equine artist, and some horses definitely are that. It is a journey for the horse as well as for us humans. Smart horses understand the importance of their education and they will employ what they learn for their own purposes. Horses are incredibly generous when treated with kindness, tact and appreciation. And love! And the more they learn, the more they can and will offer their rider. “Do you want this? This? Or this? I have all these things to give!”

Something classical is something so fabulous, that it never gets old. Beautiful riding happens when the horse can be proud and not tyrannized. It doesn’t matter what discipline it is. Now you’re talking classical!

Kip March 2, 2021

Language, Literacy and Other Ideals…

I was reviewing my website analytics and wanted to remark on a trend that I know is growing in internet usage…that is, people are using their mobile devices more (it’s now predominant), and their tablets and desktops less. I thought it might be a good idea to point out that my website, though fully internet-optimized, is purposefully image-rich and contains longer, more expository types of post than the more typical “How to do something 5 different ways” post. It is not really meant to be accessed from a mobile phone, in the same way that you can’t drive by a physical library or museum and think you’ve seen them. You actually have to park your vehicle and walk into the library or museum and spend some time there looking around, to say you’ve visited the institution or seen an exhibit or attended a lecture or a reading.

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