In your Horsemanship… Are you an Artist or Artisan? (Thanks to Merriam-Webster Dictionary for the definitions.)
1) Artist: a: one who professes and practices an imaginative art, b: a person skilled in one of the fine arts, c: a skilled performer
2) Artisan: a worker who practices a trade or handicraft
All comments and discussion welcome!
(© Kip Mistral 2003. Two part interview article first published in California Riding Magazine. Detail from “The Prince Riding in the Moonlight” by John Bauer, 1914.)
“I remember one day after several years of study, during which I thought I was progressing quite nicely, my teacher said, ‘Riding dressage is not like playing tennis. You can make your body learn the techniques and make your head learn the movements, but the dressage comes from inside of you. You really need to develop your inner life.’ This was a turning point in my life, a quantum leap in my conscious process. I began to understand that people rode the way they were, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and that was why horses performed differently for different riders. As we open ourselves up to transformation, our riding improves.” ~ Dressage in the Fourth Dimension
Sherry Ackerman is a Mount Shasta, California based, European-trained classical rider and trainer who, incidentally, holds a PhD in Philosophy. Her fascinating book Dressage in the Fourth Dimension explores her ultimate ideal for riding and the horse/human relationship. She calls it the Fourth Dimension, essentially the merging of two entities in a higher plane of spirit that moves outside their individual existences.
(© Kip Mistral 2018. “Water Sprite” by Theodor Kittelsen)
Almost all of us riders met the horse first in our childhood imaginations. We took our seats on the gleaming black stallions, or the feisty red mares, or even the luminous winged white horse, and they carried us to…wherever we wanted to go. And we flew together with them in a gallop so fast that we conquered space and time.
Some of us children were so lucky to find our way to the horse in the real flesh. We learned to love that wonderful smell of their coats and their sweet hay-scented breath. We groomed them until they shone. We sat on their patient backs for hours while we talked to our friends in the barn aisle. We rode freely out in the country, perhaps, with no rules except to be home by dark. We were unconscious of anything except the moment, the freedom and its joy. We—and I am one of these fortunate ones—know now how extremely lucky we were to have this gift of innocent time with the horse. We could be Wild Things together.
(Peter Paul Rubens – Detail from Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma – The Collection – Museo Nacional del Prado)
“Now for your Cherishings, they are those which I formerly spake of;
Only they must be used at no time but when your Horse doth well,
(© 2015 Xenophon Press. Images used with permission of the publisher. Review © 2018 Kip Mistral)
Not one, but an amazing three forewords penned by luminaries of modern classical riding greet the reader who picks up Austrian Art of Riding: Five Centuries”; Karl Mikolka, Charles DeKunffy and Sylvia Loch all give their stamps of approval for the publication of this English translation of Dr. Werner Poscharnigg’s fascinating work.
Fanciers of the Lipizzan horse, the Spanish Riding School, classical riding, fine horsemanship and equestrian history will be thrilled to sit down with this behind-the-scenes look at a cavalcade of famous personalities—both human and horse—who had a critical influence on the development of Austro-Hungarian equitation.
