Achieving Coalescence with your horse

Dressage is a team sport. We work with our horse to train and perform beautiful dances together, creating a common language and forming an unbreakable team bond. Our ultimate goal is to synchronize — to move as one with our horse. This coalescence is the pinnacle we strive for.

This is the DRT Training System: a model to help you understand the four elements that combine to achieve the ultimate goal of dressage, that of coalescence.

In coalescence, you see co-, which should tell you the word means “together.” The other half of the word comes from alescere, a Latin verb meaning “to grow up.” As we form our bond and team unit, we grow together and our language becomes more subtle. Our communication gets stronger in understanding yet softer at the same time.

Within our dressage training, we are working to create straightness, correct contact, suppleness, engagement and collection. All of these things require clear communication from the rider and the right sort of training over time to develop. As we work on the horse's training — by working on our own alignment, correct core engagement, suppleness, stamina and stability — we gain the ability to truly move with the horse.

Just as you can miss basic fundamentals of a horse's training and find gaps in their performance, you can also find this in riders. All you have to do is head along to a competition and you can see riders who move with their horses and riders who don't — just as you can see horses who use their backs and have correct, elastic performances and others who don't. But there is just something magical about watching those riders who move as one with their horses, and a lightness about how they move together.

Where I come from with my training is this: I want my horse to be able to perform without strain and prevent injury, so correct training and posture within the horse is pivotal. The same is true for me as a rider — I want many riding years to come, and to prevent strain and injury. So teaching my body to be aligned, supple and strong at the same time I am asking my horse to do the same all makes sense.

In doing so we enhance the horse's posture and strength, and at the same time enhance our own. Then, when we perform our beautiful dance together, we move as one — with lightness and elasticity. Coalescence.