Garland Farms Dressage

Testimonial by Amie Slate

June 1999

Last month, I spent a week riding at Garland Farms. It was a marvelous experience, fulfilling my wish for perceptive and talented instruction and a riding style that fit my ideal of elegance and sensitivity.

I heard about Garland Farms through another list member, Marti Stuessy. She mentioned that she got good instruction there that was focused more on what she needed to do for her horse rather than just what she should be making the horse do. Right away I decided to go.

Garland Farms is a private farm owned by Gina and John Krueger in the woods and valleys of north Georgia. They have a nice website at:

http://www.gfdressage.com/index.htm

I rode twice a day on their horses. The first day of riding was hard. It was a teasing apart of all the knots I've been using, knots that pieced together the bits I've gotten to work here and there. It was hard to take it all apart. But in its stead I was given a whole. A new way of feeling my leg so that I can use it without tension. A way of riding with this feeling all through my body. A feeling of riding with my whole body instead of just the reins.

The first day we worked on feeling the seat bones light and even on both sides of his spine. I had no idea I wasn't riding straight. I've certainly read and studied Sylvia Loch, Kyra Kyrklund, Sally Swift and others. I have done exercises and felt my way through as well as I could alone. If you had asked me, I would have said I rode straight. But as soon as Gina guided my awareness, it became very clear that I was sitting with the left seat bone back and left shoulder dropped. It helps to have a perceptive and talented teacher!

Always we returned to the sense of a giving embrace in the seat and letting that embrace continue down the leg. Feeling the flat of the thigh and the top of the calf swinging with the ribs. I noticed that the weight in the seat, along the leg and even in the stirrup doesn't need to change. Even at the post, the stirrup weight didn't change. All this helped make it possible to keep the feet pointed forward and the knee soft on the saddle. When I'd get stuck, I found releasing all tension helped reestablish the leg. From that, rising up through the body, it became possible to sit light and deep. By that I mean I felt (from time to time!) like I was moving with the horse everywhere, without tension. I was asked to apply the leg with the inside of the calf at the widest part, at the top of my boot. In post, I was to think of swinging the outside hip further forward. The hip opens and the knee drops; then keep the outside hip forward on the down post as well. Same thought at the walk. The whole outside curve of the horse is stretching. The inside seatbone comes closer to the spine, the outside allowing forward.

Then the reins. Gina encouraged me to respond to the horse through the reins and not just use them for asking and releasing. Remember every horse is different. Experiment with each to find what helps him drop and stretch down and forward. First drop and then contact. A sense of yield and then a sense of forward into the reins. All stuff I've heard before but feeling it is a whole different story. I got the beginning of the feelings of the horse not just yielding to the reins at the poll or the neck but the feeling of yield all the way through the horse. That will take some more time I think. I was often able to recognize when I had got something good, but often not able to get there on my own.

Gina was a perceptive teacher, always being able to point out a small shift here or tension there. Always ready to listen and offer some options. Through her I was able to get a whole new sense of the horse and how I was influencing him -- for good and for ill. I also rode one lesson with Ange, the Instructor in Residence. She too, was helpful in that quiet, perceptive way which gave me all kinds of new things to notice and think about.

The whole journey was absolutely spectacular. I learned so much and also received some tremendous feedback. Gina is not a small woman but she rides like feather. Just gorgeous. She was able to give me a sense of riding like that, with harmony and wholeness. The first lesson was pretty discouraging -- for both of us I think. But by the end of the week, Gina was so thrilled at my work, she beamed. She told me that for only four years of studying, I was doing very well.

The feeling I get when I remember watching her ride is like an image of a gull's feather floating on the water, the water curling up to embrace the edges of the feather. How lovely to imagine the horse accepting, receiving the rider so fluidly! How lovely to guide with that lightness and harmony. It's a rare combination to have a talented rider also be a talented teacher and she was able to give me a sense of riding that way myself. Small as I am, I ride much heavier than she does. Makes me think of -- what else -- dance. I have taken dance classes doing the man's part. I tell you, some tiny women are hard, tense and downright painful to dance with.

Gina is both a talented teacher and rider in one. I would love to ride more with her. I felt very welcomed and enjoyed being there tremendously.

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