Dear Friends,
Last Friday I told you how excited I was to have Janice Dulak (author of Pilates for Dressage) visiting with me. Having her here is wonderful – I get to really focus on Fluidity for higher-level collection and engagement. She is very knowledgeable and articulate, so her explanations are very clear for me, and I get to ask all kinds of questions. We watch videos together – sometimes mine, sometimes others – so I can learn more about how to identify what a rider is or is not doing and how to fix it. Of course, I cannot do it the way she would, so I try to figure out simple ways of helping riders at my level of understanding. It’s very rewarding. Savvy Club members would have seen some of my early work on this on the October 2009 Savvy Club DVD. I coached Jamie, a Mastery Student, with concepts like “standing” and “hovering” to help him begin to use his core and glutes, to lengthen his leg and stretch his upper body.
Janice gave me a great tip the other day when I was riding Remmer in rising/posting trot. She said to rotate my hips outward at the top of my post. What a great tip! It made a big difference for me. I realized that I was somehow going fuzzy at that point, but this enabled me to keep my body engaged. All these tiny details – when you’re ready for them – make a huge difference!
Yours Naturally,
Linda
