Metaphors will often be made, keeping life in dressage and dressage in life. I view dressage as a spiritual practice, much like yoga - a practice to hold ourselves to daily and set goals for ourselves, realized through the sport and transferred into our daily lives. Goals and ideals such as flexibility, strength, power, suppleness, rhythm, ease, creativity and of course, balance.
The title of this post states, "The beginning is the most important part of the work." Not only, I think does this mean that initiation is the most important part of making any change or development, but that throughout the course of training the concepts learned at the very beginning will serve to be the most important and the most ever-present. Take care to prepare well. Set high expectations, be compassionate and as always, move forward.
EXERCISE:
Have a plan for your warm up, and then take it from there. Ride from beginning to the end of the session, consciously taking your horse through the lower levels first. Ride him just like a training level horse for the first 10-15 minutes, working on just the basics. Think: POSITION (yours), FORWARD (his), FLEXION (suppleness/bending), RELEASE (cruise). That's it. Nothing fancy for the warm-up, but make sure you get through the checklist. If you have the reactions in place, you should have a good ride. :)
