Philippe Karl on the Problems of Modern Dressage and the Essence of French Classical Riding | INSIDE THE MANÈGE
In this second episode of the Inside the Manège podcast, I sit down with Philippe Karl, renowned rider and teacher of French classical riding. In this episode, he shares his critiques of modern dressage riding, discusses how to ride according to the nature of the horse, and what differentiates the French classical tradition.
With over 50 years of experience riding and teaching, Philippe Karl was a rider of the famous Cadre Noir in Saumur, France for 13 years. While teaching internationally, he began to observe that the way riders trained and competed in dressage was changing – and in his view, not for the better. Because of this, he saw a need to preserve the French tradition of riding by training students and future instructors, which led him to found his own school, called the School of Lightness, or l’École de Légèreté.
As a vocal advocate for kind and logical horse training, he has debated with dressage authorities such as Christoph Hess on the current state of dressage training and suggested making changes for the future of the sport.
In this episode, we explore how some common training techniques don’t correspond to the nature of the horse, where modern dressage has become distorted, and how he is able to get a horse light in the mouth.
If you are curious about the state of modern dressage training, and the French classical tradition – don’t miss this episode.
To watch this episode with subtitles, and in additional languages, turn on closed captions for the video on YouTube and select your preferred language in settings.
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