The Disciplines Of War

Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.

Horselover- I'm glad you're enjoying this. I don't know how many more chapters I will have of this story but I do intend to keep mixing dressage with turtles throughout.

Neosun7- I figured I would have to explain dressage a little bit due to the fact it is such a little known sport in spite of the many years it has been around. I wanted readers unfamiliar with dressage to have a bit of an idea what it is and what it is good for. Another way of looking at it is that it is gymnastics for horses.

Thanks all for your reviews.

Part Three

When the others caught sight of Leo limping the next morning Leo had an excuse ready for them not willing to admit the truth to them yet because he knew that would only leave him more open to ribbing from them. He wasn't about to give his brothers any more opportunity to bother him then what they had all ready.

By evening his foot all though still tender and sore wasn't as bad as it had been and Leo felt very much like getting out of the house. He found himself making his way back towards the meadow.

When he arrived he stayed in the shadows of the trees until he could be sure that it was safe. The only people he saw in the meadow were Jessica and Ninja going over some of the various jumps.

Leo felt himself relax realizing as he did so how much he had expected seeing both Ninja and Jessica here again. He knew that it wasn't so much the horse or the rider that particularly had got his interest.

Mike would enjoy Ninja and probably be willing to make friends with Jessica too simply because Mike enjoyed animals of all types and enjoyed being around people as well.

For Leo it was the discipline the effort and patience that was involved to reach a level of any given sport.

After all Jessica had mentioned that the Grand Prix level was the highest in dressage and so conceivably there had to be levels under it as well which might hold the foundation of the later lessons. So one had to pass through all the levels of training to achieve that pinnacle point.

Martial Arts often had belts to denote the level of training the student had achieved but no student could achieve a black belt instantly on first starting similarly there had to be a starting point in dressage if Grand Prix was the top.

There were similarities but there were differences as well after all not every sport insisted that you work in conjunction with a partner.

The horse was a totally different partner to deal with being as it was an animal it could not reason, think or even communicate with it's human partner so it was up to his rider to determine what might be bothering the horse when his performance was lack luster.

Jessica brought Ninja over to where Leo was sitting in the grass the horse lowered his neck snuffing loudly " How is your foot today Leo?"

" It is a little sore not too bad. It could have been worse I guess if he really wanted to stomp on me. I was sort of hoping that I would catch you here I wanted to see if you would be able to tell me more about dressage, the training you do with him and that sort of thing."

 " You really want to know? I could probably bore you to death with what I know" Jessica insisted.

" I would like to know more. I mean it is different and it is a sport that I assume takes a great deal of training and time to learn."

" That is true enough I started learning dressage when I was age nine and I'm almost seventeen and I have spent a lot of time with instructors, reading watching videos and practicing over the years since then. Ninja here was bought off his original owner she had him trained but then got cancer and she felt with therapy and all that she couldn't keep up the work he needed to maintain him so he was sold and I lucked out.

As for dressage well horses can be lazy brutes they don't want to work if they can avoid it and dressage requires that they work. Sometimes the horse will get down right upset if you do too much of it they need time to relax and unwind and you can't expect them to perform on such a basis all the time so I give Ninja breaks from work by going on trail rides and by jumping or giving him a day off now and again. Today is one of Ninja's more relaxing days to unwind from the rigors of school work."

" In other words you aren't doing dressage today huh?" Leo found he was disappointed to hear that because he wanted to see more of it done. Jumping held no real interest for him.

" Well we can do a little work for you the early schooling so to speak. Transitions, circles and that sort of thing won't hurt him I just won't ask for the more demanding work like piaffe or passage."

" What are those?"

" Besides being French um the easiest way to explain it is the piaffe is a trot on the spot. Passage is also known as the swimming trot because the horse looks like it is swimming on land the leg movement is more elevated." Jessica answered.

 She turned Ninja and started to put him through some of his basic moves explaining some of the early exercises to relax the horse and make it supple as well as taking time to instruct Leo on some of the terminology used in dressage.

" Impulsion is essential if you have no impulsion then you don't have dressage. Impulsion is the energy that comes from the horse thrusting forward from the hind end. Transitions are the changes in pace caused from moving from one gait to another such as walk to canter or canter down to trot. When doing a transition the horse should not lose the impulsion or the rhythm or beat of the foot falls on the ground."

" Well the horse has four feet and as each one falls that would be a beat right?"
 " Not always Leo a walk is four beat because each hoof is raised and lowered at a separate time but a trot is two beat because you have one hind leg and one front leg rising and falling simultaneously. The canter has three beats and a moment of suspension when all four feet are off the ground. The gallop is an all out run but we don't gallop in dressage."

Leo shook his head confused Jessica laughed at him as if she was reading his mind and told him " If you think you are confused NOW in dressage we have three different versions of each gait that is used. We have the working, the collected and the extended walk trot and canter.

Working means the normal pace stride etcetera of the animal in that gait. Collected means you shorten the stride while maintaining the impulsion and rhythm of the beat. The horse's neck when collected is always arched so the poll of the neck is the highest point. It covers less ground then working but the legs lift higher up. Think of it as a coiled spring pressed between your fingers.

Extended means you want a longer stride then what is found in working. The horse still moves forward but his head and neck are lower down and he covers more ground. It is the spring being stretched out.

Here I'll put Ninja through some of them and see if you can guess when he is doing what."

Leo found it was fairly easy to determine the working from the collected and the extension from the others as well. Jessica's explanation and definition plus his own observational skills helped in determining which one she performed.

She brought Ninja to a halt again and let him lower his head to eat the grass.

" You said the other day that these maneuvers were used originally as war tactics but I don't see how. Katas in martial arts is simply fighting the invisible foe but I can't see the foe or how it could be used," Leo admitted.

" The early exercises were developed to make the horse responsive to his rider. Dressage helps enable horse and rider to become one to act as one unit instead of two separate units each with their own agenda. The mounted soldiers needed the horse to respond to them instantly in battle so dressage was a way of training the mounts to stay flexible enough they could turn around fast when asked to do so.

Two track work or any of the movements that require the horse to move sideways as well as forward was used on the battlefield. The sideways movement was done so the horse would step on anyone near him while crossing the battle zone. Many soldiers would play dead only to use a sword to cause severe damage to a horse's soft belly stomping on the fallen decreased the chances of such problems." Jessica informed Leo.

" Knowing how soar my own foot is and knowing he didn't even use his full weight to come down on it I can see now how being stomped on by a horse could deter such an action.

I suppose the horse also gave an added advantage in battle because the rider would be higher up then foot soldiers and would come to less harm" Leo essayed.

" Exactly not only that but if a soldier was mounted and faced a life or death situation if he was lucky he could bring his horse around to take the blow for him sure he would sacrifice his horse but it meant he could fight on from the ground." Jessica agreed.

Leo considered that option for a moment and recognized the tactical merits of such a move. He was starting to see now how dressage came from war games on horseback.

A horse would have to trust it's rider enough to not show fear of the sounds of battle going on around it, to not be effected by the smell of the blood or any number of things which could cause fear in an animal under such circumstances. Fear Leo knew from experience could make an animal or person less willing to respond to action leading to injury or death in battle.

" It makes a lot of sense," Leo admitted.

 " Some horses in the old days even helped by fighting in the battles by performing special moves that they were trained for. Now a days about the only way you will see these moves is if you're lucky enough to see the Lipizzan stallions perform in the Spanish riding school of Vienna. The Lipizzans are the only known horses that still perform the airs above the ground.

A lot of the 'airs' they perform start with the piaffe, then the levade.

Now Leo imagine you are a foot soldier on the battle field you are marching towards a string of mounted soldiers as you draw near the horses seem to rear up on hind legs and then they literally jump while still on hind legs straight towards you doing five or six jumps before coming down on front legs."

" Now you are trying to pull my leg. There is no possible way an animal the size of a horse could actually jump on hind legs!" An exasperated Leo claimed.

" They CAN Leo. Or at least the lippizaners are capable of it." Jessica defended her position sounding very sure of her facts.

" Then it CAN'T be natural and you told me dressage was natural to the horse so which is it?" Leo accused crossing his arms over his plastron.

" It is natural Leo. We breed horses on our farm and I've seen some foals only a few days old perform the 'airs' when they go out in the field to play. It is just that most people aren't aware that they are able to do this with some horses so they don't keep them flexible and supple. They train them for other things and that natural talent is buried over time by other things.

The Lippizaner foals are watched from early on and ONLY the ones who show an affinity for a certain 'air' are trained for it. The Spanish Riding School NEVER makes a horse perform the 'air' unless they know he has been doing it naturally. They make notes of which horse performs which air and when the horse matures and is trained he is taught to perform the air on command" Jessica replied smugly, " I have pictures at home in some of my dressage books that show the lippizaners performing the airs."

" I think I would have to see those to believe it" Leo replied skeptically.

 " Okay I can bring the books next time I come. The record for the courbette jumps is fourteen jumps by one stallion though normally they do between three and eight.

In another of the 'airs' the capriole the horse jumps off the ground so his body is horizontal to the ground and then kicks out with one hind leg. This move is the most difficult of the airs to perform but it was used to kick advancing foot soldiers who were coming up from behind, in the head."

Leo arched an eye ridge he knew how difficult it was to kick anyone in the head but to train a horse to do ALMOST the very same thing?

He still had this odd feeling that Jessica was teasing him because he didn't know her all that well and he was pretty sure it was impossible for a horse to perform such a feat to begin with.

" As for the foundation of those moves the levade and pesade they were used on the battle field for one THING only and almost any horse can perform the pesade and the levade. Ninja here is trained to do them.

The moves originated so if a rider saw a cannonball coming his way he could get the horse up and the cannonball would hit the horse in the chest.

In the pesade the hocks must be at about a forty five degree angle to the ground and the hocks are here on the back legs" Jessica used her whip to point out the hocks to Leo " then the horses body is brought up off the ground until it's body is at a forty five degree angle to the ground itself.

In the levade everything stays the same except for the level of the horse's body in relation to the ground. For the levade you must maintain a thirty-five degree angle.

Any time the hocks are not kept low or the horse rises above the forty five degree mark then it is no longer classical riding it is a rear. Horses love to rear it's not work.

That is why this stuff shouldn't be trained until the horse is at a good level of obedience in dressage. Try to teach him before that point how to levade and he will rear and learn he can avoid work by doing so.

Horses have great memories you don't want to teach them to avoid work."

Leo had to wonder at the amount of training and control it took to get a horse to rise on its hind legs at such an angle and then maintain that position.

If what Jessica had told him was true then the horse itself could be used as a weapon in battle there by increasing the rider's odds of survival and taking the horse from a small advantage on the field to a strategic force to be used against the enemy.

TBC

Author's Note: There is a group of Lippizan horses that do tour parts of Canada and the United States. These performers do NOT perform a lot of the moves correctly. They have NEVER once, in the times I have seen them, performed any of the Airs above the ground correctly.

If you know nothing about dressage it is beautiful to watch and see but I know too much about dressage and all I see is the numerous mistakes they make.

The Spanish Riding School would NEVER allow such mistakes in their performances they do it correctly.