DVD Review: * Kalman de Jurenak ~ Classical Schooling part 1&2

Hmmm...I could take or leave this dvd.  it has a few good parts and some bad parts.  First, this is regarding German Classical Schooling.  Part 2 had a lovely PSG horse at the very end that was moving like an angel, but....I was not a fan of the rest of it.   Granted part 1 hass a VERY green horse, I feel it can be misleading for the lower end of the dressage population, as the horse is over bent and behind the vertical nearly the entire time. This is, in my book, taboo and needs to be avoided at all cost.  Why?  because of the grotesque deviations from classical schooling in the last 15ys.  You rarely find someone schooling the horse properly with the poll high in front of the vertical.  You either have examples such as this OR a horse crammed back, poll high, nose in front of the vertical, but the underside of his neck is bulging and his back is hollow.  There IS a correct middle ground and it is totally and completely misunderstood.  Demonstrations such as this will give the wrong impression. So, I say steer clear unless you already have the basics well and good under your belt.  In this dvd, the "poll high"  seems to be a far off notion to be achieved toward the end of years of schooling, it is a far off goal, not a principle of the training system.  For this reason, I noticed in the upper level horses, it seemed like they were repeatedly trying to achieve this 'poll high' position only to have the horse fall back to what it has known it's whole riding career.....over bent.  For this reason, I only gave this dvd 1 star, because for me....either poll high IS a principle or it is NOT.  If not....I move on to find someone who does hold it as a the sacred principle it has always been and should always be.  For ME....It is hard enough being at the bottom, failing miserably trying to emulate what is right, I don't need to add emulating doing it wrong into the mix. That's for sure.  For that reason I will not be renting the rest of the series as I have about 200 dvd's in my que right now that I would rather watch.

For more info about Kalman de Jurenak you will need to do a google search yourself, because I could not find a website for him.

Savvy On
Michelle