|
| |||||||
"When the légèreté is confirmed at the walk, the trot work begins under the same conditions of measured slowness as at the walk, and transitions between walk and trot are practiced.
"This is the point at which Baucher begins the exercise of the 'Rassembler', which in his mind is meant to increase the horse's mobility in every sense by reducing his support base.
"Having yielded with his skeleton to the aids, having been prepared by the flexions, confirmed in his légèreté at the halt as well as in motion, driven forward by the legs and held back by the hand, the horse moves his hind legs closer to his front legs, which, to the author of the method, is the quintessence of the rassembler (13th edition, p. 160). (footnote: It must be remarked that this definition of the Rassembler differs considerably from that of the old School).
"The rider must now animate the horse in this position in order to be able to use him, and that is another pitfall that the students of the Master have been unable to avoid.
"It is quite obvious that the aids of the hands and legs cannot be the same in the effet d'ensemble as in the rassembler, since the horse has to be immobilized in the first case and activated in the second case. But one searches the first twelve editions of the method in vain for a clear and precise explanation of the difference between the two, which must undoubtedly have existed.
"It is only in Baucher's 'testament', his 'final teachings', published almost twenty years after his death, that this essential distinction is clearly explained with the necessary precision: (footnote : It is difficult not to attribute the tardy clarification of this aspect of the method that had remained obscure for 40 years in part to General Faverot de Kerbrech, the editor of these 'teachings'.). In the effet d'ensemble, the legs are applied constantly and persistantly, by pressure. In the rassembler, their aids are brief and intermittent, repeated attacks. (footnote: Baucher did not indicate the placement of the leg aids for the effet d'ensemble and the rassembler. It was his student Raabe who claimed the spurs had to be applied at the girth for the effet d'ensemble and further back on the flanks for impulsion and the rassembler.). The same difference exists for the rein aids in both cases: continuous for the effet d'ensemble, but intermittent for the rassembler. Furthermore, the hand that 'pushes back' in the effet d'ensemble merely 'contains' in the rassembler.
"Without a doubt, Baucher explained this difference clearly to his students during their lessons. But they must have had difficulties finding the instruction they had received in the arena again in the Master's book. For he writes several times up to the 13th edition that the 'horse's immobility, which is brought about by the effet d'ensemble must remain complete even under the most energetic attacks.'
"That is an error, no doubt, but one that must have confused his students.
"Having understood this difference intellectually, putting it into effect presented serious difficulties, because the agility of the hand allows to differentiate its backward pull clearly from its passive resistance, so that the intermittence of its actions can easily be regulated. But the agility of the legs is far smaller, and the necessary accord between hands and legs is not always easy to achieve.
"What is more, the horse that has so far been trained in the effet d'ensemble and that has been rewarded for his immobility in response to the leg aids for a long time will consequently mistake the meaning of the leg aids, especially if he is lazy, as a result of the reward for his standing still. Baucher himself had to make this painful experience, as General L'Hotte tells us (Un Officier de Cavalerie. Le cheval baucherisé en 1849, pp. 109ff.).
"... Impulsion is difficult to obtain ..
"... The horse ends up becoming blasé, enduring the spurs ...
"... In order to relieve his legs, Baucher used the whip ... with repeated taps of greater or lesser force...
"Seeger, in turn, writes in 1852, after the demonstrations in the Circus Dejean in Berlin: 'The whip seems to be a necessary instrument for Mr. Baucher. One never sees him without it, nor riding without using it ... Mr. Baucher uses it with extraordinary severity.'
"If Baucher himself had such difficulties in re-awakening the impulsion that had been stifled by the effet d'ensemble, how great must the difficulties have been that his students experienced in order to succeed? It comes as no surprise that many of them did not succeed at all.
"With the hot horse, the risk would be smaller, since he does not compromise his impulsion directly. Instead, the confusion manifests itself in a reversed sense: Brought back into the effet d'ensemble after the exercise of the rassembler, the horse 'forgets' the immobility that he had previously obtained and substitutes it with the mobility he had learned in the rassembler. Most of the time, one may well prevent him from getting crooked, but not from stomping, or from piaffing: the control would be compromised.
"Shaped by the flexions, dominated through the effet d'ensemble, mobilised in the highest degree in every sense by the rassembler, Baucher's horse would execute every movement his body would permit, upon the lightest indication, even those he never exhibited in his normal activities.
"It was enough to give him the 'position', as the Master said, which enabled him to perform the movement and the 'action', which determined the execution. Practice then formed the habit, second nature.
"The results of the method require a separate study, which will be the topic of one of the following chapters.
"In its continued evolution, portrayed later on, the method preserved most of its fundamental procedures without radical modifications.
"Some of them, however, underwent alterations that were profound enough to make them look like complete transformations, or even 'recantations'. In reality, they were merely revised in order to adapt them into the new layout of the methodical progression.
"The evolution is most visible in the order of the succession of the procedures' application. It is difficult, however, to determine exactly at what point in the Master's oral teachings, which often differed from his writings, the order of the succession was precisely the one outlined above.
"Certainly within the time period during which Baucher worked at the circus (1838-1855), this epoch postdates the first trials of the method by the army (1842). The memoirs of General L'Hotte, who received his first lessons from Baucher in 1849, allow us to place it around 1850."
Last Update: January 13, 2007