Aids

Well, I reckon start at the beginning. But where is the beginning? The harder I search my mind the less obvious the starting place becomes. In some ways I would like to start with groundwork, the true beginning, but aiding is also tied into the groundwork so perhaps that is where I will start.

I would love to know how to keep these *ramblings* separate from the other posts but I'm not that techy so they will just have to be labelled for now.


So, aids; from the french verb *aider* ... faciliter l'acomplissement d'une action...meaning roughly..to help to bring about the performance of an action...


Well that makes total sense, an aid being the means by which we can influence the movement of our horse. However, is it just the movement of the horse that we want to influence with our aids? Sometimes our aids say stand still, do nothing but then that does still apply to movement, or lack of it. I suppose I'm digging at the possibility that we can use our aids to access the horse on a deeper level, almost outside of his awareness.



My first memories of learning about THE aids was at pony club. We learned that there were the natural (of the rider) and artificial (extra to the rider) aids at our disposal and I'm pretty sure I learned them *parrot* fashion just to pass a test,lol.

Nowadays I feel that less is definitely more and, like so many of us, I am constantly striving to find the lightest, easiest way of aiding.



So this small piece opens up the idea of aids for me and my next task will be to expand the topic and explore my feelings and see how much they may have changed over the years.