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Part 3 of a series on creating a freestyle. Tis month: Fine-tuning.
By Sally Silverman
A
mateur rider Betsy Juliano, of
Middlefield, oH, rode her first
dressage freestyle in competition this past April at the Jim Brandon equestrian Center in Wellington,
FL. For those who have not created,
practiced, polished, and performed a
musical freestyle, the finished product
belies the preparation that goes into
it. it is a long process. For Juliano, it
was almost a year in the making.
in the last two issues of USDF
Connection, we followed Juliano and
freestyle designer terry Ciotti Gallo
as they worked together to select music, design appropriate choreography,
and create a Fourth Level freestyle
suited to Wildest Dream, Juliano’s
big black Hanoverian with the floppy ears and large personality, who’s
known around the barn as “Wilhelm.”
Tis month, we’ll shadow Juliano as
she learns the choreography, makes
adjustments, and works with trainer
George Williams to take it into competition.
IT TAKES A VILLAGE: On rider Betsy Juliano’s freestyle team were trainer George Wiliams and
freestyle designer Terry Ciotti Gallo
12
November 2011 • USDF ConneCtion
“A Whole New Dimension”
With the music edited and the choreography plotted in detail, Juliano
had her work cut out for her. it was
time to prepare the piece for competition. Te practice CD provided by
Gallo, with verbals over the music to
cue the movements, helped Juliano to put the elements in sequence.
She realized that learning the music
thoroughly would be a valuable tool
to keep the choreography on track.
But memorizing Gallo’s notes and
learning to ride the movements in
the proper order was only part of the
prep work.
“When i first rode the freestyle,”
says Juliano, “i thought, ‘Man, this is
really hard!’” Te ride felt wobbly, like
a pinball machine. to gain mastery,
she practiced individual sequences
and learned how the ride flowed.
in a freestyle, “things come up
quickly, and it makes you anticipate
better and balance your horse more
promptly,” Juliano says. As a side benefit of the process, she found that the
freestyle-practice sessions forced her
to be clearer with her aids because
Wilhelm began to anticipate movements otherwise. Tat clarity gives the
horse what she calls a better sense of
where the punctuation points are in
the transitions.
“i worked on the freestyle daily
with George,” Juliano says. “When we
started this process, we went into a
whole new dimension of riding and
the planning that i needed to do during the ride. it was like nothing that
we had done before. it was like starting a whole new chapter in my riding.”
Juliano had to learn how to make
adjustments to resolve a situation if
she ended up in the wrong spot during practice. “For example, i have a
left canter half-pass from B to the
quarter line at H that i needed to really prepare the horse for. When i got
to the next move, a flying change, the
horse didn’t have enough room. i had
to learn both to prepare better and to
ride the half-pass more steeply.”
USDF FILE PHOTO
So You Tink
You Can Dance?
Te adjustments, Juliano came
to appreciate, would come not from
changes in the music or the choreography but from acquiring the skills,
both physical and mental, to ride it
better. “Tat,” she says, “is one of the
cool things about riding a freestyle.”
A freestyle, says Williams, is never a finished project. “As you ride the
freestyle more and more, you find little
ways that you can tighten it up or make
it a little bit better. it’s always nice that
you have the feeling that you can tweak
it.” With Juliano, he says, the fine-tuning has been less about riding to the
music and more about the lines. “For
example, instead of aiming for a letter,
she might go to three or four meters
past the letter to make the preparation
for the transition better.”
As a person whose life has always
been moved by music, Juliano found
it hard not to be enchanted with the
smooth R&B sounds of Barry White
and others on her compilation. in her
practice sessions, she would get so
swept up in the music that she was
failing to half-halt and balance her
horse as much as she needed to. it was
Williams who instructed her to ride
each movement instead of floating
along with the music. Tat’s when Juliano learned how to make the music
work in her favor.
“Because rhythm is so much a part
of music, and the training scale is so
much about rhythm, the music will
actually bring you back to center,” she
explains. “it’s a way to reinforce the
training scale.”
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An important part of Juliano’s freestyle learning curve entailed preparing for whatever might arise during
the performance. Te most challenging part of the process, she discovered, was learning to let go of the concerns that would dog her every time a
mistake or some other difficulty arose
during practice. Williams helped her
to understand that a mistake made in
training doesn’t necessarily portend a
mistake in competition. [
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13
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“i needed to acquire a certain level of concentration to make sure that
wouldn’t happen,” Juliano says. “it’s
like with any test, but just a little more
difficult to keep your focus and not
talk yourself into making the same
mistake at the same place. You have
the movements as well as the music to
bring you back to that spot.”
A repeated mistake, of course,
Digital Edition Bonus Content
Watch a USDF video introduction to freestyle,
courtesy of e-TRAK.
SUCCEED/USDF FEI-LEVEL
TRAINERS’ CONFERENCE
with Christoph Hess
“Perfection in the basic training
of horse and rider, at each level,
leads to success at Grand Prix.”
– Christoph Hess
Mr. Hess will explore the rider’s
influence, training of the horse,
selected movements and tests,
and the varying perspectives of
trainer, rider and judge.
Photos by Susan Sexton
Christoph Hess
Director of Training for the
German Olympic Committee
for Equestrian Sports, FEI 4*
judge in dressage and author.
might be a signal to change something, says Williams. But in general,
in a freestyle the rider—even a perfectionist like Juliano—must learn to
handle a mistake and go on.
“Tings will happen in competition, and knowing how to handle
those things is important,” he says.
“You may be a little behind or ahead
of the movement, or the horse won’t
do what you want at that moment. We
practiced with different ways to catch
up or adjust in the ride.”
Detailed preparation, including for
the “what if ” scenarios, gives a rider
a feeling of mastery of the freestyle
test, including the ability to handle
any curveballs. “one day we put the
CD on to see exactly when the music would start,” says Juliano. “it was
essential for me to know how exactly how much time there was between
signaling the announcer and the start
of the music. it helped me to understand when to go down center line so
that my halt would be positioned precisely where i wanted it.”
But as anyone who’s watched freestyles in competition knows, soundsystem glitches happen. So Juliano
and Williams practiced riding with
the music not starting precisely on
time, as well, planning adjustments
that she could make. Leaving as little
as possible to chance helped Juliano
feel ready to make her competition
freestyle debut. ▲
Next month: Conclusion: taking it
down center line, and a look at the future of freestyle.
See Christoph Hess on
e-TRAK, USDF’s Online
Learning Center
January 16-17, 2012
High Meadow Farm w Loxahatchee, FL
For attendance criteria, registration, curriculum and
travel information visit www.usdf.org.
Sally Silverman is a lifelong equestrian
pursuing her passion for dressage. A
freelance writer, her work regularly
appears in Dressage today and other
horse- and dog-related publications.
Get more from
USDF Connection magazine.
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to access bonus features.
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November 2011 • USDF ConneCtion