What is the importance of simplicity when using the seat, hand and leg aids?
I'll leave these wise men to explain the overall importance of simplicity and hopefully you may glean how it relates to the aids we use in riding.
Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.Isaac Newton
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.Leonardo di Vinci
Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.Frank Lloyd Wright
Simplicity is the key to brilliance.
In building a statue, a sculptor doesn't keep adding clay to his subject. Actually, he keeps chiseling away at the inessentials until the truth of its creation is revealed without obstructions.Bruce Lee
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity – I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly.Plato
Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement; a sanded floor and whitewashed walls and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside.William Morris
Simplicity is the glory of expression.Walt Whitman
The evolution of knowledge is toward simplicity, not complexity.L. Ron Hubbard
And last but not least, this is also a gem of insight – remember that the horse is the one who determines if you are being simplistic enough in your aids or still over complicating them.
There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.Leonardo di Vinci
If we're always told the way things are done and never allowed to explore, discover or develop our own ideas with intelligent guidance it makes it too easy for us to ignore what we are actually seeing and replace it with what we are told we're seeing.
Work constantly to question whether the status quo is really what you are seeing with your eyes, or if you've stopped looking altogether. Your horse will appreciate your efforts.
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All horse have to be taught what the aids do and are for, they do not know until you teach them on the ground. Then you have to teach them from ontop of the horses back after you have gained his trust and understanding and he has given you his mind and his body. Nothing is ever forced it takes time and patience and some horses are brighter than others. Then there is the question of balance and strength.
So when you have arrived to this point, then these images are totally correct but only after the inititial familiarisation of everything, then the comunication starts.