For many many years, horses have been admired for their ability to improve the human emotional well-being. Horses have LITERALLY been scientifically proven to improve human ailments-anything from depression, anxiety, autism and other behavioral conditions, to physically rehabbing injured people. They truly are magical beings. For this reason, hippotherapy (or therapeutic riding) was developed. When I was first recovering from my head injury, a physical therapist suggested that I begin riding again to improve my strength. Funnily enough, the gaits of a horse (walk especially) follow the same motion as a human's gaits, and thus can help rehab people with physical disabilities. Especially someone who has little control in the lower body. When I sat on a horse, even though I was not able to control my left leg walking on the ground, the horse's walk forced my body to move properly, and it is largely due to my immersion in riding that I am as fit and mobile as I am today. Horses are often used to assist stroke patients with physical therapy. Most of the time, it involves a team of qualified personnel on the ground guiding the horse and ensuring that the rider stay in the saddle.
Now, ParaDressage is a high performance international sport. The prefix "para" simply means "parallel to able bodied." It is an event in the Paralympics, (completely separate from Special Olympics) in which athletes are graded according to their level of impairment (not the level of riding skill, unfortunately) so that competition henceforth is on equal playing field.
Paradressage is an FEI level of dressage, just like upper level in the able-bodied circuit. The movements are not as difficult as the ones in PSG-Grand Prix, but the degree of difficulty is as hard. The tests in paradressage range from 30-40 moves each, and consist of extreme technicality and odd patterns to amp up the difficulty.
There are 5 grades in paradressage, going from Ia, Ib, II,III,IV. Classification can be a murky area. grade Ia is most impaired, and soeone with quadriplegia or someone totally blind may be found in this grade. These tests are walk only. Grade IV is for the least impaired rider; someone with a missing limb or certain degenerative diseases may be here. The hardest movements in this grade are simple lead changes and half pass. Now, I have a hard time with this personally, because your grade does not reflect your level of skill. It is simply determined with a set of tests reflecting the amount of physical difficulty you have with coordination. It does not reflect the way you are able to compensate while mounted. I was recently downgraded from a grade III to a II, which is walk/trot only. The tests are still tricky, but there is no collective work or lateral work, and honestly, for myself, canter is my best gait simply because it is the easiest for me to make a horse round at a canter. Not to mention, my seat is quite good, and canter shows that off. The reason for the downgrade is because the classifiers felt I didn't have adequate hip control. It's annoying, but there's nothing I can do, except own that walk/trot in the competition ring! Luckily we can do some canter in our freestyles.
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| This girl always puts a smile on my face |
So, I hope that clears up some confusion surrounding the paradresage sport.
Happily, we para riders can still compete in the able bodied circuit. Most judges are very accommodating and will allow us to use whatever gear we need in order to get through a test. I fully intend to get into that able body FEI ring in the next couple years. It will be harder, yes, but I am 100% confident that I'll be able to get there. I've already learned flying changes, canter half pass and started pirouettes, so I'm coming for it! Now, off to ride.
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