Pilates For Dressage Janice Dulak’s approach gives riders the “how” to ride dressage through using Pilates exercises By Nancy Brannon Learning to ride particular dressage movements and developing an independent seat are skills that may take years to properly develop. There are no short cuts to the step-by-step development of a dressage horse or rider. However, learning the basic muscles to use and how use them can greatly facilitate progress. Through her experience using Pilates as a dancer, Janice Dulak has figured out the correct muscles to use and “the correct amount of muscle tension” to use for “the aids to be effective.” She explains how Pilates can enhance a dressage rider’s ability in her book Pilates for the Dressage Rider, published in 2006 by Half Halt Press. The book is the result of her discovery that “the musculature you learn to use in Pilates is exactly what you need in dressage,” Dulak said. “No other exercise trains those muscles. That’s how I learned to ride dressage.” Dulak is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and Level 2 Pilates instructor. She has been riding dressage since 1995 and now rides at Second and Third Level. She started Pilates training with Romana Kryzanowska in 1989, just after she injured her knee as a professional modern dancer. The Pilates exercises helped her so much that she was able to continue dancing. Romana Kryzanowska, who turns 85 this year, is the world-renowned protege of Joseph Pilates. Romana studied with Joseph from the time she was 16 years old, and has been teaching the method for nearly six decades. “So, I’ve learned from the horse’s mouth, so to speak,” Dulak said. Dulak was certified as a Pilates instructor by Romana in 1993, and in 2001 became a Master Instructor Trainer. The road to the Pilates link with dressage came from Dulak’s frustration in trying to learn to ride the sitting trot. She got her first horse in 1993: a 4-year-old Thoroughbred mare off the track. Although Dulak had ridden horses before, she was still a novice rider. First she tried to train the mare to be a trail horse, then tried hunter training. After about two and a half years of little success with the horse, “My teacher asked me if I’d tried dressage,” Dulak said. “The horse wouldn’t jump; she was a nervous wreck; and I had no idea about dressage.” But Dulak gave dressage a go and “from 1995 to 2000 I was trying to learn to ride dressage. However, no one could teach me how to sit the trot. No one could tell me how to use my muscles.” She heard mysterious phrases such as “use your leg,” but that phrase “can mean anything to a dancer,” Dulak explained. “Use your seat can be translated in many ways by a dancer. There were rarely any explanations of what the phrases meant or how to perform them. The instructors couldn’t properly communicate to me how to use my body. I was so frustrated! I decided I didn’t know how to ride the horse, but I did know everything about the body.” “So in the summer of 2002 I decided to go out on my horse and just ask questions. What would happen if I did this? If I use this part, this muscle action of my leg, of my abdominals, my shoulder blade, etc., what would happen?” By experimenting in this way, Dulak found she could finally sit the trot. She figured out which muscle groups and how much pressure it took to sit the trot. Dulak’s approach gives riders the “how” to ride dressage through using Pilates exercises and Pilates principles. Over the years she came to realize that Pilates, riding, and training a horse have a common element: “Each requires that the core of the body be stabilized and engaged in order to generate and control the energy from the center into free-flowing movement of the rest of the body.” She began to “understand how getting a horse on the bit is really all about engagement of the underside of the horse, stretching over the topline. The concept is also true for dancers” and riders: “Unless they engage their abdominals correctly to keep their spines lengthened, the movement is not truly coming from their centers, but rather their arms and legs.” She also found the answer to the communication problem between teachers and students. “Riding instructors are experts on horses, but not necessarily on the human body. What about someone who does know the body? Using the Pilates principles, the mystery of the phrases half halt with your body, use your back, rounder, and independent seat and hands began to make sense. That was the first reason to write my book. The second reason was to honor my teacher Romana,” Dulak said. Dulak is clear about the difference between “original” Pilates from the master himself and other exercise forms of Pilates. “There are no balls in Pilates!” she clarified. “I want people to know they need to find the original, the real Pilates because that’s what works.” She explained that Pilates is a method of training the body, not just an exercise regimen. Her book focuses on exercises she’s chosen that best suit the dressage rider. “Pilates integrates the limbs of the body with the core of the body.” Through Pilates, the practitioner develops “understanding of how the hips, arms, shoulders integrate with the core and how they are controlled from the center of the body. The horse needs to move from the core of the body, too. So, actually, Pilates is dressage for people,” Dulak said. “My mission is to help people ride more from their core rather than off their arms and legs. Pilates is the ultimate way to build strength and the original Pilates is like classical dressage for the horse.” In 2006 when her book came out, Dulak was giving a presentation at a dressage club’s summer camp, where Sarah Martin was the instructor. Dulak said she was nervous about presenting her work to “real” dressage people, particularly since she had figured out her methods by herself. After the presentation, she asked for any questions and Martin raised her hand. Martin commented to Dulak, “I can’t believe that you don’t know that what you’re saying is absolutely right!” With that comment from Sarah Martin, Dulak gained the confidence that she is on the right track, and now feels comfortable teaching clinics on Pilates for dressage. Dulak teaches students the skills they need to be able to make the correction that the dressage instructors tell them to make in order to improve the horse’s performance. She can teach students how to sit the trot in one lesson. Her newest student is Linda Parelli. Dulak explained how she started teaching Pilates to Linda: “She brought in Walter Zettl, but he still wasn’t teaching her what to do with her body. He was teaching her what to do with the horse. So my work begins exactly where Linda’s work leaves off. She gets riders to a certain level of ability through natural horsemanship, but is now seeking a way to get to upper level dressage more naturally. She found that with Pilates for dressage, which Linda said has been the most influence on her in the last six months.” Dulak was at Parelli Ranch in Ocala for three weeks in January teaching Linda and a few of her upper level riders. “I also taught Pat Parelli Pilates,” she said. “The nature of Pat’s work is understanding the prey-predator relationship. My discovery is that Pilates puts people in their anti-predator muscles.” Dulak plans to continue to work with Linda and create a new program for their students. Part one of Dulak’s book gives the reader a basic understanding of Pilates principles that lead to a basic workout. The workout is designed to develop core strength and contribute to proper posture and symmetry of the body. Chapters 4 and 5 instruct and illustrate pure Pilates exercises, which have been chosen from more than 500 Pilates exercises to best suit the needs of the dressage rider. The exercises start with the basics and then move to more advanced levels, paralleling the way dressage performance levels are structured for the horse. The Pilates exercises help the reader to understand and feel engagement of his/her spine, so that the rider can develop an understanding and feel for the same in the horse’s spine. Specific muscular actions that are performed in Pilates exercises relate to specific body mechanics required to execute dressage movements. Illustrations throughout the book show how to do the exercises correctly and the common ways they are done incorrectly. The last chapter applies these exercises and skills to particular dressage movements. Dulak offered three key tips to better use the back of the leg in the dressage position: hip extension, outward rotation, and adduction at the same time. “This will bring the leg closer to the horse and forward. The rider can do it without affecting the top of the pelvis and lower back.” As a mental image, “I teach riders to move more like a star fish. The movement starts from the center and moves outward.” Dulak will be teaching clinics with Sarah Martin during March at Cranesfield Farm. To find out more about the clinics, contact Peggy Gaboury by phone at (901) 853-1815 or email Gaboury@bellsouth.net. More information about Janice Dulak, and purchase of her book and companion DVD, can be found at http://pilatesfordressage.com/. Read more about Romana Kryzanowska at http://www.romanaspilates.com/.