The Order of Aids : Simplicity

What is the importance of the seat, hands, legs in the aiding of the horse? I am often sent information (in the form of articles), read online discussions, have pilfered through countless books, listened to other clinicians, speakers, trainers, etc as they describe and indicate the use of the aids. If you are like me, the path to understanding, implementing and succeeding (not to mention perfecting) these aids might seem like a lost cause, or time to get into collecting automobiles instead!

Simplicity, it is something I keep drumming on about. The more complicated, complex and difficult something becomes, the further from attaining it we get. I just wanted to write a quick ditty to inspire my readers to get back to basics, back to the simple. So here are some quotes I found just for you…

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 da 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.
Bruce Lee

and

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

All of these just give me goosebumps, how true they are… but also makes me think of another quote.

There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.
Leonardo da Vinci

I believe that as equestrians, if we are always told that things are done a certain way it is naturally difficult to believe that there is something simpler, even easier, than what we have become accustomed to. Especially given all the gadgets, gimmicks, quick fixes and so on that we are being sold every day. For that reason, often we have to start by first being shown before we can move forward into “those who see.”