Summer Academy and Trainer Day 2023

I’m back from Denmark and back to my normal work routine. This year’s summer academy was quite special for me: My student Meg Brauch from the US became a member of the knighthood (she passed her Squire test in spring), making her the first person to become a member from the Americas. Meg and I only met twice in real life when she invited me over to her place, the rest was done via online lessons!

I also received my first golden ring after I had passed my bending of the haunches test with Minor in July. I had joined the knighthood five years ago and did not expect to be able to make this test at this point. If you are a member of the knighthood, you have to either repeat the same test or make the next one every five years. It’s to prevent having inactive members to tell the active people how to do things. The rule is the same for everyone except when you have passed your master test. The master title is for life and you don’t have to do any updates anymore. I can’t tell you how proud I am of my little guy – who turns out not to be minor but major, as someone told me lately. I had only worked on more collection for about a year and never in a really “serious” kind of way. I rather just played around with him and rewarded his ideas in the right direction. I only worked in a more structured way towards the bending of the haunches for about 2 months and really enjoyed having specific goals and the results those brought.

The Wednesday before the summer academy we had our yearly meeting of the licensed Bent Branderup Trainers, in which we welcomed some new trainers and spent the whole day talking about the latest developments and things we had on our minds. The academic art of riding had been represented at this years Equitana in Germany (a huge horse fare) and Bent told us about his impression that people seem to develop an interest in real education and were less interested in show. He told us: Don’t believe in end products – believe in a lifetime with your horse!

We spoke about how we can represent the academic art at different horse fares and we also spoke about our online education platform (the Online Reitschule/ Online Horse Academy) and our book project (The Bookazine). Perhaps the most important thing that day was to have meals together and connect with each other. 

On Thursday the Summer Academy 2023 started with Bent and Kathrin showing the work with their horses. The topic of this year’s academy was “The secondary aids”, after we had been nerding about the seat for two years. Bent’s older horse Tyson is his last horse he educated in the pilars. His younger horses are not educated in the pilars anymore, for good reason: Bent thinks every equestrian discipline should re-evaluate their methods and choose methods according to modern ethical standards. He believes that work in hand and long reining are much better and less stressful ways to educate horses than pilar work, for the simple reason that the horse can move away if it becomes stressed. Bent and Kathrin showed us their latest developments and shared their thoughts about certain problems or challenges. 

In the afternoon, the members of the knighthood met according to their countries to discuss developments in their countries. I must say it was a rather sad moment for me because despite giving it my best effort, I’m still the only member from Poland. So I joined the German group, because I am from Germany and also teach in Germany occasionally. Then there were lectures by licensed trainers on various topics: Kathrin spoke about body language, Stine gave an anatomy lecture about the structures of the head and neck, and I spoke about how sensory laterality and stress affect the bending. Then we had dinner together and shared stories by the fire place. For me, that’s almost the most important part of summer academy: to meet old friends and make new ones.

On Friday, we started with more lectures: Gerlinde spoke about the use of the hand and rein, Franziska, Yvonne and Magdalena showed ideas for teaching the secondary aids, Claudia talked about the use of the whip (historic and modern), and Tanja gave a presentation about the descente the mains et des jambes. In the afternoon, Lisa and Celina showed the work with their horses: Lisa worked on piaffe and passage in hand and ridden with her Arab Muskat and showed liberty work with her young horse Aciano. Celina showed school walk and collection in trot with her PRE mare. We ended the day with the brain pool: we split up in smaller groups to collect our ideas about this year’s topic and then come together to present our findings. My group exchanged ideas about spurs, stirrups and the lower leg. After that we enjoyed more dinner and port wine together.

On Saturday we had the round table of the year in which the new members are welcomed. Everyone writes their name in the book of the knighthood, receives the whip decoration and a handcrafted, wooden whip, and then sits by the other members at the table. I love this ceremony and I think it’s something really unique. The members of the knighthood are not armchair warriors, as we find so often on social media. We all have proven a certain level and we take an oath to do no harm and for life-long learning. I feel so privileged to be a part of this amazing group of people! With this year, the knighthood has 288 members. After that, we celebrated the successes of the old members: two new knight tests, quite a few bending of the haunches tests, lots of test updates (after the 5 year rule). 

After the celebrations, we came to the topics for the round table of the year: Bent informed us about changes in the groundwork longe test and spoke about the bending of the haunches test. We also clarified some terms we want to use for higher exercises: levade, redopp (which is like terre a terre but the horse stays longer in levade. Gueriniere calls it “courbettieren”), Mezair (straight terre a terre). We voted for the topic of next year, which will be bending of the haunches, biomechanics of the hind quarter, and tensegrity. There was also another amazing development: We now have an association for the support and preservation of the academic art of riding in Germany (Kulturförderverein)!! I will tell you more about this soon 🙂 The end of the round table is also the end of the summer academy.

So much information, inspiration, interaction…and so much thankfulness for Bent and Kathrin for making this all possible. To invite us to their home and being so approachable. And a special thanks to our photographer Céline Rieck for sharing so beautiful memories with us!

I’m already looking forward to next year! Now it’s back to being a student of the horse and to spread the academic art all around the world. 

“It’s not about 15 minutes of fame – it’s about a lifetime with your horse.” Bent Branderup

Yours,