Happy New Year - It will be a good one!

Amazing (actually not very much) what a week off work will do to my riding. Remy must have sensed my relaxation - or perhaps it was just the Back on Track sheet I used before each ride to loosen up his muscles. Whatever it was - I'll take it. We had an entire week of good to excellent work, progressing nicely. Even Judy's assessment "If Remy he can do a clean change out of that two inch crappy canter you had he must really like doing them" made me happy. Gotta take the positive.  And yes, of course, Ms. Jude is right (as usual). I tend to hold back too much instead of having him go forward into the change. The collection is coming along nicely, too. I had the best collected canter out of haunches in ever. Up, light, and off my seat. 
And then JP and Chambord - what can I say? A match made in heaven. Judy told JP that he is now "officially a dressage rider".  'JP Wayne' was thrilled, he and Chambord have come a long way. Herz, was begehrst Du mehr? ("Heart, what more do you desire?" - It means one has everything he/she wishes for).


Staying with German, I do like the poet Hermann Hesse very much. In the spirit of the New Year and new beginnings:
Hermann Hesse
Stufen
Wie jede Blüte welkt und jede Jugend
Dem Alter weicht, blüht jede Lebensstufe,
Blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend
Zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern.
Es muß das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe
Bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne,
Um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern
In andre, neue Bindungen zu geben.
Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
Der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben.
And there is a magic in every beginning,
that protects us and helps us to live
Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten,
An keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen,
Der Weltgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen,
Er will uns Stuf' um Stufe heben, weiten.
Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise
Und traulich eingewohnt, so droht Erschlaffen,
Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise,
Mag lähmender Gewöhnung sich entraffen.
Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde
Uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden,
Des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden...
Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde!


Here is an excellent translation from the German Language Blog,


“Steps”
As every blossom wilts and every youth
Yields to age, so blooms every step of life,
So too blooms every wisdom and every virtue
In its time and may not last forever.
The heart must at all of life’s calls
Be ready to part and begin anew,
So that it may, with courage and without grief,
Give itself to new engagements.
In every beginning lives a magic,
Protecting us and helping us to live.

Lithely and cheerfully should we stride from room to room,
On none hang like we would a home,
The spirit of the world wants not to fetter or restrict us,
Rather to lift us step by step, to expand us.
We barely arrive in a phase of life
And already complacency threatens.
Only he who is ready to break off and travel
May break from crippling habituation.

Perhaps even the hour of death
Will dispatch to us fresh and new,
Life’s call to us will never end…
Well then, my heart, be and fare well!