A Question of Discipline
Transformed
by wisdom and pain to live a life of dressage.
Story by Tracy Williams,
Photos by Cookie Originals
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Forward
– Straight – Relaxed – Rhythmic –
Connected: five themes that both frame and drive the elements
of good dressage, allowing creativity to flow from within
an organized mind and body. A true student of this martial
art steeps and simmers in these five ideals until each engulfs
the other and you are left with a single being – a
team of horse and rider, indistinguishable as separate parts.
But for even the greatest student, this fluidity often ends
with the dismount; it is disconnected from the rest of the
world. Yet one determined duo, spurred by the wisdom of
a time-honored teacher and tested by fire, prove the merit
of allowing such order to seep from the ring to frame the
remainder of everything.
A
Journey of A Thousand Miles
Although
she had ridden horses all her life, Jane Frizzell, now 42,
had a self-proclaimed “yuppie” lifestyle by
her early 20s. But on August 26, 1988, one fateful horseback
ride spurred her to forsake the familiar to pursue an alternate
career path. “It was like instant knowledge –
I need to be riding horses,” she remembers. “From
that point on, I decided to let life lead me and follow
a life with horses.”
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 The
once fractious Ricky is now relaxed and happy. |
As if in confirmation to this epiphany, Jane fell into a
coveted position with world-renowned equestrian Robert Dover.
For the next six years, she rode hundreds of horses with
expert tutelage from many top USA dressage masters. She
then created the Schoolmasters Program?, training riders
in the inner workings of dressage, so they could repair
troubled equine relationships at home. It was a period she
describes as “miracles happening every day right before
my eyes,” but Jane’s growing reputation escalated
her busy schedule and began to rob her life of simplicity.
“People in the horse business sometimes forget why
they ride,” she says, remembering this hectic time.
“A rider’s relationship with their horse is
sacred. Everyone has that, but sometimes it becomes buried.
Instead, we become wrapped up in results.”
Before
the stress could take an irreparable toll, the fates shifted,
and Jane lost both her parents, 18 days apart, both from
heart attacks.
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“Teaching,
toward the end, was the toilet flush of my life; it turned
me completely upside down,” she says. “But my
parents’ deaths were like an unexpected amputation.”
Refusing to be crippled by her grief, Jane mustered her
courage and flew to Europe to petition dressage training
from Major Anders Lindgren, an 80-year-old major, who had
headed the Swedish cavalry for 30 years. Scarred from grief,
tense from her emotional and financial investment in this
trip abroad, Jane embodied the issues she had resolved for
her former dressage students in years prior. But the Major,
unruffled by Jane’s intensity and expectations, began
to weave his spell, threads of wisdom interjected between
commands to half-pass and change leads. For the Major saw
no rift between the ring and the rest of creation; they
operated, in his mind, by the same principles. Slowly through
his methods of discipline and order, balance returned, grief
began to heal, and tension began to flee. In teaching Jane
to ride, the Major was really teaching her to live. |
Ricky has the athleticism and talent to excel as a Grand
Prix Horse. |
A Talent Held Hostage
“Mon Surpris”, or Ricky as he is now better known,
was a horse of impeccable bloodlines and limitless talent,
waylaid by a frantic and sometimes hostile personality –
a temperament that thus far no one had been able to tame enough
to harness his gifts. “But the Major and I saw in him
something wonderful,” Jane says. “He was an amazing
athlete – unreliable perhaps but with the potential
to be a dramatic Grand Prix horse. So we would go spy on him,
waiting until he was having a particularly bad week, so we
could offer to buy him.” Inevitably, such a day came,
and Ricky became Jane’s, but a simple transfer of ownership
didn’t instantly loose Ricky’s talent. The Major
saw in Ricky and Jane’s new partnership the potential
for greatness but also the potential for disaster if they
did not proceed buttressed by a measured discipline. “This
horse needs to have, all the time, a frame around his soul,”
he cautioned Jane, as their year together ended, and it became
the student’s responsibility to be the guide.
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Tucking
his wisdom into her heart, Jane returned with Ricky to the
States to continue the long process of framing Ricky’s
days with a disciplined regimen and asking him to face the
world with courage – in the same manner as the Major
had heartened her. “I took him to construction sites
to confront cement mixers and stone cutters, for example,”
she says. “It just took time and consistency, just being
there and believing in him.” Little by little the fractious
horse began to calm, and all the while training intensified
as the pair headed into the summer season with Grand Prix
hopes.
Dreams
Derailed
Although
the Major’s principles of dressage and life had already
begun to take root in Jane and Ricky, a season of testing
awaited them – a trek through the fires that would remove
the dross and refine the gold of this yet imperfect team.
“I knew on my way to the mammogram something was wrong,”
Jane remembers of this fateful day. “But there was still
this calm voice in my head saying ‘It’s all part
of the plan.’” Thus, when the breast cancer diagnosis
came, she was only slightly surprised and still determined
to proceed with her plans.
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Jane and Ricky share a tremendous bond. |
However,
that night, Jane woke up overcome by her fear. “My fear
was a presence – like a goblin in the room,” she
remembers. “And I was so annoyed at being afraid. Part
of riding, part of dressage is about self-control, being in
charge of yourself, meeting impetuosity with calm. As the
Major always reprimanded, ‘don’t be a little chicken.’
So I grabbed it, pinned it on the ground and rebuked it. I
was not afraid again.” From that point on, Jane resolved
to ride forward into the problem, to take her courage, grind
it into herself and live it – through tests, a double
mastectomy, and months of skin expansion and reconstruction.
She fought the temptation to worry about money, about training
put on hold, bolstered by friendships and an inner strength.
“It kept working out, and I kept going with it, living
with my feet firmly planted in thin air,” she says.
The philosophical words of the Major became a daily reality
she fought to uphold.
After an eight-month lay-up, Jane was weary of the fire and
on the verge of resuming training when a faint odor from Ricky’s
mouth alerted her to a new danger. |
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The remains of a formerly fractured tooth had festered, and
Ricky endured three surgeries, cat scans and drains as veterinarians
battled the vicious sinus infections. Jane watched as they
inserted tire needles to drain his infections, remembering
with excruciating clarity the similar procedure required for
her skin expansions after her mastectomy. Throughout the process,
the formerly fractious horse “stood like a monument,
head lowered, the perfect patient,” Jane says. The “little
chicken” was no longer. |
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The Perfect Team
Seventeen
months later, and tranquility marks the illness-ravaged
pair. The dreams still remain. Training has resumed, and
Ricky is gliding once more to the Grand Prix level, but
his talent is no longer hemmed in by frantic fits of passion.
Jane is teaching again and concentrating on expanding her
story to raise support for breast cancer and equine welfare,
but she is no longer crushed by the intensity of her dreams.
“The things that matter are much more obvious now,”
she says. “I have an ideal life – a horseman’s
life. I am sitting here on my porch with my horse and my
dog nearby, listening to the wind in the trees. It is something
to cherish, and I would go through it all again to have
this moment.” Peace pervades the space, a contentment
set in motion by the wisdom of an elderly army major and
polished to gloss by fires of adversity: forward, straight,
relaxed, rhythmic, connected – in dressage and in
life. “It is a question of discipline and order combined
with friendship and love,” the Major whispers in the
breeze. “And that is the case in all relationships.” |
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Nothing
But the Best
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Jane
received her first recommendation (“the very
best in horse feed”) to Seminole feeds as a
young trainer, and her initial introduction to the
world’s best equine feed became a lifelong relationship.
Ever since her conversion, unless barred by geography,
her horses have thrived on nothing else. In addition
to buying all her shavings and hay from Seminole stores,
she feeds Gold Chance 14 to Ricky, her prize Grand
Prix contender. “I love Gold Chance 14 because
it is a level feed,” Jane says. |
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“My horses don’t spike on it or change their
personality because of it. They are allowed to be who
they are.” For this reason, Jane and Ricky are
lifelong Seminole fans. |
Train
with Jane |
“Now
that I’m home and healthy, I’m teaching
and training again. I love teaching anyone who loves
their horse! I’m keen for riders to trust their
instincts – to achieve what they’ve conceived.
There is a wonderful balance between the discipline,
the ‘drill’ of dressage, and the ‘feel’.
My favorite moment is helping riders find that. And
everyone can.”
Jane
is working with dressage riders and their horses at
all levels from her base in Ocala, Florida and has
profound success with visiting students riding in
short-term (3-30 days) dressage “intensives”
with their own horses and Jane’s Schoolmasters.
For more information about training with Jane call
1-352- 671-6681 or email janecfrizzell@yahoo.com. |
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Tracy
Williams is a graduate of Colorado State University
with degrees in Equine Science and Journalism. She
is a freelance writer and photographer living in New
Mexico.. |
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