So, we come to the point of covering exactly where so many people in dressage go wrong in training: Durchlaessigkeit.
Never has any one subject caused so many problems with people. Most riders will spend much time on getting their position correct, and then fail miserably to get the horse just as good, because it takes far too long to achieve this one simple thing.
As I mentioned in my last post, Durchlaessigkeit, or Durchlaessig translates simply as "through" or "letting the aids through", but it means so much more than this. Durchlaessigkeit is submissiveness and the result of all the points of the training scale. Only when a horse has achieved all 6 points of the aforementioned scale can it be truley durchlaessig.
So, how do we achieve this? First the horse must be what is known as Losegelassen and willing to co-operate - the aim of the first 3 points of the training scale. Losegelassen literally means "loose", with regards to the horse it will be further translated as "supple".

A horse must be supple through the body in order to carry out the work it is asked to do. In order to supple the horse, we first must ask it to relax fully though the body and also mentally. A horse that is not mentally relaxed will be busy thinking of something completely different and thus find it hard to concentrate on what it is being asked to do.

The best way to relax a horse, I find is to start right from the begining of any session. Asking the horse to work on a long rein, stretching the head and neck down and forwards, without constant nagging from the rider to go forwards, helps the horse to find it's own rhythm. Circle work, figure of 8's are the most basic movements you can do, but incorporating them into a warm up keeps the horse concentrating on the rider, not on the scenery. Transitions through the paces aswell as within each pace help the horse to further use it's muscles. Trot work at this stage should be ridden rising as opposed to sitting so that the horse is fully able to stretch over the back and bring the hind quarters through. Once you have started to work with a shorter rein, introducing leg-yield helps to "lift" the shoulder, further engaging the hindquarters. A good warm-up should not be rushed, and I would normally spend around 20 minutes on this. By the end of the warm-up you should have a horse that is supple, fully engaged from the hindquarters, uphill and willing to co-operate.

So how to spot a horse that is not durchlaessig?
Tension is the main key to a lack of durchlaessigkeit.
Tension expresses itself in many different ways: a wildly swishing tail, very stiffly pricked ears, holding the breath and grunting, kicking up behind, dropping of hunching the back, uneven steps behind, parading steps in front, an open mouth (openly refusing to take the bit) or a hollow back.
Tension is the horse's way of saying that it doesn't want to work for it's rider, that it has no trust in the person on it's back.
The negative influence of tension results in over exagerated movement which the crowds love and applaud.
So, next time you watch a dressage competition, before you applaud the extravagant horse, think for a moment whether or not those movements were the result of tension.