By Susan Downs Parrish, PhD.
February 12, 2025
Maronda was powerful, mentally and physically. Gerd Zuther found her for me, so it was important to him that she serve me well. Never mind that the word serve wasn’t in Maronda’s vocabulary. During one of my lessons with Gerd at Central Arizona Riding Academy (CARA), I was in the middle of performing three-tempi-changes across the diagonal, when Maronda flew up into the air, tossing me about one and one-half feet above the saddle. A few seconds after she landed, I landed back in the saddle. She had stopped going forward which is why my landing was in the saddle instead of on the ground. Saying nothing, I proceeded with the tempi-changes as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. The maneuver left Gerd breathless, therefore speechless. When he recovered, he said, “Okay….,” clearly stunned by Maronda’s leap and my good fortune to land in the saddle. It was the only time, during all the years that I rode with Gerd that he was at a loss for words. Describing Maronda as mentally powerful is a tactful way of saying that she was bossy. She let me know what was on her mind, and she expected me to respond appropriately. She was never the only horse in the barn, but she was the only one I rode consistently. She taught me how to have a conversation with a horse. I was used onversing with the dogs and cats that shared my life, but not with horses. Maronda changed that. My conversations with her included words, but mainly we communicated nonverbally while I was mounted. She taught me to tune in to her questions and to provide appropriate answers to those questions.
It has been two months since Maronda had to be put down. What she taught me during the seventeen years that we were together is rising to surface. It took riding other horses to begin to grasp what I learned from training her to FEI level. At first, sitting on an unknown horse that I was to ride for two months, my mind was blank. Then the horse talked to me saying, “Who are you and what the hell do you want?” Maronda talked to me and insisted that I not only listen, but respond appropriately. Hearing the new horse’s questions, my mind was no longer blank; it was filled with the thought of—I am your friend and I mean you no harm. The thought was backed up with a softening grip on the reins and a gentle squeezing of my legs to encourage the horse to reach for the bit and allow her energy to flow through the whole body from poll to croup. It didn’t occur to me at the moment, but what filled my mind was Losgelassenheit, the first stage in a diagram that Gerd Zuther and I created. The diagram is a dynamic version of the dressage Pyramid of Training. Losgelassenheit is German for “the state of having let go.” In Gerd’s mind, this term represented a state in which the horse becomes supple, unconstrained in the use of his muscles, has a tendency to stretch down, and distributes his weight mainly on the forehand. Because Maronda taught me to listen and Gerd taught me how to respond, I did the right thing and the horse relaxed and followed my lead. The experience is impossible to describe. Maronda and I maintained a steady conversation, but it never occurred to me that a conversation with a new horse would begin as soon as I mounted and would continue until I stepped off. What a miraculous revelation.
Now, having ridden a new horse for two months, it is clear that as soon as I sit on a horse, the Zuther mindset takes over and the exchange between the horse and me is a dynamic exchange. This is one of Maronda’s gifts to me. Gerd’s instruction culminated in training Maronda. If Gerd and I had not created this diagram, his knowledge would have remained a mystery to me and I wouldn’t have grasped the significance of my experience from the two months of work with a responsive mare who wanted to know what I had in mind.
If the reader sees my words as a way of bragging about my accomplishments, let me make it clear that my role in creating the dynamic version of The Training Pyramid, was akin to being the paint selected by an artist such as Vincent van Gogh. This diagram represents Gerd’s mind with some of Charles de Kunffy’s thoughts thrown in. There is another individual who is fundamental to this diagram—Ron L. Isaacson, an electrical engineer.
Ron was my significant other for twenty-four years. He died in October of 2022. He developed a diagramming technique he referred to as Visual Representation of Associated Thought (VRAT). He used VRATs to allow groups of people working on a project to follow what each group was contributing to the whole. The VRAT enabled individuals to know what was going on in the project as a whole. In a VRAT, the associations among concepts are what distinguish this diagramming technique from a static outline. I used VRATs in court when presenting the data gathered during five hours of testing with the Halstead Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. If my explanations in court had been difficult to grasp, lawyers would not have hired me, but they did and I made a good living.
In April, on a date to be determined, I will present a University Talk about the Dynamic Pyramid of Training. Those attending will walk away with a print out of the VRAT representing this Pyramid, which was designed in 2000, twenty-five years ago. I have been training Maronda in accordance with this VRAT because it became embedded in my mind unbeknownst to me. Beginning at the age of eleven, I received instruction from Jonas Irbinskas, Charles de Kunffy, and Gerd Zuther. Jonas taught me to sit in a way that Charles and Gerd recognized as correct. During one of my lessons, Charles explained to the clinic
audience that “the Germans would love Susan because she has a seat.” When he instructed me to sit twenty degrees behind the vertical, it was easy because I had learned to do so from Jonas. In the VRAT, Correct Contact reflects Charles’s mind. If you attend my Talk, you will see how Losgelassenheit, connects to Correct Contact which connects to Schwung, Cadence, and other concepts. Each concept in the Pyramid is defined by associations to other concepts.
Gerd died in June of 2018. As I remember him, I visualize how excited he was when he saw the VRAT of the Dynamic Pyramid of Training. He recognized how this diagram captured what he as a Reitlehrer FN knew and worked so hard to teach. Ideally, my riding validates his instruction and so did Maronda. Further, and perhaps greater validation, comes from the response of the horses in my life that have come and will come after Maronda. If you haven’t experienced conversations like the ones I describe from riding the horse for two months after Maronda died, but you would like to, attend my Talk and I will introduce you to the mind of Gerd Zuther and Ron Isaacson. Your world will change.