111–116 of 116 posts
> As the independent Russian news website Meduza notes, Russia’s national anthem—which is 76 beats per minute—falls outside the culture ministry’s range That seems like a bizarre oversight, I wonder how they’ll deal with it. I guess there will have to be some exception process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll have to get a hold of a copy of Bennett, Conquerors: Roots of New World Horsemanship by Dr. Deb Bennett to check her arguments that Persian horsemanship[0] went both north around the Med (via Xenophon) and south (via the north Africans). Certainly the Byerley Turk (1680s), the Darley Arabian (1704), and the Godolphin Arabian (1729) are some post-renaissance contributions to one[1] of my favourite breeds. Lagniap…
Whether the moors included pre-Hellenistic Persians would be the crux of this statement, as typically that refers specifically to Islamic invaders almost a thousand years later whose architecture and culture influenced Iberian penninsula, and not to the whole African continent. Breeding and horsemanship were also separate, as the modern school that survives today came via Grisone, Pignatelli, de Pluvinel, and eventua…
What sort of riding do you do? My three main interests are (a) will the horse crowd other stock under pressure, (b) how quickly can it roll back*, and only then (c) top speed.
I am not saying moors included persians; I am saying Bennett's hypothesis was that the vaquero style of riding in california came via spain, the moors, and the arabs, from persia (and maybe they got it from Kikkuli?). Naturally anything that passed along the south of the Med would also have travelled along the north as well.
What you are calling arabian purposes in that video is called a "halter class" for any breed; you can even find halter QHs which bear the same resemblance to working cow horses that show dogs have to working dogs.
Romans typically used mercenary cavalry, of which some were north african: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cavalry#Allied_cavalry
see also https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_parure_des_cavaliers_et_l%2... ; I don't read arabic so I'm much more familiar with the authors you mentioned (in particular Pluvinel, de La Guérinière, and some englishman in exile whose name I forget; Baucher I find worthless: he himself was obviously talented, but he never developed a method, as none of his students reproduced his results) than with any of the arabic literature, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furusiyya .
Consider that if the iberian cavalry had been superior to moorish cavalry, the Reconquista would not have taken ~750 years.
If you want I'll try to dig up the reference, but one of Napoleon's cavalry generals during the Egypt campaign said something like "3 of them can take 10 of us, but 100 vs 100 is an even match, and 300 of us can take 1'000 of them", so I think he admired their individual horsemanship, while acknowledging the advantage of european unit discipline in larger formations. The french would later get outdone at this by the prussians, who took minimal trooper skill, maximal unit effectiveness to its logical conclusion in the Franco-Prussian War.
Maybe something we can agree upon is that lusitanian/iberian riding has some unique features (from wherever they arose) because of the nature of extensive, pastoral, cattle herding?
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_sOWLl6kVw&t=250s (note his reins)
* > "By the Blue Gums of the Back Blocks," snorted the troop-horse, "do you mean to say that you aren't taught to be bridle-wise in your business? How can you do anything, unless you can spin round at once when the rein is pressed on your neck? It means life or death to your man, and of course that's life and death to you. Get round with your hind legs under you the instant you feel the rein on your neck. If you haven't room to swing round, rear up a little and come round on your hind legs. That's being bridle-wise."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to say, I'm just struck with astonishment to encounter a truism about "flexible government" as a defense of autocratic despotism.
That’s… a very odd reading of the above. Legal systems are unfair if they’re too flexible. They’re also unfair if they’re too inflexible. Autocrats tend to use both extremes to their advantage; all flex for them, no flex for you. One day ago you (flagged) commented “I hope [Trump] holds a military tribunal for every single person in the FBI”, so I’m not sure how genuine your astonishment is.
To be precise - not Chechnya but Russian Republic of Chechnya under Russian puppet control. There was a moment after collapse of USSR when Chechnya was de facto independent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya#Chechen_Wars_and_brie...
...until hastily degenerated into an ISIS-like stare and invaded Dagestan, lol.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether the moors included pre-Hellenistic Persians would be the crux of this statement, as typically that refers specifically to Islamic invaders almost a thousand years later whose architecture and culture influenced Iberian penninsula, and not to the whole African continent. Breeding and horsemanship were also separate, as the modern school that survives today came via Grisone, Pignatelli, de Pluvinel, and eventua…
True, but it's evening here so I'm done riding for the day. What sort of riding do you do? My three main interests are (a) will the horse crowd other stock under pressure, (b) how quickly can it roll back*, and only then (c) top speed. I am not saying moors included persians; I am saying Bennett's hypothesis was that the vaquero style of riding in california came via spain, the moors, and the arabs, from persia (and…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but it's evening here so I'm done riding for the day. What sort of riding do you do? My three main interests are (a) will the horse crowd other stock under pressure, (b) how quickly can it roll back*, and only then (c) top speed. I am not saying moors included persians; I am saying Bennett's hypothesis was that the vaquero style of riding in california came via spain, the moors, and the arabs, from persia (and…
the riding i do is mainly portuguese, working equitation and related classical stuff. Iberian horsemanship is formed and preserved in mounted bullfighting, which itself is ancient. The riding is the art in a ritual that dignifies the nature of the animal and the participants. Lisbon is older than Rome, they say, and this is why I'd say european horsemandship via bullfighting does not have an islamic origin. There are…
Mounted bullfighting as currently practised is unfortunately an asymmetric game: the bull is a rank amateur[0], but the cavaleiro tauromaquico is an experienced professional (and furthermore has remounts). I always felt a better way to preserve the art —and it is an art!— of rejoneo would be to play a symmetric game: matching mounted pairs against each other[1].
As for the bull, retiring from the match might be sad for the toristas[2], and I guess if you're going to wind up on a plate anyway it might be going out in style, but I'm pretty sure the bulls themselves might argue they have less stressful ways to spend their days.
[0] Goya may beg to differ with me on this point.
[1] If you'd like to try this, please don't surprise me: do it properly and have your second get in touch with mine :-)
[2] I am a torista myself, because we are all the toro:
- we can't win
- we can't break even
- we can't even quit the game
It's the white in his knuckles
The gold in his buckle