Dressage Unscrambled

A dressage book that references Michael Jordan, ocean liners, magnetic bottles, juke boxes, cannibalism, crop circles, Babe the Blue Ox, Mitt Romney, Dilbert, Barbra Streisand's brother, green Jello, and a further cast of thousands—it's Dressage Unscrambled! Author Bill Woods has put together dozens of stories and anecdotes that elucidate, illustrate, and demystify hoary dressage principles while managing to skewer the sacred bovines, both two and four legged, of our sport. Read his slightly off center takes on perennially burdensome topics like attention, self carriage, and connection. Mix in the hits and near misses of insight that a lifetime of teaching brings. Add in 40 years of weirdness gleaned from scribes, riders, teachers, and unindicted dressage co-conspirators, and you get a book that will bring a pile of smiles, a bucket of chuckles, an occasional spasmodic episode, and more than a few "I never thought of that! I'll have to go try it!" moments.

Bill Woods began learning about dressage at the American Dressage Institute and was nurtured by the Vi Hopkins National Instructors Seminars. He has ridden literally thousands of horses and taught that many more riders at all levels over the past nearly-forty years. For two decades, Woods was fortunate to be mentored by Swedish Olympian Major Anders Lindgren. A USEF dressage judge since 1983, he was also the first American designated by the USDF to conduct official Regional Instructors’ Workshops. As chair of the Instructor/Trainer Council, he pushed to fruition the USDF’s program for instructor certification and the USDF's program of annual National Symposiums. Woods was writer, associate producer, and narrator of the The Official USDF Introduction to Dressage video and for ten years editor of the widely-viewed USDF National Symposium tapes as well as their "voice." In addition to working with his wife, Susan, from their farm in Ocala, Florida, he travels throughout North America year-round, having judged or conducted clinics in 43 states and five foreign countries. In 2003, Woods was named at its Thirtieth Annual Convention, as one of the USDF's 20 most influential members in the organization's history.