Any trainer who takes up this art of longeing must realize that the equipment and technique they use, have gone unchanged for five hundred years. Probably every great dressage trainer over that time – Pluvinel, La Broue, Guèriniere, the Duke of Newcastle, and so on – has stood exactly as you or I stand. They have handled the same equipment. One cannot stand there without realizing the part you play in a great tradition. Imagine longeing in this company and it should place you in a proper state of humility. When you, as trainer, pick up the equipment and address the noble horse, treat the process with due importance and have respect for the tradition you are now a part of, remembering what people endured to bring it to you and me. Disrespect to any part of the process demeans its power – and ultimately your own as a trainer.