Dressage
The Alia Alassaf Academy offers prestigious dressage lessons led by Bianca, an international dressage rider with Dutch-Jordanian nationality. Bianca graduated in Horse Business Management and Equine Sports in the Netherlands and has trained with some of the world's leading dressage professionals, including Olympic riders Imke and Tineke Bartels, Coby and Marlies van Baalen, and World Champion Edward Gal.
Throughout her career, Bianca has competed internationally in dressage and has extensive experience in the international horse industry, having traded horses to countries including South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sweden. She is currently the only rider representing Jordan internationally in dressage.
Bianca is passionate about developing the equestrian sport throughout the Middle East by empowering women and girls to pursue their ambitions in horseback riding. She is also a dedicated advocate for animal welfare, believing that the horse's wellbeing, trust, and happiness are the foundation of every successful partnership.
Dressage is often referred to as the foundation of all equestrian disciplines. Whether your ambition is dressage, show jumping, eventing, endurance, or recreational riding, developing a correct dressage foundation creates better communication, balance, harmony, and confidence between horse and rider. At Alia Alassaf Academy, we believe that every rider benefits from mastering these essential principles before specializing in any discipline.
Whether you're taking your very first riding lesson or looking to refine your competitive performance, we offer professional training programs tailored to riders of all ages and experience levels. Our goal is to help every rider develop with confidence, respect for the horse, and a commitment to excellence.
What is dressage?
Dressage is the foundation of most horse disciplines. It is the basis training of aids and all horses can benefit from a foundation of dressage training. In the discipline of dressage the horse and the rider work together to perform movements that seem effortless and that flow gracefully from one to the next. This form of riding takes a high level of athletism and it requires an incredible relationship between horse and rider. It takes years of trust to help build the gymnast strength and confidence up.
At its core, dressage is the art of training horses, but it also encompasses a competitive element. It involves a horse and rider performing a series of predetermined movements that are in accordance with the level they are competing in, known as a "test", within a rectangular arena. These movements are evaluated by a panel of judges who score each element on a scale of one to ten. The total score is then converted into a percentage; the highest percentage determines the competition winner. The degree of difficulty of each level increases from training level trough to FEI levels, which are the same tests performed in every nation worldwide.
