I must respectfully disagree with you. True, competitive dressage, as seen in the Olympics, the WEG, etc., does not include the airs and movements of the high school. But competitive dressage is very far from being the pinnacle of dressage. The airs above the ground are certainly a part of academic dressage; they’re just for people and horses who aspire to a higher level than competition dressage. Ask the Spanish Riding School. Ask Philippe Karl, the Henriquets, Nuno Oliveira, JP Giacomini, or the other great dressage riders of the 20th and 21st centuries.
But that is exactly what I said.
Anything that includes the airs above the ground [sauts d’école] is considered Haute Ecole which is the ultimate expression of ‘classical dressage’ versus ‘competitive dressage’ and the schools of training that I was thinking of are those you just mentioned.
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall08/Scheff/haute.html
Nice website with a few good videos.
I found this which conflicts with most of the ‘experts’ defending dressage on YouTube:
“Another sure sign of a tense horse is a tail that constantly swishes and pinned-back ears.”
That is true and I’m not sure why they keep saying it’s “normal” and that the horse is “happy” when its body language practically screams otherwise.