I Got So Into Dry Body Brushing That I Entered A Dressage Competition As The Horse

If you follow most holistic healing blogs, odds are you’ve stumbled upon the phrase “dry body brushing” at least once or twice.

For the uninitiated, dry brushing is exactly what it sounds like: You stroke your skin once or twice daily with a soft-bristled brush with the intention of exfoliating your epidermis and stimulating your lymphatic system. It’s great for detoxing, and it will help you both look and feel your best.

And I got so into dry brushing that I entered a dressage competition as the horse. Allow me to explain.

Staffers at the Bunny Ears Burbank office have been brushing our skin for about six months now. I loved being brushed down so much that I decided to take the natural next step in my dry brushing journey: Pretending to be a horse so that I could enter a fancy dressage competition and get groomed daily.

For those who don’t know, dressage is best understood by laypeople as “my horse prances fancier than yours.” It’s an elegant sport where in which a human athlete and a horse athlete work together to perform a precise series of lil hoppity hops. Was trying to enter a competition as the horse a completely unreasonable course of action? Yes. Was I aware of the pony play fetish community at the time? Also yes. But the prospect of daily dry brushings seemed well worth it.

I assumed that by training and performing as a horse I would gain access to brushdowns by some kind of muscular 26-year-old stable boy. Unfortunately, my groomer turned out to be a very UNSTABLE 14-year-old girl working shifts to cover the exorbitant horse-boarding fees her middle class parents could barely afford. I guess neither of us got exactly what we wanted, Quinndolyn.

Participating in dressage as a horse was also a significant commitment. First of all, I discovered that only human athletes get to wear those little top hats. This devastation took some time to get over. Second, dressage turned out to be so expensive that when I Googled “how expensive is dressage?” the first article that popped up assumed I would already have my own saddle, bridle, horse, boot girl, halterman, haberdasher, and wine steward (of COURSE I have a wine steward, Prance Fancier, but she has other duties).

It wasn’t terribly difficult finding a rider interested in working with a human horse athlete. It was, however, difficult to find one interested in human dressage for non-sex reasons. Like, super difficult. Luckily, my rider, Hans, seems pretty chill (though he definitely keeps bringing up his centaur-themed DeviantArt account. So there’s that).

Next, I discovered that the daily care routine for a dressage horse is pretty different than the gentle dry brushing I was expecting. While normal dry brushing can remove dry skin, the metal currycombs used in most stables not only remove dead skin cells, but also the layer of top skin that keeps the blood from gushing out (after several transfusions I am doing much better, no thanks to YOU, Quinndolyn).

Flaying aside, there are many benefits to participating in dressage as a human horse. First of all, the exercise. I’m not getting in as many steps as I initially hoped, but the steps I have been getting are 170% more flamboyant. Next, the attention. I’ve been written up in not one, but three local blogs.

And finally, of course, the dry brushing. While less gentle (and more potentially deadly) than a traditional dry brush session, the daily ritual never fails to keep me centered. And remember, always brush towards the heart. That’s where your hatred of Quinndolyn lives.

Images: Pixabay