You are Never Done Learning: Jacques Ferrari, the Renaissance Man of Vaulting – by Ilaria Luna

Cover photograh: Jacques Ferrari at the WEG 2014

In July, I attended a vaulting clinic in Michigan, hosted by Great Lakes Equestrian Vaulting, and had the privilege to work with Jacques Ferrari from the French Compagnie Noroc, 2014 Men’s World Champion. Ever since I began my vaulting journey, Jacques has been a model for me, not only for his interpretive ability and success on the international stage, but also for his multifaceted pursuits. From training top athletes to equestrian performances and music creation, his many talents and remarkable creativity make him a true Renaissance Man of vaulting. I would like to thank Jacques once more for granting me this interview, which we originally conducted in French. What follows is my English translation.

 

Ilaria: How and when did you discover vaulting?

 Jacques Ferrari: It’s pretty simple: I was very young. My mother always liked horses, my sister did show jumping, so they wanted to get me into riding. I went to a small club near my house to try it, but it didn’t last very long because I could not stop watching the half of the arena doing vaulting classes at walk, so I decided to try it. After two years, I tried other sports, but I came back to vaulting because there were many things I liked about it. It also allowed me, at the time, to enter a sport-study program and I haven’t stopped since.

Ilaria: You distinguish yourself on the international scene for your ability to integrate dance, gymnastics and musical interpretation into the discipline of vaulting, making the performance not only technically complex and flawless but also artistically rich, a true exhibition from all points of view. If you had to choose among these different skills and elements, which one matters the most? What advice can you give to young vaulters to make the most out of their training?

Jacques Ferrari: In my opinion, for a vaulter, motivation is everything. To progress further, as in any sport, requires a lot of work and reassessment. Vaulting is multifactorial: there’s the horse, the financial and geographical aspect, the trainer, the psychological and mental state, etc… All these elements form a system which determines whether or not you can reach high performance.

From my experience, I advise vaulters to be interested in everything and to develop their full coordination from the youngest age. You should know that what you learn between eight and sixteen years of age is what will “forge” the speed with which you will progress. It is an important step to obtain body control, spatial awareness, and the technical basis to fully exploit your potential. Of course, you can also start vaulting later, and, with a lot of determination, analysis, and perseverance, achieve the same result.

In addition, I would encourage vaulters to step out of their comfort zones by learning to vault on different horses in order to develop their “feeling” and their notion of rhythm. The most important thing is really being in harmony with the horse and developing a “flow”. When you have a horse that you love, but you also train on other horses, you will be able to create a contact and a sensitivity that become even more relevant on your own horse to help you figure out your vaulting style thereafter. This also develops from the moment you start paying attention to your foot placements, your lines, and the amplitude of your movements. You have to be able to absorb the horse’s stride, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, to give an impression of lightness.

Sometimes, simply playing around with music on the horse, without necessarily putting a lot of difficulty in your routine, allows you to learn to move without being held back by your technique. It is important to avoid saying to yourself, “once my technique is good, I will start dancing,” because in my opinion the musicality and the interpretation do not need difficulty to be exceptional. And when you finally master the difficulty of your exercise, you must first be comfortable with the musicality and the interpretation so that the result can be emotionally engaging.

Generally, I try to push the people I work with in this direction, although they don’t always like it at first. Indeed, it requires them to get out of their comfort zone and improve their weak points. For example, working this way with all the members who have passed through the Compagnie Noroc–like Lambert Leclezio, Manon Moutinho, Quentin Jabet, Théo Gardies, and many others–was not always simple but brought a lot to them. It allowed them to present vaulting as in a constant state of becoming, much more artistic and aerial.

If training is not more demanding than competition, then the competition becomes the most difficult exercise. Others might say that you should train in the conditions most similar to the ones you will be competing in. This is true, but, in my opinion, you also have to go through much more complex periods of development in your preparation before that.

Ilaria: Do you notice any differences between Europe and the United States in the way vaulters are prepared and trained and/or in the practice of the discipline as a whole?

Jacques Ferrari: Yes, there is a difference between Europe and the United States. Not necessarily in terms of level, because there have been excellent vaulters who came from the United States and who have even been models or sources of inspiration for me. However, there are really different styles, moves, and ideas in Europe and the United States. It’s fascinating because this contributes to the stylistic diversity of the sport. I think that, in order to develop a method that works, you have to be interested in everything and take what you think is most relevant from other methods. This works for almost everyone, because each person can distill with their own eyes what is lacking in their formation.

For example, before 2012, France was not very good at compulsories. So we started to go abroad to train. I personally had the chance to work with Jessica Lichtenberg, who was the coach of the German team Neuss and also with Rob de Bruin when he was not yet a four-star judge. They gave me a lot of input on training visions, methods, and protocol.

In France we looked at the techniques of the Germans, the Austrians, the Swiss, among others. We said to ourselves, “This is great, but we can still develop it further”. So, by taking existing methods and improving techniques, we were able to strive for the point or half-point that was missing. In ten years, thanks to the work of athletes and coaches, we have succeeded in placing ourselves at the forefront of the international scene in the compulsories.

If we manage to be so successful despite the small number of high level vaulters we have in France, it is because we focus on an individual and exploit their potential entirely. But in general, in many other countries, there are qualifying competitions; the federations give goal scores for select competitions and “may the best vaulter be selected”.

I find that this “survival of the fittest” idea is sometimes not nuanced enough. I have seen many nations miss out on great potential or gold medals because of these rules. I think that when you are an athlete selector, you cannot focus only on qualifiers. It happens sometimes that this process doesn’t favor the evolution of a vaulter’s trio (athlete, lunger, and horse) with strong potential. The hardness of certain selection criteria can sometimes make you miss a “Picasso,” who can mature differently or later than others throughout the season. That is my way of seeing things.

Ilaria: You transitioned from competitive vaulting to the world of equestrian performances. What are the most notable differences between these two versions of vaulting? Are there any difficulties you have encountered in working with an audience that may not have a deep knowledge of the sport?

Jacques Ferrari: It’s been almost ten  years since I first stepped into the world of equestrian shows. Recently, we even participated in TV shows like “France’s Got Talent” and “Spain’s Got Talent”. Generally speaking, in shows the audience is the only judge, unlike in competition. If you manage to move, surprise, and transmit something to the public, they will express it directly. On the contrary, when the performance is not well done, you can also feel it very quickly. The atmosphere that can be created during a show really allows you to be completely immersed when you want to share a story. Compared to competition, in shows you can strive to communicate your artistic intentions and desires, which can sometimes be erased or compressed in sports.

The show also allows you to have more time, less regulatory constraints, to take more technical or artistic risks without the fear of being perceived negatively during competitions. The beauty of the show is the opportunity to implement ideas that one would not necessarily have exploited in competition. We learn to transform plan A into plan B because “the show must go on”. Everything doesn’t always go the way you want it to, so you learn how to bounce back, to react quickly enough to avoid a disaster.

The downside of competition is that technique can quickly impose itself upon the artistic aspect. But during a show, technique becomes secondary–art takes its place and we live our moment fully. Thanks to this, I was able to become more and more precise artistically. I often incorporate hidden symbolism in shows. But I have realized that certain audiences did not perceive these messages as I hoped. So I had to create a bridge between the symbolic and the general public. This allowed me to progress, to go and look for limits which I would never have pushed towards before. These are constraints, sure, but constraints are what makes us evolve.

Ilaria: You also create music for vaulters. What inspired you to start, and is there a particular style you prefer? What do you think makes good vaulting music that you strive to represent in your work?

Jacques Ferrari: Yes, I make music for vaulters and for dressage riders as well. I also create for music-to-picture and I would like to expand to figure skating and other sports. Before having a high-level career in vaulting, I almost entered a famous music school in Paris. Actually, I have always felt a little frustrated for not having chosen that path. But here I am ten years later, going back to it and telling myself that I made the right choice after all. Because you can do sports only for a while. But, as long as you have your ears, your hands and your eyes, you can make music all your life.

Since 2015, I’ve been working with Henry Benoit, whom I met totally unexpectedly. His mom worked right next door to where we trained, and she often came to tell us that our music was too loud. Later, she introduced me to her son who was a composer in a music school in Los Angeles. I had a lot of projects I wanted to set up for vaulting music and Henry was interested in entering this world. That’s where a beautiful friendship and collaboration began.

We helped each other out, and he taught me a lot about musical techniques. Nowadays, most music is made on the computer; you can create very beautiful music with pre-recorded instruments. So it was an obvious choice for me to bring this into the vaulting world.

I think my personal musical style is anything orchestral, lyrical, and symphonic. I love voice ensembles, whether they’re male, female, or children, but also anything with ethnic sounds. However, I am not at all limited to that. Actually, in September 2022, my new album, MEDLEY, was released with many different styles of music. This year, I challenged myself to work with multiple genres (electro, latin, hip hop etc…). It wasn’t my “cup of tea” at all at the beginning, but you have to stay open-minded. What is fascinating is that these different musical orientations bring very interesting elements. I feasted on the diversity. In music, you are never done learning. That’s what makes this field incredible.

In my opinion, good vaulting music is music that has a soul, that tells a story. It doesn’t matter what style or instrument is used, whether it’s something happy or something dark. The music has to tell something in itself, have texture, and be able to transport emotionally, even when it is more contemporary.

I say this today in 2022. Maybe in ten years I will have a different opinion based on the evolution of the discipline.

Ilaria: One last curiosity for me and for the readers of The Vaulting Review: is there a character (literary, filmic or artistic) or a theme that you would like to interpret in vaulting and why?

Jacques Ferrari: I must admit that in twelve years’ experience as a high level vaulter and coach, I have had the opportunity to exploit a great number of concepts, themes, and ideas that I had inside me. Of course they all came from films, shows, paintings or novels already proposed by great artists.

I have also had the opportunity to see themes and ideas that had been used more or less well in vaulting, so the desire to re-exploit certain things and to sublimate them is always there. Today I work more and more with processes of creation inspired by already-existing things or ideas. I adapt them to the experiences, personality, and desires of the people I work with in order to make the concepts innovative and unique.

However, there are still some ideas that speak to me and that I have not yet managed to fully exploit. First of all, playing with rhythms and body percussion to form music during a routine. Also, I am intrigued by the idea of playing with the words and internal thoughts that guide our actions, or even moving towards dancing on horseback through Latin or ethnic music using cultural symbolism. When I talk about “dance”, I choose this term because I think that we can go even further than what has been proposed until now.

 

Indeed, with Jacques’s help, we were able to visualize our routines and improvisation as opportunities to truly dance on horseback, bringing out vaulting’s artistic essence. Merci, Jacques!