The six-step map of horse training: rhythm, suppleness, contact, impulsion, straightness, collection. The whole sequence aims at one thing — throughness.
Without this map you correct everything at once and arrive nowhere. The scale tells you instead which job is actually in front of you: rhythm first — an even, regular tempo in every gait. Then suppleness, meaning physical and mental relaxation, which has to survive on every level above it. Contact, impulsion, straightness and collection build on that. The costliest mistake is skipping steps: drill collection while the horse is tense and you don't get a collected horse, you get a shortened one. The scale is also not a one-way street — on a bad day you go back to the bottom. At shows its goal shows up as its own collective mark: throughness is scored separately, not just the individual movement.