Dressage: UK vs USA

A great breakdown on the various levels of dressage in the UK (which I'm pretty sure we follow here) and USA (SOURCE):

Re UK dressage levels, affiliated dressage is governed by British Dressage (www.britishdressage.co.uk) which is similar in set-up to the USDF.

The various levels in increasing order of difficulty are (new movements introduced at that level shown in brackets):

Intro – (walk & trot tests)
Prelim – (working trot & canter)
Novice – (medium walk, trot & canter, counter canter ,rein back)
Elementary – (leg yield, collected trot & canter, simple changes)
Medium – (shoulder-in, half pass, extended & collected walk, extended trot & canter, travers, half walk pirouettes,
Advanced Medium – (flying change)
Advanced (4 times changes)
Prix St Georges
Intermediare I
Intermediare II
Grand Prix

A little bit about how our classes are divided: We don’t split classes by amateur/professional status, instead we have a system of horse & rider ranking. Horses accumulate points as they do well in competition & once they reach a certain level are upgraded & are no longer allowed to compete at a level. This stops a Prix-St-George horse from being able to contend an elementary class.

Riders are given a group level, entitling them to compete in the Open or Restricted section at a particular class level. Once a rider has experience in the level above, they must compete in the Open section of lower levels.

To compare, the US system (explained in Lauren Sprieser's blog):

Intro - walk/trot
Training Level - walk, trot, canter
First Level - walk, trot, canter, lengthening trot & canter, leg yield, beginning of counter canter
Second Level - collected trot & canter, medium trot & canter, shoulder in, travers, renvers, rein-back, simple changes, turn on haunches, counter canter
Third Level - collected, medium, and extended gaits, half-pass, flying changes, plus the stuff from Second Level
Fourth Level - basically same stuff as Third Level but higher degree of difficulty. Flying changes every 4th stride, canter half-pirouette.