Agree. Don’t worry.
And to everyone-yes, we work on HI and SI as well. SI is confirmed and HI is fine in walk and posting trot but just like HP I get a canter depart in sitting trot.
Yes that’s a good one. Thx.
@blue_heron , tension is the entire ball game here I think! Thanks for reminding me that it’s always right to go back to simpler basics.
Thanks everyone. Today was better. I did “less” and really thought about using less leg aids and where my shoulders and my seat are.
As a bonus we had a super relaxed sitting trot at the end of it all. Not quite collected trot but a longer neck and swingy back…. I’ll take it over the tension !!
But in haunches in vs. shoulder in, my aids “close different doors.” All I do to get shoulder in is close my outside hand and my outside upper leg. On an unschooled horse I might move both reins slightly to the inside. That closes the door for the outside shoulder to move through. To ask for haunches in, my outside leg slides back VERY slightly to ask the outside hind to engage more and my seat asks the haunches to come to the inside. I close the door to the inside shoulder with with my inside thigh. If I open the thigh here, that’s half pass.
ETA: why do your outside leg and seat bone remain slightly farther back than the inside throughout the canter? Because you continually ask the horse to engage the outside hind. I guess, in a sense, my aid for haunches in is a very very tiny canter aid without the ask with the lower outside leg, and my inside upper leg doesn’t change in the canter transition.
You are way too deep into thinking about your aids and doors and things that are different which are actually the same! HI and HP are the same thing. One is on the diagonal and the other is on a wall or circle*. And why in heck would you ever, ever, ever want to ‘close the door’ to the inside shoulder 
I would say that depending on the horse this is still WAAYYYYY too much aids.
For a circle in SI, think about what you would do unmounted. Your (rider’s) shoulders turn into the circle, and the legs (rider’s) do a “side step” around the circle. In a sensitive horse, they will actually pick up on your body position and mimic it…and voila, shoulder-in.
I would NEVER “continually ask the horse” to do anything…this just makes them dead to the aids. You (rider) asks, and the horse answers. No nagging the horse. If you ride a hot sensitive stallion, this will probably get you bucked off.
I separate the canter depart from the HI aids as I ask for the canter with my inside leg. This is how every French clinician has indicated are the canter aids
Yes, this is my understanding as well. I don’t know if it is the birth position, however, I do know that animals can have a preference for one side or the other, just as we do. Observational evidence: my terrier will only lift his left hind leg to pee. I know, it’s funny, but it’s true. He will go through contortions to make sure that his left side is lined up with whatever object he’s aiming at. My other dogs have all been relatively ambidextrous in this regard. I find it really funny. Especially since his right hind is substantially weaker than his left. But he still insists on standing on that weak right hind (torn ACL) to pee. Go figure. He’s “left-handed.”
Oh blue_heron, thank you for this. Beautifully stated. I have this conversation WAY more often than I like. Am I agreeing with your assessment of the various aids? No/yes/IDK. I am praising you for very perfectly stating what I say to students all the time: “Stop overthinking it!” Pluvinel put it perfectly - put YOUR body in haunches in and the horse will follow. If you start trying to analyze every little detail of where your left hand, right hand, various seat bones, left leg, right leg…OMG it’s enough to drive anyone crazy. This kind of over analysis in the saddle causes more problems than it solves. It is also proof positive that you are a dressage rider through and through! 
We all over analyze sometimes, esp. when we are learning. Keeping it simple is the easiest way to go about it. There are many movements in which each hand and each leg and other body parts will all have a different job. It’s called separation of the aids and it only comes with a lot of practice. But you can’t explain the nuts & bolts of a movement and expect a student to take that and run with it. Like all things dressage, you really can’t get it until you feel it. And you can’t feel it until you do it right.
I’d really compare what your inside seat bone is doing in the trot HI/HP and canter - I’d suspect you are leaving too much room under your inside seat bone and in HI/HP and the horse is filling that space with the canter since the aids are very similar. Plant that inside seat bone when you start the HI/HP, even if you have to over exaggerate it at first to make sure it is plugged in.
Obviously I do not think of this recipe every time I ride each movement. But when I slow down and think about what my body is doing, this is what I get. I do have to deconstruct it when I teach. I’m overthinking it for the purpose of discussion.
Thinking that haunches in on the diagonal is half pass has never been a helpful way to think about it for me and many of my students. Even if it’s true.
And I am not continually asking for the canter in every stride. But my body stays in the position that it does when I ask for the canter, that is what I mean. No hot stallions have ever bucked me off for that reason.
It is absolutely true and one of the best ways to teach HP if the student truly understands travers.
I remember the first time it was explained to me (even after having read it in Podhajsky it didn’t make sense) and it was a freaking revelation that made HP so much easier.
The instruction I was given after saying I hadn’t yet done HP with that particular horse was, “Yes you have. I just saw you do it on the long side.” “Whu???” “Turn down the centre line and from D to H ride a diagonal … ok, now stay on the diagonal and ride travers.” D’oh!
For those that are able to get out of the minutiae and visualize that long, shallow diagonal, it’s one of the easiest ways to teach half pass. Been using that method for many, many years, and as long as the student can get “Half pass is hard and I can’t do it” out of their head - easy peasy
100% agree with you. I usually have great spatial understanding, but HI on the diagonal didn’t make sense to me. (It does now after years of teaching it.) But it’s a hard thing to visualize for some.
I understood that is why you broke it down. All of the "you"s in my post in response were g-you - I wasn’t aiming it at you.
Just thinking out loud here …is it possible your seat is not following well enough so the horse gets a little bunchy and canters. Once my PRE is over his back I have to truly stay out of his way especially with my left hip and lower back. I struggle with my back swing when I do HP in trot and my horse will canter if I don’t follow correctly.
Clearly we are both successful in our riding and teaching of the half pass. Kudos to us, not always easy to do!
I find this interesting because this was a bit of a ‘lightbulb’ moment for my current horse and I when the dressage instructor I started riding with recently described half pass this way. It’s fascinating how different descriptions and visualizations work for different people
I also normally have fantastic spatial awareness! I think for me it comes down to the ‘purpose’ of the movement or what would get that 9 or 10 score in the ring. In haunches in, I think about moving the hindquarters with just my leg and seat, independent of the front end. In the half pass I work on the reach and the angle, both of which involve the shoulder, and therefore my upper leg. That’s what I mean by using my thigh to open or close the door. It’s just a visualization tool which may or may not work for different people.
Great point about separation of the aids. We talk constantly about the independence of the aids. It’s been really helpful in my teaching to have students understand which parts of their body and which aids support or control what parts of the horse. We don’t talk about it a lot in lessons, but it helps them and me figure stuff out on our own or identify which part of our riding or weakness in the body is causing the problem. Dressage is so fun because you can pick apart the technical but also blend it with more abstract ideas, i.e., my aids for the haunches in and the canter are similar, but my horses don’t have a problem differentiating the two. Their understanding of timing and intent is really amazing.
@HeartsDesireEventing I do think it’s helpful for demystifying the half pass for people who have never ridden it or just introducing it to the horse. But I don’t school the half pass by just riding haunches in on the diagonal, if that makes sense.
Yeah, point is not to throw the baby out with the bath water. If you don’t/can’t visualize it that way, fine, you have something that works for you. Good! But don’t go saying “even if it’s true” just because you have a different way of learning and teaching it. You may very well one day run into a student that needs exactly that kind of visualization to get unstuck. It’s good to keep all the cards in one’s back pocket.
The key to HP is H/I. Short body or not , he still must have a good H/I.
Once that is established, you can play with H/I on the diagonal, or come around the corner in S/I , maintain the bend and start moving your hips diagonally across the arena, if you lose bend, go into a 10m circle and try again.Correct bend is a must!
Simple fix that may get you out of your rut: post the trot. Yes, even in half pass.
Another option: start on quarterline in shoulder in. Leg yield 2-3 steps towards wall maintaining SI position. Straight ahead in SI 2 strides then close outside aids and half pass back 2-3 strides to end on quarter line. This exercise keeps the bend and isolates the go sideways aids from the bend your ribcage aids.
I have to emphasize this!!! I was riding trying to say when the hind feet were moving forward. EVERY TIME I was a day late and a dollar short…eg., I was 180 degrees out of sync.
My instructor was tearing her hair out and asked her daughter, (a rider and dancer) if she had any ideas. The suggestion was made to say “now, now, now…” when I felt like I should give an aid. Worked perfectly well. Which means when I was over thinking, I was behind the motion…when I was “feeling” I was on the money.
When I was schooling flying changes, an instructor told me to quit thinking like an engineer.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
