can someone give a good sequence of training events for half pass
Circles, starting with 20 meter circles, then 15, 12, 10 m circles, bending, suppling and going forward. Leg yields(without taking the rider’s leg back or twisting the body), then position fore, shoulder fore, shoulder in, then turn on the haunches, then haunches in, then half pass.
How do you actually start asking for the half pass?
If you have not ridden half pass on a trained horse, don’t know what the aids are, or how to train it, it can be hard to get good results without a trainer or instructor guiding you there as you are trying to do it.
If I have trained the circles, leg yield and turn on the haunches, the horse understands everything he needs to half pass.
He after the preparation training with circles, shoulder in, etc, understands that the outside rein controls his shoulders, the inside rein bends him, the inside leg at the girth tells him to move energetically and tells him to bend in his body. The outside leg behind the girth tells him to move his hind quarters away from the outside leg. The aids for the half pass are the same as for any circle, and the same idea as for shoulder in, haunches in and turn on the haunches. The aids for all these things are the same.
I start by asking by doing a circle in the first corner of the short side. I come out of the circle and take a shoulder in position down the quarter line (you always take a shoulder in position to commence a half pass, including in competition), then I start half passing and half pass to the wall or track. If the horse has a lot of trouble with that there is a very ‘baby’ way to start half pass of doing leg yield toward the track from the quarter line, changing the bend and continuing to the track in half pass. The rider has to change the bend, start using the wall-side leg at the girth, and the leg that is in toward the middle of the ring, behind the girth.
You can think of it as a haunches-in across the diagonal (or whatever line you pick).
A half pass is basically a haunches in on a diagonal line.
If you have mirrors they can be very helpful to check your horse’s angle/position. I tend to bring the haunches too much and get yelled at. 
As the 2 previous posters said, the easiest way to think of it is HI on a diagonal. You can start a HI on the rail or quarterline, then pick a diagonal line and keep the shoulders on that (imaginary) line while keeping the same angle in the HI. Your aids do not change from HI, remember to keep your weight in the direction of travel (my personal waterloo). In the beginning, you are likely to sputter when you move from HI to HP, so remember to keep on the gas and to maintain your engagement. Haunches leading is a big no-no, so concentrate hard on your (imaginary) line and keeping your original HI angle the same!
Good luck!
If you can do the shoulder-in correctly then you can do the half-pass.
All of the aids are basically the same, but you switch from using the inside leg on the girth as your predominant aid for the shoulder-in to using your outside leg behind the girth as the predominant aid for the half-pass.
You can do a zig zag down the centerline using shoulder-in and switch to half-pass and back again.
Before you do half pass, you need to be quite strong in the haunches in.
Once you have that down pat, try riding haunches in across the diagonal. Then later, you can try it from shoulder-fore. Doing this is more difficult, and takes more strength and engagement. Doing it H/I across the diagonal, has the “look”, but not the “oomph”. 
those 2 things are most definately not what I have been taught, from anyone, anytime.
inside leg at the girth is not the predominant aid for shoulder in, it is the outside rein that brings the shoulders in, the inside leg just keeps bend and energy. To ride a shoulder in predominantly off the inside leg creates a leg yield.
outside leg behid the girth is again, not the predominant aid for the half pass. not by a long shot! The outside leg is only used to keep the haunches bent to the inside, so that they remain directly behind the horse, not to either side. The half pass is just a shoulder in on a diagonal, not a haunches in on a diagonal.
the hindlegs must be straight behind the horse in the shoulder in on a straight line, as well as on a diagonal line, the only difference is that the shoulders are moving forward and diagonally, not just forward on three tracks.
Do you use your outside leg predominantly as an aid in the canter pirouette too? because all a CP is, is a shoulder in, in a tiny circle. Who trained you this way? I am interested
Gucci,
I said predominant aid, I did not say to ignore all of the other aids. That description comes from two differerent “I” judges.
I said “if” you can do a CORRECT shoulder-in you can do a half-pass.
I did see in one of your older posts where you described developing the shoulder-in by bringing both hands across the withers to bring the shoulders off of the track … THAT is not a correct shoulder-in.
I never said across the withers, I would love for you to show me where you think you saw those words??
I said bring both hands TOWARDSthe inside. like turning. BOTH hands in the direction of the turn. Never across, with either hand, in either direction. Every BNT I have trained with, plus “O” judge, all say the same thing. both hands towards go in the direction of the turn, or wherever you want the shoulders.
most people use only their inside rein, and crank it across the wither to the outside. That is the opposite of correct.
Oh boy oh boy.
I disagree with most said.
And no matter what anyone comes back with I will stick to my guns. Therefore I won’t check back on the thread because ya’ll will just make me cry. I’m sure.
The reason 1/2 pass is hard to teach (new horse and rider to the movement) is because you are asking the horse to move INTO your weight, probably for the first time. This is the first move that you cannot get away with. Can’t fake your body weight. If you can’t sit on the inside you ain’t goin no where.
It is not a pushing movement at all (via outside leg).
And I personally can’t think of it as a HI on the diagonal because that would make me think, lead with the haunch. And you should lead from the shoulder.
So when you finish your 10m 1/2 circle, come out of it and keep shoulder fore or SI. Then ask for the diagonal step.
Shoot, first just ask for your horse to trot on the 1/4 mark in the banana shape. That is hard enough for some of them!!
1/2 pass can be the easiest to ride, but the hardest to train. : ) If it were easy to train everyone would be a coach and then the good guys wouldn’t make money. lol.
Once the horse knows what to do you simply lift the inside rein a little and then use the inside leg and seat to move toward the inside (inside being from 1/4 line to rail according to bend)
Figure, if you are pushing your horse over from 1/4 mark to rail then how do you plan on getting from 1/2 mark to rail? How hard can you push? Not hard enough and you shouldn’t HAVE to push that hard!!
Inside leg and outside rein my dear. Outside leg helps hold the haunch steady.
That is what I was taught and I believe in it.
I ready my own body with renvers. It helps me work on putting my weight on the inside of the horse’s body.
I do use HI to ready my horse. But I do not initiate the move from HI. I just do the HI, SI, Renvers sequence on the long side. Back to HI, 10m 1/2 circle, banana shape and then go for it. : )
It’s hard keeping your parts, and your horse’s parts where they should be.
Can’t agree with you on one thing, purple. I don’t put weight on one side of the horse to do half pass. If you do, you get a falling to the wall. I look where I want to go, and that does everything that needs to be done with your body. if you consciously try to weight the inside and sit to the inside, you’ll get over there, but it will be by falling to the wall, not by half passing.
Too, half pass starts from shoulder in position, not renvers position.
I do agree about haunches in on the diagonal, which is a very different thing from a half pass, and is a very different angle and very, very different (and much easier) mechanics that avoid the difficulty of half pass, and half pass should never be initiated by moving the haunches in or by doing haunches in. But don’t try to suggest that here, you’ll get a bunch of outraged women breathing down your neck telling you haunches in on a diagonal is the same as half pass and that’s all there is to it.
Unfortunately, it isn’t and it’s a bad way to teach a horse half pass, and you’ll have to go back and fix it, you will lose points in competition if you don’t, plus it’s a very nasty habit to try and fix.
I don’t understand how the inside leg could be the ‘predominant’ aid for shoulder in, or how the outside leg could be the ‘predominant’ aid for half pass.
At least while he’s first learning it, the aid the rider is probably the most consciously aware of needing to use is the outside rein for shoulder in in the sense that he will be using all his usual turning aids, just as for a circle, but he will be aware that he needs more outside rein to control the shoulders than if he were doing a circle.
The half pass is not predominantly aided with the outside leg, though like all turning and circling, the outside leg has something to do with it. As in all other work the outside leg controls the haunches.
But if the rider feels like he has to ‘predominate’ by using his outside leg, something is going wrong with the half pass.
If the haunches are trailing in the half pass, the ‘answer’ isn’t to push harder with the outside leg and try to ‘speed up’ the haunches, but to slow down the shoulders with the outside rein.
Otherwise then the half pass just winds up being a ‘falling over and running to the wall’, not a half pass.
If the rider feels he needs to emphasize his outside leg for half pass alot or that his outside leg aid predominates routinely, or if he feels he needs to emphasize his inside leg for shoulder in or the inside leg predominates routinely, something’s not right.
Both of these exercises should give the rider the feeling that he completely ‘wraps around’ the horse with his aids like wrapping paper around a package - all his aids, evenly, inside aids, outside aids, define the horse’s position without one aid predominating. If that’s not happening there’s a problem.
I think you and I are 100% on the same page.
Originally posted by Gucci Cowgirl:
The half pass is just a shoulder in on a diagonal, not a haunches in on a diagonal.
A shoulder-in on the diagonal IS a shoulder-in on the diagonal, not a half-pass on a diagonal. That would be called a half-pass on a diagonal.
The shoulder-in is an exercise where the inside leg on the girth develops the bend and asks the horse to move forward at the same time into the outside rein, but in order for it to be a shoulder in rather than a leg yield the outside leg behind the girth must become active in asking the haunches to bend the other way (away from the outside leg of the rider and in the opposite direction of the bend of the horse’s ribcage, ie: an evenly bent body of horse). The shoulder-in MOVES INTO the direction OF the bend, whether its down the long side of the wall with the head of the horse to the wall, OR down the long side of the wall with the horse’s haunches to the wall or down the diagonal.
In the haunches-in the horse MOVES into the direction FROM WHICH he is bent. The haunches-in can be done with the haunches coming in off of the track and the head along the wall, OR it can be done with the haunces on the wall and the head to the inside, OR it can be done on the diagonal, down the centerline or out in the back forty acres. It is a movment where the horse moves in the direction that he is bent away from. Period.
Edited: Yes, I could have said part of that more clearly. In the shoulder-in the horse moves in the direction that he is bent away from. In the haunches-in horse moves in the direction that he is bent in.
Originally posted by purplnurpl:
Not hard enough and you shouldn’t HAVE to push that hard
Where does this “pushing” term come from 
There is NO pushing involved in any of these aids.
ALL of these aids should essentially be the same. The rider should have taught his horse to move away from the pressure of the leg. This is not a “stuck” leg on horse kind of thing. This is supposed to be a breathing leg that is always actively engaging each hind leg as it leaves the ground. An extra nudge in rythym is what I am describing.
i feel half pass is not a shoulder in on the diagonal or a haunches in on the diagonal.
i don’t agree with either of the statements saying half pass is either of those things.
There is nothing at all DIAGONAL about a half pass. The horse’s body is virtually parallel to the wall when he does a half pass. He starts it from a shoulder in, not a haunches in position. The shoulder in is to initiate the correct posture, that doesn’t mean the half pass is a shoulder in on a different line.
This is where everyone is getting lost.
The horse’s body is virtually PARALLEL to the wall in half pass. It isn’t anywhere NEAR on a diagonal. That would be completely wrong. It would be wrong to teach it that way, start it that way, initiate it that way, school it that way.
Haunches in whether done on the track or diagonal - only gets him to bend his haunches very, very slightly in the way required for half pass - it is a preparatory exercise, like a leg yield, it is not a half pass. The level of difficulty is very, very different. To get a half pass you have to rotate the horse’s body off that diagonal line, but even if you did, you can’t initiate a half pass with a haunches in position - because it’s incorrect.
The half pass is SO easy to teach and do if you just do it correctly - why make it so complicated, and so muddled, and so incorrect?
Haunches in on a diagonal is an exercise that someone might try at some point in one’s training, but it is not half pass and the position is nothing like a half pass. it’s far, far easier.
The horse is not on a diagonal, that is wrong.
Pushing a horse’s haunches in from a diagonal line is not a half pass.
It is a far easier movement, and all it is in relation to a half pass is incorrect.
Half passes travel on a diagonal line. Nobody is saying the half pass puts the body on a diagonal bend. THE LINE OF TRAVEL is a diagonal one. It is not straight forward, backwords, or sideways. The horses’ entire body is parallell to the wall, ben in the direction of travel, and travelling on a diagonal LINE across the arena. How do you ride that your half passes travel on a straight forward line?
You misunderstood everyone’s posts. We all know the body is parallel to the wall, we are saying the line of travel is diagonal.
i didn’t misunderstand anything. you’re talking about doing a haunches in on a diagonal is a half pass and telling people who ask how to do half pass, do a haunches in on the diagonal, and it isn’t.
i didn’t misunderstand you, i disagreed with you. i’m saying the reason hp is not same as hi on diagonal is because of the body position.
