what does it do, how do you do it? Involving the reins…the use of leg aids…
this sounds like a dumb question from someone who is riding a solid 1st level. I just know how to do one…but cannot really explain it. I only know by feeling, but the more advanced i get, just knowing is not good enough, i need to know how it works and what i should be applying it to.
Thanks guys.
There is a lot of confusion about this issue. I found it helpful to think about it this way.
The Half halt is a rebalancing of the horse’s weight toward the haunches. The RIDER does not half halt. The HORSE half halts. A horse must be trained to half halt in response to the rider’s aids.
As she does when asking the horse to do anything, the rider uses the aids to request the horse to half halt. So what are the aids the rider uses to ask the horse to rebalance his weight toward the haunches?
The rider moves the horses hind legs under him (with her driving aids) then restrains the energy in the front (rein aids.) That’s it. That’s the half halt.
The combination of rein and forward driving aids that are necessary depend upon a number of factors, including the horse’s level of training. Ideally, the aids should be invisible and involve no more than a slight calf pressure and closing the fingers more firmly on the reins at the correct moment. That is for a horse at a high level of training who is traveling straight and forward with a good connection to the bit and has significant impulsion from his hind legs.
A can of worms and a way to produce/feel it
Wow-- great question! Can’t wait to see other answers.
The short answer I’d give is that it is a well-timed, split second moment where in hand (including upper body), seat and legs, you resist rather than follow the forward motion. You have accomplished it when the horse rebalances slightly, rocking back on his hind end a bit. But, if you don’t get what you want, you don’t just hold on longer; you let go and retry in the next stride.
It takes lots of feel on the rider’s part. Timing comes later. It’s also tough when horse and rider are learning this aid together.
Here’s how I teach both man and beast.
Start by walking over a pole and stopping with front and hind legs on either side. With this clear target in mind, you ride the “stop” aid lighter and lighter until you can “half halt,” let go and have the horse complete the stop.
You can do this again at the trot and canter. You may be surprised at how hard it is to duplicate the nice timing and response you got at the walk!
So at the higher gaits, where you really learn to ride the half halt, think about asking for the stop as early as you need to produce the halt over the pole. At the canter, for example, you may need to start by asking for a more collected canter a few strides out and even allowing you horse to trot or walk up to the position over the pole.
The pole on the ground give your horse a clear idea that a halt is coming. You want to ride that halt as gently as you can. You will end up producing half halts to get that accurate stop. While you stand over the pole for a moment, both you and your horse can replay the feel of those half-halts and rebalancing efforts in you mind.
At each gait, when you horse sees the pole, you give a half-halt and feel him slow, relax your body, start following again and let him continue over the pole. Whatever you did to get that moment of rebalancing… that counts as the half-halt.
I think it has to be taught and experienced, not just explained.
If you ride this way, always looking for the minimum aid that produces the rebalancing effect on your horse, you will develop good half halts, and a horse that also understands them.
Hope this helps!
How does Jane Savoie explain it? “The simultaneous application of seat, leg, and hand.” Something like that 
She also says “it’s not really a half HALT. There’s no HALT in a half halt. It’s a half GO.”
One other question, i guess it works the same in all the gaits? I hate to admit, when my trainers wants a collected vs working canter, she swears I need to half halt more to get more control and get the right rythm. Yeah, easier said than done dammit! this is where i am running into problems…
up till then…I know I am doing it…just not sure how. Kind of like, yeah, I know what I just told that guy in french, but not sure I know exactly what he says back.
Half halts to me are like algerbra…i knew how to get to the end of the equation, my own way, I just could never explain it. I just knew. When it came to calculus and applied physics…i had to relearn everything because the little things that i neglected to really understand, all came back to haunt me
Think of it as a 4 step process:
Repeat.
How often - as often as necessary to get the horse rebalanced
How strong - however strong it needs to be to get the job done
This all happens within the stride - too long and the horse can lean
on you.
Dot
[QUOTE=dotneko;4019414]
Think of it as a 4 step process:
Repeat.
How often - as often as necessary to get the horse rebalanced
How strong - however strong it needs to be to get the job done
This all happens within the stride - too long and the horse can lean
on you.
Dot[/QUOTE]
I like it!
Seat and legs keeping asking for forward, core muscles lift in place for a second, fingers close for a second. The fingers should be the smallest part of the equation.
If you hold it long enough to feel it go through, you’re already holding too long. It’s like breathing, you don’t hold you breath to know you’ve been breathing, you just do it;)
I think this question is too hard to answer. Like trying to describe the color blue to someone that has never had sight. If you had 10 people describe “blue”, you would get 10 different explanations. One person might talk about the sky - another might talk about the cool temperature of blue. They would both be equally correct.
The other trick is that there are different types of half halts. I might use a half halt to rebalance in the extended trot without sacrificing any of the forwardness. Such a half halt would be very different from a half halt I would give in the collected walk when I want to start a walk pirouette.
The exact degree of aids for the desired effect of the half halt is very different when riding a young horse as opposed to an upper level horse.
But just try . When it works the feeling the horse gives will let you know that you did it correctly
I would be careful about the over-use of poles in training, as it can lead to the horse going croup high
Don’t know about dummy terms, but this is by Thomas Ritter from classicaldressage.com:
From a general, theoretical point of view the half halt aims at improving the flexion of the hip and hock joints of the addressed hind leg. This increased flexion of the haunches can be used to achieve specific purposes:
The answer to the question of the general goal of a half halt also entails the answer to the question of the when and how of its application, because the rider’s aids can only accompany and support the horse’s natural footfall sequence by enhancing individual aspects of the gait. The half halt is a good example to illustrate this thought.
As long as a hind leg is on the ground in front of the vertical, it carries the weight of the horse and rider and flexes, depending on the elasticity of the gait and the training level, more or less in its hip and hock joints. The stifle opens at the same moment.
As soon as the hind leg passes the vertical, it ceases to carry and starts thrusting. The stifle joint flexes, while the hip and hock joints open.
The logical conclusion from these explanations is that an aid that is intended to flex the hip and hock joint more deeply can only be successful and go through when it is applied at a moment in which the hind leg is biomechanically able to fulfill the request, that is when the hind leg is on the ground in front of the vertical.
The hind leg that is behind the vertical is extending and will therefore always resist against a half halt. If the half halts are applied at the wrong moment, they can cause windpuffs and spavin in the long run.
One can see that the proper moment for a half halt is quite brief. As far as the technical details of its application are concerned, the half halt can be composed of several different elements that can be combined in many different shades.
It is especially important that the upper arm and elbow on the side where the rein aid is applied are well attached to the torso in order to establish a close connection between forehand and haunches, as well as among the aids. This way the rider’s body weight supports the rein pressure. The old masters would say that the rider borrows the weight of the horse’s head and neck and pushes it towards the haunches. The rein aid is translated into a weight aid with the help of the rider’s midsection.
It is equally important that the gluteal muscles remain relaxed. Otherwise, the horse will drop his back.
After the application of the half halt the rider’s hand, wrist, and forearm must relax completely, so that the horse does not start bracing with his throat latch and lower jaw.
After the half halt it is often helpful to animate the horse with a driving aid so that there is no loss of energy.
The hh is a rebalancing action which encourages the all the joints of the hindlegs to be more articulated, if this happens the horse’s balance is transfered to the hindlegs and the balancing rod/neck lifts and arcs. Do the hindlegs step longer under per se? No really, but the balance changes.
What does the rider do? First the horse must be steadily accepting the bridle, offering a slight degree of lateral flexability, mobilizing the jaw, and moving into the outside rein. Only then will pulsed aids form the basis for hh. For the hh to work they must be properly combined with the footfalls of the horse (different times/intentions for each gait). The ‘right aid’ at the wrong time is hte wrong aid. So timing is everything. As far as what the rider does: the energy is created from the leg before hh. Then the very slightly of posterior action of the pelvis with the support of the leg buts the horse into the hand. From this the horse should react/transfer balance. If the hh is repeated, the horse will learn listen/listen/act (ie rebalance/reblance/transition. The horse should not ‘give’ to a hh, the balance should change/the hindleg joints articulate more (is that giving?). For each hh the rider must allow the horse time to react/rebalance, it is the rebalancing which is rewarded (not giving to the bit). The intention of the hh is greater self carriage, if that is acheived that is what is rewarded (with uberstreichen).
For sure as clarence said there are different types of hh (lateral/diagonal/bilateral) each with a clear intention in balance/training/straightness/etc.
[QUOTE=dotneko;4019414]
Think of it as a 4 step process:
Repeat.
How often - as often as necessary to get the horse rebalanced
How strong - however strong it needs to be to get the job done
This all happens within the stride - too long and the horse can lean
on you.
Dot[/QUOTE]
oooh that’s a great explanation! I don’t think I could’ve said it any better myself
HH is not the transition, but a Half of that transition. HH is a gentle correction. HH is a question that rider asks to check if the horse is on rider’s aids. HH is a call for horse’s attention. HH is an invitation for horse to carry himself, to load more weight on the hind end…
There are several HHalts and there are several ways to apply them. The HH applied almost the same way as to a halt transition (sending forward to a closed hand), but in the last second the aids are released so horse will continue to walk/trot/canter = that resulting in the horse hovering for a step and re-focusing on the rider. Kind off “hey, remember me?” or “heads up, something is comming up”.
I try and think of it as a half-breath rebalancing with the next request immediately following. As a sort of “gathering us up in balance to do …THIS.”
I can visualize it, I can see it, I understand it…and once in a while, I can DO it.
[QUOTE=Briggsie;4019281]
what does it do, how do you do it? Involving the reins…the use of leg aids…
this sounds like a dumb question from someone who is riding a solid 1st level. I just know how to do one…but cannot really explain it. I only know by feeling, but the more advanced i get, just knowing is not good enough, i need to know how it works and what i should be applying it to.
Thanks guys.[/QUOTE]
Apparently, neither can anyone else. :lol:
I asked my instructor how to do a HH, and she said “When I tell you ‘rebalance her’ or ‘prepare her to do a transition/whatever’ and you do it correctly, that’s what you’re doing. But don’t start breaking it down too much, or you’ll mess it up.”
Put rider on longe, on a horse that understands hh., take away reins. Give rider verbal support, longe rider until they get it, or the longe time is up, usually about 15 min is plenty of torture for the educated horse. Start again tomorrow.
It is one of those things you can explain until forever, but the rider has to feel it for themselves. The help of an educated horse is crucial.
And you can analyze til the cows come home ala Clarence, but you gotta feel it. 
The thing that made (and still makes) the most sense to me about HHs is and article I read a long time ago (in Dressage Today, perhaps?) that compared the HH to walking on a tight rope. Everytime the arms or bodyweight are used to balance, it’s a half-halt. It made it clear to me that hhs are ALL about balance, and there is no certain prescribed amount or strength with which it needs to be applied, it all depends.
I think Dotneko has given a very good answer. To expand on it,if we keep to the principle of leg without hand and hand without leg, there must already be impulsion in place ( created by seat,leg and if necessary whip) before the half-halt is made. Dotneko correctly advised that the horse must be straight ( by shoulder-fore if necessary) or it will not go through. If we believe the ‘fixed hand’ principle the contact will come from the hips and the half-halt should then be made with the rider’s back going back as the angle of the elbow is closed a little. There is no leg involved here.It is as if one lifts a heavy rock from one step on a staircase to place it gently down upon the step above. If one rides with fingers ajar they can be closed into the fist to add more emphasis to the action of the back. When the ‘rock’ is put down, so to speak, the back moves forwards a hair and the fingers go ajar again. Dotneko,I believe,describes this as the rider softening. At this stage the legs may have to come again if impulsion becomes reduced. If the half-halt has gone sufficiently through to rebalance the horse it should,as Ideayoda has suggested,be rewarded by opening the fingers completely to only very light contact. She has called this ‘ubersteichen’. The French expression is ‘descent de main’. The important feature in the half-halt is not to transfer too much weight to the rear that it impairs impulsion and not too much leg after it that it transfers the weight forward again to impair the balance achieved.
One poster warns against a half-halt in an extended trot for fear that ‘forwardness’ will be lost. If the extension is ridden out of collection,as it should be, then the stride length will simply shorten reducing the extension. If impulsion, becomes impaired then the half-halt was too strong,or improperly applied.
Most folks, what they call a half halt, is actually a ‘check’, and designed to slow the horse down, slow his legs down, pause him, or stop him from pulling.
A half halt is actually just engaging (bending) the horse’s hind legs. It doesn’t slow a horse down per se, but simply causes him to engage his hind legs more. You can see it has been successful because the horse’s hind legs are visibly more engaged. It can even be done in such a way as to engage one hind leg more.
It is trained by using the rein and then the leg to send the horse immediately forward, that is how he learns to put his hind legs under him more and bend his hind legs more.
An almost simultaneous use of leg seat and hand, but not quite simultaneous. The two types of aids come closer together as the horse gets more and more trained.
It is possible because the basics of contact and connection with the bit are there, and there is sufficient impulsion, which is energy caught in the hand and recycled back to the hind quarter. It is the circle of the aids that allows one to catch energy, send it back to the hind legs, and use it to engage the hind legs more.
Here’s a link to a thread on UDBB that was going on a while ago. It’s so good that I saved the link and go back to it now and then
http://www.ultimatedressage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=136024
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