The Halt and Half-halt

Describing halt and half-halt is difficult without a horse and rider in front of me, the reason being that each is so very individual that their energies have to be considered from moment to moment. To say "do this with the left hand or this with the leg" is almost impossible without a context. But there are certain details I can describe in general. Put these details together with a good image and let the body feel its way into that image. I believe that the body has intuitive knowledge of how to do things if the mind prepares it with an image! I often say, "think it and do it, do it and become it." Traditional ways of learning make good riding so hard to achieve and so often throw riders into frustration and chaos in the saddle. I try to think like this: to learn to swim, get in the water and make friends with it. That said, I would like to give you some images that will help you understand what to envision when you come to a halt and then it's up to you to get on the horse and make friends with him!
Imagine you are sitting on the back of a bird.....flying. You're sending energy from deep within your pelvis---your power chamber---the stove where you cook and stir. You're asking the bird to go left, then right, down and up and you see a spot on the water where you'd like to land. You think of that spot, you send the bird closer to it and then, in just the right amount, you start slowing the bird by drawing back on your energy flow, the bird's engine speeds up but its flight slows down. The wings stretch out and right near the landing spot you really draw back on the energy and reverse the engine. The wings start back flapping, the bird's nose reaches forward and a little down, neck arched and up and the base of the neck rises. The chest billows out and the ribcage fans out and lifts. The feet come under and touch down and the entire body touches down into neutral, the neck rises and the head comes up as the body, puffed, gently falls into place in perfect equilibrium over the feet.
Now think a similar image on your horse. The balance of the halt you do will be dependent upon the quality of balance just before and going into it. The image you must have of the halt, however, has little to do with stopping. I'd rather think of halt as a pause where the engine stays running. Thinking 'stop' conjures the thought 'stop dead'. This kind of stop has no potential energy...the engine is either turned off or is slowed so much that it has to be turned back on or revved up considerably to move out of the halt(Yang). So imagine the halt to have tremendous motion, full of energy but all of this is taken inward(Yin). That inward result is a pause that APPEARS motionless. Herein lays the problem with halt.....we interpret it as stop because that is what the eye sees. The heart and mind must have another view....bubbling whirling motion and energy in equilibrium over a spot of pausing.
This is the image before the halt. First the rider chooses where to halt and visualizes it happening just there. Doing this warns the horse and the rider's body to prepare. The rider sits square and central in the saddle, energy streaming from the power chamber(the dan tien) toward the withers, energy sparking from the hips through the close gap to the elbows and flowing freely and powerfully through the lower arms, wrist and fingers down the reins to the bit. Another (imaginary) rein connects the hips to the bit as well. Thighs are brimming with energy flowing powerfully from the hips toward the knees and knees relay the message to the horse to move shoulders forward. The horse is in good self-carriage with upright neck, head hanging freely with nose slightly ahead of the vertical. The horse's neck is arched into a telescope like a stallion's as he catches a glimpse of something in the distance.
Just before going into the halt the imaginary rein connecting hip to bit needs a momentary burst of energy through it which will cause the actual rein the rider is holding to feel less taut! The direction of this burst goes a little ahead of the withers. Immediately following this(and all this happens in an instant), the rider starts to withdraw(or drain) energy.....not the hand......and this energy goes back up the arms to the hips back into the power chamber. The knees reach more forward while the groin draws back elongating the thigh into a vibrant tension while the thigh rotates slightly back and down as though attempting to kneel. The thigh at this moment takes slightly more of the rider's weight into it so the seat bones rise and with their energy draw the horse's back upward. The image now is rather like a genie going back into her bottle.
The horse's withers are rising, back is rising, chest is rising, neck is rising but his head and nose are lowering closer to the vertical(or even behind if it falls loosely this way of its own accord). The rider draws this rising energy up off the neck.....drawing the horse's neck up toward the rider's own shoulders, drawing that energy down through his shoulders, down the torso to the power chamber. Some of this energy passes through the shoulders back to the loins and hips of the horse, sending them closer into one another and back and down.....horse gently sitting. The rider's head is suspended from the sky but shoulders are down, chest is full with breastbone down. The rider's own upright,yet seated, carriage is signaling for the horse to mirror him. The hands follow(or even encourage with upturned fingernails and soft raising of the rein) this upward lift of the neck and head. The feeling in the hand is as if coming from under the rein and lifting upward(not backward)with open soft giving wrists. There is no traction.....the horse is stepping under as the energy is drawing back so the rein is merely giving 'direction' to the uplift and is not actually 'doing' the uplift!
This drawing back of energy is the reversing of the engine. The energy passing back and through the rider's shoulders to the horse keeps the engine running. The kneeling tells the forelegs to come under, the groin draws the forehand up and back over the front feet and the hind feet which are coming under into place.
The rider feels inside himself like he is drawing in a deep breath.....a full inhale where his diaphragm drops low as though compressing his inner organs and spreading them out. Chest billows, shoulders drop back,lower back expands, sides of torso expand, belly expands, upper arms hang down and soft. As the energy draws back into the genie bottle with minimal interruption from the hand and no squeezing of the draped calf to disturb the horse's fanning ribcage, the rider's body enters a state of complete Yin where time seems to stop like an eerie silence before a storm. The energy inside is spinning and whirling but as though going down into a black hole. The inhale is released very very slowly and carefully like air slowly leaving a balloon lest a sensitive horse go back into visible motion.
The rider's mind at this time must prepare what he is wanting to do next but keep it a little bit of a secret from the horse until he has the image well organized and clear and then he tells his horse and reverses the engine once more from the moment of the lower leg signal. Some horses barely even need this signal if they are well tuned.
So if the halt is a pause then the half-halt is a partial pause. In the half-halt , however, the rider never fully disengages the horse's feet from visible forward motion. The half-halt, if the horse moves in good balance, is hardly even needed. I like the concept of partial pause because the rider can appreciate that partial can imply anything from HALF of a pause to an infinitesimally small pause....more a tiny hold of energy to rebuild the fire in the power chamber. The moment following this results in a 'restoration' of vertical lift and a reorganization of the horse's body over his feet which balances him to better have a neutral from which to go next! A half-halt done from this imagery helps the rider feel when that neutral place is gone and needs restoring. It is like going back to the position where ease remains. If you were planning to follow this half-halt with a more challenging positioning, a more difficult move or posture for the horse that would require an increase in his effort, the feeling would be as though perfecting this neutral balance to its best, its most pure, form so that the next thing that is done is done easily! The image going into the half-halt should not be that you are going to do something more difficult and you are preparing for this mighty effort and are gathering up your reins and putting on your legs for this task ahead. That image is what kills the purpose of the half-halt! It is what makes for ever increasing dis-ease in the ride. The image should be as if preparing for greater ease.....preparing for the REMOVAL of the aids!
In the half-halt, the main areas of energy drawback activity are in the groin and through the arms. The lower back stays long and keeps the back of the seat down and connects the seat bones down toward the horse. The hand may come under the rein(fingernails up) on one or both sides or not at all. This partial pause is so short it is imperceptible and is always followed by a carefully chosen amount of projected energy. Projecting too much would necessitate yet another partial pause! Projecting too little would not supply the motion to follow with enough energy to sustain vertical lift.

Working with the Potential Energy of Opposites

This is a curious title for a blog post. Through working with horses, however, I run into many peculiar challenges the solutions of which I find in....OPPOSITES!
If this seems a bit strange, try thinking more in opposites and you just might find answers to problems you never dreamed surmountable!
Let me give some examples that I use regularly.
a)Instead of telling the rider to lower their heel in the stirrup I tell them to think 'toe down'. Doing so helps the leg to release in typical tension spots and the heel falls naturally as it should.
b)To sit taller, I suggest the rider sit smaller. There is something about compacting the body to integrate with itself, provided that the head can feel suspended, that makes the body taller.
c)To sit slimmer, I ask the rider to sit 'fatter'....by breathing deeper and lower into the diaphragm....making the belly protrude. The muscular activity of creating a wider fuller torso actually tones and slims the rider and makes him stable and less cumbersome for the horse to carry. This horizontally wider seat helps the rider to interact with the horizontal energies of the horse and unify his body in its personal space.
d)To create beautiful contact and encourage the horse to come round and efficient with more graceful motion, push the energy the horse feeds to you into the rein and send it by your intention toward the bit. Pulling to gain contact contracts the horse and pulls him in on himself, only to drop into the ground. So push into the rein and don't pull on it.
e)To keep the horse more willing to move forward, use less leg. Less leg makes more motion. Think like this.....a shout can be ignored or half-focused on to be heard....but a whisper....ah, you must come close and try harder to listen for.
f)To teach something new or make a request of a horse, try rewarding him first and then asking--- rather than asking and then rewarding. You will be amazed at how a kind gesture produces eagerness to please. Think like this: your horse is a king! Seek his favor by placing gifts at his feet.
g)When circling to the left, skew the body to the right. When traveling right, face the torso left! Look at ice skaters turning. They do just that! Think like this: the inside shoulder of the horse goes through the turn ahead of the outside one....so should yours! Make it better by keeping the entire torso skewed with the shoulders. No need to face the direction you are going! Energy can go around turns! You just need to send it there with your mind. Turning the head....no need....look with periforal vision.
h)An alternative to sending the horse laterally to the left with your right side might be drawing him to the left with your left side!
i)Sometimes it is better to think upward to a downward transition!
j)To sit deeper don't stretch the leg down more, bring it up! The seat nestles back in place and the leg can drop deeper. The faster the horse moves the more this applies.
k)Having trouble with a canter strike off from the outside leg back? Try using the inside leg forward instead! Better yet roll energy from the outside back to the inside forward.
l)On turns try not to use the lower inside leg but use the upper inside leg. Action of the upper thigh pressure is better than weighting a stirrup for bend. Weight is felt by pressure from the upper inner thigh muscle. The added benefit is it messages for the inside shoulder to reach up and forward.
m)On turns try not to let the inside seat drop back but instead send it forward to increase the step forward and under of the inside hind leg for balance.
n)A brief upward lift on the rein can help message for the horse to come up while a steady upward hold causes the horse to fall down in front. Likewise pulling down on the rein only causes the horse to pull up and hollow his back. Best to keep reins low and steady in front of the pommel and work the shape of the horse more with the seat.

I'LL KEEP ADDING TO THIS LIST! STAY TUNED!

REIN CONTACT: A Simpler Understanding

Everyone knows the amusing Thelwell cartoons where the pony won't go so the rider rigs up a carrot to dangle out in front of the pony's mouth! It's quite funny but the truth in it is pretty interesting. Ever tried luring a loose horse back to the barn with a single carrot? Run out of carrot and you are in trouble! The trick is to break off small pieces and keep him interested in moving toward the rest of the carrot. The horse is an inquisitive pal and one that can be distracted. Relationship to contact? I would say that lays in the perspective of 'contact' we can recognize through 'non-contact'. When we are luring the horse with a carrot, if we lure him too long he loses faith that he'll ever get a piece. But if we give him a piece, lure him and then repeat the process, he joins to the moving carrot! That's contact!
I have always been curious about what is called 'stiffened reins' or the use of poles to help the horse go forward. These reins have a metal core so when you advance them you 'push' the head forward. I believe they were used on horses that were not keen on moving forward. So by advancing the head and neck, the body is pulled along with it and the horse moves on. Interesting concept!
Now transfer that idea to how we can use energy to move the horse forward. When we send mixed and churned and magnified energy from the hips through the elbows by way of 'sparks' we need to push or project this energy down the reins powerfully. I tell my students to push the reins like a shopping cart or wheelbarrow. The effect is that the energy moves down the reins and to the mouth and moves the mouth forward! The body then follows. For every push from the horse's hindquarters, the energy is then pushed down the reins. When students start making contact through PUSH on the rein instead of PULL or TAKE, the entire physique of the horse transforms into a vibrant form with lift and reach in the neck. It is a beautiful natural form of collection that renders the horse easy and in control of himself.
I have a law of opposites that I like to talk about. Less is more. Think small, become large. Use less leg, get more attention from the horse. There are MANY opposites that apply which you will hear me talk about a lot. By pushing away the mouth you wish to make contact with the horse moves toward the contact to meet it!

Getting Started in the Saddle

From the beginning of a ride the rider must gain composure. What does this feel like? It is a quiet ease where the breathing is low and natural, the hands are not trying to do something right away with the reins but are relaxed, soft, open and close to the body as though holding a good book on a Sunday afternoon. It is a time for collecting your thoughts, separating yourself from the outside world and realizing your horse as the subject of your undivided attention. Many years ago I had a lesson in England from a student teacher who had the most interesting things to say at the beginning of the ride. She asked us to smell the horse's mane, to feel his warmth and the softness of his coat, to admire his beauty, listen to the clip clop sound of his footsteps and tell him how good he is and how much you like him. Each time I think of Sabina's words I am reminded of the nice way square dancers greet their partners at the beginning of their dance together. This is the proper way to start out a ride....to acknowledge the horse.
The fingers should be held a little fingernails upward toward the sky, with rein just taut between thumb and forefinger, draped softly over the other fingers. Francois LeMaire suggests 'combing' the reins at the beginning of the ride....like combing hair. The first time I did this with him I really wasn't sure what this was supposed to feel like. The more I did it the more the horse would let go and sigh. It later occurred to me that this was the opportunity to start loosening the rider's natural tendency to clutch at the reins, to start opening the joints in the arms and hands and begin the task of helping the horse to gain interest in the rein and feel the vibrations from the body of his rider. It has a soothing effect on the horse much like running the fingers through a child's long locks, like stroking the strings of a harp. It is like petting the soft tongue of the horse.
Never hold the hands with closed fists. This only makes for tension which the horse will become defensive of and blocks energy from moving through the arms out to the fingertips. The wrists should remain flat, not curled or turned or twisted, but parallel to the two arm bones. The elbows rest beside the torso, upper arm hanging straight down as though heavy down into the elbows. I like to say that we retain the elbows for ourselves and lend the lower arm to the horse. The lower arm is concerned with yielding all the time and needs to develop a sense all of its own in this department! It is a vital conduit of energy which must spark from the hip bones to the elbows and travel down the lower arms through liquid-like wrists, butter soft palms to the fingers which are nimble to open and close with great speed and delicacy.
Imagine in this quiet composed posture that you are more or less standing up with bent knees but with no actual weight in the stirrups. Turn the toes inward so that the thighs and knees roll inward as well and the leg lays parallel to the horse's barrel. This is also useful training for the very minimal lower leg aids to be discussed later and will allow the spur to be steady and away from the horse's side, poised for a light touch but only when needed. Narrow the upper thigh in toward the top of the saddle and feel that you can create an even, soft muscle tone in the thigh between knee and groin. Usually the rider will have one side that has more even draping of the thigh than the other. The upper thigh is supreme in riding. It nestles close to the saddle to pulse and direct energy to important nerve endings under the saddle which serve to enliven the horse. The lower leg should be used minimally....never squeezing either to stabilize the rider or to maintain motion. Apply a touch and leave the horse alone. Be happy with his effort and feel the beat of whichever pace you take with him and apply energetic pulses from the whole of your moving body into this beat. Not pushing or shoving but moving with the beat....a sort of dance like following of a ripple of water in such a way that you will for it to continue on and on. If you were to close the eyes and imagine a rolling ball of light or fire deep inside the lower abdomen below the waist and attempt to spin the ball of fire in various ways, spinning it to gather more fire, and with each ripple of the wave of motion you send this ball of fire forward toward the withers and drop it down into a chamber which sends it back around through the horse, feeding up into the hindquarters and springing forth from just behind the saddle up into the abdomen of the rider for more churning and spinning. This spot inside the abdomen the Chinese call the dan tien. This is the area from which you breath, from which you send energy to the horse for 'recycling', and the place where you settle your inner parts....as though lowering the diaphragm and spreading the organs out on a vast plain.
I tell students to make their bellies seem larger and the effect is that they will seem slimmer. Doing this creates a tone in and around the torso which stabilizes it to help it remain centralized over the middle of the saddle. It keeps energy down in the churning box....the dan tien....rather than climbing up into the shoulders and out into the atmosphere to be wasted and effectively de-stabilizing the rider and all his efforts. I sometimes suggest the rider imagine the shoulders to settle down like lead and lend support to the seat below. The rider should not shimmy his hips like a hula dancer but should act as though he is sitting on a large ball, trying to get the entire ball to bounce without the body moving. The rider's body will move more in relationship to the horse and less with respect to itself. The motion with respect to itself will be primarily in the vertical compression and release of the natural body curves of the human frame. The head remains erect and does not bob but softly moves with the wave of motion.
The hips are level and the angle between thigh and groin is open. This angle opens and closes to collect and send energy. The lower back has a soft natural curve and the buttocks have a controlled tone. This tone is special and will be discussed later as it is necessary for centralizing the body against the centrifugal and centripetal forces, for creating positions that encourage lift and mounting of the back of the horse, for facilitating turns and lateral movements and creating an interplay of energy between horse and rider.
The thigh is closed and soft from knee to groin with a horizontal component that is useful for connecting the energies of the back end to those of the front end of the horse. The thigh is a vital conduit for energy flow to the knee which releases a powerful spray to enliven and move forth the shoulders of the horse. If the rider drops the knee low down on the horse's side, the effect of connecting back to front is lost. Without a free open thigh with knee reaching forward.....no saddle knee roll obstructing the knee in any way.....no pressing of the kneecap against the knee roll....the thigh cannot assist with the forward flow of energy to the front of the horse. The result is that the horse will lose momentum and his 'fires' will need to be re-ignited over and over again. I advocate saddles with no knee or thigh roll. The rider must ride from his own body tone and not from wedging against the saddle. Saddles should never put a rider into a position.....they should allow the rider to sit naturally....plain and simple. If saddle makers could only understand the value of complete freedom in a saddle they would not be designing them the way they are at this time. The efforts being made to understand what the horse needs for comfort in his saddle are admirable. Unfortunately, what is not understood is how the rider communicates through energetic phrases that cannot be interrupted by leather! If it is a goal to become a good rider then it should be a goal to take the care necessary to trim and tone the body gently and seek adequate suppleness to maintain superior self-control.
The foot of the rider should rest gently on the stirrup and not brace against it which will stiffen the joints above it. When the motion of the horse becomes exuberant the foot touches and pulses energy into the platform of the stirrup with the toe sending a backward pulse toward the hind feet of the horse. Thinking 'toe down' rather than 'heel down' helps accomplish this later on. The visual effect when this is done right is that the foot will appear level to the ground and the stirrup and lower leg will remain stiller and steadier.
The head of the rider is quite heavy and needs to sit central over the neck and face forward with the shoulders but with a sense that it is suspended from the sky. If the shoulder caps are rolled back and down and the shoulder blades are brought closer together behind as though attempting to wrap around a long ponytail(!), while the breastbone drops down, the torso of the rider will stay firm and steady and help the horse to feel less encumbered by the uprightness of the rider above his back. Essentially, sitting 'shorter and fatter'(!) will feel taller and slimmer when the head is properly suspended. The torso presses down and compacts energy to be projected like lightning when required. It also acts like an armor against unseen forces that might frighten the horse and wayward energy in a lively horse.
The face of the rider should be as though he is sleeping, dropped and at ease, the eyes dreamy and never fixed, the mouth slightly open and jaw relaxed.
Now that I have summarized a lot of SHOULDS, I am sure that I will contradict myself later on. I tell all my students to be careful that they don't hold fast to every word I say today because tomorrow I may say something different! They laugh but after a month or so they know exactly why I said this. The horse is changing constantly. He is never the same from moment to moment. Just when we got one part of ourselves to behave a certain way, rest assured the horse will have changed and will need us to adjust in an entirely different way. This is the way of riding! Change, change, change. My suggestion.....get the basics above settled and start feeling your way from there, forming your own sense of a neutral posture from which ease and the fullness of energy can flow forth. The actual process of sending the energy will be expounded upon later.

Thoughts on Posture(Rider and Horse)

Some people do not know where they are in space! Clumsy, awkward, devoid of a personal music.....lacking a centered spot from which to move, they hurl their weight around as they travel about while their mobilizing muscles suffer severe stress in an attempt to hold to a course or path. What makes us so sure that some horses don't suffer from this same problem? Maybe they cannot dance with us because they feel like they have 'two left feet'! Could we, if we knew how, correct proprioception problems for ourselves, for our horses and for ourselves in relationship to them? I believe the answer is "yes" and that it is through the power of energetics.
When most people ride they orient themselves on the horse with respect to their own posture. Thus it is a reasonable goal to want good and useful posture. But what if we have a bona fide physical deformity(and we all seem to have some degree of asymmetry or physical deviation from the ideal), does this mean we are likely to have trouble riding? Yes, if we are not using energy sensitively. The physical posture we are dealt is not our only means to communicate with the horse. I have seen handicapped riders, midgets, very old riders with scoliosis and those with a limb missing ride with all the finesse of a champion. This can only be so through a mastery of the unseen forces of energy they are able to manipulate. That said, the task of using these forces would then become that much easier in a well-ordered posture.
Order is a priority with horses. Order is essential to their survival. It is, therefore, a requirement that herd leader(s), according to rank, are able to maintain and preserve order through the ability to move the feet of the individuals beneath their rank. They accomplish this through posture, gesture and energy projection and deflection. This constant ordering and re-ordering of the herd puts the legs of everyone in motion to exercise and teach the essence of proprioception.
Without relationship to something other than oneself, proprioception is meaningless. So with this thinking, I believe that both horse and rider can find order for their bodies(their posture) and healing through energetic relationship with each other. Thus good posture begets better energetic communication and vice versa.
So when I see riders with innate crookedness, I try to help that problem by changing my focus to energy flow. Almost without prompting they will tell me they recognize a blockage. This is the beginning of great things! Sometimes a touch on the rider's thigh or hip or hand is like a sweet balm messaging for a particular channel of flow to open and release. It can be the same for the horse!
The first time I became aware of this was with a difficult and unmanageable horse. What I noticed when I simply focused and projected my intent for a particular hoof to move was that I was actually re-ordering the horse's body AS WELL as gaining better management of him. The most interesting aspect of this, which proved true with every horse since, is that one foot in particular will be more difficult to move than the others! This is a phenomenon which has some fascinating parts to it. First of all, the difficulty presented has something to do with rank. If I am able to move the most difficult foot of all and at all times, I 'have' the horse at my disposal. He has submitted at some level of his being and he recognizes me as worthy of managing him. The facial expressions and tongue and jaw movements, the sighs and the slight shift in balance over their feet demonstrates that my ability to successfully move all the feet brings not only calm and confidence but also a therapeutic re-ordering of his postural alignment. The foot that was most difficult to move?...that foot was more than a foot of defiance, it was a foot in need of re-organizing and re-orienting to the body.
This is a case for why groundwork coupled with acute observation are highly instrumental in the overall development of the horse. Extending this thinking to the rider, it is through the rider's employment of energy projection, absorption and deflection in relationship to the horse that he finds himself, re-orders himself and builds his posture in a way that is efficient for the tasks in riding. It is no good to think of training only in terms of impulsion, forwardness, bend, and roundness. If the horse has no sense of where he is in space, nothing will change him at the deep and very basic level he needs!
The dynamics of motion absolutely imply that a static posture on a horse is useless. Posture on a moving horse can be thought of as a moving flow of energy which morphs into and out of form in a smooth contiguous manner. 'Open' joints that never lock shut allows this flow to circulate and adapt to whatever the horse needs from us. The establishment of a beat allows for the form to 'rotate' through a series of alterations in a regular pattern(like a wave). The average of all these alterations is the middle spot or neutral spot to which the body orients itself. Without a neutral spot there is no place from which to change gears or positively influence the horse's balance. Posture is our position in space! Moving in space, requires a moving changing posture that has a wholesome and healthy connection to all dimensions. When relationship is healing for both horse and rider then extraordinary dance is inevitable.