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.