(country rock music)
- Good day, I'm Warwick Schiller
and welcome back to another episode, if you wanna call that,
of "Only Asking Your Horse Yes Questions".
Okay, I've been on about this for a little while
and recently I just posted a series of four videos,
excuse me (clears throat),
on how to get your horse to stop
from a canter off both reins.
And, if you haven't watched that,
I'd go back and watch it but the basic premise
of the whole things was, it's a building block thing
and you gotta make sure the horse knows the answer
before you start asking the question.
So, we started out the bend to a stop.
Made sure that was soft,
then from there we went to a soft backup
and make sure they can engage themselves as they backup,
so they bend their hocks, they're soft off your hand.
Then we went to teaching them to stop off the walk,
using the fence first and eventually we're gonna do it
out off the fence.
Then went to teaching the stop at the trot,
so the stop and back up at the trot.
First using the fence and then out off the fence,
and then eventually we had the canter
picking up on both reins, just slowly closing your fingers
like that and having 'em stop from a canter,
both with a fence and then off the fence.
But the thing you may have noticed with all that is
every time the horse slows down, he engages his hind end.
And so it's not just about the stop for me,
it's about the beginnings of teaching all the good stuff.
So today I'm going to show you
how the elusive half halt works. (laughs)
A lot of people I think struggle with a half halt
because they think it's pulling and kicking at the same time
and it's not really.
If you think about what we've been doing so far
with these exercises is teaching them,
so there's a classical French dressage saying
that says, "Hand without leg, leg without hand."
So what we've been doing so far,
if you've been riding your horse around on a loose rein,
this is leg without hand.
And then when we want to do that stop
that we've been working on,
we close our fingers, this,
that there's hand without leg, okay?
Now we're gonna start to slowly add 'em together here.
And probably the most simple way to teach a half halt,
we've almost started already,
this is the only ask yes questions.
I already really know how to do it,
but before a horse can do a half halt,
he has to do a full halt, and a good full halt,
because a half halt is just the horse preparing to halt.
And so that's where that squat comes in,
that's where those hind legs
coming up underneath him comes in,
and if your horse doesn't do that,
you don't really get a half halt.
'Cause a half halt is a readjustment of their weight,
from their front to the back.
I've already got that bit
because of the way I've taught my horse
to stop off both reins.
So how you can go about teaching this half halt is,
you'll just trot around,
and then using this two rein stop that we have,
or downward transition that we've had before,
we can go from a trot,
slowly down to a walk,
and then back up to a trot.
Okay?
And what you will do is slowly make that faster and faster
or closer together or shorter,
whichever way you want to put it.
So I'm trottin' around here.
I'm gonna go from a trot to a walk to a trot.
And that time I shortened it up then,
so he almost didn't get to the walk, did he?
Okay?
And now I'll trot around here.
I'll go from the trot to the walk to the trot.
So I didn't even get, that's basically it right there.
I didn't almost even get to the walk,
and after a while you can close your fingers
and add leg and right then he just rocked his weight back
and then I rode him forward.
So I'm riding forward with his weight rocked back.
And so for me, I'm never riding around
like what some people do, just pullin' and kickin'.
This here always means sit behind,
and this here always means go forward.
And if you get to where both of these working really well,
every time I close my fingers on the reins,
like right now, if I just close my fingers,
see, he starts to slow down.
And so, and rock back.
So I'm just gonna close my fingers and add leg,
and ride him forward right there,
and then open my fingers again.
But every time I close my fingers,
he's gotta try to do that,
and all I'm gonna do, like I said,
is I'm trottin' around.
I'm just going to close my fingers and add leg.
And I'll release that.
I'll do it again.
I close my fingers and add leg.
And so closing my fingers
shifts his weight from front to back,
and then I add leg and have him go forward.
So he's sat and then he's pushing forward.
But you've gotta make sure when you're doing,
like if I'm doing a half halt,
which means I'm trottin' around,
trying to reengage my horse's body,
let's say I close my fingers right here.
I'm not going to because he will sit,
but let's say I close my fingers here and he doesn't sit,
I'm not gonna then add leg and keep going forward
'cause all I've got going forward,
I'll have redistribution of the weight.
So if I was to close my fingers and he didn't slow down,
I would go all the way back to the full halt.
Get his weight back on his hind end again like that,
then go forward.
And then I might have to repeat it again.
But basically, when I close my fingers,
as I close 'em, right there, look.
See what happened?
As I close 'em, I should feel that come back.
Something about the half halt's two parts.
It is this part,
followed by this part, but all at the same time.
So when I close my fingers, right there,
I'm going to judge: Do I need to get more sit,
more come back?
Or did he just come back and can I add leg to go forward?
And so, for the most part, when you get 'em trained well,
like you're just trottin' around,
close your fingers, add leg.
Open my fingers.
Close my fingers, add leg.
Open my fingers a bit.
Close my fingers, add leg.
That's basically all your half halt is
and then you can really start to use that,
that good slow down or that sit
to start to work in collection.
But it's a process.
But the big thing I want you to get
is you're not just ridin' around pulling on their head
and kicking with your legs.
You've gotta get this response good, this response good,
and not just the slowdown off your hands,
but for me, they've gotta sit.
Okay?
And like I said, in those four previous videos I showed you,
I showed you how to use that step-by-step process
to teach that sit.
(country rock music)