​THEORY

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• ​Identifying the School Halt in historical images. Review of the earliest reference (Xenophon) comparing the Halt which simply 'stops' the horse to the Halt which bends the knees and lowers the hindquarters. Discussion of what the AAoR rediscovery of this exercise can do for our horses and the riding of them.

• Discussion of the horse who bends its hindquarters with ease versus the horse who has great difficulty or stiffness in bending of the hindquarters; how we can achieve remarkable suppling and improvement with this exercise and how the rider's influence of the hindquarters through the School Halt promotes lightness and heightened response in all exercises. Conformational flaws and how to overcome or negate them.

• How the stellning of the skull and bending in the body creates the shape and unity for the exercise. Examination of the first introduction of the Halt in its most minimal form and what is felt in the seat and hand when all is correct! Reiteration of the extreme importance of the groundwork and straightening/suppling through the various components of academic practice and how these combined skills allow us the best possible chance to educate the horse with ease and success.

• Review of evasions, i.e, resistance in the hand as the hind hooves press into the ground; stepping backward further evades the action; beware the arched back and straight hind legs. Resist any desire to force this exercise. The successful Halt proceeds through the willing horse’s body and is observed in the bending of all joints of the hindquarter and is cultivated with a giving hand. Reminder to expect all manner of as-yet-identified evasions by the horse and mistakes by the rider.

• Familiarizing ourselves with the eleven variations of the School Halt: versal (shoulder-in), traversal (quarter-in), renversal, in pirouette, bent-straight---these on either rein (to left/to right), and the eleventh is the levade.

• Physical explanation of the School Halt as when the horse is bent correctly in its body and the body lowers in the halt from the hindquarters, the space from the chest to the ground lessens; the outside shoulder is higher and the inside shoulder lower with the inner-downward rotation of the ribcage—thus the inside foreleg will necessarily be lifted. In the levade (when the horse is literally straight in body), both forelegs will be lifted.

• Cultivating the horse’s comprehension of the aids in the School Halt—i.e, changing both shape and balance from versal to traversal to renversal, etc. with use of the primary aid (seat) plus any and all secondary aids also greatly refines the rider’s seat and clarity in application of those aids.

• The rider’s visualization of the exercise through various historical descriptions of the Halt (as in Xenophon’s setting upon the haunches, or Gueriniere’s mention of the lifted withers and long neck and descent de mains/de jambes, etc.). How our individual preferences to visualize an exercise matters in our practice/understanding of it.

• The rider strives for feeling in the five degrees of the Halt:

- a one-eighth Halt, to feel the presence or lack of resistance.

- a one-quarter Halt, to correct the horse’s shape in movement (no tempo change) or standing.

- a half-Halt, to shift the horse’s weight backwards in movement (no tempo change) or standing.

- a three-quarter Halt, to shift the weight more backwards and lower the tempo of movement, keeping the takt.

- a full Halt, to put the horse in balance upon the haunches or movement in place.

• The advanced nature of the School Halt requires the ability to 'feel into' the horse with subtlety and (as with all exercises) clear understanding of the goal. Secondary aids towards the Primary aid must be comprehended by horse and rider. The rider new to the exercise should proceed carefully and no one should rush efforts. We must improve upon our failures and challenges one after the other….structure our goals with clarity….learn about and solve our problems.

• Our Theory study continued with a viewing various examples of the school halt found online. Also, we reviewed the Ridakademi Norr/Wallberg video of 6 months of School Halt training.

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 PRACTICE - Our group did various demos at their horses’ individual levels. We explored:

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• School halt attempts in hand, feeling into the horse for the perfect stellning/bending, understanding the resistances and as they occurred, recognizing and countering evasions.

• Demonstration of giving an educated horse the shape (stellning/bending), feeling rotation of the chest and unity of the spine from head to hind, taking the halt backwards, observing with our eyes the successful halt and also the rider explaining feel.

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