Teaching half pass

Casey76

Casey76

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Ok, so now both Tartine and I have a mental block with half pass, and I’m looking for some exercises to help.

We have control over the shoulders and haunches separately, no problems with shoulder in, leg yield or even travers, but ask her to go sideways in the direction of the bend and we have a mental breakdown (usually involving lots of foot stomping, side ways, backwards, self-rollkur and attempts at levade)

It’s got to the point where even asking for the slightest bit flexion after starting in leg yield results in the front anchors being dropped.

It is much worse left to right, but my left leg is being particularly pathetic at the moment, and I can’t apply much pressure with it, especially behind the girth.

Any ideas?
 
A couple of exercises I have found useful is taking your diagonal line across the school then ride straight across the diagonal while flexing the neck - so keep the body straight while flexing only the front end. You can start doing the flexing while keeping the body straight on the wall to start with. Also going onto the diagonal and then riding shoulder in.

Are you always going leg yield and then into HP? I usually do LY, SI, Travers then HP as a progression - but mixed up with doing it on different lines etc.

How long have you been working on the HP - is she maybe just getting a bit overwhelmed and need a step back to re-focus?
 
Ride a straight diagonal line from, for example, K to C

Keep doing this so she is anticipating just riding a straight line.

Then, on that straight line (just as you would if you were going up long side) ride a traver. You will naturally have taken the shoulder first.

Once happy and confident with that you can play with more inside flexion to the direction of travel

Then you start to introduce the flexion as you leave the track and simultaneously travers .... voila

I have to say I have never taught a HP from a LY
 
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Get the travers solid then work it into half pass on the diagonal as people have said. Do it in hand first especially if you've got in a tiz ridden. Go back a few steps, she may just need a bit longer to work up the strength for it.
 
The leg yield was incidental as an easier exercise as she was getting into such a tizz. We've been doing SI along the fence then a large pirouette and HP back to the fence. Everything OK up to the transition from the pirouette to HP :)
 
Frank always found the concept of travers a bit tricky, we did sort of get there but even so for him it was much easier to get the concept of half pass from being in shoulder in and then me asking him to move across, usually doing a half 10 circle at the top and then heading back towards the fence. Our school was lovely and long which helped as it meant I had plenty of room to set up and ask.

But we were only doing it for fun so did what worked for us. While I sort of get the theory of doing travers on the diagonal in practice it really confuses me!
 
Agree with other comments. I would work on the travers until totally solid, add in renvers, work on changes of bend between SI and renvers and back again and counter shoulder I to travers and back again.

Once that is established there are a few exercises you can use. Renvers on a circle and travers on a circle helps you to move the horse around without relying on a fenceline. Another one I've found useful is to start in SI along the fence to B and then travers across the centre of school. You can also set poles out on the diagonal line and travers along the pole line until she gets the idea.

In your op you say she is ok at travers so the movement itself is fine, it's more that your directional aids might need to be more precise
 
Casey76 said:
Ok, so now both Tartine and I have a mental block with half pass, and I’m looking for some exercises to help.

We have control over the shoulders and haunches separately, no problems with shoulder in, leg yield or even travers, but ask her to go sideways in the direction of the bend and we have a mental breakdown (usually involving lots of foot stomping, side ways, backwards, self-rollkur and attempts at levade)

It’s got to the point where even asking for the slightest bit flexion after starting in leg yield results in the front anchors being dropped.

It is much worse left to right, but my left leg is being particularly pathetic at the moment, and I can’t apply much pressure with it, especially behind the girth.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Just a note here that may help, you say your left leg cant apply much pressure but it really shouldn't need to, its more about the weight aid than the pressure from lower leg doing the job, think about bringing your lower leg back from your hip to bring it to behind the girth and not using the lower leg as a pressure aid behind the girth as if that's the case you will be lifting from the knee and the weight aids wont be effective, hope that helps x
 
As a default I basically always teach half pass as IHW describes. I think the method you're using with a pirouette as preparation works well if you've got a naturally very forward, reactive horse because it means that you can keep a closer control over all their limbs. But for a horse that naturally is more inclined to bog down and get stuck on the nitty gritty of what theyre being asked for, that method can mean that you tend to just get stuck.

Also, to reiterate something that IHW has said above, but not explicitly, keeping forward momentum is really important - getting more of a drift than genuine crossing and not quite the right bend is fine at the beginning while they get the idea if that allows you to keep the forward flow and some semblance of rhythm. It's for this reason that I actually find teaching them half pass from either trot or canter much easier than trying to teach it from walk
 
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