Of Half-Halts and Short Stirrups… September 19, 2007
Posted by kimayars Blogroll, Ramblings
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I’ve been asked by a few people what half-halts are and why has my ego taken a beating when I need to shorten my stirrups. Here’s my best attempt at both. I’ll start with the half-halt…
Half-halts are pretty accurately described on Wikipedia. It’s basically an application of “whoa” and “go” to rebalance the horse. If your horse isn’t listening to your aids, and you don’t have a “whoa” or a “go” then you can’t apply a half-halt. Your aid set can be lateral (inside-to-inside or outside-to-outside), longitudinal (front-to-back or back-to-front), or diagonal (inside-to-outside or outside-to-inside). They vary in intensity and frequency depending on what the horse is doing and what you want them to do. In my exercises on Monday, I was applying half-halts about every 3-4 strides. Somedays you need more, some days you need less. They take a lot of practice to master, and require a finesse and timing that is a challenge to achieve.
Now for the stirrups…
Suppose you are a cyclist, and have been working toward that amazing aero position where your handebars are quite low. Now imagine that you think everything is going great, until someone (who you respect and trust) tells you that you’re not quite ready for that, and should raise your handlebars. You know they’re right, but you think that if you just work on it a little bit more then you can fix those problems and keep them low. But in the back of your mind, you know you should raise them. In a way, it’s admitting defeat.
That’s where I am with stirrups. Handlebars = stirrups.
To be honest, I’m getting used to it. I still feel like my knees are in my nose, but each ride gets a little more comfortable. Rasyn had a big shy on Sunday, and because I was more balanced with my stirrups raised, I was able to move with him and not have a visit with the arena floor. With my stirrups where they were a week ago, there is a good chance I would have gotten behind the motion and he would have left me in the dust (literally).
That’s my best crack. (Well, actually I only have one crack.) :-) Feel free to ask questions and I’ll try and answer them.
Tomorrow morning is a run with Beth. This time with a headlamp!
