Half halt de-mystified by Sue Morris, Classical Dressage

http://www.classicaldressage.co.uk/half_halt.html

Pull down with the muscles in my lumbar back and up with the abdominal muscles located below the navel. This is the " hard work to sit still" that gives a rider that elegant look of doing nothing. Rather like a swan; wonderfully graceful on the surface, but paddling away like anything underneath!

Another way of looking at it, which may make more sense to other people, is how Erik Herbermann explained it at a clinic I audited last year. He said: To think of "tipping the chair". Take one of those plastic picnic chairs or a lightweight straight-backed dining chair. Sit on it so that your feet are either side of the front legs, underneath your base of support as if in the saddle. Rest your seat bones on the very edge of the seat, with a vertical pelvis. Now try to tip the chair forwards onto the front legs BUT only using your abs / lumbar muscles. It is very easy to cheat and use the seat bones - DON'T! Instead, make that extra effort and you will be rewarded.

A third and very effective way is to sit on something as described above and get a helper to put a lunge line around your lower back. Then get them to try and tip you forwards. If you’re not used to using your back correctly they will find this very easy to do. Next, try to stop your helper pulling you forwards by using your abs and back to stop them. Feel the difference!