The second part of the task was to bring the horse to a walk at K. If our previous efforts have taken us close to K, we must now apply another half-halt to transition to the walk. In this case the balancing half-halts already prepared the horse for the transition and do not need to be repeated. Let us assume your horse worked correctly and your part of the dialog was to tell him that he is doing well by maintaining harmony with him, you must ride two half-halts, one just before K and one right at K. The one before K is to make sure he is focused on you and to give him the little extra engagement needed to execute a smooth and balanced transition at K.
     Two half-halts for different reasons must mean a different application of the aids? Exactly right! The attention getter was a light push from seat and leg into a steadying hand. The aids to the walk are a more active seat into a firming hand. Exactly how much depends on how well you applied the aids and how well you gauged the sensitivity of your horse. Needless to say that this ability to analyze your horse’s attention depends on how well you sit. There is the whistle, not a foul, please! Good, it is halftime!
     Last weekend I watched a skateboard competition. Those athletes were fantastic in their body control. They would run up and down ramps, perform somersaults, twists and turns, and any combination thereof and always land on their feet with their skateboards rolling up another ramp for yet another aerial maneuver. I thought if only all my riders had just a fraction of such body control while in motion. Then we read that as a nation we are growing more and more obese. Technology has made it unnecessary for us to develop our physical skills in order to do our daily work. Children develop great “thumb-eye coordination” in their video games but would fall down if they tried to skip a rope. Machines have taken over the physical part of our work, and that is helpful. Now they are also taking over the physical part of our play, and that is not to our advantage.
     Most riders find themselves somewhere in between these two groups. The closer you are to the skateboarder, the better for you and your riding. The more you can control your body, the easier it is for you to maintain your balance on the horse while in motion staying relaxed and sitting deep. Such a seat is an absolute necessity to be able to feel your horse’s movement. This movement is the way in which your horse talks to you and you must listen if you are going to have a dialog with your horse. It is not necessary that you are speedier than a locomotive, nor must you be able to leap over tall buildings, but you must achieve control over your body and stay in balance even when your base of support is moving.
     There is good news. Because as a child you did not run and play much to improve your coordination, you did not make the cheerleading team nor any other team that does not mean that your train has left the station never to be caught. It does mean, however, that you have some catching up to do, and it also says that you had better get with it since every day delaying will make it that much harder to move closer to your more athletic friends.
     One of the great advantages of our capitalist system is that where