Heart Equine

06/16/2024

Backyard research continues. QiBo demonstrating nice self carriage at 7 weeks 🧡
Chchchchchanges 😊😊

06/16/2024

A lot of my ‘pelvis’ work actually takes place at the jaw !!
Especially in dogs - you will never get their hind ends aligned if their jaws are not.

Equine dentists are often the first people to note that there might be issues in the hind and when they see asymmetries in the horses tooth eruption/ wear.

When I’m guiding online I always tell my clients ‘the TMJ is the hip’ !!

06/15/2024

Love this analogy 🌻 thank you friend of Yasmin Stuart Equine Physio😊❤️

"Our attention on anything is a privilege to that thing we are giving attention to. The world that I pay attention to causes disappearance of anything outside of that world" - Nashon Cook

I'll be completely honest in that writing has been very difficult lately. I usually feel the bubble of inspiration and the words just come -

But lately, I feel the words that come are not the words I want to put out in the world.

-

I had lunch with a friend yesterday, we talked about relationships, she described:

You plant the seed and you water it. You don't stare obsessively whilst it starts to sprout. You go about your life.

You notice as the sprouts begin to push through the earth. You water some more.

You admire the growth. You don't criticise that it's growing the wrong way. Or that the leaves arent big enough. Or the flowers aren't beautiful enough.

Perhaps you prune some branches. You get excited about the buds that grow. You admire the beauty of the flower.

You cut off the dried leaves to make way for new life. You water some more.

-

We are living in a time where we are all too aware of the horrors of existence, and that statement is not just limited to the equestrian world.

We absolutely do need to recognise it, we need education and we need to support behaviour change to help things to be better.

But I refuse to feed the negativity bias that everything is cruel and wrong and sad and hopeless.

I want to fuel the picture that we are privileged to live in this world. That we can cultivate harmony with ourselves and our horses.

This doesn't come from focusing on the bad things. It comes from showing up each day and meeting ourselves and our horses precisely where we are at.

Notice what you pay attention to. How does it make you feel?

"Be the light you seek to find"

❤️✨️

06/14/2024

Another one of my toxic traits is the ability to see potential in everything.
Why toxic ?

When I see potential

It’s interpreted as not good enough

It’s almost impossible to overcome this narrative

My daughter both loves and absolutely hates me for this.

It’s pretty much impossible for me to see something and not want to change it just a tiny bit.
Make things more even.
Tie things together so the energy can flow freely. Incongruous things make me twitch.
Anyone that knows me a little bit can pick up on my desire to change and shift

The first thing my third mother in law said about me was
‘Well nobody had to wonder about what she is thinking’

I absolutely loved Stephen Coveys book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’
The chapter entitled ‘Begin with the end in mind’ spoke to my soul - ‘that’s what I always do’

I can ’see’ the horses in their most perfect form when I look at them. I know exactly where we can go together if they will allow me to guide them.

There’s a reason dogs wait outside my car and horses will meet me at the gate. They know I can support them into their potential, that I ‘see’ the incongruities.

This is the same for people. I love to help other see their highest potential and support them on their journey.

My feelings are,
The more issues you have right now, and your freakin surviving .. wow is there a s**t ton of untapped potential

I love a horse with a lot of potential ( AKA ‘problems’ ) that is still doing their job ! Because wow give them a little support and you have got something really amazing now

My first 10 years were on the track
My first boss told me we were trying to improve these horses by SECONDS

You’ve got to look hard for the things other people are missing when you play that game.
The easy stuff, the obvious stuff has already been supported
I loved this game
I was also very very good at it

Seeing the potential in another sentient being can also be very triggering because they see it as focusing on problems
Then instead of a guide you become enemy number one
This is likely because many people do focus on the problems instead of the potential
And you pretty much get what you focus on

So do you see the broken table or the table with potential

Because how you look at things matter

Potential is light
Problems are heavy

Go for potential

anyone want to guess my ‘Human Design’ 🤣

06/13/2024

There are so many pervasive beliefs in the equine industry
Stuff people made up years ago and enough people listened that it became gospel
Regardless of who you listen to or who you believe we are also capable of thinking for ourselves too !
Trust me when I tell you, most of the stuff you hear is NOT scientifically based and therefore still open for discussion!!
I encourage you to ask yourself
Does it make sense ?
Does it make sense that a HORSE’S limbs would grow at vastly different rates, so that the entire conformation is altered, when this doesn’t happen in any other species ?
Ya no
So what IS happening when the baby horse is so uneven
The rib cage is SUPPOSED to move between the scapulas. It is supposed to lift towards the sky as the baby horse pushes into the ground
But most baby horses are squished behind.
Their hips are not stable
They over load and collapse ( instead of push ) into their front end to stay upright
They squeeze their little rib cages between their front legs so their bodies don’t fall between their legs
It kinda sucks not having a collar bone
The squeeze hard enough they get stuck
They get butt high as the little rib cage stays in place by the squeeze
Eventually this starts to shift a bit as they get stronger and we wait and wait for the withers to ‘pop’
When we could stabilize the hind end just enough for the baby horse to relinquish the squeeze and up goes the rib cage

And we call that normal
Because it’s so common
But if you spend some time thinking about it, it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t allow the horse to reach its full potential

06/12/2024

TALES OF LOUIE - WHITE HORSE OWNERSHIP AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

I own white horses for a reason, I like to do science.

I’ve been known to disparage scientific methods in relation to horses because I feel that way too often they either give credence to already limiting beliefs or it is ignored. Often funded by drug companies they steer people towards a quick fix mindset rather than the one that is needed. But above all science and animals is a tricky thing. Now your getting into natures laws and with everything connected to everything and having no real knowledge of the effects of our interventions…

It’s hard to say what it what

I tell people my research is in my backyard where

Results are my love language
and You heal till you die ..

White horses leave a thousand clues as to their behavior and methods all over their bodies

When I first met Louie he covered himself daily with therapeutic manure only on his left side -
Left face
Left poll
Left shoulder
Left tuber coxae
Left hip
Left stifle
Left hock

The right side would be pure white

You probably have no frame of reference for how much I thought about this

You might not be able to imagine the sheer joy I felt the first day I came to the barn after 2 years and saw he was covered in mud on the right side

While he was in Houston he was white also the time

He was crabby
He had lost all his mobilizing muscles and had nothing to replace them
He spent all day trying to stay upright
He didn’t feel supported or safe so he never lay down
He lost weight
He stopped sweating
He wasn’t sleeping

I did all I could to speed up the process of getting him home

We have had some torrential rain these last few days. Everyone has been on lock down in the small paddocks.

Last week we had a epic trimming experience with Lou.
He is on a nutritional detox and we have been tweaking his forage based diet so he loves his food.
We have been doing daily work with embodiment training working him through the massive dorsal vagal shut down he was in when he got home.

Louie had never looked, felt or acted so good.

Last night we had a session burning moxa around his joints and doing what he calls Dragon Fire Medicine to release energy stagnation.

I have never in five years seen this horse so dirty!!!
Granted we have some awesome topsoil mud here but this is epic

Louie has never rolled over that I know of

Look at the massive amount of mud CAKED over his dorsal spinous processes

We did a lot of ‘kissing spine’ work with the dragon fire and I may have actually moved things enough that he was now able to get upside down

My heart expanded so big when I saw this

Go Lou
Did you use that slippery mud to get your self all the way over ?
Look at the tracks in the mud where he ground his spinous processes into the mud, opening and spreading them as he must have grooved into the feeling of dorsiflexion of his whole spine
His very own foam roller experience
Go Lou

Can you see how from the front view he is quite symmetrical in his dirt pattern ??!!

Do you know what this means ?
He is almost done unwinding.
Soon he should have a better top line muscles and 4 heels.
See before and after pic from 2019

Science
It’s right here
In my backyard

It takes a team for sure
Thanks to

HeartSong Equine
Lisa Mittler
Celeste-Leilani Lazaris
Tara Davis

06/11/2024

Which is the more upright foot in front ??? 😊😊😊😊 (IYKYK)

06/11/2024

Tell me your horse has trouble picking up his hind feet without telling me 😊
( I’ll start with last nights client )

06/09/2024

I just love looking at the clinic posts by Positively Dressage !
I don’t see many ‘post’ clinic write ups that show as many happy rider / horse combos ever!! Horses and riders moving through space without a ton of tension everywhere. I got to spend some time with Suzanne Galdun when she was down here in TX and just a few short cues she had me standing and breathing better. I don’t know what we are going to do together yet but looking forward to working with her in the future ❤️❤️❤️🐴

06/08/2024

WOULD YOU LOOK AND FEEL BETTER IF YOU WERE LESS ‘MOBILIZED’ ?

It’s almost impossible to convince anything that they would look and feel better doing … yup I’m gonna say it … LESS !!

I try hard not to laugh in the face of programs that train and train and train creating large masses of mobilizing muscle over unstable structure

Cough cough couch CrossFit cough cough my giant over mobilized friend broke a rib training for CrossFit competition - compression without stability much ??!!!!!!

Fast results - metrics you can BRAG about

How about a little more HILL work over those braced and compressed, internally and externally rotated hocks and stifles

No problem I can build up my bicep and quads, tighten my hamstrings, get a huge hind end, lock everything down around my SI joint which is now hurting

Looking good doing nothing

LOUIE sixty days apart

The more stable he gets as his feet shift and heal the better he looks despite not being in any work. As he is able to walk correctly with bony column aligned, legs perpendicular to the ground, extension and stability accessible at least part of the time in all 4 legs he begins to build the correct muscles.

Muscles that push into the ground and lift instead of the ones that tighten and brace creating a leg that is taught with tension or collapsed in caudal failure.

Heel starting to develop in 4 feet

Note the shoulder and stifle area for a more elegant and refined appearance

Up and out !! 😊😊😊

The sternal view shows a decrease in she shoulder muscles on the side that he was using to SQUEEZE himself into stability

In second photo, less squeezy muscles more LIFT muscles as in Pectorals

So cool

Even the feet are ‘lifting’ instead of collapsing

That’s how you build an athlete

Less bulky mobilizer muscles needed as he develops stability WITH increased range of motion

That’s athleticism

Not heavy over mobilized weighted down decreased range of motion built over a unstable structure

We want to first have stability!
Then stability plus range of motion
THEN you layer on strength

That’s how you look and feel good
Do less
Be parasympathetic and train for stability
I too want to be elegant and refined AND athletic

Thank you
www.agedefyonline.com
AgeDefy Movement Therapy
For GREAT classes today

Thank you Lisa Mittler

06/03/2024

Yes Emotional Horsemanship by Lockie Phillips the spine is my jam too !!!

06/03/2024

Looking for some feel good ?
Got kids who love horses and magic ?
Tired of looking at pictures of muscles and bones ? ( well never but ...)

I love all things Jordan Banks !! She fills my soul with hearts and smiles

Fan Clubs for Ugo & Xena: Art, Childen's Books & So Much More!

06/01/2024

WHEN THINGS STICK IN YOUR MIND

Preparing for The Well Adjusted Horse Clinic is something I’ve been doing way in the back of my mind for years, but everything really did not come together until just weeks before. Like preparing for a peloton power zone max ride I had forced myself to hold back until it was time and then there was so much calm and so much clarity around what I wanted to share.

I did not finish until the morning of and did not practice for fear I would bore myself and then be boring 🤣

But this is the slide I keep coming back too.

I love Chinese Medicine so much. The art, the science, the holistic approach to life always seeking the balance. I love the cycles and the rhythms how everything is a fractal of everything and the balance can be both big and extremely nuanced but carry the same importance.

The journey feels like it’s never ending but I’m starting to understand what my soul has been seeking and it’s all over there on the right side.

The way we have glorified all things Yang

A whole season devoted to the Yang behavior of giving - no wonder it always feels out of balance. Maybe this year we should all give to ourselves and see how generous we are.

The horses represent all things YIN

They are here to guide us and show us what it’s like to live life on the other side

Life parasympathetic
Life safe
Life open and receiving
Life listening

Life HEALING

This is why we crave their company
Their vibration
Their groundedness

We know we need the balance
It’s time we start finding parasympathetic BEFORE we come to our horses

This is what you can do for your horse

Does that make sense ? 😊❤️

05/30/2024

The curse of the Iberian horse chiropractor is what I refer to as Gumby necks and Peanut butts.
The first time I worked on one of these horses I couldn’t understand why their butts were so little.

It didn’t make any sense.
Unless your a Master Cheater
Squeezing them cheeks together for stability and sending all that mass up front

Just because you can

The hyper mobile neck swinging about and making up for the brace in the hind end and then another one, deep into the cervico thoracic junction and then up into the poll .

Strong front end
Hind end peanut butt with both rear limbs in external rotation

No problem. Just let me tighten everything down and I will get that movement done

Hyper mobility in one area leads to tension in another
Making it impossible to get the Gumby neck in integrity because it’s bounded end to end with fixation

Look at me struggling with the Gumby neck !
PC Lisa Mittler

Eventually I needed two additional people to help get the neck work done - just to hold space at the ends so he had to face it and unwind

I’m so proud to work with Wendy Lee Dinnerstein. She decided to stop on this horse - re direct and take the time with this horse, allowing him to develop properly in his pelvic and shoulder girdles

No more hyper mobile neck
No more peanut butt 😊😊

I’m so excited for their future together !!
He is so much more settled in his body and calm in his behavior
He is also guiding his owner to her own journey of self care which I love

Thanks for the amazing coaching and training to BTMM trainers
Celeste-Leilani Lazaris
Betsy Vonda
Katherine Lowry

And Lisa Mittler for also doing that magic trim thing she does !!
Bottom photo if after proprioceptive sequencing, adjustment and a trim 🥰🥰🥰

05/28/2024

REFLECTIONS ON MY FIRST CLINIC

The importance of ‘Restoring the Push’ by addressing the nervous system, spinal biomechanics, the thoracic sling, hind end biomechanics and the deep ventral line was the message of the inaugural Well Adjusted Horse Collaborative Clinic.

To bring the horses body and mind back into the parasympathetic where there can be balance between the tension and compression elements is the only and foundational pathway to long term soundness in our horses. Everyone learned what this looked like and that it was possible with most horses.

That is the starting point. The layers come after.

First we learned about the spine and how many of the alterations in alignment at this level will be presented as pathology or changes when looking at the outside of the horse.

We learned ways address those changes and bring the horse into its highest potential. To see the horse not as it was but as it could be. Once we knew what the inconsistencies, the angles, the hollows, the patchy muscle development all ‘meant’ at the level of the skeleton we could see where space was needed, allowing us to compassionately guide the horse back to its ‘manufacturer’s specifications’

Is this hard in a clinic setting ?

Yes it is and we definitely took on too many horses - next clinic will include a private work day to address horses with issues.

We were gifted with a mostly sunny weekend with only the wind being a bit feisty giving us some tent adventures and making us super happy to have a beautiful indoor to work in on Sunday - thank you Carol Finger !

Our group consisted of veterinarians, trimmers, trainers, dentists and horse owners and it was great that the locals were able to make some new connections. Everyone seemed to get a good level of understanding and described the clinic as showing them a ‘missing puzzle piece’ ‘a new way of looking at horses’ and my favorite ‘once you see it you can’t unsee it’

HeartSong Equine gave a great talk on nutrition and shared so many great ideas. This is another foundational part of keeping our horses sound and healthy over time and some of the before and after photos just from nutrition were amazing !!

Lisa Mittler shared her visionary style of trimming feet - she, like myself, sees pathology only as potential and trims to how she sees the foot to be - restoring the proprioception to the bottom of the foot is a big part of the push.

When you combine a body that is ready to recieve a push with a foot that can push… after a couple days of integration you have something close to magic.

See the black horse picture - day 1 - 3. He literally grew a gaskin.

Other thoughts …
Hire the photographer! So excited for Little L Photo pictures - love the few we have !
Don’t try to cram everything in
Make the days shorter rather than longer - most people don’t ramp up as the day goes on like me 🤣🤣
Horses horses horses always the balance of running a clinic while honoring the horses - again I think real cases are not for clinics - and will add a day for those henceforth - having said that, I am beyond excited about not just the changes that were made to the equine clinic participants but to the EDUCATION and support NETWORK behind the changes - making them long lasting.

Many thanks to all the facilitators and participants - I learned a lot both in the creation and ex*****on that will allow me to better serve the horses moving forward


From the Ground Up Healing
Frankly Sound Equine

05/27/2024

You can trust Yasmin Stuart Equine Physio to guide you in the correct direction when it comes to therapeutic exercises!!
Yasmin is a consummate student of equine posture with an exceptional ability to compose and share her teachings😊😊❤️❤️

"What can I do with my horse?" is a question that I get posed a great deal -

And it's a question that I actually find really difficult to answer - not because I don't have 1001 exercises to target different movement patterns and muscle groups; because I do -

It's because I can set you exercises for your horse, and I can give you the progressive loading patterns, but it's up to you to read your horse's behaviour and body language to determine whether they are ready for it.

Because an exercise is only as good as its application and your horse's perception of the work is only going to be positive if you can unconditionally meet them where they are at.

And this is why I feel SO strongly that everyone should be able to understand behaviour and body language.

This evening Olivia Turner and I will be teaching you exactly that in our live webinar:

What Is Your Horse Trying To Tell You?

27.05.2024 19:00 BST

Recording will be available if you can't make the live.

Link in the comments ❤️✨️

05/26/2024

TENSION AT THE POLL

When I first met Louie he would lift his head so high when I got near it I had to take the bridle off for a year to be able to put it on him.

What's wrong with that sentence ?

I have met 100's of horses that behave this way when we want to put things on their heads. I always felt with Louie it had a lot to do with the tension he carried in his poll and with the right amount of manual therapy I would eventually be able to resolve this, while doing, "all the things".

Except it never really resolved, and I kept wondering
"Do I just suck at this?"

Once again I was missing the why...

Just being around humans up regulated my horse, then he would pick his head up and tighten the muscles around his poll creating poll tension

which can lead to poll misalignment

which can lead to dural torque

which creates tension in the rest of his spine and informs a posture that is now in compensation which causes lameness

all this from a traumatized nervous system, but that is the truth about horses ( and many people)

So I had to start there, working on my husbandry and my horsemanship so I did not unwittingly train my horse into sympathetic dysfunction.

From there I could work to safely unwind him and create stability at the shoulder and pelvic girdles.

This gave the poll a place now to rest and to release allowing the tension to leave changing the input to the entire spine and creating a stable posture allowing rest in the parasympathetic side of the nervous system.

Creating natures environment for global healing

For long term results, that feel like love.

05/25/2024

and I will be staying in Rocksprings with my elevation, nice breeze and healthy air quality

Ugh just 2 hours east and you can’t breathe
Hang tight Texas peeps keep them fans going and plenty of fresh water available

05/23/2024

What we do will make a better impact on the horses if we learn to share effectively and not ‘gate keep’ our best secrets.
I like to teach principles over techniques when it comes to supporting horses.
All the feels as I see this incredible student of the horse embody and apply my teachings to her already vast skill set!!
Thanks for coming, embodying and most of all SHARING
I love this post so much From the Ground Up Healing!!!

Making Space 🙌🙌❤️❤️❤️🐴🐴
My heart just expanded
For the horses, now and forever

05/23/2024

This weekend at my Well Adjusted Horse Collaborative Clinic I presented Spinal Biomechanics and Dural Torque and how dysfunction here underlies many of the chronic soundness issues in horses.

Later, in conversation with the ever brilliant Lisa Mittler, Lisa said to me

‘That’s why the facets are so asymmetrical!!! ‘

I was only home a few hours before I started comparing asymmetries of facets in my cervical spine of my Zebra Skeleton ( normal ) to my old horse cervical spine which is loaded with pathology

Sure enough

The Zebra was even
The horse is way asymmetric !!

My favorite law is Wolfs Law which describes how bone remodels under force and tension

Dural torque affecting the pressure put on the facets creating lasting asymmetry
AT THE SPINAL LEVEL

This why healthy spinal biomechanics and posture are so important!!

Get Well Adjusted 😊

05/22/2024

LIFE UNSHOD - FRANKIE

One of my toxic traits is always wanting more when most people think it would have been polite or reasonable to stop.
A good example of this was when my father, dedicated to getting me launched without loans, paid my full veterinary tuition and for my apartment ( thanks dad !! )
So I quietly took out a loan so I could have a horse as well …
Seriously for equine vets I still believe my time was better spent in a barn 😊

This weekend along with putting on the Well Adjusted Horse Clinic in Fort Collins CO I had a side job I was desperate to see through. This was getting Maeve Bandt and Lisa Mittler together to work with Frankie and his feet. Maeve had been pouring her best and her support systems best into this horse and he had been progressing but I could shake the feeling that an appointment with Lisa might help restore his hoof integrity faster like Lisa had with my horse Louie.
I was excited and curious to see once again the magical transformation of the hoof energy from collapse to pushed occur. Although Lisa and I had tremendous transformations in Texas I had heard that it couldn’t be possible in CO - the altitude affecting oxygen the harsh climate -

I JUST DIDNT KNOW !!!

Find out on the next episode of LIFE UNSHOD

just kidding ! As you can see once again amazing transformation-

That’s collapse to push

Maeve had his body and mind ready to acccept the changes

He was set up for success with
- A great foundation of nutrition, enriched environment, down regulation, manual therapy and groundwork to support his mind body and spirit
- and BOOTS - DONT FORGET THE BOOTS

Below are the before and after

INCLUDING the tiny amount taken off - how cool is that !!!!

I don’t think you can do a good job if you don’t document and constantly evaluate your work

This is one of the many things I love about working with Lisa - she makes her self accountable and is constantly learning and trying to improve.

Did Frankie appear ataxic after the trim ? As if his nervous system was getting a massive proprioceptive hit ??!!

Hell yes

You got to actually make changes to make changes

Was he fine once he got his boots on ??

Hell yes

Is he doing great now ?? Yup 😊😊😊

Hmmm might this just be ANOTHER OTTB growing a digital cushion maybe?

I love this stuff so much but most of all I love it for Maeve and Frankie - see Maeve’s comment in photos 🙌🙌🙌

Results are my love language - especially when I don’t do the work !! 🤣🤣🤣
Collaboration for the win

Lisa Mittler consults on all my cases where I think the hoof proprioception is blocking our progress

Trimming for proprioception is different than trimming for angles - it’s a FEEL - you have to pay attention and practice, be able to visualize where things are SUPPOSED TO BE not where they are

Then you make space

I hope more people get to work with Lisa ❤️
She will be presenting at the next clinic whenever that is !!

Collaborative Clinics being held for Well adjusted humans wanting well adjusted horses !
NC / Whispering Feather Farm - sept 6-8 - sign up coming so
Being considered in
NM
TX
OR
ONT

05/22/2024

Thank you HeartSong Equine for these beautiful reflections and pictures !! So grateful to you for sharing your beautiful space, energy and horses ! I could not have picked a better place to start promoting community and collaboration- for the horse, now and forever 🙌❤️