Michelle Hunt MMCP Equine bodywork

08/06/2024

https://eclectic-horseman.com/jim-masterson-creator-of-the-masterson-method-integrated-equine-performance-bodywork/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1GDQcDr1Wjm-e8ZXyduv6oZuxgP0-lgvlvlWBVeTsgsosDuakaWj-JTSs_aem_AdtYvZr3No1qSzw8IUqAcnIi4pQxN9fitraOzWcM2uF4Y7J2XJJuByp8aodkVGu6prsvWw6x16af35yDTSSyDweW

This article appeared in issue No.136 of Eclectic Horseman Magazine - Order a print copy or order a PDF copy. Paradigm shift: noun A fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions A paradigm shift in horsemanship began in the American West in the mid-Twentieth century when Bill and Tom Dor...

07/08/2023

For all you dog lovers❤️

25/05/2023

Interesting info from Jim 🙂

05/05/2023

Some availability for an equine bodywork sessions on Tuesday or Friday next week. Contact me if interested 🐴

10/11/2022

Its been a long road to recovery, 5 months in fact since I fractured my wrist and subsequently had pins and plate inserted. I finally have started feeling able to practice Mastersons again without experiencing pain.

30/10/2022

02/09/2022

The importance of food before exercise- interesting read

Unlike humans, horses are designed to run on a full stomach. Feeding your horse 2-3L of chaff or a biscuit of hay prior to exercise has two benefits :
1️⃣ The chaff will form a ball of feed in the stomach, which will help prevent acid from splashing up from the lower part of the stomach to cause gastric ulcers.
2️⃣ Blood is normally diverted away from the stomach during exercise, which reduces some of its normal protective mechanisms. Research has shown that feeding your horse before exercise actually reduces the amount of blood that is shunted away from the stomach and also increases the amount of blood delivered to the skeletal muscles and muscles of the chest. So not only are you helping to protect the stomach, you also might be improving your horse’s performance.
For more information : http://ow.ly/CfYy50Dmwnh

02/08/2022

I interesting read 😊

5 Reasons why long grass is better than short grass for horses.

1. Generally the further up the stalk the horse eats, each cell of the plant has a higher fibre/sugar ratio.
2. Eating longer grass means the horse has to chew more, slowing the intake while increasing the essential flow of saliva. The saliva helps to buffer the stomach acid.
3. A healthy horse eats until they have a specific volume of fibre in their stomach before stopping. So eating short grass with a high-sugar and low fibre ratio means a horse consumes a lot of high-sugar grass before enough fibre is ingested to trigger that 'full enough' feeling and finish their grazing bout.
We should focus on increasing our pastures' fibre content, which will reduce the NSC intake.
4. Short grass is usually stressed grass, constantly trying to recover/grow. Therefore it will store/hang on to a lot of Non-Structural Carbohydrates (NSCs) (sugars/starches) in preparation for when growing conditions improve.
5. Long grass creates a longer root system, improving both the health of the grass, the soil biome and it follows the health of the horse.
Read the full article here. https://www.equiculture.net/blog/horses-short-grass-or-long-grass along with many other great articles.

11/06/2022

05/05/2022

A good explanation as to how using the Masterson method benefits your horse

08/12/2021

Why Wednesday ~ Why does it take so long to release tension on the hind end points?

The muscles and structure of the hind end is large and complicated but all you really need in order to work on the hind end is a simple understanding of Search-Response-Stay-Release and the willingness to slow down and follow the horse's responses.

The hind end is the "motor" of the horse and the forces transferred from the powerful hind legs through the complex structure of the pelvis, sacrum and sacroiliac to the body are immense. The tension that builds up there can be deep-rooted and may have been building up over a long period of time.

Many performance issues originate from restrictions in the hind end and it will be important to slow down and give the horse time to release that tension. This makes sense as the muscles are larger and have less movement and articulations than the muscles of the front end. However, you will also see that the releases you get-with surprisingly little force-are large and even profound.

Find and release tension in your horse's body with easy to learn techniques from the book, Beyond Horse Massage, http://ow.ly/mfi750DTwTv

11/11/2021

The Masterson Method® is a unique, interactive method of equine bodywork which is perfect for not only competition horses but happy hackers and retired horses too. It focuses on releasing tension in key junctions of the body that most affect performance such as the poll, neck/shoulder/withers junction, and sacro/lumbar junction. By staying under the horses brace response, it allows the horse to actively participate in order to reduce tension and improve performance.

No matter how perfect the conformation of a horse, no horse is symmetrical. Tension patterns in the muscles and connective tissues of the joints can form simply from any repetitive work. These tension patterns create restrictions in a horses movement and affect performance. This bodywork searches out those tension patterns and facilitates the release of those restrictions.

11/11/2021

11/11/2021

11/11/2021