Horse Out of the Box

27/09/2023

Thought provoking.

ENGAGE THE SLING BEFORE YOU DRIVE FROM BEHIND

baby race horse getting thoracic sling engagement 😊😊😊🧡🧡🙌🐴

You can see how in the before picture this horse appears collapsed into the ground. His feet are splayed and chest is wide and soft and looks like it is falling into the ground. This is called ‘columnar loading ‘ it means that the horse is loading into the ground like a building, it is the opposite of ‘tensegrity’ which implies a balance of the compression elements giving you suspension and recoil. If your not using your tension elements and just start collapsing into your front end the only way you can really hold yourself up is by tensing through the elbow and thus splaying your front feet.

This baby is 1 year old, never been ridden and already is collapsing into the front end and is losing the ability and desire to engage and lift the thoracic sling.

There is no pectoral activation in the before. He is wide and collapsing in front. For a race horse this is a posture that will make him prone to injury because as he fixates this way it will be more and more difficult for him change and get his front end out of the way.

In the meantime those folks that don’t believe in spinal flexion of the thoracic spine will insist on driving into this braced, blocked, fixated front end that is now being stabilized by the elbows that will externally rotate and brace and a activated brachiocephalicus muscle which will further contract trying to stabilize the neck trying to prevent further compression as the hind end is driven into a front end that is locked down and collapsing into the ground.

I learned in vet school that when there is much opposing discussion about things it usually means none of the answers are correct.

If you cannot lift and engage your thoracic sling so that you have the ability for suspension and recoil as in tensegrity please do not think that driving into it is the solution. If you want your horse to feel like a motor boat you have to have the lift first and then you can drive into it.

Yes you need drive but the road must be open

If you don’t have lift the drive will cause more compression and collapse, creating more dysfunction.

Does that make sense ?

So the answer is your need lift for the drive to have a place to go otherwise you just drive into a brace.

The horse on the right has an engaged thoracic sling. This only took about an hour and this particular little fellow still had a lot of restrictions that will need follow up. But it’s a start - he can now get his front end out of the way allowing for hind end to come under instead of around.

He will be able to push off the ground instead of collapsing into it allowing triceps activation and development.

He will be able to open up his rib cage and breathe deep fully expanding into his diaphragm and creating internal lift to his back. His waist will lengthen, lumbar spine align and psoas relax creating movement to the pelvis and softening the angle so the hips now in alignment can push back at the ground with their full power.

All this in an hour.
All this from re training your nervous system out of dysfunction into function
Lift your sling to lift your back.

Please don’t drive into your horse if he cannot engage his sling and definitely do not back these horses up !!

27/09/2023

Very well explained.

So many horses are living in a state of stress, with the signs being missed. All horses deserve to live their lives in a state of peace, harmony and relaxation.

To achieve their very best potential, horses must be living in a high vibrational state. Only coming into their sympathetic nervous system when they need to, when in a genuine fight or flight situation. Once the stimulus causing this response is no longer a threat, they should be able to come back down into their parasympathetic nervous system. Sadly, this isn’t the case for many horses who are permanently living in a state of stress, which is causing an array of health issues.

Physiological stress in the body is the cause of all illness, along with the sympathetic nervous system shutting down the digestive system. Horses have a really hard time when their autonomic nervous system is out of balance. This is often the reasoning behind nervous, frightened, inconsistent and spooky horses.

This is why looking after our horse’s mind, body & spirit is incredibly important.

🕊️🤍✨🐴✨🤍🕊️

06/09/2023

Safety allows Relaxation. Safety from the horse’s point of view.

I was talking to my students that every horse and rider are unique, but the one thing that is consistent throughout every lesson is that learning cannot occur without relaxation. Without relaxation, there is no point in attempting to train. Horses are prey animals and are programmed to be concerned about their own safety. A tense horse is worried they are not safe. We have to understand this. The horse may be afraid of his surroundings, or separation from their herd, or maybe they are in pain and it isn’t obvious to their rider yet. Anything that makes the horse uncomfortable will make them concerned about their safety, and no learning can pe*****te that fear. A relaxed mind can learn. A tense one cannot.
In my book "Dressage in Harmony", on page 12, I write that muscles are found in extensor-flexor pairs. A tense horse tends to contract both extensor and flexor muscles at the same time, thereby tightening and stiffening the joints through the action of the opposing forces. A truly relaxed horse will have every muscle relaxed from the poll to the tail, moving in regular rhythm and responding easily to all the aids, and the hoofprints are light. The rider can take up the reins or give the reins, and the horse will maintain his rhythm without running away. This must be true of all three gaits. A relaxed horse is not stiff, nor tight or frightened. Only when relaxed will the horse show brilliance in the movement.
If a horse is tense, you may have to dedicate the entire ride to achieve a relaxation. Some horses are more prone to tension than others. If your horse has an extremely high sense of self preservation, it takes enormous patience by the rider. Horses are programmed to be concerned about their own safety, and are hoping you will show them the way to a more secure state of mind. With repetition, the horse begins to believe in their rider. They begin to learn there is a better feeling out there that the rider will help them get to. The time it takes to get to a relaxed state becomes shorter over time.
When the horse is spooking, do not get too close to the scary thing and "give" to help unwind the tension. This can take great courage on the rider's part, but holding a tense horse tight creates even more tension. The "give" helps the horse's neck to soften and lengthen, and relaxation eventually start to migrate through the horse’s body. The horse recognizes the rider will not "trap" him and will not force scary things upon him. That builds trust, and trust creates relaxation.

26/08/2023

I quite liked this. 😂

24/08/2023

https://www.lovehorsebackriding.com/support-files/horse-anatomy-diagrams-01-fullsize.pdf

Thought this was quite useful. Equine anatomical directional terms can sometimes throw me because I learned all the ones used in humans. Some of the equine ones are slightly different.

22/08/2023

So many reasons to love this 💖

17/08/2023

I had to share this juicy and digestible tidbit for my non reading friends out there 📖 🐴 👀

Categorical Perception:
The natural tendency to organize sights, sound, taste, touch, and smell. The human brain categorizes different physical views into one group automatically (a door will look like a door to us in all angles). We group separate items instantly without thinking.

Equine brains don’t have much categorical perception. This is why they notice and spook at items that we would group in one category (hose they walk by every day, to us it’s just a hose but to them the way the hose hanging IS different each day).

When we say the horse has seen this a million times, he hasn’t. He’s seen a slightly different view of the object many different times. We are the one whose brains assumes those different views all represent the same object.

Their lack of categorical perception is one of the reasons horses don’t need to have precise visual acuity or great hearing, their brains notice tiny differences instead which allows them to survive.
- Janet L Jones, PhD Horse Brain, Human Brain

16/08/2023

Giving a horse the opportunity to feel our energy means allowing our energy to fill the space around us, not hide it within.

07/08/2023

Another very interesting post.

07/08/2023

“It's gently inviting your horse into a safe space where they can develop their physical and emotional wellbeing - within their threshold and within their musculoskeletal capacity.”

💖🙏🏼💖

As humans, I think we have a propensity to overcomplicate things - a lot. And I believe this is further complicated by traditional horse training practices; the results need to happen now, super fast and anything that doesn't look like the finished product is an absolute failure.

Behavioural indicators aren't a consideration unless you're observing 'dominance', 'defiance', 'laziness' and 'evasion'- and those behaviours should be dealt with.

Most interestingly for me, if the dialogue spoken appears to be welfare/training orientated. The picture doesn't have to match.

If you say your training is kind, your actions thereafter don't actually have to be accountable to that.

The visuals with this narrative are usually exciting- horses bucking, rearing, spooking, bolting suddenly change into horses that are obedient to pressure and exceedingly observant of their handler.

Some might say they were 'fixed'. But at what emotional cost?

You might have a horse that can be ridden and you might have a horse that is obedient. But how do they feel about it?

The thing that I have learned is that ethical, sustainable, welfare driven training isn't "sexy". It's not big crescendos and explosions.

It's gently inviting your horse into a safe space where they can develop their physical and emotional wellbeing - within their threshold and within their musculoskeletal capacity.

It's honest and it takes time.

The stimulus for change doesn't have to be huge for it to be profound. Just being consistent is half of it.

And perhaps being compassionate is the other half?

-

The stimulus for change doesn't have to be huge for it to be profound.

This guy is 18 years old and has a history of hock and sacroiliac issues - as well as negative associations with the arena and 'work' because of previous training.

His workload is approximately 20 minutes of in hand walking each week with a bias towards pillar 1 - that's it.

And not only has his posture improved hugely, but now he's more open to the idea of being treated (something he hasn't wanted to do previously) and more open to the idea of having a try when presented with a question - because he hasn't been challenged, pressured or punished.

It's slow work, yes. But it's sustainable.

And I personally find it amazingly rewarding ❤️

LS Horsemanship