On Sunday I wrote about the importance of touch and horses. Learning howto touch horses more effectively is easier to learn today than evenjust a few years ago because there are more "instruction manuals." Even
better, there are videos.
Videos are a great way to learn about bodywork because you can see how the horse reacts and you can see exactly where and how to place your hands.
Recently I received a copy of a DVD and Workbook combination from Lorrie Bracaloni, a Certified Holistic Practitioner (C.H.P.) called"How to Identify and Release Your Horse's Pain Points."
What are pain points? According to Bracaloni they are areas whereyour horse holds tension in his body often because of muscle tightness.If muscles remain tense, they shorten over time putting strain on the surrounding areas and often creating misalignment, spasms, knots and blocked energy.
When this happens Bracolini says you can start to see:
- Choppy strides
- Loss of impulsion
- Jump refusals
- Back soreness and hollowing
- Resistance to lateral flexion and bending
- Girthing problems
- Biting and other “bad behaviors”
- The horse being off and on “for no reason”
- Improper tracking forward, back, or laterally.
I watched the DVD first, which is what she suggests. In it, she reviews a series of potential pain points over the horse's three quadrants showing the viewer how to evaluate a horse. Bracaloni uses a hands on approach often marking the horse with black electrical tape to highlight the area she's discussing.
The first quadrant includes the eye, the poll (Atlas)and the neck.The second quadrant covers the withers, the front ribs, back ribs, and girth points. The third quadrant is the stifle points, hock points, and hips. In each area she demonstrates how and where to touch your horse and describes what you will feel if your horse is out of alignment in
any of these areas. Here's where video really helps -- you can see how the horse reacts (or doesn't react) to each of the areas she probes.
The video includes the evaluation and treatment of two horses so you get to see the reactions of each of them.
In the second part of the video Bracaloni revisits each of the pain points and shows you how to release them. Once again, it's interestingto see how the horses react, but you also get a much better sense ofthe techniques used in each move than you would from simply readingabout them or seeing still photos.
Bracaloni uses many stretches and techniques that I've heard of/used in the past such as tail stretches, butt tucks, belly lifts, backing your horse and carrot stretches. However, she gave me some new insights into how some of these "adjustments" relate to the underlying structure of the horse. She also demonstrated a few things that I'd not seen
before.
The video is clearly presented although at times it seemed a bit disorganized. Sometimes Bracalini didn't have exactly what she needed at hand and I found it distracting when she needed to find a piece of tape or didn't have someone at hand to hold the horse and it started towalk off. However, the flip side of the informality is that it did make all of the techniques seem accessible for all horse owners.
I think this is really, really important. Too many people think that they cannot do bodywork on their own without formal training and this myth deprives the horses from the benefit of treatment and their owners
from achieving the kind of rapport that is possible when you connect with your horse on this level.
I love the fact that the DVD comes with the workbook (delivered as aPDF file) because even if you watch a video more than once it's hard to remember everything while you're standing next to your horse. Unless you bring a laptop to the barn a printed piece is a necessity. With a PDF file it's easy to print out the pages you need -- plus you don't
have to worry about getting them dirty.
The workbook uses photographs from the video as illustrations so the visuals do reinforce what is shown on the DVD. There are a couple of diagrams that show the underlying muscular/skeletal structure; it would
benefit from more of these diagrams to help horse owners better understand how tightness in one area might influence another.
There's a nice addendum in the workbook on nutrition that raises points that all horse owners should know.
All in all, I think this is a good primer for people who would liketo explore how they can start adjusting their own horse. You can order the DVD and workbook from her website HappyNaturalHorse.ws
