I enjoyed reading Linda Parelli’s article on Hill Therapy in the Fluidity program. Since that is a particularly strong area of expertise for me, I much enjoyed seeing a focus on restoring horses to good muscular and skeletal health.
You can add a powerful improvement for your horse to that Hill Therapy Program – by adding an emotional aspect to the work. Why would you want to do that? What have emotions got to do with bad posture, poor musculature, short, choppy, uneven strides and even skeletal damage?
I can go into great detail about HOW it happens that our horse’s emotions (ours too!) can result in physical problems, but I don’t think this article is the place for that kind of depth of explanation. Either accept that for the moment until I’ve proved it to you – or if like me 🙂 you just love that detail, then email me and I am happy to put together a more detailed explanation of how it happens.
…Back to physical problems caused by emotions…
A horse who is heavy on the forehand, with short choppy strides and / or stiffness in their way of going, whether they have a visibly damaged back or not, is essentially a horse who is carrying some fear – either old fear or new – SOMEWHERE in their lives..
I have been showing people for quite a long time now that when we help our horse get rid of old fears and traumas, then their backs, posture and stride visibly improves – and it improves, often quite dramatically, within minutes.
A horse who is without fear … is a horse who has soft, fluid, rhythmic strides… is a horse who has an elevated back …and is a horse who is in self carriage on a loose rein…
Yes, you can read that again – that IS what I said, a horse who has no fear IS in the soft, fluid, rhythmic strides and elevated back of self carriage.
I’ll say it again, because it is sooo… important. The opposite is also true. A horse who does not have soft, fluid, rhythmic strides and is not in self carriage, is a horse who is carrying fear and stress – whether it is old fear or new. AND we can help them to let even those old fears and stresses go.
In their lovely new posture that comes from having their fears and worries addressed, the horses start to heal all kinds of physical problems. I routinely see horses with damaged backs, poor posture and painful muscles visibly improve all of that by just addressing the horse’s deep and often old fears.
Now add THAT to the Hill Therapy that Linda describes and I promise you that you will be blown away by the results.
You’ll get an understanding about fear in horses and some simple action you can take to start changing that, in the FREE LESSONS The 9 Keys to Happiness with Your Horse – the link is up the top of the Training Page here.
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