Somatic Rider and Energy Medicine

✨ Energy Tip Tuesday: Tap, Tap, Tap! ✨

Feeling achy or dealing with tense muscles? Here is another method to help relieve tension.

Try this simple tapping technique using a hairbrush or your fingers.

Often when there is tension or soreness, there can also be congestion in the energy. Gentle tapping can help loosen that congested energy so it can move more freely.

The bristles of a hairbrush act like little tappers, but you can just as easily use your fingertips. (use the brushes with the plastic prongs)

🌿 Try it:
Gently tap over fleshy areas such as the base of your neck, shoulders, arms, legs, or back.

Keep the tapping light and comfortable, and never tap directly over bony areas.

Spend a minute or two tapping, then pause and notice how your body feels.

You may find that a little Tap, Tap, Tap is just what your body needed. 💚

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ByyVu5sSk/

The Biomechanical Problem Sitting on Your Horse🔥

We spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to improve our horses.

More balanced. Better transitions. More engagement. More relaxed. Better behaviour.

Meanwhile, sitting on top of this entire biomechanical improvement project is 50 to 90+ kilograms of human, listing slightly to left, gripping with one thigh and wondering why the horse is crooked.

Awkward.

So here is today's Collectable Advice:

🚩If you want to improve how your horse moves and behaves under saddle, have a look at the body sitting on top of it.😎

Because your horse doesn't just carry your weight.

➡️Your horse has to manage what your body does while it carries you.💥

Riding position isn't really a position

We tend to teach riding position as though someone might burst into the arena with a protractor.

Shoulder. Hip. Heel.

Excellent. Nobody move.

Unfortunately, the horse has.

Horses don't experience our position as a photograph. They experience us as *mass in motion*.🫣

Every stride, the horse is generating, absorbing and transferring forces through its body. Its back moves. Its limbs load and unload. It accelerates, decelerates, bends and changes direction.

And perched on top is you.😬

You with your dodgy left hip, a collapsing ribcage and that might not have done anything resembling cardiovascular exercise since 2017.🫠

The horse must now incorporate you into the movement.

This is riding.

Our job is essentially to manage our own body well enough that the horse doesn't have to manage it for us.❤

That requires:

1️⃣Enough stability to contain our own body.

And:

2️⃣Enough mobility to allow the horse to move underneath us.

When we can't?

If your trunk collapses every stride, the horse accommodates it.

If you consistently dump your weight onto one side, the horse accommodates that.

If an old injury means one hip doesn't move properly, the horse feels it.

And if you brace every available muscle in an attempt to “sit deep”, congratulations.

You have transformed yourself into a 70 kg backpack containing several bricks.

The horse still has to carry it.😕

And horses respond.

They may shorten their stride, rush, hollow, drift, fall through a shoulder, struggle with one rein or become tense when you sit....or just become spooky and scared of the world‼️

This doesn't mean *everything is the rider's fault*. Horses come with their own asymmetries, weaknesses, discomfort, training problems and occasionally strong opinions about wheelie bins.

But horse and rider are a *moving system*.

Change one body and you change what the other body has to manage.

Which gives us something surprisingly useful to work on😃

Ourselves.

Improve your fitness.

Develop enough muscular integrity to stop various parts of you departing independently at the trot.

Work on mobility.

Manage your injuries.

Notice your asymmetries.

Develop balance, coordination and body awareness.

Not because you need to look fabulous in beige breeches.

Because every improvement in your ability to manage *your own body* potentially changes what your horse has to manage underneath you.

There is also the minor matter of survival - you improve your chances of remaining in the saddle if s**t happens!

Which is generally preferable.

So here is something you can start asking yourself..

*“Am I making myself easy for my horse to carry?”*

Because good riding isn't about arranging yourself beautifully on a horse.

It's about having enough control of your own body that you can move *with* another one.

And before we spend another six months trying to straighten the horse, perhaps we should take a quick look at the slightly asymmetrical cripple primate sitting on top.🤪

Collectable Advice 271/365.

Please SHARE if you made it to the end of this without being offended 😆

Meet Roman. He is a friend's horse that I am playing with. He is about 15yrs old and hasnt been ridden for a while. I am doing ground work with him to help him rebalance his body and get fit again.

In the first picture I had just asked him to bend by pressing at the girth, where a rider's leg will sit (in line with the back of the withers and as the barrel rolls under) After he turned his head I removed pressure and started petting his shoulder. He stayed in the bend quite a while before releasing with a lick and chew.

I like to teach this bend early on. It provides a way to get the horses attention back while grooming, it helps to calm a stressed horse (movement may be needed first depending on the stress level), and it helps to lower the horses head if they have a tendency to get tight and elevate, usually due to stress or tension.

When lunging you can point the whip at this areas for more bend and if you teach this from the ground it makes it easier for the horse to understand the bending aid once under saddle.

As the horse bends they are contracting muscles on one side of the body while lengthening the other side, providing a nice physiotherapeutic benefit.

You can see how soft the lead rope is. The only cue is the touch at the girth. Initially the lead rope blocked him from walking away as I rubbed the area.

It feels good to be playing with horse again!

Energy Tip Tuesday: Need a Little More Grounding?

Feeling stressed, panicky, overheated, or can't sleep? Sometimes when we feel this way, our internal “Fire” can be on the rise.

In Chinese Medicine, Water helps balance Fire. Kidney 1 (Bubbling Spring) is a wonderful point that I often use in energy work to help bring energy down, settle a busy mind, and create a sense of calm.

When our thoughts are constantly running, it can also be difficult to sleep. Kidney 1 can be a lovely point to work with when you’re having trouble settling your mind at bedtime.

Find it on the sole of your foot, at the widest part of the foot.

✨ Gently massage this area for 1-2 minutes on each foot while taking slow breaths.

Our feet support us all day long. Maybe it’s time to give them a little attention and let yourself feel more grounded and at ease. 🌿 (Of course this point is often used as part of a total body plan, it can still have some benefit on its own if used regularly)

Move with Ease Monday

Somatic movement is about bringing awareness to your body, an inside-out perspective. Today, take a moment to notice how your body feels.

Stand comfortably with your feet hip width apart.
- Notice the weight over your feet
- Move your awareness up your body slowly
- Where are you holding tension?
- Are there any areas doing more work than they need to?

By checking in each day you will start to notice more subtle holding patterns.

As a rider, you could also do this while sitting in the saddle.
- Feel the weight on your seat bones.
- Notice the pressure in the stirrups, where are is your foot making contact?
- Again, are there any areas doing more work than they need to?

Awareness is the first step toward moving with more ease.

This week, take a moment to notice before moving.

One of our former horses, "Buck".