Tack, Tension, and Transformation [Horses]

Tack isn’t just gear—it’s a powerful signal. It can trigger old patterns of tension in both horse and human. In this episode, discover how to gently shift those habits using awareness and Debono Moves—so you and your horse feel more at ease, right from the start.

Resources:
Girthy Horse? Simple Steps Make Saddling a Pleasure (blog post)

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All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and doesn't constitute medical or veterinary advice or professional training advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you, your horse, or your dog are unwell or injured.  Always use extreme caution when interacting with horses and dogs.

About the Host:

Mary Debono is a pioneer in animal and human wellness, blending her expertise as an international clinician, best-selling author, and certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner. With over three decades of experience, Mary developed Debono Moves, a groundbreaking approach that enhances the performance, well-being, and partnership of animals and their humans.

Mary's innovative approach draws from the Feldenkrais Method®, tailored specifically for horse and dog enthusiasts.  Her methods have helped animals and humans:

• Improve athletic ability and performance
• Enhance confidence and reduce anxiety
• Reduce physical limitations and discomfort
• Deepen the human-animal bond

Mary's flagship online programs, "Move with Your Horse" and "Easier Movement, Happier Dogs," provide animal enthusiasts with an innovative approach that combines the concepts of Feldenkrais® with her signature hands-on work for horses and dogs. Through this transformative method, both people and their animal companions discover greater harmony, ease, and connection.

As a sought-after speaker and educator, Mary has impacted animal enthusiasts worldwide, guiding them to enhance their relationships with their animals through mindful movement and deeper body awareness. Her work empowers individuals to unlock new levels of understanding and communication with their beloved companions.

Visit https://www.marydebono.com to learn more about Mary's unique work

Transcript

Did you know that tack isn't just equipment, It's a signal to your horse. A bridle, girth or saddle can mean far more than we realize. It can trigger tension, maladaptive movement patterns, even emotional shutdown. But there's a way to help your horse create new, more comfortable associations. So let me tell you about a horse I worked with. It's a big black and white pinto. He was a dressage horse.

I think he had art deco in his bloodlines. And he was owned and ridden by this wonderful dressage trainer. She was super sensitive and skilled and all the good things. And she had asked me to give him a hands on debona move session. And the trainer told me all about this horse's challenges. She said it was asymmetric. He was stiff, really stiff on his right side. He didn't bend easily there.

He didn't like contact on the right rein. And, you know, so all these things. So as I'm working with him, his body softens and, you know, I can see how his movement is improving. It's all great. But it was really curious because I wasn't seeing the asymmetries that she told me about. So I asked her to go get me his bridle. So she does and she puts it on him and it's just like a super simple, well fitted, loose ring Snapple, right?

And nothing, nothing horrible about it at all. Very simple, bridal. And she just put it on him. There was no saddle on him. The reins were just over his neck, you know, nothing. The second she put it on him, his body changed right before our eyes. And most noticeably on his right side, his back tightened. I mean, we can see how, how the right side of his back muscles got super tight just wearing the bridle.

And even the movement in his ribs changed. I mean, he was like an entirely different horse. So nothing else had changed, just the addition of the bridle. And this was so. It was, you know, I've done this work for a really long time. So yeah, I mean, that was pretty dramatic, the change just from putting on the bridle. But this trainer was really blown away because she never would have expected that.

And we have to remember that what we were seeing in that case is like deeply ingrained physical and emotional habits tied to wearing a bridle. So it was a perfect example of how context or environment can trigger habits. And by the way, in case we're meeting for the first time, my name is Mary Debono and this is the Easier Movement, Happier Life podcast. And it's for you, your horses, and dogs.

Today, we're focusing on the horses. So that's why knowing this about how tack can influence and sort of bring up certain habits in your horse, both physical and emotional. You know, when I'm working with a horse, I often at some point introduce tack as I'm working with them. Not usually at the beginning and not usually all at once, but after I've worked with them for a while, sometimes it happens within one session, but other times it's a much longer process.

So as I help the horse let go of habitual patterns, then I might add in one piece of tack and see how things change and then help the horse work through that. Because tack can change everything. It shifts the context, and we have to remember. Context activates memory in the nervous system, both physical and emotional memory. So let's think about horses who are girthy. You probably know a horse who's girthy, and for some, it's super obvious, right?

You know, that you start tacking them up, maybe you're tightening the girth, they pin their ears, they swish their tails, they stomp or threaten to kick, you know, but then other horses, they're reacting too, but it's much more subtle, right? And if you're not paying attention, you might miss it. You think they're fine, or you think, oh, he blows up a little bit. That's what people call it when a horse, you know, when you're doing the girth up and you have to, like, walk them, do it up little by little, and people think they're blowing up with air, but it's not what they're doing.

They're actually tensing their abdominal muscles in an attempt to protect themselves. Okay? So it's like a defensive response. So, you know, so they're bracing through the abdominals, and even though you're, you know, you're doing the girth up really nicely and slowly and all that, and you're, you know, the horse, little by little, relaxes so you can tighten it up more and more. My experience has been that most of those horses still carry, like, a bit of that tension with them, so.

And they start to learn to actually, you know, restrict the movement of their rib cage, which is very damaging to their overall movement. It's very difficult to have healthy, efficient movement if you're restricting the rib cage. So it's all tied into rounding the back, engaging the hind end, freedom of the neck and shoulders, etc. I mean, it. It affects everything. So, you know, and think about their emotional state.

That's how I look at it, too. It's like if you're girthing up a horse, you're saddling up a horse. Sometimes it's just the sight of the saddle, right? Or you just start to place it on them, and the horse reacts, that habitual reaction. So that tension affects their movement and their emotional state. So that's not a good way to start your ride. And it's not very kind to the horse either.

My opinion. So now, and here's the thing people will say to me, but, Mary, I invested thousands of dollars in a custom saddle. You know, I had my vet thoroughly go over him. I had all this body work done, I had his teeth done, you know, his hooves balanced. You know, I did all the things, you know. But if the horse still has a negative association, so habitual responses to the attack, that often doesn't change just magically on its own.

So this is where De Bono moves comes in, because you can actually change those habits, those reactions to something really positive. So you can go from negative associations to actually not just neutral, but positive. You can. You can make tacking up something that's actually enjoyable for the horse. So, yeah, so. And. And again, I want to make a couple of other comments too, because problems with tacking up can be ulcers.

It can be, you know, rough training or inappropriate training. Could be an unbalanced rider or a rough rider, you know, someone not being kind or skillful with the horse. But again, even after all those things have been checked out and resolved, the association is still there unless you do something about it. Okay. That's the power of habit. So there. There's a particularly girthy horse I wrote about on my blog post, so I'll link to that blog post in the show notes.

But his people were so wonderful. He was this Appaloosa. He was just cute little guy. But they asked me to come out to work with him because he was so girthy. And they. They knew that was a problem, right. They wanted him to enjoy being ridden. And so I'm working with him. And at one point, I asked his rider to go to the tack room and please, just bring me the girth.

I wasn't going to, like, saddle him at that point. But what was so fascinating was he just hearing the sound of the. The buckles on his girth jangling. He tensed up his body. Fascinating, right? So I worked with him for three sessions, and I detail it in. The blog post is kind of long, and I have photos and Stuff And I kind of walk you through what I did with him to help him.

But it was just interesting how, you know, his breathing change, his, his whole body, his whole posture just changed, his eye changed everything. So we have to remember this wasn't about the girth itself. It was what the girth meant to him, what it was triggering. Because to him a girth was like a signal. It was a cue for an old pattern. So that's why I teach my students in, in our move with your horse program to add tack back in gradually, piece by piece, once their horse is ready.

So that, and there's a whole protocol I go through, I call it tension free tacking up, where they learn how to do different hands on moves. You know, reduce tension, improve movement, improve your communication with your horse and your connection, all this wonderful stuff. And change associations to things like tack other things as well, by the way. But you know, you do it step by step. It has to be done with a high level of awareness.

So that's for the horses. Now let's talk about you for a moment. Because the thing is, we are no different. We're no different. We have habits triggered by context too. It's like, you know, if you walk into a certain situation, right, you respond a certain way, maybe it causes you some anxiety, maybe another situation causes you to smile and you know, to just automatically be super chill. So for many people, they have a little anxiety or sometimes a lot of anxiety about riding or about doing particular things with their horse, maybe cantering or jumping or something.

Now many people I've worked with over the years, it's like they tense up just as soon as they put their helmet on or they put their boots on or they step into the, into the stirrups, like there's something, you know, they pick up the reins, that's actually a big one. Just holding the reins in their habitual way triggers a whole kind of like cascade of tension and restriction in their body.

That's why one of the things I often encourage people like after I've done a Feldenkrais lesson with them is when they, you know, when they get on the horse to do something different to bring more awareness. Because our nervous system kind of wakes up with non habitual or novel sensory situations like sensory information. So it means doing things differently. So for example, if you normally hold the reins a certain way, right through, you know, your, between your ring and pinky finger and then up out through your thumb, what if you held them more in the driving style, right where it comes from the top and down to the bottom of your hand.

That totally changes how you organize your arms and shoulders and up into your neck. That even changes how you sit in the saddle, per. And you don't have that habitual response because many people, they don't even realize, but they're grabbing with the reins or they're. They're restricting their arm movements. I mean, there's so many things that. That are habitual like that. So changing things up can be really, really powerful.

And so this is also a little practice you can do is just start to notice. So next time you ride or you're going to do groundwork or whatever you're going to do, just stand near your horse. Stand near your horse and just be there quietly and notice your breathing. Don't try to change it, just feel it, just notice it, just sense it. Is your belly soft? Can you let go there?

Is your back soft? Where can you let go of unnecessary tension? How about around your shoulders? Can you let them just hang naturally? What about your jaw? What about around your eyes and your mouth? And now check in with how your feet are connecting with the ground. Are you allowing your skeleton to support you? And then what changes when you step up onto the mounting block or when you place your foot in the stirrup?

Now, once you're in the saddle, pause again before you ask your horse to move on. Just simply check in with yourself. Can your breathing be easy? Are your eyes soft? Can your hands be soft and following and not gripping? How do your seat bones feel? Do you feel balanced on them? Or do you feel a little bit crooked? And let yourself be curious and not judgmental. And as you begin to walk on, just stay connected to that internal awareness.

And you'll find when you can really refine and develop your own internal awareness like that, you start to feel your horse more clearly, too. So you'll start to pick up more nuances in your horse's movement and in their emotional state as well. So you could return to this at any point during your ride. You might even want to stop, you know, for a moment at the hall to check in again, see what's different, to kind of remind yourself, you know, to.

To let go of unnecessary tension and then notice what changes when you dismount. So that kind of awareness, just pausing to notice what you're doing, is super powerful, and it can help start to break the cycle of these automatic responses that we have, and it opens the door to possibility. So you know something that Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, the creator of the Feldenkrais method for humans used to say is you have to know what you're doing to be able to do what you want.

So that's the first step. The first step is noticing is sensing yourself. I always say you sense yourself so you can sense your horse, you know, so, so, and then you, you will also be more aware of your horse's responses. So if you seem to notice that, you know, you think that your horse is changing the moment the tack comes out or the moment the tack goes on your horse, know that it's not just about the equipment.

Tack isn't neutral, it's part of the environment part, you know, even the way it smells, sounds and feels, it awakens memories, both good and bad. So if you, if you combine awareness with specific gentle hands on De Bono moves, those associations for your horse can begin to shift and for you, so you can help your horse and yourself create new positive associations to all triggers. Not through force, not through repetition, you know, not through correction, that's not going to work, but through mindful presence and starting to, to understand how your horse is responding to things in their environment.

So when you, when you use a hands on approach like De Bono moves, it's what we want to do is communicate safety, support new possibilities to our horse and to ourselves. So I hope this gives you some food for thought, some ideas about how you can improve your awareness and also be more aware of your horse and how you can help each other. So thank you so much for listening.

I so appreciate you. And in the next episode, we're actually going to talk about your dog and something a little something along the same vein. Okay. Maybe you've had some tension on walks or struggled with different grooming things, so stay tuned for that and I'll give you some tips on how you can help yourself and your dog as well. So thank you again. I look forward to talking to you soon.

Bye for now.