The Smarter Way to Help a Stiff or Uneven Horse

Trying to “fix” stiffness, crookedness, or other movement issues often creates more guarding. In this episode, learn why physically supporting what your horse already does can help the nervous system feel safe, release habitual tension, improve movement, and deepen trust. 

Applying this concept can change your relationship with your horse. I hope you give this episode a listen. 

Resources:

💥Learn how the Feldenkrais MethodⓇ can help improve your seat, position, and balance on your horse! Free rider videos masterclass: https://www.marydebono.com/rider 💥

Mentioned in this episode: Helping a Horse Heal a Chronic Suspensory Ligament Injury

Grab your FREE video training to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

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 (Debono Moves). Through this transformative approach, both people and their animal companions discover greater harmony, ease, and connection.

Transcript

Hi. There's a simple concept you can use to help improve your horse's physical and emotional well being while you deepen your bond with them. And that is this idea of providing support. Now what do I mean by that? Providing support is something very intentional and very specific. Let me give you an example. Let's say you have a horse who, and this is very common, they bend more easily to one side than the other.

So you're riding your horse and you know you, you want them to bend just as easily to the side. That's a bit difficult for them. So what do a lot of people do? They use stronger aids, maybe they do special exercises and they try to get the horse to bend more easily to the more challenging side. But I'm going to tell you that actually flipping that whole concept will serve you and your horse so much better.

And that is the idea of supporting what the horse already does. And by supporting, I don't just mean emotional support, I mean physically supporting the horse. So using our example of a horse who bends more easily to one side than the other, let's take that now out of the arena. In other words, this is what I would do. I would work with the horse without a rider up and without even any tack on at first.

And using my hands. And I do an approach called De Bono moves, which is informed by the Feldenkrais method for humans. I use my hands to feel exactly what's happening when the horse bends to one side or the other. And so I feel the difference in my hands, feel what's happening in the back and the rib cage and the sternum and the neck and the pelvis. And then working with the easier side, I literally support that using my hands.

I provide physical support for the horse. And guess what this does. This then allows the horse's nervous system to feel that someone else is doing the work of those muscles that are holding the horse a little bit, maybe more bent to that side or those muscles tend to be more activated easily. And the other side. Right. The more challenging side, what people would say would be the stage differ side.

There's a whole different thing going on there. And so now what does this do? Think about it, think about it. The horse now feels really comfortable because I'm doing work for them that they normally were doing. Right. Those muscles were normally kind of keeping the horse's ribs maybe a little, you know, turn that way, the spine, something. Right. I'm doing it for them so they feel comfortable, it feels familiar, there's no threat there.

Now, if on the other hand, I did the opposite. If I went to the more challenging side, the side that some people would call the stiffer side, and I tried to get the horse to bend right away, the horse's nervous system is going to throw up all kinds of red flags. The horse might be anxious, and this is true even if a horse seems very calm on the surface.

But internally the nervous system is saying, danger, danger. This isn't what we normally do. This doesn't feel safe. So a lot of times a lot of protective defenses come up right where the horse then might actually come compensate even more. So you're, you're putting the horse, you're not teaching the horse something valuable, right? You're just teaching the horse to guard against what you're doing because it doesn't align with the, with their mo.

Now, let's talk about mo for a moment. Why did the horse bend more easily to one side than the other? Now, I don't know. There could been many reasons in the past, but it's generally, you have to think that that was an appropriate solution to a problem at one time. In other words, the horse, maybe it was an unbalanced rider, bad, you know, bad fitting tack, poor training, different lifestyle things.

Who knows, maybe it was something, you know, an injury that's a very common one. There was some kind of injury. I mean, it could be any number of things. Maybe it had to do with the way the hooves were trimmed or, you know, who knows? The list is endless. But we have to remember the horse's nervous system is highly intelligent, as is yours. And the nerve, the horse's nervous system came up with that as a solution to a problem.

Now maybe it's outlived its usefulness like a long time ago. This could be going on for years and years and years, and now it's actually creating problems. You're going, the horse is now kind of going into a downward spiral before because of this maladaptive habit or pattern that they developed. But we have to respect that the wisdom of the body, bodily intelligence said, yes, this. I need to do this.

And when we acknowledge that and we physically support it, then the horse's nervous system can feel safe enough to let it start to release. This is super important, super, super important. And this is what I teach in my move with your horse program. This is what my students learn when they learn equine dibono moves. They learn how to physically support, first of all to find and then to support these types of habits, you know, these patterns in the body and to really kind of ferret them out and to, to notice.

And so, so let's, let's go even further with this. So again, when you're using your hands to physically provide support, the horse gets a feeling of relief. A lot of times you'll see horses just, ah, they just like melt because now again, you, you're helping them feel like, differently in their body. They maybe they never experienced that or hadn't experienced that in a really long time. Well, suddenly it's like, oh, I didn't know I could breathe like that and move like that because someone else is doing the work for them.

Okay, so this can change a lot. Even with behavior, we see a lot of changes in the horse's behavior because of course, the emotional state, behavior needs a physical scaffolding. So when you change one, you often change the other. Now if you think about like a horse who's recovering from an injury, I'll give you another example. This again is very common. Horses will often load their limbs in an asymmetric way.

So in other words, maybe they have just constantly a little more weight on one side of their body than the other, or one diagonal than the other, or just one particular leg. This is often completely undetected. It's not like they're lame, but they just, just like we do. This is very common in humans too. It's like maybe when you're walking, you're just a little bit heavier on one leg than the other.

Well, horses do this too. Now. There's a whole blog post I wrote about this and I'll link to it in the show notes. So look for that. About a horse who had a chronic suspensory ligament injury. And she's not the only one. I've worked with a number of similar situations, and she wasn't healing. Wasn't healing. They had several vets working with the horse. You know, they were trying different things.

And what it was was it was a very subtle thing, but it was very important. She was loading the injured leg actually more than the other front leg. So. And you think, why would she do that? And certainly when she trotted, I mean, she was offloading the injured leg, but at rest she was continually loading that leg more. Now if I were to do something like, oh, just do like a rocking motion where I'm shifting her weight and kind of forcing her onto the other leg again, what would that do?

That. That's a complete contradiction of what her nervous system has decided was appropriate. So all kinds of red flags would come up. She would learn how to brace and compensate in other ways. Instead, I actually supported that pattern very, very gently, right. She felt comfortable, she felt safe with me. And then I could very, gradually help her feel how? And again, no direct confrontation, you know, no, no direct contradictions.

But I could help her feel, oh, what if you go on, instead of the left front, you go a little bit on the left hind, then the right hind. And we did this nuanced gradual exploration of shifting her weight, right. So that, you know, she was on one leg off of it before her nervous system had a chance to say, oops, that's not what I do. So, great situation.

She ended up, like many of, like many horses I've worked with, she ended up then being able to discover a better way, right. So she started on her own. Her nervous system experience, oh, this is actually more comfortable when I'm more symmetrically weight bearing. Because she's not thinking this intellectually, right? This is on the nervous system level, right. Just she's feeling it in her body. We're giving the horse the experience of this.

So we support what they're doing, we feel for letting go, and then we gradually, gradually, gradually and very skillfully help the horse. You know, just, we kind of remind them that other options, other possibilities exist. So we do the same thing with the horse we were talking about earlier, this idea of bending to one side or the other. We don't just stop at the level of supporting the easier side.

We then, when we feel change is happening, we very gradually and again, very, in a very nuanced way, start to introduce and remind the horse that, ah, there's other things you can discover. So this work is these changes are never forced upon the horse. The horse is actually discovering them. Their nervous system is saying, yes, that feels good. So this is so, so important. So think of now, the trust you're building with your horse when you work like this.

Think of that, Think of, you know, you're, you're saying, yeah, yeah, I, I, I feel what's going on. I'm, I'm sensing what's going on. This is more comfortable for you. Let's hang out here for a while. Let me support you in doing this. Of course, you're not saying this verbally, although you can. But then, you know, you just think of that level of communication and clarity and connection you develop.

It's such a beautiful feeling. I mean, it's the feeling that I just doing this work so much because you really feel at one with your horse when you do it. You're really sensing each Other, you're, you're listening to each other, you know, on a very, very deep level. And that then translates to other things you're doing with your horse. You know, work on the ground, just hanging out with your horse, you know, riding all the things you might want to do with your horse.

Right? That level of trust and the feeling of, yes, we can depend on each other, right? I can support you in this way, right? So it's an incredible way of communicating, you know, building trust, deepening that connection you have, which is probably the reason you want to be around horses in the first place. You love that feeling. This is such a great way to really deepen it. And the other thing that's worth noting is I feel that this really gives a sense of agency or empowerment to the horse.

There's no person trying to force something onto the horse. You need to bend this way, you need to stand this way, you need to move in a particular way. No, you're partners, you're on this journey together. And when you do this, when you really develop your feel and you notice, like how you can support your horse, you improve your own movement and your own well being as well.

So it's always a win win. This work is designed to help you and your horse feel better together in body and mind. So think of ways that you can support your horse, things you notice about them, and that instead of right away trying to change or fix the horse, you develop a collaboration with your horse and you think, okay, how could we explore that further? How could we like, dive into that a little bit and then see where new opportunities, new possibilities arise.

If you have any questions about this, I'd love to hear from you because I so appreciate you listening to the podcast and yeah, you can always email me. My email address is mary@marydebono.com so thank you again. I hope this gave you a little food for thought and I look forward to talking to you again real soon. Bye for now.