enlightened horsemanship through touch

What Is Pressure? Check it out.

CW has done it again. Powered by a question from a reader, this post has answered yet more questions about what goes wrong with NH ground work as practiced by so many. Not by ALL, but by many.

I should start carrying rubber gloves in my glove compartment. I am a veritable magnet for accidents and sudden serious illness. I’m posting this not to invade the privacy of the lady I helped yesterday but to alert you to the fact that you don’t have to feel helpless in the face of an accident or sudden illness, wishing in vain that there were a doctor or nurse present. There is something YOU can do to help.

Just yesterday I was returning to Linda’s house after going to the post office when I turned a corner in my car to see a horrible moped accident. A tourist, wearing just a bicycle helmet, careened at top speed (maybe 35 mph?) into the curb to avoid an oncoming car and crashed in a most spectacular way. Off came the helmet, with predictable results.

I was the second out of my car, handing my cell with 911 pre-dialed to a recent arrival who would otherwise have been a rubbernecker.

After assessing her condition and the degree of her consciousness and severity of her wounds, I was able to delegate tasks to her husband (a very cool customer considering) and others such as holding tourniquets and pressure, and get to work while we waited (ten minutes or more!) for the ambulance.

My nursing background enabled me to help in ways that a lot of people who want to help in situations like this dare not offer. But in the end, it was not education or specialized training that saved this woman’s life. Tellington TTouch Ear Work has been proven time and again to prevent accident victims and those suffering from severe sudden illness from going into shock. It did not let me down yesterday. I was able to prevent this gravely injured woman from going into shock and possibly dying from it before she received EMT assistance.

The ear has been used as a mirror of the whole body in the application of acupuncture for many centuries. Working the ear in many modalities is a time-proven method of affecting the autonomic nervous system.

Here is what to do:

If possible, sit at the head of the victim. If it’s not possible, get as close as you can to be able to grasp their ears, one in each hand. This sounds funny, but I assure you, it’s not.
Grasp the ears between thumb and fingers with enough contact or pressure to be able move them away from the head.

Make a TTouch Circle with one or two fingers (depending on the size of the ear and your access), sliding the finger to stroke the ear. You will be making a total of four circles and strokes per ear. Begin at the lobe with the thumb posterior and still. The index finger is anterior (in the front). Make the TTouch Circle with the index finger, folding the index finger as you stroke the ear in an upward direction. Repeat the motion a second time, beginning at the entrance to the ear canal, again making a gentle TTouch Circle with the index finger in motion and the thumb in back to stabilize. Make the third TTouch Circle about 1/4 inch higher now, again stroking upward and outward. The fourth TTouch Circle is identical, covering the rest of the ear, being very careful to complete the fold at the upper margin of the ear. *

NB: Depending on your angle you will have your thumb behind the ear and fingers in front, or vice versa. It does not matter.

In cases of shock, or to prevent imminent shock, move rapidly, so that the entire circle and stroke takes about 2 seconds.

Continue until and even after rescue has arrived. If you can, accompany the victim in the ambulance and into the ER until they are stabilized.

Most EMTs and ER doctors are unaware of this complementary care technique and you may be the one to save the victim’s life. As you may know, shock kills. Often it is shock that kills rather than the wounds or illness, which might not be life-threatening. This is the fourth time I have used this simple technique to either save a life or to intervene in a medical emergency. And I’m just one person. There are literally thousands of case histories of the application of this work from around the world.

I hope you don’t ever need it, but it’s a good skill to have.

There’s a lot more to the story, but suffice it to say that it was a long day, there was a lot of laundry to be done afterwards, and I have a bit of my own road rash to deal with. Ruby Beagle was very put out indeed after being asked to wait in the car during the incident and to accompany me as we followed up. She got a biscuit. I got a cup of tea. ANd I hope that the lady who had the accident will eventually get to go back on a cruise ship and go home without permanent injury.

* from TTouch for Healthcare: The Health Professional’s Guide to Tellington TTouch by M. Cecelia Wendler, RN, PhD, CCRN and Linda Tellington-Jones

© 2009 enlightened horsemanship through touch and Kim Cox Carneal

take part 2!

While you’re waiting for me to travel to the mainland, why don’t you take the first part of EQUUS magazine’s Hands On Final Exam, a compilation of their best horse quiz questions divided into eight separate tests.

Ladies and Gentlemen, pencils, please..

I’ll be monitoring your scores from the road. No cheating!

After my last Science Friday post about a study on the effects of martingales and rein inserts on rein tension, Bonnitta Roy wrote this stellar post in her blog: The Rider Has NO RIGHT to the Horse’s Head! at The Horses at Alderlore. In it, Bonnitta brings all her expertise to bear on the subject which I could only obliquely speak to. If you’re at all interested in how best to get correct position and impulsion in your horse, read it!

It pays to read the search queries in your blog stats. That way you learn what information people are looking for.

I get a lot of folks searching for information on the Tellington Training Liberty Neck Ring.

From the TTouch Website:

This stiff neck ring, made of lariat rope and adjustable in size, is flexible and easy to use. The lariat is used in bridleless riding taught by TTEAM instructors and TTEAM Practitioners.

That’s a mighty short description of this little wonder tool. It also makes it seem as if the Liberty Neck ring is exclusively for advanced riders. I have used it, and I am no advanced rider.

• When a horse and rider play with the Liberty Neck Ring, they establish a sense of freedom that is radically different from the usual constraints of ringwork and controlled hacks. Every horse needs a break, a change. So do riders, even when they don’t realize it. Sometimes people forget to play with their horses.

• You don’t have to be an advanced rider to use the Liberty Neck Ring. A complete novice can use it, provided (s)he’s on a closed track or in a round pen, just in case there is a sudden loss of communication. In fact, it is a great tool for developing communication and coordination between horse and rider without the danger of the novice’s hands harming the horse’s mouth.

• Use of the Liberty Neck Ring gives the horse greater freedom to detect the rider’s decisive, more clear cues. This is very useful for novice riders.

• Likewise, Green or dull horses can be taught to pay careful attention to rider cues using the Liberty Neck Rope because they are not concerned with cues to the mouth and head.

I’m sure that more experienced riders could think of a dozen more examples of what you can do and learn from using a lariat-like tool with a horse. Please let me know in comments!

On the Liberty Neck Ring from Linda Tellington-Jones:

As a child I used to take great pleasure in mounting my horse bareback, far out in the pasture, and galloping home with a wild feeling of abandon, surrounded by a herd of horses. My running rampant made me feel like an Indian on the plains surrounded by buffalo. As a teenager, I had a wonderful mare, Angel, who would jump a three and a half foot course with nothing but a string around her neck.

In 1969 at our Pacific Coast Equestrian Research Farm and School of Horsemanship, we took two stallions and two geldings to Kansas City, Devon and Syracuse and gave demonstrations of jumping without bridles.

In 1975 I first introduced the idea of bridleless riding to Europe at Equitana. With two other riders, I demonstrated jumping a complex course, bareback, without anything on the horses’ heads. This display of riding inspired people with a sense of wonder at the ability to ride a horse with seemingly so little control. It was a lovely example of harmony between horse and rider. As a result of the Equitana demonstration, Ursula Bruns developed a method of teaching beginning adults to ride on an oval track, around the outside of a riding arena, with the neckring around their horses’ necks. Ursula found it developed a rider’s confidence in his seat and trust in the horse without resorting to holding his balance with the reins.

In 1988 we began using the neckring to improve the horse’s balance, to encourage impulsion, freedom of movement and make a major shift in a horse’s willingness to cooperate. In California, the Foxfield Riding Club had been demonstrating bridleless riding for years with a drill of a dozen or so horses, and the method of bridleless riding became popular in some parts of the country after an article appeared in several horse magazines.

Robyn says she remembers the “flash of inspiration” which prompted us to begin using the bridleless concept for improvement of performance. It was during an Advanced Training at the Equine Inn in New Hampshire. An Arab gelding, who was being ridden at second level dressage, had a serious problem with lack of impulsion and willingness to go forward. He had a slightly ewed neck and a dropped back. On the spur of the moment, while riding this horse and experiencing his unwillingness to go forward, I took a lead rope, put it around his neck, and reached forward from the saddle and removed his bridle.

After ten minutes, this gelding was moving forward with his back up, his neck soft and rounded, his focus forward. He was ridden that way by several people that week and had a dramatic change in attitude and balance. We did a whole advanced TTEAM and riding clinic with an entire group of so-called problem horses. We rode in pairs and fours and even sixes, working with the neck ring. The joy to the horses and riders is hard to describe.

In the fall of 1989, Claus Erhorn, who rode Justyn Thyme for the Olympic gold medal team in three-day eventing, asked me to spend a couple of days with him working with Justyn. Claus had a feeling that TTEAM might be able to improve performance and reduce stress in the competitive horse. He was interested to see the potential for his own horse. For me, it was fun and inspiring to work with such a great team of horse and rider. Justyn, thirteen at the time, was fantastic in the cross-country phase, but had never scored well in the dressage phase. He was a little tight in the back and lacked ideal freedom of movement in his shoulders. This is typical for the majority of three-day event horses. My first observation about Justyn as I worked on him was how strong and sound he was in the back and legs. When I saw him under saddle, I suggested getting him to
lengthen his neck and extend his head at the walk and trot. However, Claus remarked that lengthening the neck was something that he had not been able to achieve with Justyn.

I rode him about five minutes at the walk/trot/canter with his normal snaffle bridle and then put a rope around his neck and took off the bridle. Within another five minutes, he was trotting with his nose almost as low as his knees, freeing up his shoulders and using himself in a very different way. After fifteen minutes at the walk, trot and canter, I replaced the rope around his neck with the Training rollerbit and was able to get much freer movement and a lengthened from with the bit in his mouth.

Since that time Claus would work Justyn out in the woods with just the rope around his neck. Using the neckring or the rollerbit and adding a PBM saddle pad, Claus found vast improvements in Justyn. A few months later in Burley, England, he won the dressage phase for the first time. Claus attributed his success to the use of the TTEAM work.

Shortly after working with Justyn Thyme, I gave a one-day seminar in England to a group of endurance riders. While working with a very jiggy, rather nervous endurance horse, I took off the bridle and rode him with the lead rope around his neck. Within minutes, he had a flat-footed walk and a much steadier trot. He was much quieter and less nervous.

Read more about the use of the Liberty Neck Ring here.

I planned a course with Jim Masterson, but had that bad fall back in the spring on the day before I was due to travel to North Carolina to start the course. I know I missed a lot of very educational material, and the chance to learn from, if you’ll pardon the pun, a master.

Masterson accompanied the endurance team to the World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany in 2008 as well as to the FEI World Championships in Malaysia. If what he does didn’t work, he wouldn’t be there. This clip is culled from his video, and I’m surprised it’s been allowed to stay on YouTube. If by some chance you click on it and it’s vanished, you’ll know that Jim has seen to it that the copyright violation by one of his students has met with a cease and desist.

In the meantime, I’m spreading his insightful lesson in the hopes that it will encourage people to touch their horses and learn more about their physical condition by direct contact.

The first time I went to a TTouch® training, I was confused by the catalog of TTouches. There were so many, and they all possessed animal names. At first I thought this was silly, unintentionally marginalizing the work.

Once having learned the basic circle, I thought it would not really matter how I held my hand, how much pressure I used, or how many times I circled the flesh of the animal I worked on. Besides, it was all so confusing.

How to do the Tellington TTouch®

This basic circle, the hallmark and foundation of Tellington TTouch, may be done over the entire body. The purported intent of touching an animal or person in this way is to awaken and activate the function of the cells, enhancing cellular communication, or what Linda Tellington-Jones calls, “turning on the electric lights of the body.” Tellington-Jones’ intuitive notion that the cells of the body emit light was later empirically proven by the German researcher in biophysics, Fritz Albert Popp who labeled this light, biophotons. I still have issues, intellectually-speaking, with this concept of turning on the lights in the cell. Raised and educated in a world where the scientific method held sway over everything I learned, I just don’t have enough evidence to prove to myself beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is what TTouch does.

Yet I try to keep an open mind. When I use TTouch on a person or animal, the results are pretty clear. I don’t fully understand the reason for the success. I have to remind myself that there are millions of medical interventions that work without a solid understanding of the mechanism by which they function. For example, aspirin was one such medication once upon a time. Antidepressants are currently prescribed all over the place, yet no one can say exactly how they do their job, because neurotransmitters and neuropeptides are poorly understood.

A few additional basics I grasped easily.

Direction of the circle is a matter of personal preference, and can easily be inferred from the response of the animal. For example, the majority of people prefer clockwise circles. It do not notice a difference myself, yet a friend gets all wigged out if anyone tries a clockwise circle. Her clear preference is the counter-clockwise circle. In my experience with horses, I have found the same degree of preference to hold true. Most times, you can tell what they respond to best.

Pressures vary according to the location and nature of the work. Since Tellington TTouch works primarily in developing an awareness of the body, working at the cellular level, the deeper pressure of massage and manipulating the muscular system is not necessary. As an equine massage therapist, it was this light pressure that initially attracted me to TTouch. Using TTouch, you can work with much lighter pressure than you imagine possible, and still get great results. Refer to any work by Linda Tellington-Jones for a more detailed description of pressures.

On to the TTouches

Abalone TTouch Named for the eponymous mollusk, Abalone uses the whole hand, with the center of the circle at the palm of the hand. This TTouch is used to relax, increase awareness, and and comfort because it is non-invasive, diffused in pressure, and non-threatening. This is my favorite, and the TTouch I use the most often. In fact, as a novice at TTouch, I could not understand why anything else was needed.

Lying Leopard TTouch This touch is intended to relax and build trust between practitioner and recipient. With Lying Leopard, the practitioner is increasing focus and intensity without increasing contact or any invasiveness. This can help to ground a flighty or fearful horse, in addition to building trust between horse and practitioner. It is also said to reduce pain and swelling in acute injury, provided a Number 1 pressure is used.

Clouded Leopard TTouch was the original “TTouch That Teaches.” Tellington-Jones named it for a leopard she worked on in the Los Angeles Zoo. This TTouch is the basic TTouch for activating awareness of the mind-body connection in a way that enhances the horse’s willingness to learn (I can vouch for this!), builds trust and confidence is handlers, releases fear at the cellular level (still have trouble with this concept), and most importantly, increases a horse’s proprioception.

Tiger TTouch can be used for heavily-muscled horses or sluggish and dull, unresponsive to the aids. It can also be helpful to relieve itching without irritating the nerve endings and continuing a positive feedback loop which causes more itching. My next post will cover the horse who doesn’t like to move forward, so this TTouch will come in handy then. “Waking up” heavily muscled areas that don’t have much awareness, stimulating dullness or insensitivity, or providing firmness of touch to horses who are easily tickled are skills we should all have in our toolkits. If the lighter TTouches seem to have no effect or if just grooming the horse seems to tickle or irritate, Tiger TTouch is a real bonus. It helps if you have a bit of fingernail for this touch.

Bear TTouch is different from Tiger TTouch in that the circles you make are tiny–imagine them to be the size of the head of a pin. The point of Bear TTouch is to go deep and quick rather than to press hard. Bear TTouch is useful for activating circulation around the coronary band, releasing tightness in the neck and at the croup, promoting circulation in areas of heavy musculature, and bringing awareness to insensitive areas.

Raccoon TTouch is excellent for swellings anywhere on the body. It can reduce heat and inflammation, stimulate healing around the edges of wounds, clear blocked tear ducts, and increase circulation around the coronary band in the case of laminitis. I have used this TTouch for years on horses’ eyes, to clear blocked tear ducts. I heard of it long before I started to learn Touch in earnest. It really works. Imagine the tiny fingers of a raccoon rapidly circling a small area with speed and light pressure.

Llama TTouch is useful around the head and ears of ear and head shy horses. Llamas are extremely sensitive and trainers have found that they can be approached and touched with the back of the hand, which is less threatening. The same holds true for sensitive horses. It is a valuable introductory tool for a horse who needs to be accustomed to ear work or having a bridle path clipped, but is having trouble accepting being touched there.

At first I did not understand that each of these TTouches targets the equine nervous system in a slightly different way. TTouch in all its variety helps to eliminate pain and increase awareness of the body. Pain and discomfort limit learning. Fear also limits learning and decreases a horse’s ability to perform up to potential. With TTouches for Trust and the Playground for Higher Learning, specific fears can be eradicated, paving the way for a horse whose general fear level is reduced.

It might be argued that rubbing a horse down each day, or simply applying TTouches at random may have similar beneficial effects. This is true. As an equine massage therapist, my clients were happier, healthier and more tractable. BUT:

Lying Leopard TTouch

A touch is not a touch is not a touch. Learning a variety of TTouches and their proper uses can greatly increase the effectiveness of the work, however, and can easily be done in just a few minutes a day. Added to a grooming regimen, TTouch have profound effects on a horse’s health and behavior. Now that’s I’ve written about the individual TTouches, I feel I have a greater understanding of their differences and various uses. I’m still not 100% convinced about the cellular communication and light concepts, but I see it working, so I’m not going to push too hard for proof. I’m going to keep looking.

NB: In all TTouch, keep your off hand on the horse at all times to “Ground” your contact and comfort the horse.
Keep your joints soft and malleable to prevent transmitting tension to the horse. Between each circle and a quarter, gently slide you hand across the skin and hair to a point nearby to start another circle. Do not remove your hand from the horse.
Move from your feet and knees, using your hips, rather than using just your arms. This helps avoid fatigue and communicating fatigue and stress to the horse.
For detailed descriptions of how to do each TTouch, please visit TTouch.com and check out the books and videos for sale.

Don’t forget the November Carnival of the Horses will be held here at Enlightened Horsemanship Though Touch on November 1, 2008.

Ever since a good old boy farrier lost his patience with my nervous Palomino quarter horse gelding and slapped him in the ribs with a rasp, I’ve been very interested in barefoot farriery. I had to be, because there was no way that knuckle-dragger was going near my horses again, and what I saw of local farriers’ work did not impress me. I don’t mean to make out like I’m a hoof expert. Oh no far from it. Or that I disapprove of shoeing horses. I don’t. I have as good a grasp as anybody of the interior hoof mechanism and the exterior hoof anatomy, and I can spot a crappy shoeing job from a mile away.

After scrabbling around for someone to put shoes on my horse and finding no one I’d trust, shoes were pulled and Mother Nature’s horse shoes (the natural hooves) were allowed to do the job she designed them for. I was very lucky that another boarder at the stables located Anne Buteau, the lovely and very patient woman who now trims Maira’s hooves every five weeks. Anne is a hoof care instructor for the Association for the Advancement of Natural Horse Care Practices. Under her care, my horses’ feet have become healthy, tough, and able to withstand the rigors of fox hunting and trail riding. After a couple of years’ good fortune with barefoot and healthy horses, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to shoeing, but that’s not the subject of this post.

While Anne trims Maira’s feet, we often chat about horses and the different ways people expect their horses to behave for the farrier. When Maira first came to me in October of 2007, she was unable to lift her feet for more than a few seconds without fearing for her balance. Slamming a foot down was not an act of disobedience, but her effort to stay balanced. Horses, like people seem to prefer standing in balance. Raising and holding a leg off the ground is not a natural movement for them, and it’s only natural that it takes some practice to perfect. I have seen owners “get after” their horses for failing to stand stock still with a foot raised. I have seen farriers do worse things to horses than that guy did to my Palomino. After taking care of the pre-farriery basics every horse owner should do to ensure a safe experience for the horse and the farrier, it has been surprisingly easy to help Maira stand for trimming, and thus to be a thoughtful farriery client.

Most of what we ought to do to prepare our horses for the visit from the farrier/trimmer amounts to common good manners.

• First, I always make sure the horse is brushed and that I apply fly spray so that Maira will not be tempted to kick at a fly and accidentally take Anne out. Or swish her tail in Anne’s face. It’s basic good manners.

• More in the good manners department is to clean the exterior hoof wall, wipe off the fetlocks, and pick out the horse’s feet carefully so you don’t add that task to the long list of things your farrier has to do. I don’t hose them off, because it’s harder to rasp and file wet hoof than dry. Also, it’s nice to tie your horse’s tail up so that your farrier does not have to dodge it as she does the hind feet.

• I always have someone present to hold the horse for the farrier. I think it’s really rude to ask your farrier to hold your horse and do their job at the same time. Having a horse trimmed in cross-ties is fine if he’s an old hand at standing in balance for long periods without interaction with his front end. But not all horses are. A halter and a short lead can provide just enough stimulation and contact to keep your horse occupied. Having his head free will also allow him to use his neck and head to balance himself better, hopefully cutting down on those slam-downs.

If a horse needs it, there are many things you can do to help your horse stay in balance and behave quietly while getting a trim while you are there. I consider myself a part of the farriery team, and my trimmer considers me a thoughtful client.

Sometimes basic preparation is not enough, and you need to take a careful look at the reasons your horse is snatching his foot away, losing his balance, dropping his head, etc. Most often, it comes down to trying to maintain balance. Here’s what I have done to begin helping Maira stand quietly for the trimmer:

• Stroking with the TTouch Wand Since Maira appears to have little awareness of her hind legs and feet when anxious, and trimming time is anxiety time, I use the Tellington TTouch® wand on her legs to both calm her and bring her awareness to her legs. Research has shown that moderately firm stroking with the wand from throatlatch to hoof has a calming effect. Regular stroking with the wand (wanding) helps increase a horse’s awareness of her body. During trimming, wanding her legs had the effect of “grounding” Maira, of connecting her feet to the ground, and focusing her attention on her front legs while her hind feet were being trimmed, and vice versa. Distraction via focus! This was the first TTouch tool I used on her, and the first time I did it, it cut trimming time almost in half. I can’t say how it cut Anne’s frustration, but I know she left smiling, whereas the previous time, she was frowning and stiff from wrangling with Maira’s legs.

• Hoof Tapping According to Linda Tellington-Jones, Maira’s hind legs have poor neurological connection and she lacks significant awareness of her hind legs and feet, both proprioceptively and in space. Part of my “befriending the farrier” campaign will be to do daily hoof tapping. With the ball end of the wand, I will tap firmly all around Maira’s coronary band and hoof walls. I would like to remind her that her hooves are there. I would like to remind her how her hooves feel when someone touches them. I would like her to know that she doesn’t have to lift her feet every time someone touches her feet.

• Leg Circles and Other TTouches for the Leg Another tool in my Farrier’s Friend Toolbox is the Leg Circle. Increasing Maria’s balance and proprioception by lifting her legs about 8″ off the ground, and circling them in each direction a few times, and then placing them down gently, will help accustom her to having to lift and hold her legs up, and to learn to keep her balance while doing so. Octopus TTouch is also very useful for increasing horse’s perception of their legs, and it seems to feel very good, too.

• Back Lifts Teaching Maira to lift and engage her back will both strengthen her and enable her to steady herself during trimming.

More common sense good manners to put you on the farrier’s friend list: During the shoeing/trimming, I stand at Maira’s head, with a lead. I hold a few treats hidden in my pocket for random dire moments. I carry a fly whisk and swish away the flies so that she won’t be tempted to, and I keep Maira’s head up and straight ahead.  If I do TTouch ear work and TTouch her face, neck and head, and throw in some hair slides on her mane and forelock, I can use this time for communication and bonding. Granted, this means I can’t jabber mindlessly with the trimmer. But since I’m her new best friend, she often takes me out to lunch, and we can chat there.

Today in the TTEAM Training, it was time to round up our assessments of our horses. We discussed how to effect the necessary changes and encourage beneficial qualities in our horses. We spent a warm and breezy afternoon in the arena figuring out how to use some of the Tellington TTouch® ridden work in the Playground for Higher Learning, experimenting with TTEAM equipment, and getting sunburned.

After examining Maira thoroughly, Linda’s pronouncement confirmed some of my suspicions, but when she threw in everything but the kitchen sink, the diagnosis got a little alarming. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Read more…

It’s been 11 days since I fell and injured my ribs, among other things. I can’t help thinking there’s something wrong with a set of ribs that can’t at least start to feel better in that span of time.

More whining, and some TTouch®