With her i'm going to be keep going back and forth quite a bit with stuff I'm not
just going to focus on one thing and do it and do it and do it and then move on.
With her it's going to help to move back and forth up and down
and not get too over focused on one area because she's very tight in her poll and upper neck. So
if what I want to do is just get her to keep her awareness on it in a way that she can't brace
against it. Get a tiny bit of movement and then move on and then come back to it again.
Okay 12 noon we're officially starting. I've been doing a little bit on Dani here to get
her to relax and I'll go over what I was talking about for those of you that weren't here earlier.
Oh, by the way, hi this is Dani she's a little thoroughbred mare 13. She does eventing, she's
pretty tight in her poll and upper neck and she's also had issues behind, before the owner said.
At one point she was just not quite right behind so something could have happened back there but
the poll and the atlas and the sacrum go together you know this the when there's tension in the poll
and atlas there's tension in the sacrum. As I release tension in her poll up here I've
done a little lateral flexion and little chin lifts and I'm going to go back and do all these
again but when I step back to see what she has to say I'm not just looking at her face. She
starts to wobble a little bit behind as she releases tension in the sacrum from the poll.
releasing tension in the pole you'll see them relax their hind legs back and forth. Come here
we're going to come up do a little more lateral flexion. It's okay when they do that just let them
and then when they stop go ahead and put your hand on. Relax both hands give her a tiny wiggle here
and soften. Come down, do a tiny wiggle here, soften come down. It's not the
amount of movement it's the amount of relaxation that gets the release.
Right down here at her lower neck she's a little uncomfortable so i'll soften
and I'll move with her and I'll use my forearm here to ask her not to walk into me and when I ask
her not to, I just ask and soften. I don't push on her and keep pushing because then they'll start
don't give her the chance to push back just give her a little signal and then soften. Good girl.
Okay we're going to come up here through these muscles, back of my hand, maybe doing grape, work
my way up here you can see the tension here in her upper neck. Here you can see that, so I'm going to
soften. I got to keep her somewhere aiming towards the camera can you step up here a little bit,
good girl. Oh that's a good spot. Remember there's no pressure on the nose you can say no-yes
or you can move her but you can't put pressure and keep the pressure on. If I say no like step back
soften right there, the minute she does it don't keep pushing see and she relaxed when I did that.
Come on up, here we're just going to get a little movement through this up here,
good girl, and I mentioned earlier I did a tiny bit of this when she first got in here and then
she threw her head and I heard a pop, so as the muscles relax the connective tissue around a joint
or a junction, you get the muscles and the connective tissue to relax and then when
they move through the range of motion, it'll often give a popping noise because that means
there's space opening up in the joint. So that's a good thing. Down in here she's tight, soften
and wiggle, soften wiggle, soften wiggle, soften wiggle. Come up here under the throat latch,
wiggle soften, wiggle soften, wiggle soften. There we go. So she's tightening her chin down like
this, so coming up here under the throat latch is a good thing she's releasing up under here
I'm going to do a tongue release here in a second. Come on back up the neck again,
good girl, let her feel what she says. What if we have any questions?
Okay so when the poll is tense, that even touching at a distance triggers great unrest,
does it make sense to start under the tail points? Yeah so, the question is, if you
even putting your hand out here and pointing to the pole, if it triggers that behavior,
is it good to start under the tail points or somewhere else? And the answer to that is, yes.
That's one of the, we don't like rules, but one of the
principles is, you start where it's easier for the horse. So if even doing this is way too much
for the horse go somewhere else under the tail points, scapula release is a good thing to do,
because that releases tension. When the scapula releases a lot of endorphins in their system for
some reason and they start to relax but going to the hind end and starting under the tail points
would be a good thing to do. I'll talk about other things you can do see but let me point out,
every time I release tension in her she wants (we have a chicken who wants to get into her box)
every time you get a release of tension in the poll, if you get a wobbling behind like
she's giving us, that's a good sign. So it means that this is working,
so as mentally tense as she is, she's still wobbling behind because the sacrum relaxes
tension on the sacrum relaxes when tension and the poll and atlas relaxes.
So I was going to say another thing you can do starting under the tail would be a
good idea because you're releasing the sacrum to release tension in the atlas. Another way you can
handle that is is try to go to the side and find this, find the side that's easiest for the horse
and another thing you can do is rather than start at the poll I'm going to just take her halter
here and just let her throw her head, don't fight her. Just let her do it. When she realizes I'm not
limiting her, she'll stop fussing but I can start down here and wiggle your way gently up,
is another way to deal with that when they're extremely tight in the poll, start where it's
easier for the horse, that's down here and if I get up here and it gets too uncomfortable,
see I got a little bit of blinking there, so I'm going to gently wiggle here.
Go back down again, work my way back up. So there's different ways to go at this when they're
so extremely tight in the poll and it's, go where it's easier and work your way into
where it's more comfortable so starting at the lower neck.