Monday, August 22, 2022

Down a rabbit hole...

I can't believe it's been over two months since my last post.  I actually have a post already written that I just need to touch up, but I have been feeling overwhelmed and writing wasn't something my brain could do until about 10 this morning.

My overwhelm has been due to wrapping up one year of homeschooling and starting another plus all the horse shows Gemma has been going to and the lack of any free weekends and actually starting to take care of my own body instead of wishing that I had the time to do it.  

But my brain has also been struggling because I sent it down a rabbit hole.  More than one really.  I have known since we got Freya that at some point I was going to learn something from her.  And she hasn't disappointed.  First, she sent me on a learning experience about how thrush can infect the frog and cause deep cracks in the heel.  I now know how serious such an infection is and the devastation it can cause.  I also know how long it can take to get rid of and how dedicated a person needs to be to treatment in order to resolve it.  (If you don't already have a treatment that works for your horse, I can recommend No Thrush without hesitation.  The powder formula was a lifesaver when we were trying to treat the infection through the winter in below freezing temps and all the other highly-recommended treatments were frozen or difficult to manage.)

Next, she sent me on a path to learn why she was struggling so much with accepting contact.  Was it a training gap?  Were we using different aids than she was used to?  Were we asking for contact incorrectly? Was there a physical issue?  

I have dedicated the last several months to investigating.  I now have a working theory, but it will take time to know if I'm right or if it is something else.  In the process, though, I went down a rabbit hole that I don't think I can ever come back from.  If you happen to feel open-minded right now, I encourage you to check out The Traveling Horse Witch.  I first found out about her from a friend who suggested I might be interested in what she had to say.  I can't remember when she sent the information to me, but it was months and months ago, and I never found the time to look at it.  But then one day I did, and I started to have a sneaking suspicion that my life with horses would never be the same again.

I joined the Masterclass, which is an online Facebook group with lots of content from Celeste-Leilani Lazaris.  I will say that the way the information is organized and presented isn't a great fit with the way that I tend to learn, so I struggled a bit to understand what I was seeing.  I still haven't gone through all the content.  Instead, I set up a 1:1 distance session with an instructor who is approved to teach the Balance Through Movement Method (BTMM).  My session is scheduled for later today, and I'm going to be working with Donut.  (I couldn't wait to write this post until after that session.  My brain is so full of information that I needed a brain dump to clear space before I learn more.)

Why Donut and not Freya?  Mostly because while I was going down this rabbit hole, I was also going down another rabbit hole, and I actually started a program with a different instructor for Freya.  (More on that in another post - I'm actually taking lots of videos for that one to document our progress.)  That program is helping her and me, but I know in the end, I'm going to have to go through BTMM with Freya.  

So I needed a different horse to start BTMM, and Donut got elected.  I'm trying to get her ready for under saddle work, and one thing I noticed is that she really struggles with her balance when she is connected to me.  Out in the field, she moves like a dream, and she is obviously athletic and coordinated.  But on the lunge or even just walking on the lead rope, I see lots of signs of lack of balance and coordination.  After my initial sessions working on Science of Motion, well, let's just say my instincts are telling me I need to add something more.  There is no way I can get on her if she can't walk a balanced circle on the lunge.  So she needs help too.

Plus, it turns out that Donut and Freya might have exactly the same problem - a pinched nerve aka nerve impingement.  Here is a picture of Freya's shoulder:


Hopefully, you can see what looks like a line where the muscle is less developed versus more developed.  (Her other shoulder looks similar.)  According to my BTMM Masterclass, this line indicates a nerve impingement.  How and when did it happen?  I don't know.  I looked through all my pictures of Freya and unfortunately not all the pictures provide the best angle or resolution to know for sure.  I can confirm that the line was present last September, about 3 months after we bought her.  If I was a betting woman, I would say she had it when we bought her.  It would explain why her previous owner said she was having trouble jumping over two feet.  It would explain why her owner thought she was "short-striding" and put shoes on her front feet.

However, it may also have been caused by the poor shoeing job that Freya came with which distorted the angles significantly on her front hooves.  Or it could have been a pasture frolic gone wrong.  Or something else.  Just like people can get pinched nerves, so can horses.  (I did not know this until yesterday, so I'm still processing and learning.)

The idea that Freya has been living with a nerve impingement since September at the latest or even for years makes my heart hurt.  And there are lots of other things that are making my heart hurt right now too.  I don't even know how to put all of them into words yet.  But over time, I hope that I can.

The good news is that the work I recently began doing with her with another instructor is probably helping.  The even better news is that there are other techniques I can use that will probably help too.  And the best news is that there may be a clinic I can take Freya to coming up in the next couple of months where the traveling horse witch herself may be able to get her hands on Freya and manually resolve the nerve impingement if I can't do it before then.

One of the most interesting things to me, though, is that Donut has a very similar line on both of her shoulders.  Again, I have no idea when the line developed.  But in Donut's case, she has done very little true work, so her issue was likely caused out in the field, or it may be the result of lack of proper development of her thoracic sling.  Or, when I got her, her hooves had had very little care, and she had very long toes...just like Freya did.  So maybe poor hoof balance led to the issue.

I also checked Star and Butters and neither of them have this line on their shoulders.  So the great news is that neither of them have this particular problem.  Although I'm willing to bet that they have plenty of other issues that I will uncover as my depth of knowledge grows.

So I have my work cut out for me.  Four horses that probably need more in-depth work than I ever could have imagined.  But more than that, I'm shifting in the way that I am interacting with my horses.  

I had a lesson on Star about a week ago.  On one level, it was a great lesson.  I pushed Star to achieve a level of collection that was probably the most collected she has ever been in her life.  We were so close to piaffe at one point.  I could feel the balance in her body shift, but she didn't quite have the coordination in her back yet.  We played with collected canter.  In our previous lesson, we worked on trot half-pass.

But I didn't feel good about myself when the lesson was over.  I couldn't and can't shake the feeling that I pushed Star too far.  I asked too much.  I didn't give her the right prep.  I worked her too long.  I didn't advocate enough for her.  I took advantage of her giving nature.  I betrayed her trust in me and she forgave me like it was nothing.  And I know that I can never do it again.

I don't care if I never get another collected step on a horse.  I'm not sure I care if I ever ride again, unless I can feel good about the interaction.  I'm not faulting either my instructor or the Science of Motion methodology.  My instructor has dedicated much of her life to helping horses that need help and she has been successful at it.  The SOM methodology has done the same.  This is me.  I once told someone that riding a horse is giving a piece of your soul to the horse and asking for a piece of theirs in return.  Not everyone feels that way.  Obviously, or we wouldn't have the trainwreck that high-level dressage is.  And I can't change the way other people feel.  But I can be true to myself.

Somewhere over the years, I have evolved.  The evolution hasn't been sudden.  It's been seeping into my life in bits and pieces.  I started questioning techniques.  I started looking for gentler ways to accomplish something.  I started asking if what I was looking for was even worth getting.

But my last lesson with Star was the tipping point.  I can't go back.  I can only go forward.  I don't know what that means for me and Donut.  I don't know what that means for the work I will do with other horses.  I am in this new land, but it is a land full of hope and excitement.

I hope you'll join me as I take my next step...

1 comment:

  1. I know a few people who work with her method. they are all very enthused.

    ReplyDelete