Does you horse tend to drags its right hind?
Lean on its right shoulder?
Feel like you have hit a brick wall when you try and turn to the right?
Does your horse bend easily to the left?
Jump to the right of a fence?
Slip the saddle and you out to the right?
Hollow it’s back and refuse to round up and take a contact?
The above symptoms are all signs of one-sidedness which sooner of later lead to soundness problems. Princess below suffered from serious one-sidedness from a very early age. Kathy bought her as an unbacked youngster. Four weeks after putting her under saddle she noticed Princess was demonstrating intermittent lameness, especially on the right rein. She called in the vet who referred her to an osteopath. The osteopath prescribed neck manipulation under sedation. After the approved rest period she started to ride Princess again, only to find the horse still suffered from the same unlevelness. Kathy then called in a physiotherapist who said Princess had, “baby stiffness” and treated her. At first the lameness returned intermittently but after only a short period it started to increased. Frustrated that nothing seemed to be working she decided to rest her for a year. To her dismay the rest made no difference.
Having your horse treated in isolation from YOU (unless they have had an accident) is rarely successful, WHY, because their unsoundness is affected by YOUR unsoundness!!!!! In this case both were stiff on the right and weak on the left. This double whammy created a vicious circle. As in all cases I see, BOTH NEEDED TREATED AS A PARTNERSHIP!
| PHOTO 1 | PHOTO 2 | PHOTO 3 |
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| Kathy is right handed. Right handed people are usually stiffer and tighter throughout their right side. This one-sidedness tends to pull them over to the right and put a spinal twist throughout their whole body. What is particularly problematic is that Princess is also very stiff on the right, which gives them a double whammy. | Because Princess is a left hind driver (see previous articles) she drives from her left hind into her right shoulder. This action makes the supporting side (the right side) stiffen and lower from the strain. Kathy’s right- sidedness locks Princess down even more on the right, making it neigh on impossible for Princess to lift her right side high enough to step under enough with her right hind leg. Which means it drags behind. | By the end of the long side of the arena, just before the turn, you can see how Kathy and saddle slip way off to the right, making turning to the right more of a hop, skip and a tip! Recently I attended a biomechanics lecture with the most amazing, expensive equipment. The lecturer showed this problem in graphic slow motion. Unfortunately his answer was remedial shoeing, nice idea, but it doesn’t touch the root cause i.e. spinal twists in both parties. In fact it merely bodges the problem!!! He also recommended riding lesson, problem is again, riding teachers are rarely qualified body workers!? |
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THE BENTLEY TECHNIQUE SOLUTION
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When I asked Kathy to sit in, “left position,”
to counteract the horse's drag to the right, at first it felt very strange to her. In fact as strange as it would
if I had asked her to write with her left hand. I then asked her to
spiral her whole body to the right in order to open her own, and,
her horse’s left side and improve the bend. Although she had
made a radical change from her position in photo 3, her
one-sidedness was still interfering. Look closely and you will see:
Compare this photo with photo 6. |
After schooling Kathy for a short while using the Bentley Technique whole body realignment program, in halt, her spinal twist (the root cause of the crookedness) released, and with it her right hip. This invaluable correction straightens the horse and rider's right bend as shown in Photo 8 |
After only a short time, what had began feeling strange and wrong to Kathy, started to feel right, (feelings are very fickle!) leaving her more relaxed, happy and comfortable in her new position. From this straight bass of support, Kathy exaggerated spiralling to the right in halt. This action “pulled” her body back into alignment; counterbalancing the right twist built up over many years. Exercising like this gives her body the strength to rebalancing her horse's tilt to the right while acting has her own and her horse’s physiotherapist/osteopath!!. So I hear you say, “why not put your inside leg on to stop the horse from leaning in?” Answer, there is a whole heap of horse flesh here, the pressure you use from your relatively small lower leg to try and lift it, will screw up your whole body; lock your right seat-bone down and block your hips and shoulder from turning around the bend! See Photo 2 |
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| Now Kathy learns to ride with her newly honed positional skills. Even though Princess is still tilting her pelvis to the right Kathy now has the wherewithal to stay straight. Using the Bentley Technique first at halt makes the whole process much more achievable while riding. | Eventually Kathy’s new found straightness is honed enough to guide her horse into straightness. Kathy uses the power of her whole body symmetry and balance to straighten the horse. End result: stop doing the wrong thing and the right thing does itself. Only then can straightness lead to the self -carriage mechanism connecting and the back lifting and strengthening, the first scale of training. Photo 9 and 10 |
Kathy flexes her balance years of
hollowing (this is only for a short while until her back spirals are
rebalanced enough for her to naturally sit up straight. She also
maintains left position and right spiral until Princess:
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To summarise: In order to rebalance her horse laterally as shown above, Kathy first had to rebalance her own crookedness. Now Princess is sound and happily settling into her natural self carriage and a sound happy future.
"At last after only 3 lessons with Joni, a lifetime of unanswered questions, misguided tuition, lame horses and an aging body….I have found the skills to retrain my body to become symmetrical (even though it thinks it already is), which miraculously is straightening my horses without gadgets or force, giving the feeling of true harmony. What a find!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never lose hope, I nearly did!" Kathy Young Woburn Sands, Buckinghamshire UK.
If you would like to find out how the Bentley Technique dissolves crookedness in a more organic, body friendly way, here is what to do:
1. Visit my website www.jonibentley.co.uk and grab yourself a free workbook, watch free online video and find out more.
2. If you would like to watch or take part in one of my horse and rider friendly workshops, check out the list of workshops here then email me for more details.
3. If you can’t make the workshops email me to find out when I am in your area I will try and accommodate you. My Email address is jonibentley@btinternet.com my mobile is 077771811561 Landline 01442 402756 I look forward to hearing from you.
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