Alexander Touch for Horses

Previously I wrote about a series of sessions I gave to Mason - a Labradoodle.

https://atsuccess.com/blog/2022/03/lessons-mason.html

It was not my first experience of working with animals.

Years ago, I was in Texas at the invitation of the late Alice Pryor, a delightful Alexscovery teacher I met through Marj. We were on a property with many horses, so in my free time one day I walked over to meet some of the owners and their horses…

I explained a little of Alexander’s Discovery to the owners – those involved in equitation got it quickly. Thanks to the late Lorna Faraldi, I’d learnt the relationship of being “above the bit” – head/neck pulling up too far; or “below the bit” – head/neck dropping down too far. The “bit” being harness wrapped around the horse’s mouth.

My job was to get the horse’s moving head and whole self to be “on the bit” – what Alexander called “forward and up”.

As I worked with each horse, a curious phenomenon emerged.

Before I touched a horse, she looked off in the distance while a worried owner explained the problems their poor darling was suffering from. I could slap the horse on the injury site, and my horse-client couldn’t care less. I could even stroke it, pat it, massage – all eliciting little reaction.

BUT…

When I touched the Alexander way, the horse immediately knew something was different.

As I approached touching near the injury site – intending to communicate an alternate coordination protocol – the horse would immediately edge away from my hands. No way was he going to let me mess around with the neural complex of its injury.

I gradually learned to work around the edges. Slowly the horse would pay attention – no more looking off into the distance - instead, a suspicious curiosity as I edged my hands closer to their injury.

Finally, I was permitted to touch the sensitive area.

At that point, the horse would start chewing and slurping, and his eyes would half close – a well-known sign of increasing ease. The owner was even happier than the horse.

“It takes me an hour to get that change” one of them declared in awe.

I got so popular with one horse, that whenever I stopped, he would nudge his long nose against my back to indicate I must continue. We laughed a lot at that!

***

Touch by an Alexscovery teacher is one of the most mysterious things you can experience. It isn’t the Alexscovery teacher that makes the mystery – it’s your nervous system. You can experience a neural mechanism that you did not know you possessed.

Alexander once said:

“You can’t tell a person what to do because the thing you have to do is a sensation.”

Animals get it quickly.

Try it out on one of your pets this week – and let me know what happens…