Learning a greater variety of therapeutic massage techniques and the different ways to apply them will increase your skills and help you become one of the best equine massage therapists in your area. When you step outside the box and break away from that routine equine massage pattern you’ve been using, you’ll learn to make a permanent, positive change in your equine clients. And, both the horse and its owner will thank you for it.
There are over 60 variations of seven basic massage techniques. Unfortunately, many equine massage therapists are taught a simple routine, or pattern to follow when massaging a horse. Many are taught only four or five strokes and given a repetitious, rote pattern to follow. If you are one of these people, you may find that you have a quite limited technical repertoire and worse, you may be using the same techniques over and over in a never-changing, boring massage pattern on every horse you massage.
Just like people, horses become bored with routine. We’ve already learned this in our training and/or riding efforts. Who hasn’t heard the term “ring sour” or “arena sour?” This occurs when the horse is ridden day after day, week after week in the same patterns and in the same place without variation. We often see evidence of the horse’s boredom through his lethargic response to a repetitive training routine. We call this a “lack of brilliance.” If the boredom continues, we may even see the horse displaying bad manners or poor behavior under saddle.
Just as the horse can become bored with its training, he can become bored with a limited routine or pattern of massage. His boredom can be displayed in poor ground manners, refusal to stand still for the massage, and lack of ability to focus on you during the massage. The bored horse may choose to pick at your clothes or he may even attempt a bite or two. While this behavior may warrant a reprimand, we need to try to understand what the horse is really trying to tell with his undesirable behavior.
If you decide the horse has simply become bored with your work, the simple cure is to learn new techniques or new variations of the techniques you already know. This is more simply said than done since nearly every book on equine massage you can pick up tells you to use strokes x, y, and z in a specific order and then repeat the routine on the other side. You may even have learned this same type of massage during your equine massage training. If this is the case, don’t despair. You can increase your skills and learn to break the pattern.
There are several ways you can learn to vary your massage. You can attend a better equine massage program, taking care to ensure that they offer a greater variety of techniques and more than a patterned approach to massage before you enroll. Or, you can attend an advanced course in equine massage that offers new techniques and varied applications.
Another option is to begin reading books and professional literature based on human massage techniques. There is much more information available in this venue than is available in equine massage books. And, a large number of these human massage books will offer you more in-depth information about the strokes you already know as well as some different strokes and variations of each. Other study options include massage periodicals and articles that discuss massage techniques as well as other modalities.
Make a commitment today to learn a greater variety of massage techniques and their applications. By doing so, you ensure that the horses you work with remain interested and cooperate more fully in each massage session. More importantly, you’ll discover the excitement of exploring new ideas and new techniques while increasing your ability to make a permanent, positive change in each of your equine clients.
Note: For more information about Equine Massage and Equine Massage Therapy Training, visit us at http://www.equitouch.net
EquiTouch 