Emma's story

Emma, one of my students, kindly gave permission to use this as a example of what can happen in a lesson.

Emma requested help in working with her rescue pony that had bitten and kicked her including puling out a chunk of her hair when Emma fed ,cleaned and covered the pony.

In discussing when this problem occurred we agreed to focus the lesson on how Emma covered the pony with a blanket.A very simple exercise that disturbed the pony and Emma had noticed gave her discomfort in her hands and arms.

Emma demonstrated the process she used and we discussed some of Emma's rules and ideas on what she needed to do physically to cover the pony.

Emma raised the realisation that her anticipation of being bitten caused her to stiffen and lock out her muscles throughout her system, which she realised were understandable given the circumstances but unhelpful in carrying out the activity.

Using gentle hands on work and Emma's new ideas on how she could work with the pony with out imposing unnecessary muscular activity on herself, we worked through a new process for covering the pony.

Emma commented at the following session that the she had used the process and as a result the work with the pony had been improved and the physical discomfort that she had created no longer existed.

Emma had also experienced success in using the process in other activities with the pony.