I had a really interesting conversation a little while back that sparked some thoughts I want to share with you. The challenge came from a

When it was obvious I couldn’t hold winter back with the force of my intention alone, I moved Merc and Ada to the back paddock.

I recently was in a rather blokey conversation with a rather blokey man. We were talking about motorbikes and things that go fast and things

I returned home on Thursday after a 4-week trip away. I’ve travelled a lot this year but this one was a little different. For the

I always have the best of intentions of sharing my adventures in real time when I’m on the road. The truth of it is, however,

This week has been a whirl of last minute getting ready-ness, goodbyes, long haul flights, hellos, new people, and horses. I was thinking about the

​My littlest boy Tommy was off playing in the snow today. My husband, Giles, just sent me a message that he went on the ski

When I first started to teach Merc shoulder in, it was a massive suck fest. There were literally stops and starts, overshooting the lines of

Yesterday, a familiar topic got presented in my membership group: goal setting. I don’t really set goals, I mused. I don’t find goals to be

This evening, I leant on the wooden fence next to Ada as she ate, and watched my other horses organize themselves in their post feed

I talked last week on my blog about developmental movement patterns, and how, in JoyRide, we’d been working on both the head push and the

Two things I know. I have a good program. I’m passionate about what I’ve learned and the work I do. I’m lucky to see its

Cantering on Merc is one of my favourite things to do. It hasn’t always been this way. His body has only just started unravelling, at

Ada, it turns out, thinks wheelbarrows are quite magical, and most definitely mysterious. It was one of those very still, almost-winter-but-not-quite autumn days today, and

Does pain, discomfort, or “unsoundness” always indicate that something is wrong? When I started to learn more about the nervous system and its relationship to

Developmental movement patterns are patterns that are begin in utero, and progress through the birthing process and into early infancy. These patterns are not only

When I first learned that you could read the nervous system state you were in at any one time by understanding structural patterns of the

Back pain has been a feature of my life for as long as I can remember. As a teen, I was poked, prodded, and evaluated

On Sunday, I sat down to write. Not the kind of writing intended for the world (although maybe one should not look to separate them

Our life, our body, our experience, our emotions are an intimate co-mingling with the world around us. Wonder is our innate state. Our lineage is

To get from the paddock where Merc lives to the arena involves a mini expedition. We wind our way up the track, keeping left; a

“So if a person is permanently stuck in fight/flight mode how does one release this to return lungs to normal position therefore improving posture? Is

A few years back, I remember having a conversation with Warwick Schiller about relaxation. I had recently bought my big warmblood mare, Nadia, and I

She’s little, maybe 5 or 6 years old. She outside, playing in the trees. She’s alone, but she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t feel alone. She’s

I classify the Island of Comfortable in the same geographical zone as the Island of Calm; not bad to visit, obviously useful to hang out

There’s a track that I follow that winds through the paddocks to the trees at the back of our property. You first go through a

There are certain landscapes that I walk through where I know that I’m little more than a very brief visitor. You’re not meant to stay

In our movement sessions this week in my membership, we are focusing on the talus bone, the part of the ankle joint that the tibia

We have a huge, ethical responsibility to ensure that when we ask our horses to release old patterns, come back into their body and allow

I know when I started my adventures understanding more about the body, the main preoccupation was in developing softness, pliability, and flexibility. Tension was something

I landed back on home shores late yesterday after two intensive weeks away, bookended by long haul flights that saw me travel from one end

I did a thing this morning which is something that I talk about with the glorious peeps I work with; I started searching for articles,

Last week, we began a discussion of the tailbone and within that comes the discussion of the anterior and posterior pelvic tilt. If you haven’t

I teach something called movement arcs or balance lines, which is all about learning how our horse’s centreline and back line move in space so

One of the things I find challenging about talking about biomechanics from the perspective that I teach it is that it’s somewhat of a paradigm

I read an article recently that was addressing fear in riders, and the tendency that many of us have to curl up in a fetal

In my experience working with the nervous system and the body, most presentations of scoliosis aren’t congenital and irreversible (so something you are born with

A few days ago, I wrote how I lost my precious yearling Bear. Since that time, I have adventured through the depths of my own

The word vitality stems from beautiful origins. It’s born from the latin word “vitalis”, which translates to “of or manifesting life” or “belonging to life”.

What if, whenever we felt lonely, what we were actually experiencing was a state of mis-attention. Where our mind had pulled us inward and convinced

Where do you go, I was asked, when you need to unwind, or recharge? Where do you go to reconnect with the world? Ahh, I

It’s 2004. I’m in Sri Lanka, two weeks after a devastating Tsunami swept through. I’m here as an aid worker. The hotel I’m staying in

There’s a moment when you get off the plane in New Zealand and start to make your way through the airport that a waiata plays

When I first started working with the nervous system, my interest was around how I could use these understandings to be more engaged in life.

Yesterday, I slipped out into the afternoon sun, grabbed a halter and walked up the farm to get Saffy out of the paddock. I had

In parasympathetic movement patterns, the shoulder girdle- and specifically the AC joint- is what dictates the movement of the head. If you look at Image

Over the course of a month, I write a number of blog posts and share frequent snippets of my work on social media. I know

Time- or perhaps more specifically, the feeling that I don’t have enough of it- is something that I have wrestled with my whole life. In

This story has two parts. The first part involves something that popped up on my timeline (that created the inspiration for this post in the

I’ve been a little absent from social media of late. My family got visited by everyone’s favourite spicy flu (as my friend Rachael would call

I’ve been musing over this post for a while now, the reason being that what I’m about to talk about is not black and white.

Last week, I wrote about my experience with frustration and how the whole “leave your emotions at the gate” is not mantra that I subscribe

On Tuesday, I caught Merc and brought him into the yards with the plan of going down to the arena and working together. By the

The sit bones get a lot of airtime when it comes to position and balance, and almost all of the instruction that I’ve heard involves

Survival patterns are patterns that we have learned and developed in childhood as a means to get our needs met. They can and do take

I got asked in a podcast interview once who was the horse that has influenced me the most, and the answer was Dee. The reason

In my membership group yesterday, we began a discussion on biomechanics, and I was asked my opinion on some of the more well-known forms biomechanics

Modern living has got us into all sorts of pickles when it comes to our nervous system. Let’s consider movement as an example. In early

We’ve been working through a movement arc series in JoyRide that explores the difference in how the body moves between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous

I thought this would be fun to show you. A couple of days back, my husband offered to come outside and take some photos of

The position and shape of the pelvis changes dramatically depending on whether you are in a parasympathetic or fight flight nervous system state. In the

The subject of core strength and how to properly use and train our abdominal muscles get a lot of airtime when it comes to conversations

The “fight flight response” or the “fight flight nervous system” is a common nickname given to the survival or sympathetic nervous system. It can be

The fight flight brain looks for things that are the same. “How is this experience the same as what I experience yesterday, or last year,

Dear Breath, Oh my, Breath, where do I even start? I think of everything I do and teach and share… when I talk about you,

The superficial front line of fascia is a literal line that travels up the middle on the body. In the movement work that I practice

Thresholds. It’s a word that we hear a lot applied to both horses and humans. How do you define threshold? And what markers are you

Dear Head, For the longest time we had a complicated relationship. I won’t be so arrogant to assume that I completely have you sorted. To

I was listening to my lovely and rather fabulous friend Kate Sandel the other day in a conversation that she was having about separation anxiety.

The other day in my JoyRide group, we started talking about the difference between conscious, subconscious and unconscious, and I thought it would be an

Spooking! We had an interesting discussion on spooking last week in Stable Hours (the weekly Live Q&A in my membership group) that brought a few

Having a sense of progress is important, but it’s easy to miss the small, everyday markers of progress if you are attached to what progress

Your current nervous system state expresses through your motor patterns. It expresses in movement. This is an easy sentence to read and gloss over but

Look up! Many of us consider posture and position from the viewpoint of the outer tube of the body. For instance, we see or sense

An article popped up the other day in my newsfeed and the title was something like “5 Tips to help you become a more successful

What you are looking at in this image is a drawing of the pelvic floor, looking from the top down. You can see how complex

One of the things we often do is “rate” the appropriateness of our responses according to how we “think” we should be behaving or reacting.

A little while back, I read a post on another page from someone who felt like they’d done the wrong thing by their horse in

Movement. From the perspective of the brain, movement is only ever performed with a functional reason in mind. We are designed to move with a

We’ve spoken a little bit about the dome of the diaphragm this week, and this particular part of the body is a great launch pad

The last couple of weeks in JoyRide, we’ve been focusing on the dome of the diaphragm in our movement work. You can gather information about

A week or so back, I wrote a post about what I consider to be the “goal” of working with the nervous system. Here’s a

One of the things I’m interested in learning about (and consequently teaching others) is how to read the structure of your body, and understand, based

Part of my ongoing “work” as a horseperson involves increasing my knowledge base on really understanding more about my horse’s body and how it is

One of the beliefs I have around movement and “training” generally is that “good training” and “good movement” should be a form of therapy. It

Overthinking can be a real scourge for those of us interested in pursuing a peaceful mind. It’s certainly been something that I have wrestled with

Here’s one for the long gamers. Dee is my big bay horse that you see in many of my photos. I’ve had him since he

Frustration is something that you might find yourself experiencing a little or a lot in your riding adventures. In and of itself, frustration is part

I always love the beginning stages of forming a new partnership. It’s such a dance of discovery. I love asking the questions of ‘how do

In the various photos I’ve posted of late, my horse has been wearing a neck rope (or lariat) and I’ve had several questions asking why

A week or so back, I shared a collection of photos on my own social media page of my horses, and a few “between the

This week in JoyRide we’ve been working with the kneecaps and looking at the different movement patterns generally that exist between the parasympathetic and survival

Understanding more about my nervous system has fundamentally affected how I approach movement, and beyond that, exercise generally. We have developed a world view that

I’ve talked a lot about failure before, and the more I do so, the more convinced I become that failure doesn’t actually exist. It’s just

Trail riding, to my mind, is such an art form. I always laugh to myself when I read comments from riders who flippantly throw comments

Whenever we ride in public or are involved in group situations with our horse, there are always so many different dynamics that we need to

If you’ve ever found yourself being able to tell the future in advance, what you are essentially highlighting are your own sympathetic or survival nervous

My horse Dee is a pretty big unit. I’ve had him since he was 2 years old who just never seemed to stop growing and

The scapula, or shoulder blade, is something that most of us are pretty familiar with, as far as parts of the body go. The position

Let’s talk gadgets. The kind of gadgets that I’m interested in discussing are the ones that so many of us human people love to use

The way that I approach physical health, especially in a rehabilitative sense, has changed dramatically over the last couple of years. In the same breath,

In our movement classes this week, we’ve been focusing on the trigeminal nerve, the largest sensory nerve in the body. Activating and re-habituating the sensory

My life has never really run the conventional path. For the most part, I’ve always worked for myself. So much so that I joke now

Change is an interesting thing. When we are stuck in a place that we don’t want to be- physically, mentally, or emotionally- it’s the thing

A frequent conversation that I am having with riders I work with revolves around letting go of the idea that the goal is to reach

We had lots of interesting discussion and thoughts around my post about the jaw-pelvis relationship yesterday, and I wanted to expand on that conversation further

Often, when it comes to making corrections in the body- adjusting our position, correcting our posture, attempting to develop our seat- we focus on specific

Yesterday, we talked briefly about the different learning styles and mode of response that are expressions of the various stages the survival nervous system travels

Your learning style- how you process information, respond to feedback or criticism, the conditions you “require” in order to be able to take things in-

“Comfort zone” is an interesting phrase, and it’s not one that we typically think of with positive connotations. Usually, the discussions about it centre around

In all the work I do, I’m trying to strike a balance between understanding what’s happening at a nervous system level, and then recognizing how

Yesterday, I got my lovely horse Dee out and the paddock and we played together in the round pen for the first time in quite

I teach a lot of movement-based work with a specific focus on the nervous system, and periodically the question comes up, how do I know

I remember getting asked in an interview once, “Do you feel like what you are teaching now is different from what you taught five years

It’s interesting, given that a horse and their movement is so dynamic, that we could become attached to “aesthetic ideals” when we are riding. I’m

Emotional control is a phrase that you see thrown around a lot, and it’s both a lot simpler and a lot more complex than we

When most people think of the nervous system and what working with it might address, the most common response is mental and emotional. Very few

Here’s a piece of writing that I’m going to muddle my way through. It’s a muddle because the thoughts and understandings are in part still

There was a man who set out to make the perfect chair. He got sick of sitting all day at his office in chairs that

8:30 pm, I flop down on the couch, pick up the remote and press the green button. I don’t very often feel like watching TV