CASE STUDY #3: Q

Every once in a great while I am privileged to meet a horse who has the rare combination of intelligence, generosity of spirit and charisma. Q is such a horse. Q was three years old when he was injured. He’d been running through the woods and speared himself with a broken tree limb that entered under his right shoulder blade.

When I met him a year later he pivoted his right lower shoulder around the upper shoulder as he walked. Despite the fact that his injury had healed, his body had organized itself to keep weight off his right shoulder. His right fore hoof was developing a lateral flare when he walked. Because this horse lived a few states away, we did the first three sessions over three days.

 

Joseph, Q and Heidi

Session 1 (3/13)
The first session is about discovering what the horse’s internal landscape is, structurally as well as psychologically. Q was wounded. Badly. His will to overcome his condition was there but his confidence was hugely compromised. The image I got when I worked with him was of a horse caught in a massive spider web that wouldn’t let him free. He had a bright spirit but was tied down by his injury. I felt his frustration and sadness at having let his owner down and a bit of embarrassment that he had made such a foolish mistake.

The stick had entered his shoulder above his sternum and passed downward transversely piercing the subscapularis muscle to a depth of twelve inches. In the past year he developed atrophy in his right shoulder especially toward the front. During his recovery he developed complicated restrictions high on the left hip, on the right medial hamstring, throughout the left side of his neck, the left side above the wither and right and left intercostals. At the end of the session the right medial hamstring reduced its hold, the ribs were freer and the right shoulder improved slightly but he continued to have significant holding in the left hip.

Session 2 (3/14)
I do my best to do this work as respectfully and gently as possible. I want the tissue to be encouraged to let go without me pushing him into pain. In Q’s case his injuries were such that his pressure tolerance around his right shoulder was very low. Though he fussed a lot in that area he never refused the work. The challenge with this session was to feel into the tissue, to see with my hands and all my senses the depth of work his shoulder could allow. A fair amount it turned out, probably attributable to the elasticity of his youthful tissue.

The one place I could not reach, however, was where he needed it the most, on the medial side of his right scapula. I used energy work there, seeing and feeling a fine-toothed comb aligning the connective tissue fibers vertically. For the rest of his body I used structural work to integrate each of his quadrants: each shoulder to the same side of his neck, foreleg and barrel and each hip to the hind leg, barrel and opposite hind.

He was still lame on the right front on the walk back to the pasture. I vividly saw his owner’s commitment to him, knowing it would have been so much easier for her to put him down or let
him live out his life in a chronically injured capacity.

Session 3 (3/15)
I worked lightly with him today. HIs right should was slightly stiffer when I began work. He still fussed but always let me in as deeply as I asked. I focused on integrating his barrel to his limbs. Commonly horses who injure a limb will clamp their barrels down as they heal up. If the barrel holding continues after the injury has healed, it greatly impacts through the bones and ligaments of the legs as the force vectors hit the resistance of a held barrel. Freeing the barrel allows the force to flow through, reducing the wear and tear on the limbs. I did as much as Q could tolerate on his barrel. He didn’t get much deep work. I finished with more energy work on his shoulder and with connecting strokes from his hocks to his poll.

Session 4 (4/10)
With a little over three weeks between session he was ready for the deep work. I reworked his barrel using my elbows to stretch the fascial sheets from each of his four corners to bring flexibility back to the barrel. I focused on his left hip, left wither and right pectoralis. His right shoulder freed up nicely in all the areas I could reach. Even the size of the holding under the right shoulder blade seem to shrink. I finished the session with more energy combing in his right subscapularis. He handled the work very well. After our session he went into his stall, laid down and closed his eyes for ten minutes, percolating.

Session 5 (6/21)
Q’s owner thought the flare in his right fore hoof was fading. I worked his right and left hind legs, right shoulder, right foreleg and left ribs with some topline work. These places still had tension during the first portion of the session so most of this session involved “ironing out wrinkles” in his fascia. Eventually the held area freed up except for the right shoulder. The holding in that area was, however, progressively reducing as the fascia regained its elasticity. In session one the area of restriction was 12” long and 3” wide. In session 2 it was 10” long and 3” wide. In the fifth session it had reduced to 6” long and 3” wide, all of it under the right shoulder blade. I finished up with more energy combing. This session was noticeably pleasant for him.

Session 6 (7/7)
In the year between the fifth and sixth session, I trained a local practitioner who did a session with Q every three or four months. When I arrived I did a short evaluation and was surprised how good his tissue felt all over. He needed no work today. The holding under his right shoulder blade was minimal, about 3” x 2.5” long.

Q’s owner had watched me do energy work several times and I explained what I’d been doing. She was open to the idea of learning to do it herself so I talked her through my process as I did the energy work. She said she’d do more on him herself that afternoon and that completed the session.

The next day Q’s owner called and asked me to come over and have a look at him. When I arrived Q was running free in the arena showing off, whirling, spinning, doing an extended trot, moving with obvious joy and vitality. He did this for 20 minutes, then came over to me at the gate and stood nose to nose with me for five minutes. I got a clear sense of thanks from him. It was gratifying and also bittersweet because it was also a goodbye. We both knew my help was no longer required. My sense was that receiving this work from his owner made all the difference to him. We went back to the barn and I encouraged Q’s owner to persevere with it.

A few weeks the last session I got an email from her saying that Q developed abcesses that came out the bottom of three of his hooves, a real “healing crisis.” Some equine healthcare practitioners believe horses clear toxins from their bodies this way. Q healed quickly and following that his movement improved even more dramatically, enough that his owner is now, for the first time since his injury, planning on showing him again.

When we began his series I told his owner I didn’t know if we could bring him all the way back. I am convinced that the Structural Integration series gave Q the tools to move forward in his recovery. I’m equally convinced that Q’s perseverance and his owner’s love handled the rest.

 

Joseph Freeman graduated from the Hellerwork Structural Integration training in 1994.

He worked in a physical therapy clinic for a few years. In the mid-90s he serendipitously was asked to do a session on a client’s horse. He found the process so satisfying that he developed a Structural Integration program for horses called the Equine Natural Movement Series. He teaches at the Equine Natural Movement School with his wife, Jacqueline Freeman, former Hellerwork Structural Integration faculty. Joseph and Jacqueline live on their biodynamic farm in southwest Washington.