Written by Tanja Müther, Germany. Tanja has recently qualified as an International Independent Practitioner. This post describes her journey with Equine Touch and is highly recommended reading for anyone wanting to find out more about Equine Touch both as a client or even as a potential student. In fact many students and practitioners will be able to identify with Tanja’s experiences and is what makes Equine Touch such a unique, life changing modality. Don’t be put off by the length - it is truly inspiration for all. Thank you Tanja for allowing us to share your journey so far . . .
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My name is Tanja Müther.
I am 41 years old, married, mother of a nine-year-old daughter and a trained physiotherapist. From 2000-2010 I gained experience in the field of physiotherapy in a hospital for acute care in Gütersloh Germany.
After our daughter was born in 2010, I quit my job and have been trained (since 2015) in integrative kinesiology.
In 2015 I lost my first horse which had been with me for 19 years. Then - via some detours - I got acquainted with animal communication and a year later I found my second horse, a 1.5-year-old Norwegian Doele-stallion.
Between 2016 and 2017, I did about 40-50 animal communications via photo and gradually gained more trust in my gut feeling. The ethereal, the things between heaven and earth, have always been of special interest to me.
In the spring of 2018, I realized that I had reached my limits with animal communication because I could not help the animals on a physically level. A puzzle piece in my work was missing.
Although I had been trained as a horse osteopath in 2008, I did not use it so much, because this method seemed too much "framed" and static. Moreover, I could not believe I was good enough.
So I started looking for bodywork that combines ethereal, mental and physical aspects.
As could be expected, I experienced the key moment in this search with my young stallion, in the spring of 2018. I had brushed him and lead him back to the herd, but instead of returning to the other horses, he stopped. I smoothed out his coat, massaged it gently and stroked his back and croup. He almost fell asleep.
Thus the desire was born to be able to do something good by working physically on the animal.
I called an osteopath I knew and asked her if she knew bodywork-disciplines or method that met my ideas. She told me that the Equine Touch might be what I was looking for and referred me to Jolanda Mariet in the Netherlands.
Without much advance information about Equine Touch, a few weeks later, in July 2018, I found myself in Panten near Hamburg, taking part in the Equine Touch Level 1 course.
The first step was taken. The horses we worked on showed a variety of reactions and was amazed at so much relaxation, "coming into flow" and satisfaction with practitioners and horses.
Without really knowing what was awaiting me, I hit the Practitioner Route and soon started with my first 10 case studies.
Helped by an internet call, I quickly found horses, which differed greatly in behaviour, handicaps and owners.
I was allowed to treat a 40-year-old gelding and watch him rediscover his pleasure in life. Likewise, I was allowed to accompany a very sick mare (no clear diagnosis with severe lameness) during the last weeks of her life and to witness how intimate contact between her and the owner developed while I was performing the body balance.
Unfortunately, the mare had to be euthanized, but the friendly contact with her owner remained. She later entrusted me with two other horses for my case studies.
The twenty Level One sessions not only trained me in mindfully approaching the horses, but also gave me an idea of how my future life could be shaped.
Shortly before level two in the Netherlands, in November 2018, I had to move my horse to a different stable. A horse owner whose horse had received a body balance and had participated in the ten case studies, suggested that I come to the stable where she had her horse.
I dared to take the plunge and moved to this self-supplying stable – not even having my own hay yet.
A happy ending made possible by my involvement with with Equine Touch.
Level Two followed in November and new insights and AOC's came along.
I got to know more horses during my next ten case studies. What these horses asked of me was mindfulness, revitalization of my inactive anatomical knowledge (apart from what had already learned from Jolanda), patience, and – here it comes again –confidence in myself.
Since then I have been learning to feel more certain with what I am doing and thus helping the horses to feel safe.
I learned to relax and control my breathing when an excited horse was running around me and was amazed how in this way moods are transmitted.
The first small successes came. The old lady Blue, who had had severe colic surgery, after the first Basic Body Balance was able to walk a few steps backwards. The Frisian mare Quinta, who at first only wanted to kick me, finally allowed me to perform a complete Basic Body Balance (albeit the wrong way round).
Quinta was very sceptical and I was about to give up. Of course, I was afraid to be kicked and for a moment told myself that we probably were not such a good match as practitioner and “patient”. The owner encouraged me to give it one more try. That very same moment I heard these words inside my head:
"Turn your energy around, from giving to taking"
At first I did not quite understand what was happening. Now I think that Quinta herself gave me this tip.
So I put my hands on her back, took a deep breath and thought, "then put everything that is too much for you into my hands".
Quinta snorted and chewed, lowering her head., After some time – as if remote-controlled – I started Equine Touch on her neck, went on with her back and finally even did her hindquarters.
The mare chewed and enjoyed the session. I was speechless. With her behaviour Quinta gave me another key message for my work on the horse:
"With the horse, not on the horse should you work".
Of course, that was what Jolanda Mariet had taught us in her courses, but I certainly had not yet really integrated it into my work.
I am still grateful to Quinta for this beautiful experience. For the first time (at that time still unconsciously) I had the opportunity to experience how close body work and animal communication are to each other - but I still did not really understand at that moment.
I wanted very much to use kinesiology, animal communication and bodywork (Equine Touch) complementary or even to combine them, but I had no idea how to put it into practice.
I hardly dared to believe in it and had too little self-confidence to spin out these thoughts any further. I thought for something like that you need a complete concept first.
In addition, there were significant private problems in 2018 and also the necessity to move my own horse in October. I had existential fears and considered giving up everything I had done so far.
Although it felt completely wrong, I got out of my Kinesiology training (ongoing since 2015) because I had put the emphasis on the ET practitioner route and absolutely wanted to bring this training to a successful end. In the midst of a crisis in my private life and horse-stress I decided to take this challenge After the Level 2 course in November 2018, I did my L2 exams. As the result of my first ten documentaries was not too good due to my poor English skills, I wanted to do better with the next ten horses.
Before I started a Body Balance I now took a closer look at the exterior of the horse and even dared to evaluate gait patterns.
Of course mastering these skills will be an ongoing learning process that probably will never end.
In Jolanda I had a mentor and a teacher who always stood by me with a lot of patience and encouragement and also backed me up when I dealt with difficult cases. She kept advising me to be patient.
What started with ten horses quickly became more.
My private situation eased and I also resumed kinesiology classes in September (and of course continued to work on myself and my lack of self-confidence).
Thus my motto for the third ET level with Lynn Palmer in March 2019 became "always believe in yourself".
We worked with Jolanda Mariet’s horses and had wonderful results. Again I was highly motivated to continue learning and working and did not even have problems to find 20 case study - horses.
I missed just two more horses. So I decided to document my own horse, not knowing yet that it is "very difficult" to judge and treat your own horse.
San Diego, our "stable neighbour" made the 20 complete. He had been part of level 1, too, and is the only horse that more than once took part in a case study.
Between beginning of March (after level three) and mid-July, I did 60 Equine Touch Sessions, including documentaries (sometimes including photos).
I still was not sure how to go on, but I knew I wanted to become financially independent. I rented a small room at a riding school in the spring of 2019 and with the help of some friends it was soon renovated and furnished. At the end of March I opened my first practice room for massage and kinesiology.
However, most of my energy continued to flow towards Equine Touch at that time, so the opening was more or less a triviality to me.
At the riding school I also met the mare Si Joli and her a very nice and interested owner. Si Joli became part of my 20 case studies and gratefully accepted Equine Touch. Being an excellent rider, her owner was able to recognize changes in the movements of the horse and I got positive feedback on behaviour and suppleness. The mare also showed more thrust after the second body balance. Unfortunately, Si Joli and her owner moved to Stuttgart in May 2019.
Next, I met the mare Emma, who sincerely put my patience and, above all, my self-confidence to the test.
Emma had a long history of illness and surgery.
The operations and follow-up operations and the positioning during these interventions, the stay in the clinic and – last but not least – the scarring had put her out of balance physically and mentally.
I met a very desperate but also impatient owner, who was very worried about her horse, but also wanted to get her old Emma back. An Emma who would be able to work again. Sooner rather than later.
She had heard about my case studies on the internet and hoped that Equine Touch would cure everything.
I documented Emma's complete illness history and started working with het led by the idea "less is best" (as Jolanda keeps saying).
Since I had no idea how the system of the horse would react to a body balance, I chose to keep breaks short. I explained to the owner that movement patterns could get worse at first, because the body feeling of the mare might be changed or at best re-aligned.
The owner agreed and Emma's reactions during the first body balance showed me that she was enjoying it. A few days later, however, I received a seemingly negative feedback: Emma had totally changed, she was hostile and withdrawn.
Mrs. H., the owner, said never to have seen her horse like that. I was very unsettled, but still felt good about what I had done. I believed that Equine Touch had kicked off Emma's ability to cope with her medical history.
I phoned Jolanda and could benefit from her experience that it might take about ten days for the system to calm down. I felt reassured and so did Emma's owner. In fact, after ten days Emma was the same old girl again.
She was more approachable, too, and her movements were visibly softer.
I was allowed to continue working with her. Emma had changed a little bit after the second session, too, but this time she did not need so much time to "recover". I was able to perform and document the third session and Emma is now fully rideable. (Which of course is not due to my work alone).
Emma’s case study taught me that horses with a long-lasting medical history might need a long regeneration period after the body balance and that every horse takes its own regeneration time for regeneration. What is more, I learned that I could trust my gut feeling. All this thanks to Jolanda’s coaching.
At level three, I gained the first ideas about how to create a meaningful treatment cycle by incorporating the newly learned AOCs. That means to see and treat a body area not only as an isolated part, but as part of a larger whole.
For example: work on the neck, forehand, shoulder (and possibly head) as a connected area , a unit. Thus, the use of AOC's became more "round" and bodywork more fluent.
Another important aspect taught to me in level three was "thinking out of the box".
Shetland pony "Jim Knopf" confronted me with the question if I was able to develop this ability.
Mrs. B., the owner of Billy had provided me with her horses for my case studies and when we had finished Billy's session, the idea arose to introduce her pony Jim Knopf to the Equine Touch method. Two years before Jim had undergone a rude acupuncture treatment and had lost all his trust in strangers. Ms. B. had given up hope that the pony would ever allow a therapist to touch him.
It was definitely worth a try. We created a relaxed atmosphere in an empty stable lane and waited for Jim's invitation and eye contact. When I stroked his neck and back a little I already felt a lot of scepticism on his part. So that was a good moment for practising "Thinking out of the box".
I started with a few moves on his neck in order to explain to him what it was all about. To our surprise, he slowly began to chew and nudged me with his nose. I decided not to put blocks and had no other intention than to win Jim's trust and make him understand that we wanted to do something good for him.
Because of his scepticism, I did not mirror movements on the other side, as a constant change of position might have triggered his suspicion (Does she move now to fetch an acupuncture needle?…)
I was allowed to do moves on his neck and shoulders.
Further on in the session, Jim's size even allowed me to work on the opposite bladder meridian. After a while, I worked my way up to the hindquarters - of course with many breaks and waiting for the reactions after each movement.
Jim started to enjoy the session and I could easily repeat the moves on the other side.
It is very worthwhile to work with the horse in this way and not commit yourself to any kind of order if it does not help the situation and, even more important, the horse.
I was allowed to treat Jim two more times. Quite soon I was able to follow the “normal” sequence of the Body Balance.
Mrs. B. was thrilled and I was allowed to learn another important lesson.
In July 2019, I finished my case studies. I also survived my practical exam and a private crisis.
And, to my delight, I already had a small customer base that wanted to continue to benefit from Equine Touch.
Via Mrs. K., the owner of the deceased mare Escada, I met Mrs. W. She owns two mares and a gelding.
One of her mares, 17-year-old Contessa (I like to call her Rehlein (gentle little deer), had been with her for two years, but there was very little development in her connection with her owner.
Mrs. W. wanted to know more about my work and invited me to her stable. In this situation an (unplanned) live animal communication took place in the mare’s stable. I was the last to expect this, since I had Equine Touch in my mind.
During the animal communication I still felt the desire to do E.T. with the mare because she seemed to be stuck in old structures which prevented her from getting involved with her new owner or her new home.
Following the motto: "What came first, the chicken or the egg? " it seemed worthwhile to me to try and use body work to release “stuck matters”.
Because Equine Touch / Fascia work can change the mental and emotional state of a horse in a positive way, I was happy to have this method in my toolbox.
Since Ms. W. uses animal communication herself and is very open to new methods, she agreed.
I started with a body balance and the mare reacted (as was to be expected) very cautiously. We saw increased eye closure and occasional chewing.
During the second session, Contessa was much more open and kept chewing all the time. The AOC I had in mind was Forehand (including neck and head).
After making the movements on the neck and forehand, the mare gave me the "hint" that it was enough.
This hint was so clearly audible for me at that moment that I spoke it out loudly: "Enough"!
For me, this was the moment that I consciously understood that animal communication and Equine Touch had touched each other!!!
We planned our third Equine Touch session for the following week. The mare was a little more open to the owner now and seemed to have recovered physically (tendon injury hindquarters).
After the third Equine Touch session, in which I included the head as AOC, I asked Ms W. if it was possible to solve one of Contessa’s problems using kinesiology for Contessa, as it was now manifesting itself.
Contessa revealed to us that the fear of being deported was still there. That prevented her from fully opening herself up to her owner. So I worked on the horse with her owner as substitute.
While Mrs. W was in tears during the solution, "Rehlein" yawned several times, then began to chew and to seek contact with her owner. Both were visibly relieved.
I am convinced that Equine Touch is a wonderful way to transport life issues or energy blockages to the surface. With the help of kinesiology, these topics can then be removed.
For me, Equine Touch is an important and valuable “door opener”, on the one hand to gain the trust of rider and horse, and on the other hand to significantly strengthen the connection between them.
My E.T. trip has taught me to open myself up to the "Now" state and made me understand that respect, intuition and empathy are more important than any rigid concept.
I am encouraged to trust myself and I believe that Equine Touch is much more than just a method I learned in a course.
For me, Equine Touch is an important piece of bodywork that can connect a wide variety of levels and disciplines.
My journey has just started and I am happy and grateful to have Equine Touch in my toolbox.
Revised 10.11.19