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Greetings!
The material offered in the course goes beyond everything that has been offered so far. The title IHTC means having In Hand the knowledge that permit furthering one's experience. With the knowledge in mind, you can understand the horse's reaction at a much deeper level. As you know, one day, when the sensitivity of the body has evolved and the mind becomes comfortable with complex knowledge, the light bulb goes on. There is a lot of personal research and experience. I worked yesterday a mare in hand analyzing her reaction and thinking, this is the first time that I see a horse doing that. I immediately processed in my mind, how this slight lateral motion could affect the work that I was doing. It was effectively a relation and by correcting it, I was able to correct the kinematics abnormality that I was trying to correct. The purpose of the case study is precisely showing that all along we have to follow the horse's evolution. Sometimes the answer is not clear or easy and often, you end the training session without finding the solution. The thought comes overnight or is explained the next day by a new reaction of the horse. The more we understand the horse's biological mechanism, the more we are capable to understand the horse's explanation. The IHTC invites you into a world of subtlety that no one has explored before. More exactly, let me rephrase that. Great Masters have explored this world, but they have explained it using classical language. They used beautiful metaphors but theses metaphors can be interpreted many different ways and no one can fully benefit from these Masters' vision. Look at Francois Baucher. The so-called Baucher experts who talk a lot about flexion of the jaw are focusing on a detail of Baucher's teaching and totally miss his real genius. With scientific knowledge, it becomes possible to explain what our great ancestors have discovered but did not explain well. However, a great part of any rational decision is emotion. Without knowledge, emotion and feeling have created conventional equitation, which is full of errors. With advanced knowledge, emotions and feeling create a new approach to riding and therapies. Trust your intuition but verify it with actual knowledge. The answers are there, and they are sometime in different directions than the view perpetuated in classic literature. JLC (Jean Luc Cornille)
Sincerely,
Editor Helyn Cornille
Science Of Motion |
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A New Generation of Riders
Jean Luc Cornille
Many of the elements explained here through the limbs muscles apply to the work of the back muscles during locomotion. This is why swinging back theories as well as concepts such as shifts of the rider weight and greater amplitude of the rider's movements are degrading equine athletes as well as the equestrian art. It is all about energy and therefore, it is all about tuning nuances in muscle tone of the rider's back with nuances in muscle tone of the horse's back. When the amplitude of the rider's movements exceeds the range of motion of the horse vertebral column, the rider's movements stimulates protective reflex contraction of the horse's back muscles. When the rider leans backward shifting his or her body weight back to front as emphasized in the driving seat, the riding engenders heavy weight on the bit and heavy pulling of the rider's hands.
The tendinous elements of the horse back muscles reacts to any shift of the rider's weight. In the light of the way the horse vertebral column effectively functions, shifts of the rider's weight create chaos. Chaos is also created by large swing of the rider's back such as the "doughy" seat as described by Waldemar Seunig. "The subtle S-curve of the spine allows the spine to oscillate minutely, a movement so tiny hat it is hardly perceptible to the naked eye, producing a "soft" seat. This "soft seat" differs fundamentally from a "doughy" seat, in which we find a spine that is too flexible and allowed to undulate freely in response to the horse's movement." Long before advanced understanding of the equine vertebral column mechanism, The Duke of Newcastle promoted at the seventeen century, an "unmovable" pelvis. The architecture of the horse's back muscles demands extreme sobriety of the the rider's vertebral column movements. Once the body weight is neutral, which means that the middle of the rider's spine, (the center of rotation, in red on the right picture,) is effectively at the exact vertical of the seat bones, the relationship between the horse and the rider is at the level of nuances in muscle tone. Xenophon, Newcastle and numerous great masters have intuitively figured that the real dialogue was about sobriety and rhythm. In the past, only few riders reached such mastery because a considerable evolution had to be made from the principles emphasized in equestrian education to an equitation based on subtle nuances in muscle tone. With actual knowledge, more riders have the talent and intuition to master a better equitation. The journey from a relaxed back to a subtlety tuned back is much difficult without sound understanding of the equine vertebral column mechanism. The journey is still challenging but easier to complete when we understand how large movements of our back create chaos and therefore protective reflex contraction of the horse's back.
READ ON
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Functional Anatomy
Nuchal Ligament
This is a small section form the DVD Functional Anatomy Nuchal Ligament
available on our website.
Click here for video
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Nuchal Ligament Functional Anatomy
DVD/Video
The nuchal ligament, (NL), is an elegant and elastic structure that connects the tip of the dorsal spinous processes of the whither to the back of the occiput. The structure assists the work of the upper neck muscles. The classical interpretation is that the nuchal ligament holds the head in an alert position and yet is elastic enough to allow grazing."However, these studies suggest that the equine NL is almost unstrained when the animal holds its combined head and neck segment in an alert position, and so the NL can offer little static support under these circumstances. At the other extreme, if the grazing position were achieved simply by stretching the nuchal ligament, the NL would probably be stretched beyond its range of elastic compliance." (Gellman & Bertram)
At the walk, the nuchal ligament replaces 55% of the muscular energy that would be necessary to move the neck. At the trot and canter, the ligament reduces the muscles work by 31% to 33%. As the neck lowers, the nuchalligament assists the upper neck muscles to support the burden of the head and neck. According to the horse's natural orientation of the neck, there is a range where the elastic resistance of the nuchal ligament is optimum and the muscle work is reduced to the minimum. The neck elongation that horses execute spontaneously after work is simply a clever way to reduce the muscle work further involving the elastic properties of the nuchal ligament. Rather than stretching, the move would be more accurately described as comfort zone or energy saving neck posture.
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Several metaphors are used emphasizing the thought that the horse neck reach out of the shoulder. The words "telescoping action are often used. One of the illiterate who reacted vehemently against our publication in face book, stated, "stretching out through the bit." I love this one; it is typically the type of cocktail party theory which does not have any meaning but sound like a nice music.
Is it possible for the horse's neck to reach out like a turtle? The response
is simple, no. Here is the picture of the cervico-thoracic junction. There are two powerful muscles named scalenus that stabilize the junction. Quite obviously the neck does not have any possibility of reaching out. At the other end of the cervical vertebrae, the head can take a more horizontal position giving the optical illusion that the head extends prolonging the elongation of the upper neck muscles. There are over 20 pairs of muscles that control head movements. When the S shape of the cervical vertebrae take a more horizontal linkage and the head adopt a more horizontal position, it is not the upper neck muscles that became longer but instead, it is two different muscular system creating simultaneously a neck movement for the upper neck muscles and a head movements for the numerous muscles moving the head. The combination of these two movements is interpreted as an extension of the upper neck muscles. Once again, the response is in the architecture of the upper neck muscles. For the splenius, the misconception is easy to understand since the muscle is not even inserted on the skull. The splenius is inserted on the nuchal crest. Image by Karen Gillman The semispinalis capitals is inserted on the nuchal crest of the skull but a closer look at the muscle architecture contradict any theory advocating stretching of the whole muscles. As explained and illustrated in IHTC4, the semispinalis capitis is a muscles built in compartments. Studies in neural compartmentalization have suggested that the cranial and caudal portion of the muscle act independently during normal head and neck movements. The insertion of the semispinalis capitis on the dorsal crest of the skull suggest that the muscle would be involved in the extension of the head. However, it would involve only the upper compartment of the muscle situated above the central tendon and it would be a concentric contraction pulling the skull backward and therefore the nose forward. All the expressions stretching through the bit, telescoping action, reaching out of the shoulders and many other are metaphors describing visual impressions but have no meaning whatsoever when it cone to the vertebral column mechanism. The problem is that as they are repeated over and over, these paraphrases became reality in the mind of the students. From these utopias, training and riding techniques are promoted. They are not even close form the way the horse physique effectively functions and their application, of course, cripple the horses. Thomas Pain's reflection is definitively the best conclusion for this discussion, "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right." Jean Luc
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Less Is Better
Jean Luc Cornille
This is a short segment of IHTC. The aim of the discussion is explaining how the horse's vertebral column work in the light of new knowledge. Jean Luc Explains how main muscles of the forelegs work as an example. It is easier to visualize the work of the front limbs muscles and then became capable to translate the knowledge into better understanding of architecture and function of the main back muscles. The discussion has already review the detailed functioning of the lower legs' long tendons and their muscles. The discussion now focuses on the biceps of the forelegs, which is the biceps brachii.
Higher in the front leg, there is the interesting catapult mechanism of the biceps brachii. This muscle stores elastic energy in a thick internal tendon when the muscle is actively stretched during the stance phase. Also the long aponeurosis within the muscle heads represent a substantial additional series of elastic elements. "Active stretching" is the name commonly given to eccentric contraction. The energy is then released at the end of the stance phase when the leg buckles, allowing the tendon to recoil and catapult the limb forward into swing phase. The catapult mechanism is important as it enables the horse to protract the limb more quickly than would be possible with muscle contraction alone. It has been estimated that the horse would need a muscle weighing 50 kg to produce enough power to protract the forelimb at observed speeds. Instead, the biceps' catapult mechanism provides the required power output from only 4 kg of tissue. READ ON
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Plasticity of Muscles
Jean Luc Cornille
In 2003, equine research studies explored the "plasticity of muscles' function." Further investigating muscles' architecture and function, pertinent researches demonstrated a much advanced usage of elastic strain energy through the whole muscular system. Muscles are composed of cells and connective tissues often referred to as "tendinous material" and elastic strain energy occurs within the muscle in the absence of tendon. In artificial situation such as high speed treadmill, where evenness of the ground and speed are constant, muscles tend to operate in isometric contraction, and just hold, allowing connective tissue to be loaded with elastic strain energy. It is very economical to just turn on but not shorten, because the real energetic cost of using muscle is in forming the myosin cross bridges. When you only turn on once, they all stay in place and no more cellular energy is needed. They provide inexpensive support that can be switched on constantly without exhausting the owner. This concept is widely used throughout the body where constant support is needed such as the main back muscles.
The concept is theoretical. Any back muscles imbalance, or uneven ground or never the less performance, demands adapting the creation of forces through the muscle cells and therefore concentric or eccentric contractions. However, the fact that the connective tissue within the muscles can be loaded with elastic strain energy suggests much greater influence of the rider's movements than previously believed. In 1964, Estienne Saurel wrote, "Undoubtedly any shift of the rider's weight is important for balancing the horse for controlled movements." (Pratique de l' �quitation d' apr�s les maitres fran�ais. Flammarion, Paris) By contrast, in 2013, advanced understanding of the equine physiology demonstrates that undoubtedly, any shift of the rider's weight handicaps the horse's ability of mastering balance control and performances. Uneducated trainers promote mobility, via relaxation and swing the rider's back. Antiquated riding and training techniques emphasize shifting the rider's weight driving the horse forward onto the bit. At the contrary, modern science exposes the disturbances that these primitive techniques create loading the tendinous components of the horse's back muscles with chaotic elastic strain energy.
Superficial theories have always been and continue to be the major cause of equine injuries. Since we have approached the long and low heresy, studying in details the architecture and function of the horse's upper neck muscles, the subject of the lowering of the neck can be pushed a little further illustrating the dangers of ignorance. Truly, long a low is more a cult than a training technique since it is based on faith instead of factual documentation. Facts are contradicting all the claims made by long and low proponents but the faith persist. The faith persists because the theory feeds superficial impressions, visual as well as sensitive. Anxious to protect their faith, long and low proponents dismiss as unimportant the fact that the lowering of the neck increases the weight on the forelegs. The dismissal is literally a betrayal since increasing load on the forelegs is the leading cause of equine injuries. Scientific studies now explains than before becoming arthritic or other problems at the level of the cartilages of the joints, lesions occur within the bone itself below the cartilages. Crack or micro-fractures are the first step of a process that will alter the joints and these lesions are created by excessive stresses. READ ON
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Ribs and Muscles
(Part of discussion from Science Of Motion private IHTC group)
This is the picture of the ribs and muscles that I was talking about. We put it in black and white so you can eat your breakfast quietly. The specimen lays on its right side on the table. The vertebral column is on the right side of the picture. The head is toward the top of the frame. What you can see is the inside of the ribs. This is the left wall composed by the ribs and muscles. The wall has been pulled back by the student. On the left side is the part of the ribs attached to the sternum. On the right side, the ribs have been cut at about 10 inches from the vertebrae, You have on the right side a clear view of the thickness of the abdominal wall. It is in fact incredibly thin. Before becoming a specimen, this horse was standing still, the thin layer of muscles than you can see between the ribs was involved in stabilizing the internal organs, breathing and bending. You have in front of your eyes the reality. It is difficult, looking at the thin wall formed by the muscles and the ribs to give any credit to the stretching theories. There is nothing there and considering that the outside of the bend compensate for the bending, the work of the muscles situated on the outside are more likely to quickly contract eccentrically. Later in the necropsy room, we manipulated the vertebral column and you will see how lateral bending of the neck induces inverted rotation of the thoracic vertebrae. JLC
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Video Excerpt from IHTC 5
 | | Excerpt from Science Of Motion IHTC (In hand therapy course) |
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The Naked Truth Part 3
video
 | | The Naked Truth pt 3 (Kissing spine) |
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