Training the Nervous System

Why Equine Hanna Somatics is more like training than bodywork

I love bodywork. It has so much value, and I’ve spent a lot of time studying it to better support the horses I work with, but at my core I’m a trainer first.

As I've spent more time implementing Equine Hanna Somatics (EHS), the similarities with training have become more and more clear, because at its foundation, it’s a learning process.

In training, we ask horses to move their bodies in specific ways, guided by feel. The horse isn’t passive in that process but rather actively participating, organizing themselves, and learning through the experience.

EHS follows that same principle.

Rather than doing something to the horse’s body, we are asking the horse to take responsibility for their own movement, guided by us, through very specific sequences.

They are not passive recipients. They are participants.

To understand why this matters, it helps to look at how the nervous system is organized.

The motor and sensory systems are not separate. They exist as a continuous loop.

Sensory input is constantly coming into the body from the outside (touch, environment) and from within (proprioception, internal state). That information is processed, and the brain responds by organizing movement.

With most forms of bodywork, the emphasis is placed on the sensory side of that loop. Input is applied to the tissues, and the body responds.

With EHS, sensory input is still present, but the focus is on the motor side.

When we place our hands on the horse during an EHS session, we’re not applying a specific technique to change the tissue, but instead, we’re communicating an idea.

We use touch to guide the horse toward a very specific type of movement: a voluntary pandiculation.

This is where the horse is producing a controlled contraction, followed by a slow, deliberate release.

This is important because for the brain to register and update muscle patterns, the movement has to be voluntary and it has to be slow enough for the nervous system to actually process it.

This is what makes EHS a motor intervention.

The change isn’t coming from something being done to the body. It comes from the horse using their own brain to reorganize how their body moves and holds tension. In that way, it becomes less about the tissues themselves, and more about the patterns the brain is running.

Patterns that often persist long after the original reason for them is gone.

This is why it's similar and so complementary to training.

If a horse is stuck in chronic contraction patterns, they will bring those patterns into movement, no matter how skilled the rider or handler is. When the horse can begin to reset their resting muscle tone and regain voluntary control over those patterns, new options become available.

Equine Hanna Somatics is a form of slow, intentional training that initiates a conversation with the nervous system where the horse is actively involved in creating the change.

The top photo is before EHS and the bottom is after 6 sessions. Six weeks between photos.