Sunshiney hack

So... I went down a rabbit hole. I found a bodyworker who focuses on thoracic sling improvement to resolve nerve impingement. And her description of what the lack of a built up thoracic sling does to the brachial plexus and the resulting symptoms is SPOT ON for Dan. Like.... OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH... maybe this is the answer. Maybe this is the reason he's had the inconsistent but persistent rein lameness.. why he's snatching at the bit, why his tongue is out, why he's grabbing at his shoulder. Why he's angry all the time. So... I dived in. She has a 1:1 zoom session to help you work through things, so I booked one for her earliest availability which is in April. Then I dived into her facebook page and found her private facebook group, so I joined that. It wasn't super cheap, but at this point... what have I got to lose? And it's fascinating! I've been watching her videos and it all makes sooooo much sense. I'm really optimistic that this is the missing piece of Dan's puzzle. 

Basically what it boils down to is he has never properly built up his thoracic sling, pectorals, or abductors so he is creating compression on his brachial plexus. Which makes sense on why shockwave and injecting the shoulder bursa area and even injected the base of his neck seems to help temporarily but never really resolves it. So... I'm in. I'm game. Let's do this! She has a 3 step process to building that sling... 

1: Respone to contact and releasing the neck muscles

2: Engaging the pectorals and thoracic sling and moving your energy ball to your core, vs out in front of you

3: building up the abductor muscles. 

In theory... she recommends taking time off from riding while you do this work. It's basically groundwork for 10-15 minutes a day. But it could easily take a month or more to get them strong and built up. And in the meantime, you're just strengthening the dysfunction. Which, makes total sense. BUT... in talking to Rana, while she agrees with the end result and even has very similar/if not the same philosophy, she thinks that Dan needs to learn how to do it under saddle with contact. So I'm struggling. I don't know whether to stop riding for a bit... which honestly, lately it's not been much fun, so why not? But I also trust Rana and her knowledge and skill so....  She also suggested leaving Dan with her, but... I just can't. I feel like I've damaged my relationship with him and I feel like I need to fix it and sending him to Rana isn't going to help that part of it. Although in theory, it would be easier... and certainly she will do a way better job than me of fixing the under saddle part, but.. I can't do it. I just... can't. Not right now. Maybe while I'm out of town at the beach.... But not right now. Although hopefully by June we'll be back on track!

Anyways, while I'm still figuring things out, I met Kelli for a ride. I did our homework on the ground... pillar 1 and such for a good bit and then got on. I basically tried to do the pillar work while in the saddle too. We mostly walked with a tiny bit of trotting. Then Kelli and I met up with Judy and went for a long hack. It was kind of nice because I could keep his walk small so that Kelli and Judy could keep up and it helped me focus on keeping Dan's energy ball back in his core, vs in his poll. So... we shall see.