A total of seven members and two leaders from the Reigning Riders 4-H Club received their equine massage certification from Meg Sparrow of MLS Equine Massage Studies March 14 and 15. The 4-Hers qualified to provide massage service that benefits their own horses as well as for the public seeking alternative care for all disciplines and breeds of horses.
Completing the course were Kaitlyn Nesbitt, Keltye Blais, J.C. Blais, Danika Diceman, Morgan Dubyk, Baylie Yasieniuk, Rayna Yasieniuk, Tanya Dubyk and Darcy Yasieniuk.
The incredibly interesting weekend started Saturday morning at Meg’s place. We all were given a 60-page manual with some eye-opening facts on basic anatomy – muscle groups, tendons, ligaments and bones – conformation, defects in travel, stress points, types of lameness, common injuries and influence of rider. Members also learned how to perform an evaluation on a “client horse” assessing medical history, static evaluation, dynamic evaluation, range of motion, segment mobility and soft tissue assessment.
Meg then taught us the four Ts of massage, and also the many different types of massage techniques such as muscle squeezing, compression, picking up, wringing, skin rolling, vibration, cupping, laying of hands, kneading and true myofascial release.
We then went outside and Meg showed us the important 26 stress points on both sides of a horse as well as how to find them.
We were finished learning as much as we could by supper time. We all went home and studied until late at night, knowing that we had three exams the next day –written, exam and hands-on.
We met at Hidden Meadows Ranch on day two and used Deb Flegel’s barn. Some of us took our horses. We all spent the day working on all the horses there alternately.
Meg even did a chiropractic evaluation on one of our horses and showed us all the areas of concern and explained everything to us. She then adjusted him and we all had another good look over him. It was amazing to see his 100 per cent improvement from his adjustment.
At the end of the day we were all given our exams, one at a time. It was intense but our subject was so interesting that everyone did very well and all passed.
We had an intense, fun and extremely rewarding weekend. The grant we received from the Canada Growing Forward 2 4-H Club Fund Program helped make this life-changing workshop possible.
