Trimming

I just had to tell you what a difference just working on my own breathing has done in just a short while. I have been working on the tips in your article and this morning I needed to trim Carrick's hooves and normally she needs to keep taking her feet back many times during the trimming but today she did not - in fact I needed more rests than she did! I kept my mouth shut the whole time. It made it so easy - I can only assume the difference was my breathing and the effect it has had on me already. Then I did some Equine Breathing with her and she was very happy and relaxed throughout. A really lovely morning. I feel it was such a success for really such a simple basic thing to do.

Victoria, Wiltshire UK
July 2012

First of all thank you very much for your extremely interesting lecture. It all makes so much sense to me. You see, I have been practicing Hatha yoga since almost 20 years now, and have also been doing pranayama - breathing techniques. This morning I trimmed a couple of customer horses . One of them, a six months old filly has really been a problem - very insecure, hopping and fiddling around all the time.  After almost giving up I thought that I'll try 1N on her. And it worked! I am so impressed!  She immediately became relaxed, almost fell asleep, and for the first time I could lift her hooves and trim them in peace. She did not once pull them away from me.  I did it on the other horses as well, and they reacted with lots of snorting, runny noses, yawning and, well, actually farting! I would like to learn everything about the technique, as soon as possible. Do you give courses?

Ulrike Hermelin, SHP Sweden
November 2006

Mike Hollingworth is a barefoot trimmer in Yorkshire, UK with 200 horses on his books. He is also an equine Bowen therapist.

I have just started using the breathing technique in conjunction with my trim clients on some horses that would rather play come dancing when they are having there feet trimmed, I have to say that the results so far are very favourable as I know you would expect. I would rather spend 10 minutes calming the horses down prior to trimming than may be spend an hour or so struggling with the horses during trimming. I will let you know how I do with this as I work on it more, but it is looking good.

Mike Hollingworth
March 2006