Well one of the blogs I follow I believe her horse is out all the time. So at least for some it’s not about management.
And it seems like they pay extra attention to the horse’s chest. Shoulders too but the chest seems to be a big focal point of seeing the changes they are talking about. At least from what I’ve seen but again I’m not in the group 
Folks see what they want to see a lot of the time. 
I’m not being “negative”, I’m being critical versus emotional in looking at this. When you’re now saying a simple exercise is changing a horse’s structure, you’ve lost me. I’ve been on the desperate bandwagon before and have signed up for all sorts of crap, lol! None of it truly worked for a horse with serious issues, but you should have heard how the folks selling things were like, “Yes, do you see the change? Do you feel the change?”. Yeah, no. I feel ya, I really do. It sounds like your mind is made up, so go for it, no one is stopping you. If your friend is such a good friend, though, and $$ is the one thing holding you from doing this it’s a shame she just won’t help you out and give you some tips. Anyway, good luck!!
Its really easy to put before and after pics together of any horse in work. Want bigger pects? Cross the front legs more. Want a bigger butt? Back up more … change top line muscles? Release neck more.
ANY trainer can take before and after pics of a horse and make it look good
@Buster … I agree with you re: skepticism when it comes to subscription training methods that claim to be new and radical and fix things that nothing else has been able to fix.
Currently, with kissing spines being the #1 boogeyman that every performance problem gets blamed on, biomechanics is trendy and sells well. So was Parelli a couple decades ago, even Karen and David O’Connor were into it.
Just like all the new and trendy fad therapies like Magnawave (everybody and their mother has a kit and is now a “practitioner”) and BEMER, that magickal calming “Liquid Titanium” compression hood, the Theraplates and Game Ready that were real big a few years back and barely heard of now, the Photonic Torch a while ago, and so on. All these things have one thing in common … little to no scientific evidence they work, aside from a few low-quality studies in humans.
Ditto all the specific supplements for joints, calming, digestion, feet, coat, immune support, bones, etc, etc.
Horse people are very susceptible to fads and marketing claims.
Edit Feb 27, 2023 - Dear TTHW Disciples, don’t bother liking this, I got a LOT smarter about Celeste Leilani’s shenanigans a bit later in the thread
Is there a reason you are such a negative nelly? FYI, my friend is actually going to help me once we can figure out how to have time on the same day.
FWIW, neither of us are on the “desperate bandwagon” but we are both curious and open to looking at new ways to solve issues that we have been told are “That’s just the horse.”
Good luck getting un-lost and trying to open your mind. No-one is trying to sell YOU anything, but please try to remember that just because you are “lost” doesn’t mean whatever it is is not in fact happening/fact/real. If it weren’t for scientists telling us crazy, outlandish, unbelievable things, we’d still think the earth was flat and that weather was caused by a god’s/gods’ moods.
outside or out-out…as in room to run? Maybe there’s a difference? Any Out is a good out (as long as it’s not a friggin mud hole)
(Bolding mine - not meaning to pick on you personally, it just touched one on of my pet peeves re: all the marketing and fads in the horse world)
Not a subscriber so I don’t know the exact content of the “training program,” but nothing I’ve heard sounds one bit like science.
Understanding how certain muscle groups work and creating a training program you expect to have a certain effect on those muscles isn’t science at all. It’s not unreasonable, it might even be art, but it isn’t science unless you’ve somehow tested your hypothesis that it works.
Before-and-after photos are not science. Still photos taken at different stages of the trot and represented as “correct vs incorrect” (not sure if this program uses them, but many of the self-proclaimed biomechanics experts I’ve seen on social media do) are not science. Testimonials are definitely not science, no matter how big the name is that’s giving their sponsored recommendation.
If someone shows up with an exciting supplement, therapy, or training system that does actually have some evidence (not just a reasonable idea, not photos, not testimonials, but scientific evidence) that it works, I’ll be the first in line, but til then I’m just spending my money on good everyday care and boarding somewhere my horses can get plenty of turnout, hacking out, and hill work.
It’s not an exercise, or a movement. She offers her ideas for how to achieve the goals of correct posture, but there is no secret exercise. I guess you could say she has a “process” for how to achieve it, but I wouldn’t call it an exercise. She does not make you promise any secrecy, but she expects credit be given to her methods (understandably, and as it should be).
I described above what I think is lacking in the teaching style of the group. I think part of it is that facebook is not really a great platform for this kind of stuff, though (e.g., top loading of newer material, etc.). But her “live” sessions, which seem to form the core of the educational component, are too long, too unfocused, and she constantly interrupts her main points with anecdotes and to answer facebook questions. Call me traditional, but I’d be able to follow a more direct lecture better. And it really needs a video of her (or one of her trainers) working with a horse while also describing what they are seeing/doing/problem solving (ideally multiple such videos). There’s one video of a trainer working with a horse, but the narration is at times overcome by wind, and what the trainer is doing could be clearer (“I’m looking for this muscle to disengage here,” etc.). To be fair, I suspect this will change in time, as her business grows - every body has to start somewhere
You are encouraged to reach out to the admins of the group for personalized help, but I think (perhaps mistakenly?) this is for paid 1:1 sessions. But maybe I’m wrong and I should ask, I guess.
And to address your other point - I agree there appears to be some embellishment from the participants (largely unconscious or naive, I would imagine) giving credit where it is probably not due. For instance, no, I don’t think doing this work for several weeks made your horses’ coat shinier. That, to me, is silly. But I do think a lot of the structural changes people are seeing and reporting are real, and indicative that this work is very, very good for a lot of horses. (But let’s face it - for many, riding around with the horse’s head up in the air is the norm, so postural improvement is low hanging fruit for a lot of folks!)
All that being said, I suspect in a few years she’ll have better educational programs, it’s just something that has to be developed over time.
I signed up for Marijke de Jong’s $$$$ program. Her promotional material is substantial, and I was in a place in my life where I could devote time and resources to studying something ‘ new to me.’ The technology has made it very doable, of late. Her written materials cover about 1000 pages, and there is an expansive video library of students doing the work.
Marijke de Jong has this system already in place, for anyone who might be interested.
Kissing spines is like the new navicular…
I know nothing about this clinician and haven’t used the word thoracic sling.
But I do know that the abs lift the back and that a collapsed pec area goes along with falling on the forehand. And I’ve learned a bunch of ways to develop these, primarily lateral work on the ground. It really does make a difference.
So my guess is this clinician has some developmental biomechanical knowledge and maybe bodywork skills but is also marketing herself in a way that mystifies and doesn’t let out her trade secrets.
IME the exercises are neither dangerous or complicated, if you and horse have groundwork basics.
Exactly this!
Isn’t that the truth, sheesh!!!
You’ve hit the nail on the head. As far as the TS talk, Hilary Clayton has written extensively about this subject. She is a source that I would trust, I’m just surprised that folks who would be interested in this aren’t talking about that.
Because the folks who want to read older researched anatomy and the folks that want to hire a travelling horse witch are two distinct populations and don’t overlap much.
You forgot PEMF, LOL!!! I love when folks like to try and say, “OH you’re just being negative!” No, I’ve just been there, done that, have the freakin T-shirt. I tell whatever practitioner/seller of all mystical things…“Look, I’ll try your product, if it works then I will be your biggest fan, but if it doesn’t work I’m going to tell you so”. To me, that’s totally fair and open minded.
Strong point.
This was such a nice discussion. But since it was revived, fully half the comments have been snarks from people who have no knowledge of the program. Get a life.
For those asking sensible questions, no, it is not just one exercise. It is a program. It is, like many things in equestrian sports, simple yet complicated. If it were easy to explain you would get an explanation for free. It isn’t. Some of us, for various reasons, felt it was worth the cost to learn more. To give you a short explanation would be to do you and Celeste a disservice. A short explanation will not help you to help your horse. There has not been any promises of secrecy required from the group. It is a complicated topic that requires a complete explanation in order to be useful and the people who have received that explanation know that they can’t do it justice.
Was it de Kunffy that refused to write about stirrup stepping? Whoever it was would only discuss it in clinics one-on-one so he could be sure it was understood and utilized correctly. Those he taught said it was a powerful addition to their tool box. No one ever accused him (that I heard) of being a fraud just because he wouldn’t share this one idea with the masses. Some topics are complicated. Not everything in life can be reduced to a sound-bite, and no one owes you an explanation.
Saying it’s too special and complicated to explain in words (but apparently not too complex to explain in subscriber-only videos, which are far from the same thing as one-on-one instruction), then telling people to “get a life” for being skeptical doesn’t really inspire confidence in me that it’s all it’s cracked up to be.
Maybe it’s really great stuff you can’t get anywhere else, it’s possible (and most of the fad training methods probably do have at least a few good exercises and helpful ways of explaining things) … but comments like this only make me more of a skeptic.
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