About The SENSE Method

Home

About Feldenkrais

About SENSE

About Centered Riding

ATMs

Lessons For You

Equine Sessions

Clinics

About Helen Harvey

Links

SENSE stands for Strength with Elegance through Natural Somatic Expression. SENSE is a technique that utilizes non-habitual movements to increase variation, innovation and differentiation in sensory motor activity, freeing us from habitual patterns and allowing for new patterns of movement. 

The SENSE Method practitioner utilizes skilled touch and gentle, non-invasive techniques to provide new kinesthetic information to the nervous system, helping you and your horse discover new and more efficient patterns of movement. SENSE helps you understand why some movements are easier for your horse than others, and makes it easier for your horse to balance easily, and move in any direction.

For example, a horse that always carries ribs to the right is likely to find it difficult to bend around the curve of a circle to the right. If you watch a horse walk in a straight line with the head and neck fairly straight from behind and in front, you can see if the ribs remain more on one side than the other. I make the nervous system aware of the current functional organization and suggest alternatives -- new organizations that are more comfortable or functional than the old. This is achieved by showing the animal how the head, neck, sternum, ribs and pelvis work together, allowing the ribs to swing, giving greater fluidity and ease of movement. This new organization makes it possible for the horse to bend along the arc of the circle in both directions.

With SENSE, healthy animals stay healthy longer, animals in training are less prone to repetitive strain and other sport-related injuries, and arthritic animals benefit by learning to move without twisting or excessively loading their joints.

Benefits of SENSE

  • Performance enhancement for you and your horse
  • Decrease tension
  • Increase elegance
  • Reduce pain and stiffness 
  • Improve balance, coordination, and posture
  • Reduce aches and pains in joints and muscles
  • Improve cooperation and reduce behavioral problems
  • Increase flexibility and stamina while enhancing healing
  • Increase communication and strengthen the human-animal bond