Friends of the horse world. Thanks so much for your caring and concern that has resulted in virtually a new library for the children at Wounded Knee . The combined art therapy – horse therapy program this July needs your help also. This program is an innovative one for underserved children on the reservation, and is conducted jointly by the Lakota tribe and the art therapy department of George Washington University.Two things are needed:
1.Grooming supplies. The children have none, and use old hair brushes when they can find them. Donations of these will help in the equine therapy program, where grooming helps develop rapport between child and horse.
2. Monetary donations. Any contribution will help defray both the cost of art materials and the horse participation. All contributions are fully tax deductible. Please help bring this program to America’ neediest and most deserving people.
Please sent the grooming materials and make the checks out to:
Art Therapy Graduate Program/ George Washington U./ attn Dr. Elizabeth Warson
1925 Ballenger Ave. Suite 250
Alexandria, VA 22134

We say thank you, and the Lakota Nation says wopila!Friends of the horse world. Thanks so much for your caring and concern that has resulted in virtually a new library for the children at Wounded Knee . The combined art therapy – horse therapy program this July needs your help also. This program is an innovative one for underserved children on the reservation, and is conducted jointly by the Lakota tribe and the art therapy department of George Washington University.Two things are needed:
1.Grooming supplies. The children have none, and use old hair brushes when they can find them. Donations of these will help in the equine therapy program, where grooming helps develop rapport between child and horse.
2. Monetary donations. Any contribution will help defray both the cost of art materials and the horse participation. All contributions are fully tax deductible. Please help bring this program to America’ neediest and most deserving people.
Please sent the grooming materials and make the checks out to:
Art Therapy Graduate Program/ George Washington U./ attn Dr. Elizabeth Warson
1925 Ballenger Ave. Suite 250
Alexandria, VA 22134

We say thank you, and the Lakota Nation says wopila!

Certain legends become self perpetuating, and back pain in equestrians is among them. As a spine care specialist and neurosurgeon, I literally built a career getting riders back in the saddle after being told by their physician that back pain meant that they should cease riding. A look at this issue reveals that, while there is a correlation between riding and back pain, it is no greater than many other activities. There are reasonable ways to prevent and treat back pain in riders. The book titled The Rider’s Pain Free Back goes into extensive detail, but here are some of the highlights.

Let’s look at history to see if there is a correlation. No place is more historic than Pompei, Italy. This was an entertainment center for Rome, and was frequented by politicians and the military, the two classes of equestrians of the era. Riding in stirrup-less saddles would inspire these people to frequent the taverns of Pompei. All of these had a marble step in front of their bar, the early equivalent of the brass rail. As the
patrons flexed a hip to place a foot on the step, it would alleviate their sciatica, thus inspiring them to stay longer and drink more, possibly producing further relief. The addition of stirrups lessened seat contact, but rider populations increased and back pain became entrenched in their ranks.

Both horse and rider play an equal part in preventing and treating back pain. First the horse. There are two gait groups of horses as far as back pain is concerned. The horizontally gaited ones, of which Arabians, Tennessee Walkers, and Paso Finos are examples, have a gait where force is directed horizontally. This means less upward impact on the base of the rider’s spine. Vertically gaited horses , such as some Morgans and Hackneys, are more animated in their movements and have a measurable increase in upward impact against the rider’s spine. These are generalizations, and there are notable exceptions within all breeds. Add the rider, and you add what I call harmonics. Harmonics are the natural movements of the particular rider’s spine and how they blend with those of a particular horse. The smaller rider may be capable of more rapid spine flexibility movements, much like the guards in basketball. The tall thin rider will generally have a more willowy natural spine movement capability. My advice is, no matter how good that black horse looks, you need to try him out first. My experience has suggested that the sitting trot is the quickest way to find out if harmonics are present. If the sitting trot is comfortable, you’ve got something.

Let’s now look at who are today’s riders. If you look at American riders as a pie chart, the biggest piece is a middle aged woman who recreationally rides what is most likely a Quarter horse. These baby boomer women are an economic force that spends millions on horses now that their children have grown and they have time and money to pursue their girlhood dreams. Unfortunately they are starting to suffer from natural processes of aging, which made them fill my office seeking relief and the chance to continue riding. For the majority of them, the answers were in proper horse and tack choices, improved
flexibility and strengthening, and appropriate medications. Having discussed horse choices, let’s move to exercises to improve flexibility and strengthening. Flexibility comes first, because tight muscles and ligaments won’t strengthen properly. The internet is full of stretching exercises, or you can consult the
above mentioned book for rider specific ones. What is important is to not only stretch before riding, but after the ride. Riding doesn’t transfer to any other human activity, so stretching afterward allows your muscles to “reset” for the next activity. Without this reset, your next activity won’t be effective, and back pain will result. Strengthening should always be done in an isometric mode. Multiple repetition exercises don’t work for riders’ strengthening. Don’t do a lot of reps. Do an exercise where you hold a position for a longer time, just like in riding. If it bores you, just increase the weight resistance.
Medications deserve special attention. These should be used under your personal physician’s direction in concert with any other medications used. Antiinflammatory medications used appropriately are a savior to many riding careers. Some of them can reduce blood clotting capability. Riding is a contact sport, and sometimes involves unscheduled decelerations. The normal bleeding and bruising that may occur can be
significantly increased in the presence of certain anti-inflammatory medications. Properly utilized, not only do anti-inflammatory medications lessen the discomfort of aging muscles, joints, and ligaments, but they also significantly decrease dementias such as Alzheimer’s, so that we can enjoy our horses more. Keep riding. JSW

ThinLine has begun a free Demo Ride Program with all their tack shops!

Last August ThinLine started a demo pad program, realizing that riders will choose to ride on a ThinLine pad if they just have a chance to experience it. Tack shops registered for the program, requested English, Western, or both pads and filled out their registration forms. Once received, the pads were to be loaned to at least 5 riders so they could experience a ThinLine ride.  The initial results are in!

Those tack shops that had loaned the pads 5 or more times experienced four out of five riders subsequently purchasing a new ThinLine pad when the loaner was turned in. Some of the comments we received provided a certain level of entertainment as well, including: (actual comments)

“I never saw the pad because my partner opened the mail first and apparently her barn is where all the ThinLine stock has gone now”

“The pad has been buried in our lesson program, so we don’t know how many purchasers had a chance to try one.”

“Customers decided that, if it was that good, they’d just go ahead and buy one and not worry about bringing the demo back”

“We had no sales of ThinLine pads to speak of until this program, but now each rider buys one when they bring the demo back – sold 6 in 6 weeks from the program.”

“We can’t get the demo pad back. The riders are passing it around among the barns and coming in to buy.”

“The Christmas rush wore us out. We have no idea if it’s on one of Santa’s reindeer.”

During my clinical career I was exposed to a significant number of active riders who had a similar knee problem. They would complain of a knee pain that was actually slightly below the joint toward the inside of the leg. The pain was noticeable during prolonged riding, was relieved by placing the calf of the affected knee on top of the lower thigh, and was sometimes worse in the mornings upon first standing up. Virtually all of these riders rode in English saddles. Many of these people had experienced knee arthroscopy, always with negligible results, and were subsequently referred to me because their doctor thought they might have a ruptured disc between the 3rd and 4th lumbar vertebrae. Examination usually revealed slight swelling and tenderness just below the bottom of the kneecap and slightly inward. Welcome to something called rider’s knee, the pes anserinus syndrome.

There are three muscles in our legs that are terribly important but commonly overlooked, the sartorius, gracilis, and semitendinosus. These three muscles work in unison to produce a movement like this; step on something objectionable and you will find yourself lifting the foot, rotating it inward, and looking at the bottom of the foot to see what’s there. This is the basis for leg positioning around the horse’s barrel when riding in English tack. These three muscles produce this movement by coming together in a band of fibrous tissue shaped like a goose’s foot which attaches below the knee joint on the medial side of the upper tibia (shin bone). Pes anserinus is Latin for goose’s foot, hence the medical name for the syndrome. As this band passes over the knee joint, it is separated by a fluid filled sac, or bursa, and that is what has become swollen, tender and painful due to chronic irritation. Wrapping the knees against the large barrel of their beloved warmblood or quarter horse had produced the irritation.

Diagnosis and treatment are accomplished rather easily. Simply injecting the bursa with a mixture of local anesthetic and steroid medications would immediately relieve the syndrome. Externally wedged stirrup wraps (the ride right stirrup wrap) control the problem afterward by slightly stretching the pes anserinus and counteracting its pull.

Knee hurt after riding? Feel that tender area about two inches below where the knee bends on the upper inner shin bone?Think pes anserinus syndrome. A lot of board certified orthopedic surgeons have no idea, so it’s up to you, so you can—-keep riding. JSW

Riding students constantly are told to sit straight, even when they feel a slouch is more comfortable. There’s a reason for that erect posture in riding, and it has to do with comfort, responsiveness, and safety.
Let’s imagine that the footing beneath you is icy. Do you use your usual stride when crossing it? No. You shorten your stride length, keeping the legs and feet more constantly beneath you. This allows your brain’s vestibular system, those little semicircular canals in the inner ear, to receive and send signals to maintain balance more quickly. Keeping an erect posture with smaller steps means both better balance and more efficient body motor control. Simply stated, if a limb or a torso is off center, it has to be brought back to center before balancing can take place. By then you’re half way off the horse or onto the ice.
This system becomes increasingly important as riders age. In those semicircular canals are little stone-like objects called otoliths. When they roll around in the canals, they stimulate receptor cells, which then send out signals to the appropriate muscles via the spinal cord. The muscles then contract to hold balance or correct imbalance. As we age, the receptors become less sensitive, and that’s why older people seem to have more trouble maintaining their balance. That’s why it’s especially important that older riders use thinner saddle pads for closer contact. The better input from better contact means a better and quicker response from the muscles used in riding, and a safer and more enjoyable ride. Modern technology, such as the open cell ThinLine pads, means that the pad can be thinner for comfort and still be a better transmitter of horse and rider information.

JSW

Click here to listen to Lakota flute music while you read: Opening the Heart Flutes

A word from the owner of ThinLine:

Jim Warson, a Comanche Indian and noteworthy author, rider and surgeon  visited my son’s second grade class just a day after returning from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  Generally a man with nerves of steel, I saw tears welling up in his eyes as he stood with my son who was showing him all the books he had read in his classroom.  After we left I asked him what had happened.  The shift from life on the reservation back to the highly educated “city of medicine”, Durham North Carolina, can be severe. But, what had brought the tears? There were more books in my son’s single second grade classroom than existed in the entire Wounded Knee Elementary school.

So we began the book drive. Just part and parcel of what we hope will become a full fledged business merging the Lakota Sioux artwork, horsemanship and ThinLine manufacturing. The first donation consisted of 500 books and a half a dozen computers. We pressed on with the PR and the horse world responded.

Thanks to the University of Penn Veterinary School organized by Lilly Haywood, her mom and uncle, we received 770 books in a single shipment!  Intrepid International has delivered over 300 books.  100 were collected at Dressage at Devon and our post master is ready for a vacation as boxes of books from individuals arrive daily.

Now a word from Jim Warson:

A word of appreciation—Wopila!

Wopila is the expression of Lakota gratitude, so it seems natural for those of us at ThinLine to use it to thank everyone who has contributed to the Lakota book drive. In September we delivered the first shipment. There were over 500 books and 8 school ready computers courtesy of George Washington University’s art therapy program. The faculty, staff and students were truly overwhelmed by these gifts from people that they didn’t know who were willing to make a difference in their lives. Mrs. Marnie White Wolf, the superintendent, summed it up by calling it a dream come true. The Wounded Knee School is starting a reading program where parents can bring their children to the school at night and read with them, so the books will be even more valuable to the community. Thanks to the generosity of our donors  these American Indian children from the tiny isolated communities of Manderson,Wounded Knee, and Porcupine will have an equal chance at a quality educational experience. There’s no stopping now.Another 1000 books are being packed for shipment at this moment, and more computers are being made school ready. Wopila is everywhere. You see it in the children eyes, in the smiles of the school faculty and staff, and in the hearts of the Pine Ridge Reservation. We pass it on to you.

Wopila!

David Little Wounded, a full-blooded Lakota Sioux Indian, reaches out

We cannot thank our customers enough. We delivered over 500 books and 12 computers to the Wounded Knee Elementary school on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The 500 books more than doubled the books they had on hand! To date there were no computers for children to use or see. Today there is a computer for half of the classrooms. Our initial trip had a great impact on the happiness of the Lakota children. Most USA schools have 3,000 books in an average library so we are still keeping the PR going until we feel they have enough resources. We are now accepting donations of not only horse books but children s books, Fiction and non fiction and of course any old computers you may have in your home gathering dust.

Several Lakota riding products are now complete and can be ordered through ThinLineGlobal.com.  Listen to the Stable Scoop Radio show to get the full scoop on the new Lakota Indian Horse products and Dream Horses. Right Click Here to Listen or Download to I tunes or other MP3 formats.

Then check out the one of a kind American Indian art and horse tack offered at ThinLineGlobal.  Click here to see products Your purchases provide employment for this reservation with 85% unemployment.

A week ago I was still seeing people in t shirts and shorts. This morning it was 19 degrees Fahrenheit. Time to realize that global warming is still in the challenged phase, and your horse’s winter nutrition needs to be addressed.
Let’s assume for round numbers that your horse weighs 1000 pounds. His maintenance calorie requirement is 15000 calories per day. Light work increases that to 25000 calories per day. The latter would probably apply to most horses that have the week off while you struggle to work to pay their keep, and then are ridden on the weekend. There are really only 4 numbers that are practical to remember regarding nutritional components of feed.
First: green pasture produces about 245 calories per pound, so a horse would need to consume 60 pounds per day to be fully nourished on pasture alone, and we won’t be seeing any green pasture til spring. That classical 2 and a half per cent of body weight applies to leafy forage, like
Second: alfalfa hay and pellets have about 977 calories per pound, and grass hay like timothy about 800, so feeding about 25 pounds supplies the classical requirement. Third: sweet feeds can be anywhere from twice these to several times, depending on the fat content. Check the nutritional label on your bag for exact amounts, and Fourth: corn oil has 4081 calories per pound, which is about a pint of liquid.
For daily ration, you can calculate your poundage of hay and grain, and the combination needs to add up to at least 15000 calories. Keep track so you don’t have a horse that’s over or underweight when all that hair sheds out in spring. Use the corn oil for extra nutrition for those really cold nights or to supplement following work, remembering that sweat will quickly raise caloric needs in cold weather.
Keep riding JSW

I’ve just finished a marvelous book titled Effective Teaching and Riding, by Eckart Meyners. This is a book written primarily for riding instructors, but has some of the best insights on the rider within us. It would be easy to assume that a book written by an eminent German horseman with subsequent English translation would be very rigid, didactic and authoritarian. This would be wrong. This book explains to instructors what motivates the inner rider as they engage in a lesson. Take for example balance and motion. Meyners points out correctly that one cannot have balance without motion, and motion without balance. He even points out how relaxed motion is more effective than stressed motion. The techniques suggested , such as tongue to teeth pressure, are neurologically sound, and effective as well. In a stressful riding situation, pressing the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth just behind the upper incisor teeth produces what is called facilitation. This empowers the body’s fine control movements, reducing the voluntary force necessary for control.  As I was riding in an airplane recently, I marveled at how much movement there was in the flaps of the wings just to produce the feeling of a smooth ride. Sound familiar? It’s like those micromotions we make to maintain balance and control as we ride. With stress, muscle tightening, and subsequent fatigue, we all might consider touching our tongues to the roof of our mouth just behind the upper incisor teeth as a way to modify stress.

Meyners spends a great  amount of time stressing the emotional state of the rider. His collections of instructors’ positive and negative responses to rider stress will be uncomfortably familiar to many of us. Meyners stresses that each rider, horse, and combination thereof is unique, and instructors need understanding and empathy if they are to be effective educators. Instead of rigidly molding the student to an image, the truly effective instructor gets inside the student to understand how and why they ride. While the result may be a wider degree of variability among students, the goal is to make each one a better rider within their own capability. Understanding and empathy are sometimes elusive concepts among riding instructors. This book tells you how to recognize it. Once you’ve done that, it’s easier to form a positive and productive relationship with an instructor, and you’re on your way to being a better rider. Read Effective Teaching and Riding. It’s a different kind of book full of wonderful concepts.

Keep riding    JSW

The Lakota (part of the Sioux Nation) were the most respected horseman in American Indian History. Today they live with 87% unemployment, the worst in our nation. They may be hungry yet their horses are well fed.  ThinLine has begun a book drive for this community which has no library and will follow with uplifting programs.  ThinLine and the Lakota also are working on hand made Indian Riding Products.  The tack world waits for the great products of the Lakota and looks forward to providing Americans with much needed jobs. Help us show the public you care by sending your used horse books (or other books) to ThinLine, and by spreading the word for others to do the same.  Keep and eye on this Website for the launch of the Lakota  products and really show your commitment to the Equestrian World.

“The Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a  world filled with broken promises, selfishness, and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations, when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole earth will become one again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things, and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be one”.

The Lakota Dream Horse Project: Here at ThinLine we find ourselves  working with a tribe who have far too long kept themselves quietly on their reservation. Perhaps it is because our products speak to  communication and respect for our horses, or perhaps it is part of a bigger plan foreseen by Crazy Horse.

We are now 7 generations from this great chief.  The Lakota wish to merge our technology with their legacy of equine training and tack, and to  explore the possibility of sharing knowledge and respect for the horse.

To get a sense of why we are doing this please Click on the following

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv7n5jhrHGQ&feature=search

The Lakota (part of the Sioux Nation) were the most respected horseman in American Indian History.  View this link to see what these horseman lost since Wounded Knee. And we hope it will take you to your bookshelves to aid us in developing a library on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

As ThinLine riders we hope you will enjoy The Lakota Dream Horse Project as they develop products and share their knowledge.

Please join us as we move toward the next phase of the Lakota project. Share with us your resources, let us know of your willingness to help, even in simply projects such as our book drive for the Lakota schools. For those who do not know, we have begun developing products designed by these great horseman merging both the ThinLine technology and the traditional Lakota riding and horse training gear.   It is our hope through a myriad of projects we will prevail with what will be not only an employment contract but a ray of hope honoring the original horsemen.

We need HORSE BOOKS! (really any books!)  Everything from childrens’ stories to training books.  If you can donate a few books we would be grateful.  Feel free to place a personal comment to the Lakota on the front inside cover of the book.  Empty your store and home shelves of dusty books and make a meaningful gift today.

Ship Books to : Wounded Knee School

PO Box 350

Manderson SD 57756

Many thanks and we look forward to keeping you posted on this project.

We hope you will gather your friends and horsemen, share the blog, speak to the Lakota, and join us in the journey. We are honored to have been chosen by today’s great red horsemen, and wait not only for their equine work  but the daily words of wisdom and recounts of great equine legends.

For more information, call 1-888-401-9101, or email info@thinlineglobal.com