This work combines proven movement education with an experiential approach that restores balance and relaxation to the horse from within, by going straight to the root of most somatic issues - the central nervous system and the intrinsic ability of an animal to self-organize - to help horses quickly return to and maintain soundness and immediately improve both comfort and performance.

Hanna Somatics shares a lineage with Feldenkrais® and the Alexander Technique®, and is often described as an evolution of Feldenkrais with the addition of the innovative technique developed by Thomas Hanna (and named by Eleanor Criswell): Voluntary Pandiculation.

Equine Hanna Somatics is the only system that teaches you how to STRATEGICALLY harness the profound BENEFITS of a horses natural Pandicular Response to help horses effect rapid and lasting changes ​to their own baseline levels of myofascial tension from inside their Central Nervous System (vs. working on the tissues, working with the peripheral nerves, or spinal-cord level involuntary reflex arcs, all of which tend to create temporary results).

Through gently guided natural movements that invite a horse's active participation, we can engage their Pandicular Response.

By voluntarily engaging the horse's intrinsic Pandicular (motor) Response FIRST, which produces it's own (sensory) feedback SECOND, we are not limited to hoping that the 2% of sensory inputs that become encoded into short term memory (McGreevy) will create a beneficial change in motor output - we can work directly with the parts of the brain that produce and mediate the motor output itself.

Chronic tension is a natural adaptive response to stress, trauma and repetitive motion. According to Cacciatore et al, manual therapy, stretching and strengthening or conscious efforts at controlling posture or 'relaxing' do not address the centrally controlled 🧠 nervous system complexities underlying muscle tone... EHS DOES, by engaging a horse's voluntary Pandicular Response.

Neurons grow with use, atrophy with disuse, AND have the ability to form new connections and 'pathways' that are strengthened with repetitive use. Evidence from animal studies and human trials confirms that task-specific, high-repetition movement training drives cortical reorganization. In fact, Kimberley et al. (2010) suggest 400–600 repetitions per day of a motor task are necessary to induce measurable neuroplastic change.

In contrast, by utilizing the existing neural pathways and natural movement sequences, an individual can restore function and strengthen their original neural connections and motor control over areas that have become dormant or deviant, by way of tapping into their intrinsic pandicular response... in 3 repetitions or less.