Help horses find JOY & COMFORT in movement again with Equine Hanna Somatics® (EHS).
In this ground-breaking introductory course with Alissa Mayer, learn the key to helping horses self-correct their own posture and maladaptive compensations without doing any stretching, strengthening or manual manipulation.
EHS is a gentle, safe, neuroscience-based hands-on approach to improving equine wellness, soundness, and resilience FROM THE INSIDE - via Somatic Education.
With this ground-breaking introductory course, learn the key to helping horses self-correct their own posture and maladaptive compensations without doing any stretching, strengthening or manual manipulation.
As Seen In
This course will help you help any horse:
Move with Less Pain
Improve Nervous System Function
Become more Present
Update Body Awareness
UN-learn Compensation Patterns
Restore Neutral Posture
Decrease Stiffness
Increase Joint Stability & ROM
Self-Regulate
Prevent Injuries & Crookedness
Be more Balanced and Confident
Feel Younger, Calmer & Happier
Connect more strongly to YOU
Get amazing results that don't wear off!
As Seen In
Equine Hanna Somatics (EHS) is an adaptation of Hanna Somatic Education® (HSE) - proven movement work developed for humans in the 1970-80's by Thomas Hanna Ph.D. and Eleanor Criswell Hanna Ed.D.
EHS works with pure physiology to instantly reverse chronic muscle tension, by working WITH the voluntary cortex of the horses brain, instead of working ON their body... so even though it looks a lot like it, EHS isn't manual therapy or 'bodywork', but is a unique educational and experiential process that we facilitate for the horse.
I downloaded the free E-book in 2025 and just purchased the Intro course. My horse immediately loved it and could move his leg with shivers better than ever. A client's horse, who had a difficult time with physical touch, but could easily lift her limbs, very much enjoyed the full body EHS Session 1.
My plan is to retire from my veterinary career in approximately 3 years. I am looking for a second career with horses. I feel EHS is a complete game changer - There is nothing like this method for horses available!
Blown away by the principles of your $47 course... it reveals the riptide of compensations hidden under the surface, and how the brain and nervous system work to recalibrate the system by us working WITHIN the current patterns.
Does your horse seem shut-down or anxious, have upside-down posture, chronic back pain or undiagnosed lameness? (There is a reason... and a solution!)
Does your horse seem shut-down or anxious, have upside-down posture, back pain or undiagnosed lameness?
Horses can get STUCK in one of 3 easy-to-see postural patterns based on involuntary survival reflexes.
With repetition, these reflexive movement patterns become habituated, keeping horses in persistent presentations of:
1. fight/flight/excite (the GREEN LIGHT reflex)
2. freeze/brace/learned helplessness (the RED LIGHT reflex) or
3. crookedness/compensation (the TRAUMA/ASYMMETRY reflex)
Many horses remain trapped in these habitual postures by unconscious muscle contractions for months or years, until they finally get free from the learned chronic muscle tension (variously referred to as 'compensation patterns', 'stable attractors,' 'muscle memory,' etc.).
You can start freeing your horse TODAY with EHS!
What sets Hanna Somatics apart from ALL other forms of 'Somatic Education'?
This work is based on the tendency of all animals to pandiculate, 🤯 and rooted in basic neuroscience. 🧠
These 'funny stretches' horses do are spontaneous expressions of the Pandiculation Reflex.
With a lineage that includes both the Alexander and Feldenkrais methods, Hanna Somatics offers something NEW - the innovative technique developed by Dr. Hanna and named by Dr. Criswell: Voluntary Pandiculation.
IN THIS COURSE, we'll teach you how to help horses tap into their natural Pandicular Response to start resetting their habituated compensatory tension back to normal, neutral levels.
In a time when we are stifle-deep in horses suffering from stiffness, crookedness and undiagnosed, mysterious or recurring lameness, we want to show you how to help horses naturally reverse and prevent chronic tension - the right way.
Too many equine training, bodywork and therapy methods are focused on 'fixing' or correcting symptoms in the body, without understanding the root causes inside the nervous system - in the horse's brain. They leave horses feeling temporarily better, with unpredictable results that don't last very long.
Here at Equine Hanna Somatics Education, we have perfected the art of helping horses quickly and naturally get free from chronic tension, and it's WAY easier than you would think.
Horses will love you and so will your friends and clients.
Does your horse have neck, shoulder or thoracic sling issues? (SPOILER: it might not be weakness or nerve impingement...)
A horse stuck in the GREEN LIGHT Posture experiences chronic downward pressure from the tightly contracting topline and back muscles, putting them into spinal extension. This deactivates the power of their core, putting strain on the ventral neck muscles and dumping even more weight onto the forehand...
A horse stuck in the RED LIGHT Posture has tightly contracted chest, abdominal and iliopsoas muscles that pull the shoulders and pelvis in toward the midline. This locks the whole spine into chronic flexion, which compresses the whole barrel and compromises everything inside...
Learn the secret to helping horses rapidly regain their spinal integrity, free up their pectorals and scapula to allow the muscles of the thoracic sling to function again, open up 'base-narrow' posture and start relieving internally-mediated compression on the nerves and other vital tissues and organs - in as little as one* EHS session!
*We recommend you plan 3 EHS sessions over 1-3 weeks for maximum impact, and to give you and your horse time to work through the whole introductory EHS protocol we teach you in this course.
A horse stuck in the GREEN LIGHT Posture experiences chronic downward pressure from the tightly contracting topline and back muscles, putting them into spinal extension, deactivating the power of the core, putting strain on the brachiocephalic muscles and dumping even more weight onto the forehand...
A horse stuck in the RED LIGHT Posture has tightly contracted chest, abdominal and iliopsoas muscles that pull the shoulders and pelvis in toward the midline and lock the whole spine into chronic flexion, which compresses the whole barrel and compromises everything inside.
Learn the secret to helping horses rapidly regain their spinal integrity, how to free up their pectorals and scapula to allow the muscles of the thoracic sling to function again, to open up 'base-narrow' posture and start relieving internal compression on the nerves and other vital tissues and organs - in as little as one EHS session!
Does your horse 'go better' or prefer to bend in one direction? (HINT: Not all asymmetry is 'natural' or fixed - some of it is learned!)
The muscles on one side of the body often become habitually tighter (ie. shorter), pulling the horse out of their natural alignment and into the TRAUMA/ASYMMETRY POSTURE.
It's not usually a conscious choice, a preference OR structural crookedness - it's a learned habit.
The Trauma Posture is often mistaken for Laterality or 'Natural Asymmetry' when in fact it is a distinct layer of learned involuntary muscle contractions that can (for most horses) be UN-learned.
In this course we teach you a proven series of proprietary Equine Somatic Exercises and how to do them correctly to inspire your horse activate their Pandicular Response, so you can help horses start reversing their habituated crookedness, in days (instead of months or years)!
Join us in the course, as we introduce Equine Hanna Somatics (EHS) to a horse for the very first time, and show you how to do it with your own horse.
What's included in the Course?
The simple 3-step process for assessing horses for chronic tension & habitual posture
Real-time Demonstrations of the basic full-body EHS protocol and instructions on how to modify it to safely invite any horse* to do voluntary pandiculation exercises
An easy system for customizing your sessions to each individual horse
Printable Assessment Worksheets and a handy 1-page EHS Principles & Protocol checklist, for easy reference from the barn.
Simple explanations so you can be effective right away, even while you're still learning
Video training (2+ hours) to make sure you can learn to work somatically with horses from anywhere in the world
Learn how to invite willing participation from the horse every step of the way
*horses with healing injuries or who are in rehab should be cleared by a veterinarian to return to light work (like hand-walking) before beginning EHS.
"The most effective time I have spent with a horse... EHS profoundly affects my horse’s ability to accept connection through his body, as well as to access areas of tension that exercises under saddle have failed to alleviate."
- Sarah Martin, USDF gold medalist and Certified Instructor
⚠️ PLEASE NOTE: This course does NOT qualify or authorize you to offer EHS as a professional service - this is an introductory course, and also a prerequisite to qualifying for enrollment in our 2-year Equine & Canine Hanna Somatics Practitioner Certification and Training program. :)
Who are Eleanor and Alissa, just what exactly IS Equine Hanna Somatics (EHS), and why are they the best ones to guide me on my horse-healing journey?
Great question, we're so glad you asked!
Eleanor Criswell Hanna Ed.D (1938-2024) was the Creator of Equine Hanna Somatics®, Canine Hanna Somatics® and Somatic Yoga, the co-creator of Hanna Somatic Education® (for humans), and the Director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training from 1990-2024. She was a horse-lover, scientist, master teacher, green-tea drinker, world-traveler, and much more!
She is dearly missed, and I feel incredibly grateful to have called her mentor, business partner and very dear friend for many years.
Equine Hanna Somatics (EHS) is an adaptation of Hanna Somatics (work developed for humans) that works with "pure physiology" to instantly reverse chronic muscle tension, by working directly WITH the horses brain, instead of working ON the body... so even though it looks a lot like it, EHS isn't actually bodywork, but is an educational and experiential process that we facilitate for the horse.
Dr. Criswell and Alissa Mayer co-teaching an EHS training in Novato, CA 2015.
My name is Alissa Mayer. I earned my Certification in Equine Hanna Somatics Education with Eleanor in 2012. This wildly transformed my horse training and riding lesson business, and shifted the way I approach everything I do with horses. We produced the original EHS Session 1 instructional video together in 2013...
Now, I'm the Director of the EHS Professional Training & Certification Program created by Eleanor, and that I co-taught with her for the last decade.
Dr. Criswell and Alissa Mayer co-teaching an EHS training in Novato, CA 2015.
I've been obsessed with horses for as long as I can remember... and when I discovered EHS and met Eleanor (who was also horse-obsessed), it was like I'd found my calling - to share the incredibly valuable and mind-blowing work of Hanna Somatics with the horse world.
I believe that this work, which is based on the natural tendency of animals to pandiculate, is going to completely revolutionize the way we train and care for horses. No longer do we have to spend years doing battle with crookedness, rely on hopes and prayers that our horses will stay or become sound, or watch our beloved horses become stiff and withdrawn with age...
EHS is the most reliable, most explainable and also the fastest way I have yet found to improve the function of a horses body, improve their overall wellness and happiness, and also to create deeply satisfying bonds between horse and human.
Dr. Criswell and Alissa Mayer filming this course, EHS Session 1, in Ocala, FL 2013.
Eleanor and I shared the passion and the dream of getting as many horses as possible to enjoy the life-changing benefits of Equine Hanna Somatics. If any of this is resonating with you, then you're in the right place and I can't wait to meet you!
Making and sharing this course is a big step toward making that dream come true, and it is also the pre-requisite for applying to the EHS certification program. We designed it to make it easy for you to confidently (and quickly) start working somatically with any horse, whether you are a vet, trainer, seasoned equine bodyworker or even if you've never tried anything like this before.
We want to empower you to literally 'have a hand' in your horse's health and well-being, and to enjoy the kind of heart-to-heart connections with horses that we know you're dreaming of, starting today!
More Testimonials:
EHS is Proven. Gentle. Science-based. Safe... and horses LOVE it!
Get results way beyond typical equine 'bodywork' - without doing any stretching, strengthening or manual manipulation when you learn to guide your horse through a full-body session of Somatic Movement.
Do it for your own horse, or to up-level your professional equine practice!
Get the Equine Hanna Somatics - Session 1 INTRO course for $97...
Frequently Asked Questions
Here Are A Few Questions We Get A Lot
Is this course for professionals?
This course is appropriate for veterinarians, bodyworkers, equine professionals, trainers, riders, non-riders or amateur horse owners. It is for anyone interested in learning how to help horses feel and function better, improve their posture and motor-control, and start resolving many of the most common soundness issues modern horses face - and this course is also the pre-requisite for applying to the Equine Hanna Somatics Professional Training & Certification Program.
While you will naturally apply the knowledge and skills gained through this introductory course in both a personal and professional setting, purchasing the Equine Hanna Somatics® - Session 1 course does NOT qualify nor authorize you to advertise or offer services related to the course content, which includes refraining from using this course completion as a qualification to provide paid EHS services to others.
Is EHS 'bodywork' or a manual therapy modality?
EHS is not manual therapy or bodywork, but is a hands-on method for helping horses change their own baseline levels of resting muscle tone, from within their own central nervous system. We are not providing specific sensory inputs with our touch, hoping that the horse will release, relax or otherwise change something in response. Instead we are using touch to communicate what the horse needs to do to activate their intrinsic pandicular response, which involves directly changing the motor outputs coming from their brain... ;)
Hanna Somatics for any species is categorized as Somatic Education or Somatic Movement Education, still considered 'emerging professions' in the field of Somatics and among the approaches to chronic pain management, athletic development and self-actualization.
What if my horse is injured, lame or in rehab?
If your horse is in rehab from an injury or has a chronic lameness, your horse can still benefit greatly from the exercises in this course. All of the EHS exercises and movements are gentle enough for any horse to do once they are out of the acute injury stage. So, as long as your vet has given permission for your horse to do light work (like hand-walking), you can safely modify the EHS Session 1 protocol taught in this course, for any horse.
What's the refund policy?
If you jump into the course and don't like what you see let us know. Because you get immediate access to the training and downloads you will need to show us that you went through the training and it didn't work for you in order to get a refund. We want to make sure you have an amazing experience and we think you will love this video course.
What's if my horse already gets massage, chiropractic adjustments or bodywork?
If you already have a maintenance or treatment plan for your horse (hopefully including your vet), EHS is a wonderful compliment that will make your horse easier to 'adjust' and help the results of other therapies to last longer. You may even find that your horse will need need fewer and fewer sessions (of any type) to stay supple and moving comfortably.
Disclaimer: Equine/Canine/Human Hanna Somatics is not bodywork or manual therapy, and is not a diagnostic or treatment tool. The information included on this website and in any affiliated programs is intended for educational purposes only and is not meant to take the place of professional veterinary or medical advice, may not be current, and is subject to change without notice. We encourage all members of the community to seek guidance from a licensed veterinarian, physician or allied healthcare practitioner regarding specific medical concerns or questions about your own or your animal’s health.
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