The Work

Two offerings. Both begin with a horse. Both begin with presence.

 

Equine Bodywork and Therapeutic Massage

I work with horses using a combination of Shiatsu, acupressure, myofascial release, and meridian work from traditional Chinese medicine. The goal of every session is the same: help the body release what it has been holding and restore the free range of motion that is a horse's most natural state.

A horse hides pain instinctively. It is a survival behavior, and it means that by the time you notice something is off, the pattern has usually been building for a while. Most muscular strain injuries in horses are accumulative in nature. Small areas of tightness compensate, spread, and over time become larger problems. Regular bodywork addresses this before it reaches a tipping point.

I work the whole horse, always, regardless of where the obvious issue presents. What affects the front affects the rear. What shows up in the back often begins elsewhere. The body is one system and I treat it as one.

What a session involves:

I work in your barn, paddock, or pasture. I prefer working horses at liberty when possible, without a halter, so they are free to move or step back if they need space. The session begins with observation. How they carry themselves, where they guard, what the eyes show me before I have touched them. I use a combination of techniques depending on what the horse shows me, including percussion, rotation and sedation, cross-fiber work, myofascial release, bladder meridian work, leg stripping, and acupressure point work. A session is 60 to 90 minutes. I always work the whole horse.

Who this is for:

Equine bodywork is beneficial for any horse, but it is especially valuable for horses in active work, horses recovering from injury or travel, older horses managing stiffness and reduced mobility, rescue horses carrying physical and emotional tension from their past, and horses who are showing behavioral issues that may have a physical root.

A horse that is in pain will show it through behavior long before the pain becomes visible. Resistance, short stride, sensitivity to touch, cinchiness, irritability, reluctance to work. These are the body speaking. Bodywork is one of the most direct ways to listen.

Investment: Individual session, contact for current pricing. Multi-horse discounts available. Recurring visit rates available for regular clients. I am based in California and travel throughout the region.

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The Common Thread

I carry the same approach into everything I do. It begins in silence. It builds through observation. It ends in presence. Whether I am working on a horse through bodywork or writing about what the session showed me, the intention does not change.

A relaxed horse and a running nervous system share something important. Both need safety before they can release. Both return to balance through attention and breath, not analysis or force. That is the common thread in this work.

Steady Ground, a weekly Substack publication

Steady Ground is where I write about horses, the nervous system, and resilience. It is not a coaching program. It is not therapy. It is a publication, written weekly, that takes what I observe in sessions and follows it all the way through to what it means for the people reading it.

I started writing on Instagram years ago. Short observations from sessions. Pieces of neuroscience that moved me. The human parallel that horses kept showing me. The response was more than I expected, from horse people, from men doing inner work, from people who had never been near a horse but recognized something in the language.

Steady Ground is where that writing goes deeper.

Free subscribers receive:

A weekly field note from a recent session, written in the present tense of what I actually observed. And a monthly essay on the human parallel, what the horse showed me about my own nervous system and what it might offer yours.

Paid subscribers at $12 per month or $120 per year receive:

Full session stories. Technique deep-dives on specific bodywork practices written for horse owners and for anyone curious about how the body stores and releases tension. A flagship series called Five Things Horses Know That We Have Forgotten. Monthly audio from the field. A reader Q&A thread where I answer questions about your horses and your nervous systems.

Founding members at $150 per year receive:

All of the above, early access to any workshops or programs, and a personal note from me at the start of their membership.

Subscribe to Steady Ground

Not sure where to start?

If your horse needs a session, book a discovery call and we will talk about what they need and whether I am the right fit.

If you are more curious about the writing and the ideas behind the work, start with a free subscription to Steady Ground. The first field note will tell you quickly whether this is something you want more of.

Either way, I am glad you found your way here.

Book a bodywork session
Subscribe to Steady Ground
A horse needs connection and direction flowing from the same source. You can give every correct signal and communicate nothing if the two aren't coming from the same place. The horse reads the gap. Every time. I've worked with horses who would foll
There is a moment in every session when the thinking stops. Not because I decide to stop thinking. It doesn't work that way. But somewhere in the work the chatter running in the background of my mind begins to settle. The plan I had for the session.
Find two horses in a field who trust each other and watch what they do. They will stand flank to flank, heads over each other's backs, and begin to groom. Teeth moving slowly along the neck, the shoulders, the withers. They will stay there for minut
It has been said that a horse has five hearts. Not five literal hearts. But five places in the body where the work of the heart is carried out. The legs. All four of them, and the heart itself at the center. The hoof acts as a pump. With every step
I have spent a lot of time watching horses do nothing. Not nothing in the way we mean when we say someone is wasting time. Nothing in the way a body does when it is fully at ease. Grazing without urgency. Standing in the sun with one hip dropped. Ey
There is a rule I learned early in this work and have not forgotten. If the horse is bracing, you are not being effective. I worked on a horse named Maybelline during a particular season of her life. She had lost her mother not long before I arrived
Kiva is the lead gelding of the herd I work with at Sea Star Horse Sanctuary. I keep writing about him because I'm in awe of what he shows me about herd dynamics, leadership, and the cost of both. He is one of the most instructive animals I have ever
His name is Buddy. A 20-year-old former roping quarter horse who found his way to the Santa Cruz animal shelter after his owner passed away. His new owner told me he was well-mannered but carrying a lot of pain. When I arrived he moved away from me.