Susan Ryrie Therapies - Equine, Canine, Human

03/09/2025

Another desk session, studying somatics. This time it's all about working with people who have painful autoimmune conditions. I've heard of ankylosing spondylitis, multiple sclerosis, lupus etc, but not Parsonage-Turner syndrome, Guillain-Barre syndrome and several others.

02/09/2025

And the most important 20% for your horse?

Katie Lawrence highlighted ‘static stability’ and made this the foundation on which she built the Quad X Method.

It starts with Dynamic Mobilisation Exercises (DMEs) which I have written about LOTS!
They look like ‘carrot stretches’ but aren’t designed to s t r e t c h.

Here’s the link to my Fact Sheet that gives more details.

"Every ridden horse should be given these exercises". These well known exercises are accessible to all horse owners and bring huge benefits for protecting the horse's spine.

30/08/2025

If you are wondering what are the 20% of things that can make the difference for yourself, I think that tackling the hidden changes that are described by Thomas Hanna in his book Somatics must be on that list.

We are all familiar with these changes and we think of them as inevitable consequences of aging; something over which we believe we have no control.

Hanna realised that many of these changes are related to our instinctive reflexes. Having identified the mechanism at play, he went on to develop a solution in the form of his somatic movement exercises.

This is what Hanna did when he developed somatic movement exercises. He addressed very specific problems and found solutions that will benefit everyone, whatever their level of fitness. Because they are so specific in their focus, they bring benefits that you are unlikely to get to such a large extent through other types of exercise.

The key here is to live life in a way that keeps us on the ‘uphill’ part of the graph. It doesn’t need to be a steep section representing fast improvement, but it does need to be improvement rather than decline.

28/08/2025

The slow, almost imperceptible change of a gentle slope can prevent us from taking action that would halt the decline because we don’t see it. It can also prevent us from keeping going with action that ensures slow improvement - because we can’t see enough change.

This is a real challenge when I work with people to help them use Quad X Strengthening and Conditioning for their horse.

Changes don’t happen overnight. It does take time for muscles to become stronger and for new habits of movement to become established. It is difficult to maintain motivation.

Keeping a well-thought-out diary can help. Have you ever had that experience of thinking nothing is different until you look back and realise you are doing things now that you thought impossible just a year ago? A diary makes sure you have a way of looking back. The power is not just in recording facts, it is in recording them in a way that makes changes obvious, and in taking the time to compare ‘then’ with ‘now’.

26/08/2025

So why did I live for so long with the fallacy that my MSK health was constant at ‘good enough’; the idea that ‘my line’ was horizontal. I think the answer is that many changes happen so slowly that we don’t notice them on a day to day, or even week to week, or month to month basis.

A very gradual downhill slope may feel level, but it’s still downhill and that only leads to one place - less. It may take years to get there. Accident or injury may produce a few downward steps as well so that we reach low levels of health more quickly.
The good news, of course, is that if this change is happening very gradually, it only takes a small effort on our part to turn things around - to change the slope from gently downhill to gently uphill.

We don’t need to be slogging away in the gym or pounding the pavements to do this, but we do need to be directing our smaller efforts in the right way.

There is something called Pareto’s Principle which says that 80% of the gains we make come from 20% of the effort we put in. In other words, some things have a bigger effect than others. It’s obvious. The trick, of course, is to know how to find that 20%!

(If you’re interested in finding the 20% to improve your horse’s core strength I’m nearly ready with my 80/20 Equine Core Strength membership and will be starting it in September. I will initially give away 5 places free of charge for 2 months to help me check the techie details of this beta version. Message me if you want to have one of those places.)

23/08/2025

Let’s dig a little deeper into the ideas behind the graph.

Pick a point where the slope is uphill - things are improving. I can change the slope in lots of ways without making it go downhill. I can make it steeper or less steep without tipping it the other way.

The same is true if we pick a point where the line is sloping downhill; of all the possible ways to change the slope, many of them preserve the character that it is a downhill slope.

But when the line is horizontal, we can’t do that. However we change the slope we end up changing the character of the line; it will no longer be horizontal.
It’s like a seesaw. The slightest thing can throw us onto a downhill slope which represents decay and declining musculoskeletal health; or it might throw us onto an uphill slope where things are improving.

So the idea that we can live in a ‘status quo’ where our musculoskeletal health is steady, is misguided.

The reality is that the ‘status quo’ is like a knife edge - the dividing line between good and bad. It’s impossible to stay on that line for long. Any change at all will take us to one side or the other.

21/08/2025

Another takeaway from my time in mathematics has been to realise what a fine dividing line there is between growth and decay.

Have a look at the image below. Think of the horizontal axis on the graph as time progressing and the height of the line as showing us how ‘good’ something is; I’m thinking here of how good my musculoskeletal health is.

If the line is going uphill it’s good because things are getting better over time. If it’s going downhill, things are getting worse - bad! If it’s horizontal, things are staying the same.

Where the line is horizontal, it is the point at which uphill changes to downhill, or vice versa. Keeping that line horizontal is really difficult. To do that, everything has to be just right - any slight change and the line will start to go either up or down.

To really get the feeling of this ‘just right’, try to balance a ruler on your finger so it’s perfectly horizontal!

16/08/2025

In practice, complex systems usually have more than one fixed point.

If we zoom out we might see that the marble is rolling on a surface that looks more like the shape of an egg box.

Under normal circumstances it stays where it should be, in its ‘proper’, home cell. But if something pushes it hard enough, it can escape to the cell next door. Once there, it can become trapped and unable to get back ‘home’.

This is the picture I have in my mind that helps me think about some chronic health conditions, and why recovery can seem so difficult. The home cell represents healthy homeostasis (red marble). But the next-door cell (blue marble) represents a body trapped in a state of chronic ill health. It needs something special to push it back over the hill.

Of course, this is just my brain making connections from the past to help me make sense of things that interest me. It isn’t a theory that I have seen elsewhere - but it does intrigue me!

Does this resonate with you? I'd love to hear!

14/08/2025

Stable fixed points, like the one I described in the last post, are what make many systems predictable. Even when things are changing, we can be confident that they will not become too far removed from our expectations, and will always tend back towards ‘the norm’.

But there are other types of fixed points.

A marble on a convex surface will sit at the top, perfectly poised, until the smallest disturbance pushes it to one side - and then it rolls down the hill getting further and further from its starting point.

This is an unstable fixed point and if we had that type of behaviour in our bodies we would be in trouble!

11/08/2025

Homeostasis is the state of the body where everything is in balance and ticking over very nicely. It’s healthy.

The feedback, autoregulation and healing processes in the body continually work to keep it close to homeostasis. If it is too hot, the body sweats to return the temperature to normal. If the heart races because of stress or exercise, it will return to normal afterwards.

A nice visualisation for this is the behaviour of a marble rolling on a concave surface. Disturbances may push the marble temporarily up the slope, but it will always roll back down towards the lowest point. It doesn't matter how far up the slope you move it, once you let go the marble always rolls back towards the bottom.

In mathematics, the bottom of the well is a stable fixed point. Fixed, because once the marble settles there it stays put - unless something pushes it away. Stable because the marble will always get pulled back towards that point.

A body may be pushed away from its ideal fixed point of homeostasis, but it has mechanisms that pull it back towards where it should be for good health. It is resilient.

07/08/2025

What a great summer - I hope it has been good for you too!

I've been a bit slow, but my plans are coming together for offering online equine strengthening and conditioning help; and I'm also ready to take on two in-person case studies at a discount in return for good photos and records that I can use to help other people understand what Quad X is all about and what a brilliant method it is. Let me know if you're interested.

Meantime, I have been thinking about homeostasis .... and mathematics. I love it when different parts of your life fit together like a beautiful jigsaw puzzle! More about that next time.

The photo is from our trip to Scotland - we sat outside at this spot to eat our evening meal and guess what? NO MIDGES!!

04/08/2025

I am a rehabilitation specialist with 15 years experience in musculoskeletal therapy.

I love to work to help improve posture and movement of both the horse and the rider; and to alleviate painful symptoms of common muscular problems.

I am trained and insured in the use of a variety of bodywork muscle release techniques, red and near infra-red light therapy for healing, and exercises for clinical and therapeutic benefits.

I provide a range of individual and group services, both in-person and online.

Message me with the challenges you would like to address and I will help you decide on your best course of action.