I started noticing the buzz about the fuzz a year or so ago. The fuzz is fascia, a part of the connective tissue that is generally ignored.
When we bought Rocky, our fancy warmblood, we bought a young horse with international standard genes. We had to have him gelded, and we were told to make sure we got some massage done on the gelding scar to preserve his fabulous movement.
We all know a little bit about fascia. It’s the stringy stuff in between the muscles in your chicken breast, or the marbling in your steak. It’s the layer that keeps healthy muscles separate so they can slide over each other and work independently.
In surgery, knowledge of fascia is critical- it’s fascia that determines the layers of anatomical cleavage where cutting should occur.
The French surgeons really get the buzz about the fuzz- they call it ‘cheveux d’anges’ or “angel hair”- a lovely romantic name for the delicate little tendrils we see when tissues are separated already by fascial planes act like a dotted line for bloodless and painless surgery.
Not that fascia doesn’t contain blood vessels and nerves- they are just fewer in number. If tissue is disrupted by injury, it’s partly the fascia that stabilises that injury, by thickening into a scar. That’s why it’s important to keep good mobility throughout life, and especially after injury.
Dr Hedley’s short film is a great celebration of the buzz about the fuzz
So, when I was looking for a horse massage therapist, I remembered the lovely Babs, of Chester zoo fame, who happens to be incredibly local to us, and who we knew from the last livery yard (before we moved onto our own land).
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=522106882
Babs came to treat the horses and I asked her about Myofascial Release Therapy. Her eyes lit up and she started telling and showing me.
What struck me first was how subtle and gentle the manoeuvres were. She was using gentle finger pressure on acupressure and meridian points.
There is a theory that acupuncture actually works along fascial lines- no other anatomical highway explains the effects of acupuncture: it doesn’t work along the determined paths of blood vessels, nerves or lymphatics.
Had it not been for my horse’s dramatic reaction, I wouldn’t have known there was any treatment going on.
Cal is very demonstrative- in between manoeuvres he stretched, adjusted, licked and chewed. And got more and more soft blink sleepy.
And his posture improved, and the gymnastic schooling work went through better and better.
In a perfect world, correct schooling work in itself should be therapeutic. We all feel that our horses generally have a hollow side and a longer side. If we strengthen to equalise to the shorter hollow side we end up with stiff horses, equally contracted on both sides. If however we work on lengthening and decontracting the short stiff side to equal the length of the longer side of the body and then start to strengthen, we build strength on suppleness and the power can come through from behind without any blockage. The basic knowledge of gymnastic schooling is mostly lost now, in the rush for progress and prizes, few people know how to nor take the time to build the horse up into an athlete before using the power they offer. Hence why my search for a good instructor led me to a lady who lives on the south coast and visits us once a month for 3 day clinics!!
The hyoid and tongue apparatus of the horse is connected to the hocks by an uninterrupted fascial sheet, varying in thickness but nonetheless a pure connection. So any bit action which constricts the tongue and hyoid will also adversely affect the movement of the hind legs. This is the cause of the funky trots we see now in high level dressage horses: neck and head restricted, tongue tied down, hind legs strung out behind rather than coming through to take the rider up and forward.
https://handshealinghorses.wordpress.com/tag/horse-hyoid-apparatus/
The tongue is also connected to the shoulders
https://www.facebook.com/339154063236779/videos/403549170130601/
In humans, our mostly sedentary lifestyles prevent us from riding well. We get told we need a strong core to absorb the horse’s movement, but actually it’s a stillness in motion we need to seek, not a stiff brace. Think walking along on a boat not surviving a ride on the Big One!
We need open flexible hip sockets, a nice flat back with good isometric tone of our front and back lines, as well as the line from armpit to hipbones. Most of us have over developed or tight back and shoulder muscles with weak contracted front lines. Strengthening a shorter front line will only increase the dysfunction- we need to open up the hip flexors before we can engage our ‘core’ to get the balance required between front and back lines. I found a human Physio to help with this- again with focus on MFR.
https://www.facebook.com/backinactionwarrington/
Matt from BackinAction isn’t quite as gentle as Babs; often it feels like a Chinese burn as he stretches creaky, stiff fascia, but after 6 months of breaking down the fuzz, I can now access front and back trunk muscles as required, and even use my hand or leg without the other joining in, and mostly without bracing or stiffness. This is progress indeed.
So quite rightly, there is a lot of buzz about the fuzz. Is your fuzz soft and pliable, or tough and stringy?
And how about your horse? Does his skin move smoothly over soft muscles or can you see stripes or striations in the muscle? Have you inadvertently strengthened a stiffness? Does he pound the ground or float softly?
Supple horses with soft pliable fuzz and efficient energy transfer last a lifetime- isn’t that what we would all wish for our dream partners?
How much attention do you pay to the fuzz? For you and your dancing partner?
