For shoulder support, I like to activate the muscle and also
support the operation of the joint.
I like to move as the joint itself works.
So that's kind of what we're looking at.
You've got here's your bones all working together.
Got your elbow and then you're like right, so I'm going to
activate this muscle 1st and then I'm going to support the
operation of the joint. I'm going to use two way stretch
tape because it's directional which means.
Hello and welcome to Curious Equestrian.
I'm your host, Anna Louise, and if you enjoy our podcast, please
click that subscribe button so we can keep bringing you
brilliant guests and so that you never miss an episode.
Today, it's all about equine kinesiology.
Oh yes, Rebecca Haddock has over 30 years experience in the
industry. She's a leader in equine
kinesiology, taping and whole horse Wellness.
Well, what is equine kinesiology and how can it help our horses?
Not only ours, but equines with serious issues like paralysis
who have run out of options. Let's find out, shall we?
Rebecca, welcome to Curious Equestrian.
Thank you. I'm excited to be here today.
We are so excited to have you and I have to make a quick
disclaimer to yourself Rebecca and to our lovely listeners who
watch on YouTube. I have mud ingrained in my hands
from feeding the horses this morning and I've scrubbed and
scrubbed but I can't get it off. So I don't want you to think
that I'm dirty and unhygienic, but I can't get the winter mud
out of my nails on my hands or the cuts in my hands.
No worries, no worries, no judgement here at all.
This is a judgement free zone here at Curious.
Oh dear. Well.
We're thrilled to have you, Rebecca.
And first of all, you know, something that I've never
explored is equine kinesiology. Can you talk us through what
that actually means? Sure.
That's a huge question and let's just kind of, we'll just peel it
back like an onion kind of piece by piece and make it easy.
Understandable. A kinesiology just means the
study of the body and movement, right?
OK. So originally the idea was and
this was in 1970 when the idea of kinesiology taping came about
and that was done by Doctor Kinzo Case.
And the idea is that as your body is in movement, it started
in in the human species before it moved on into any of the
other species, right. But what can we do externally to
support you in movement while you're competing, right?
So it was done for human athletes, right?
So we saw it really big in the early 80s when some volleyball
players started wearing it up. The Olympics.
That's the only time I've. Seen it.
I've only seen it with athletes. Human athletes, that is.
Exactly. So the idea is how can we better
support our more fragile joints in topping competition when
we're going at, you know, 100%? And so that was the principle.
And then over time, it became a rehab tool, right?
So if you've ever seriously injured a ankle, a rotator cuff,
wrist, anything like that, you go to PT, Most likely your PT is
going to start using kinesiology tape or bio mechanics tape.
I call it functional tape and we can kind of get to that later,
but to help you rehab, to help you heal faster, that kind of
thing. Over the past seven to 10 years,
we started changing the way we research.
We first saw kinesiology taping where equine taping of any level
kind of hit the equine world in around 2010 to 2012.
There's host of people who started doing it, right.
So it was a transition from human to the equine.
And the problem is it's almost everything healthcare
transitions like that, OK. And so because the species are
very different, like your dog and your horse, a lot of people
like to compare the two like it follows you around like a puppy
dog. A lot of people like to put
those attributes to horse and it couldn't be further apart,
right. So when you transition to
modality meant for a bipolar to like human right into Quadro,
you know, and we now we're looking at four legs animal
prey, not predator, right. And so the transition was made
based off of the original work that Doctor Kinzo case did in
the 70s into the horse world. And then I have over the years
studied it and studied it and studied it more and more and
done a lot of field research, clinical research, stuff like
that. And I have fine-tuned and
fine-tuned and fine-tuned to now it's, it's, it's a whole new
beast. So I don't do any of the
traditional taping methods that you would have seen really back
in the original introduction. So 2010 through, yeah, for
probably the past seven years changed a lot.
So now what we're doing is, well, it's expansive and I, I
figure out things yearly now that I can do.
And so supporting of joints, tendons, ligaments, things like
that. So you're, you're athletes
preventative. We've gotten to the point that
when used in training and conditioning, like your big
groups, your big dressage groups and polo and rainers, cutters,
jumpers can reduce injuries in their horses by over 80%, right?
So still used in athletes, pretty, pretty successful
successfully there, but increase in circulation, reduction in
pain, massive reduction in pain. And so now your big surgical
centers, like your big surgical centers in Wellington and things
like that are using it post surgery, post surgical, because
it can reduce swelling and relieve pain so well.
So it gets the horse off the nose.
It's really, really fast and gets them out of that kind of
care that they need before they can go home a lot faster, which
I don't know about you guys, but that makes your bills a lot less
all the way into fascia work. It's highly effective in fascia
work. Most people, they hear fascia
and they're like, yeah, yeah, I've been hearing about that
over the last so many years. But fascia work can change your
horse's life at any level, whether they work, don't work
anything. So very effective in that.
And then we started, I started attempting to use it on things
that nobody else wanted to or was doing or thought that it
wouldn't be effective, like paralysis, neurologic issues,
string holes, PSM instabilities, massive instabilities,
deformities, contracted tendons, dysfunctions, angular limb
disorder, stuff like that. Scoliosis.
I'm the only person who has rehabbed equine scoliosis.
I mean, she was so bad she was crab rocking.
Most horses are put down right away and none live past six
months old. She's two years today and fully
straight. So I took it and I said well,
can I can I can I can I So what is it and what can you use it
for? I have a course at 16 hours long
that that's all I talk about. So in this case you say there's.
Lover and a shorter amount of time.
Wow, I've got so many. Questions.
Just from your first answer, Rebecca, first of all, before we
get into and I'm fascinated by how you use it on cases that
haven't been, you know, treated before.
But just quickly you mentioned that it's really changed since
when it first started being used.
Kind of how much has it come on in and in what way has it
changed? Oh.
Man, I think that. Because progression is really
interesting, isn't it? And, and, and it is sort of a
breakthrough that happening all the time, particularly with
equines and, and what we can do to better help them.
So kind of how has it come on since that time?
If you can think about it, in kinesiology, taping four horses
back in 20/10/2012 when it came in to where it is today is
comparative to the horse and buggy to the electric car.
Wow, it's changed that much. So there's just so much more to
it. The physical structure of the of
an equine tape. So my tape specifically.
I'm probably most known for Equi tape, but I rebranded quite
recently to Equitex Equine Technologies Institute because
of the changes were just so massive.
It just couldn't stand next to each other anymore, right.
So my tape has been 100% built for the horse.
It it's not even in comparison to a human tape like Rock Tape
or well any brand out there really.
And so you're talking about structural changes in the fabric
to the adhesive. I have a completely different
type of adhesive to the way we even understand how it's working
with the body as a human. If you put a piece of tape on
your skin, there's a lot of sensory that's happening in your
skin because your skin, it's like a second brain.
OK, right. So I like to put it this way,
from the minute you're born until today, your cells store
your memories, not your brain, the cells in your body.
And it learns and grows and that DNA rewrites and copies and
rewrites and copies in these cells.
They have like a stored reservoir, reservoir of data.
OK, So if you at your age right now without knowing something's
hot, if you touch it and you know it's hot, you will
instantly pull back. Your brain doesn't have to think
about it. None of that, right?
It's an instant response. There are certain things that
you automatically know to do because of this cellular memory,
right? So the tape on humans will,
because it's going on your skin and all of their cells, the
receptors, mechanoreceptors, sensory, all of that that's
going on that tells you about the world.
Hot, cold, wind, rough pain, sharp pain, acute pain, dull
pain, all of that kind of stuff. Your autonomic system to tell
your body I'm hot sweat, so you cool down, I'm cold shiver, so
you warm up. All of these things you're
getting, you're interacting within a very unique way, right?
So I had to change the modality completely to be able to
interact with just the hair and the sensors that live in the
hair root plexes and being able to interact with that
mechanoreceptor into the fascia to talk to your horse's muscle.
So it is literally a night and day different modality.
Wow. Now before before we delve into
the fact that you have tackled some unbelievable cases like you
mentioned paralysis and more with kinesiology, let's rewind
and tell us Rebecca, how you even began to look into
kinesiology and how it got on your radar.
Yeah, oh man. OK, so as a youngster, I fell in
love with the horses. Super, super, super young.
And I knew I wanted to do my life with the horses somehow,
some way, right? OK, so I've done everything in
the equine world. I was training with trainers and
just decided that I loved babies, I love the cults, and I
was an incredibly strong cult starter.
And so I went out on my own and I was starting cults for some of
the biggest names in the industry and I just got known
for that. So then people wanted to bring
me problem horses, which is not the same thing, not even close
to the same thing. And I was young at this point
and still quite young. OK, And what I noticed is that
all these problem horses had pain, so they didn't have
behavioral problems, they had pain.
And I was like, well, now I got to fix the pain, right?
And so then I'm like every modality in the world, I'm
having to like get more and more people here, get the
chiropractor, get da da, da, da. And I was like, screw this, I'm
going to learn how to do it. And that started my, my kind of
post grad education. I had my bachelor's done in nine
months, quite young, graduated high school when I was 16.
And so for me, I started my postgrad in health and different
things, bio mechanics and just I piece mealed what I wanted,
right? And I started to build my own
education based off of what I wanted to do with it.
So here I am fixing people's horses for not really what I
wanted to do. I'm a huge STEM person, love the
sciences and I'm very creative. And so I was like, OK, I want
to, I want to go as far as I can and I want to answer all the
questions, right? I have always had questions.
I just want to answer all the questions and started figuring
out the why, you know, the, the right question is so much more
important than the answer. OK, so here I am, this is the
human I am and I have a horse that's brought to me that they
have this massive gash in their side.
They had had it stitched four or five times.
This stitches wouldn't hold, nothing would hold, nothings
working. They tried all the different
modalities and they're like, I know that you fix horses.
Not normally, you know, you know, 'cause at this point in
time, now I'm known for rehab, right?
So it was like I was a cold starter.
It was great for that. And then now I'm known for rehab
and everybody's bringing me these incredibly different
difficult rehab cases. Like my vets are just blowing me
up all the time. Hey, I got another one.
You know, I'm like, oh, OK, it's not quite where I want to be,
but I'm going. And so this poor mayor, nothing
worked on her. And I was like, I'm going to try
taping, right? So it was, it was a thing where
it was like, I'm going to try it.
There was no education out. You couldn't get certified,
really none of that stuff. But I was like, I'm going to try
it. And I tried it and the wound
healed up real fast. And I was like, what?
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait.
And that was it. So hook, line and sinker, I was
done. I hooked up with a lot of the
people who were starting back then.
Every every one of them I have either worked side by side with
for years or we consult together or lecture at the same places.
And so we were all just kind of going and coming together and
splitting apart and coming together and, and I just went
off in a very different world. You know, a lot of people get to
a place and they stop in that place and they're happy in that
place. And I just have never been able
to do that. Like I just don't, I don't stop
and get happy. I'm like, OK, what's the next
thing? I think I could do that.
Let me try that. You know, the first paralysis
horse was a horse that was had a colic, went into surgery when
they were pulling them off the table.
And you know the way they start to pull a horse off the table,
right? And so you have something that
braces around the head and they start to pull off.
That's why a lot of horses come out with pull and TMJ issues,
stuff like that out of surgeries.
So this horse came out with full right side paralysis and he had
he had improved about 20% by the time I started working with him
and I got him fully and that was at 8 months, he was still only
progressed 20%. I started working with his owner
and within 8 weeks he was 100% just taping him.
So you know, things like that. I was just like, OK, I'll, I'll
try, let me try that, let me try that.
And then I started, well, I wonder if I could affect the
horses that deal with allergies or get hives or heaves or things
like that. And it so I tell people like, if
you've got something I haven't tried, bring it to me because at
this point in time, every single equine injury issue, deformity,
deformity, dysfunction, I've used the tape to increase either
their prognosis, how comfortable they are or, or rehabilitate
them completely, you know, just depending on what it is.
I have to kind of lift my jaw up, Rebecca, because I realized
I'm kind of gaping my jaw open in either like, admiration,
shock or, you know, wow, you know, it's science, but it's
also magic, isn't it? Listening to you talk and
especially about the variety of different cases, many like me,
probably will do what I'm about to say and think, yes, you know,
kinesiology, it's about athletes, it's about muscles,
and it's about, you know, recovering muscles,
rehabilitating muscles. I never even began to think
about things like hives or paralysis or all these hugely
different, you know, huge spectrum of issues.
How did you begin to be a bit more experimental and think
actually this could fix this horse in a terrible situation?
I would say that's a good question.
You know, I do a lot of interviews and I lecture all the
time, so I always get questions and I lecture colleges all the
way to like post grad stuff. And so I get random questions,
you know, and I can tell you that's probably the first time
I've got that. What made me say let me try.
I think it's probably personality.
I think everybody tells me God broke the mold when he made me.
I'm like, that's true. Yeah.
I'm. I'm unique.
Honestly, I think it boils down to this.
All right, OK, so not only is the tape extremely effective,
right, but you know why did? Who decides?
Well, I'm going to make my career out of this, my
livelihood out of this. I'm going to put everything I
have into it. I did Why?
Well, it's so Dang cost effective it's not even funny,
man. I mean, 13 bucks a roll.
OK, help me out here. So, and, and my education, I
make it very cost effective and I'll teach anyone, I don't care
who you are, you're a horse owner, you're a professional
writer, a groom, a breeder, a trainer, healthcare provider, I
don't care. I'm going to teach you.
I threw away all the rules. I took the rule book and I threw
it away. I was like, why, Why can't I
teach somebody how to do it? That's dumb.
And so because of that, that came from kind of how I grew up.
I grew up very poor, very poor and.
As a young adult, like I graduated high school, 16 moved
out, like I've been on my own, paying my own bills and you
know, super broke and eating ramen noodles and frozen
burritos, you know, that are $0.25 a piece back in the day.
And so one of the things that I loved about it was how cost
effective it was. And no matter because I have, I
have traveled a lot, when I still have my private practice,
people would fly me out to different countries to work on
their world champion jumper. And while I was there, I would
go around to all the poor farms and I would teach.
Let me show you how to do this yourself.
That way you can help your herd and you can afford to do it
right. So I would do that no matter
where I went and, well, shit, I'd be standing out on the
middle of a friggin 2000 acre pasture with a whole herd of
horses around me. I've got a box of tape, a pair
of scissors, and I'm going to damn try and fix it.
And that's really where where it came from is.
Why not try? It's not going to hurt.
There are no contraindications, no species anywhere ever.
Do we have a recorded injury from using tape on an animal or
a human. So here we are.
I can't hurt the animal. I might as well try.
And if I can give you or anybody the gift in any country, you
know, education so that you know how to do it yourself and keep
my prices low, cost effective so you can afford to do it, then I
can help horses everywhere, right?
And after I get testimonial after testimonial after
testimonial about, you know, you saved my horse's life, you saved
my horse's life like this saved my horse's life.
I can't tell you how much this it saved my life, right?
Then I keep trying and I keep trying.
I keep trying. And so I look at it this way,
like I don't care if you're, you're poor and you live in
Russia or you're wealthy and you live in New Zealand, Both of you
deserve the same opportunity to help your horse and give them
the very best you can. And so that's, I think that's
why I do it. I think that's why I, no matter
what I keep doing it, no matter how tired I get, no matter the
trolls on the social media, it doesn't matter the enemies that
come against you and the whole process.
I just keep going for that horse out there that you know, will
save that horse's life, too. Put it on the board.
It's so inspiring because we know owning horses and looking
after horses, it takes so expensive.
It takes a great deal of money to look after a horse, let
alone, you know, multiples. And we all want the best for our
horses. And so often we can reach kind
of bricks and, you know, bricks in the wall, I was about to say,
but we can reach, you know, walls in our path where we just
don't know what to do next. And the vet kind of scratches
their heads and, but sometimes you get 2 vets kind of looking,
not really sure. And that's when you can step in.
I mean, how many times have you had that where people have
reached that brick wall with the vets and actually come to you
kind of in desperation? All the time, Thousands and
thousands and thousands of time, You know, in the veterinary
world, we call that a dysfunction.
If we can't give it a diagnosis name, we're going to call it a
dysfunction. And that's no disrespect to our
wonderful vets either, but it's just sometimes you're not.
You've reached that point, don't you?
OK. I I think, let me clear this up
for the everyday horse person real quick.
Number one, your vet will never be able to specialize in your
entire horse. Just get that out of your mind,
OK? The vets will tell you what
they're good at. Ask them straight up.
Just ask them the honest question.
What are you good at? Generally, there are one trick
ponies. Sometimes they might have two.
OK, so your vet might tell you why I'm really good at lameness
and Airways. I'm really good at colic.
I'm good at reproductive. OK.
We can't expect our vets to be anything other than what you
would expect. When you walk in your doctor's
office, do you go see your cardiologist for a foot issue?
No. OK, so stop expecting the
impossible out of your vets. Right?
So first and foremost, they don't know the entire animal's
body. You know, there's a reason that
when a vet sits down with me, they look at me and they're
like, how are you that good at equine anatomy?
This is all I do. I don't work on bovine.
I don't work on canine. I don't work.
I only do horses so I can specialize in the equine body
and I'm very, very good at it, right.
So yes, you are going to many, many times have an issue with
your horse and that is not the trick pony that your vet is.
So you've got to find the right vet for the right thing for them
to really narrow down a diagnosis and or you have to
have a lot of money for imaging, X-rays, Mr. is that kind of
thing. I don't know, I haven't checked,
but I don't think the UK has an MRI big enough for a horse right
now. So there are very few countries
that have MRI machines big enough for a horse and the US
only has two. Just so you know, in comparison
of size, we only have two. So the everyday horse owner is
not going to have the money to put their horse in an MRI
machine to figure out what's going on.
So we tend to be the most people's last call until we fix
their horse really fast, and then we're always their first
call after that, right? So I have thousands of customers
all around the world, 26 different countries I've got
certified practitioners in, and they're all very successful and
do very well because it only takes you fixing your horse one
time with my modality, and then that's what you're going to do
every time. OK, so my horse, case in point,
she's amazing. I love her.
Love of my life, Jetta, she walks up lame.
Happens all the time. Everybody's horse does this
many, many times. She walks up lame.
You know, I do a real quick scan to make sure that I don't feel
heat. If I feel heat, then you know, I
go One Direction diagnostically. If I don't feel heat, I go this
direction diagnostically, right? I taper, I mean she's 3 legged,
lame. I taper within 24 hours,
noticeable difference. She's completely sound within
three days. And then, you know, we move on
with our life like that. That's my world now, right?
I do have vets. I do have, you know, there are
certain things that I won't do to a horse, like teeth, right?
So my vet comes and does their teeth for me because I'm just
not going to do that and I'm just not but right.
So it's not like, and and that's what I want people to see is
that's what I want them to be able to experience themselves.
That's why I wrote the book Stick with Success, right?
Like I want you guys to experience it yourself.
And then when you know you can do a lot of things and you can
affect a lot, and you can help your horse in a ton of different
ways. What happens is you don't really
get as freaked out when one of them has a big old gash or
someone's lame or someone you know is acting funny or
whatever. The more knowledge you have, the
more powerful you are in positively influencing your
horse. A lot of people notice that when
you start taping your horse, you build a better bond with them.
All of a sudden your horse is coming to you without a cookie,
without a carrot, not during feeding time.
They start associating. This doesn't feel good.
You made it better, right? So we're supposed to be the head
of their heart. We're supposed to protect them,
get them out of danger, keep them safe, watch over them.
But when you start ticking all those boxes for your horse, they
want to be around you. So a lot of people are like, my
relationship with my horse is so much better since I've been
doing this. Yes.
Like those are things you should experience just by doing this.
And so, yeah, there, there's just so many beautiful parts to
it that it's, you know, I, that's why I'm still excited
about it today. It's why you still push
everyday, you know? And Rebecca, just talk us
through. We're not scientists listening
to speak, but just talk us through what is in that type?
What does the trick? Why is it so healing for so many
different issues? Matt, it's just understanding
the way the body functions it is made out of.
I have two specialized tapes, 1 is a cotton based tape and then
it like I said, I have a proprietary adhesive on it for
the horse, but it's medical grade and latex free.
So it can go on post surgical like I said.
And then I have another one that is 100% nylon and it's built to
stretch in all different ways, super high tensile strength,
same adhesive. So there is absolutely nothing
special in it. OK, but the right blend, the
right amount of stretch in the tape and they're right adhesive
is huge. So why would my EFT tape work
better than say, Rock Tape on your horse?
They're built 2 very different ways.
Now Rock Tape's going to work phenomenal on you.
I would not suggest you use EFT on your own skin though.
It's not built for you, right? So that's that's one of the big
pieces. The second big piece is I teach
you how exactly to do it so you don't have to guess.
You're not looking at a picture that you see on Instagram or
Facebook or YouTube or something, like you're not
looking at a picture and trying to reproduce that based off of
an image. I'm going to tell you exactly
where to put it exactly, the amount of tension to use in the
tape or the stretch to use in the tape.
And I'm going to tell you why it works, right?
If you've got a hypertonic spasming muscle, you have to
take the muscle from insertion to origin, right?
So a muscle attaches to bones, right?
Well, technically the muscle attaches to a tendon, which then
attaches to a bone. But let's just, we're going to
simplify, right? So my bicep, right, my origin
point is going to be closest to the midline of my body, and the
insertion point is going to be furthest away.
And the way the muscle functions, what it its only job
is to take this bone, right my forearm and move it to my
shoulder. That it it it has one job in
life. Really most I mean, it does have
a secondary job, but let's just stay focused on the simple,
easy, right streamline. Definitely.
It's still easy, right? It just bones take bones are
your structure. Muscle moves your bones, right?
It's simply easy life. OK, if I have a spasming muscle,
I'm sure each of you in your own life have had a spasming muscle
at one point in time. Like it just won't let go and it
hurts. OK, if you take that from the
insertion point, you have to find the insertion point.
That's key. But hey, Google AI, Siri, Alexa,
all those stuff will tell you insertion and origin points of
any muscle. Cool, So easy.
You can do a simple Google search and find it out.
I'm telling you like write these secrets down and you tape it
from insertion point to origin point at 2020% stretch.
OK, give it about 30 minutes. Within 30 minutes you will have
a a pain response. You the pain will be less OK, It
will start telling the goal GTO. So it's goalie tendon organ
response and what that is the only job of that in your muscle
is that when you Max out your muscle, your whole muscle goes
dead. You ever like done a bunch of
push ups and you literally just fall to the floor?
OK, that's a GTO kicking in. It's so you don't shred your
muscles, tendons or ligaments. It's very important piece to
your anatomy. So the, the recoil of the tape
in every movement you do, even just moving your hands around a
little bit will send a small signal to the insertion point of
the muscle where the GTO lives that says relax, get long,
relax, get long. And so you stop the spasm, you
get them out of hypertonic, boom, you're done.
You're fixed, right? So the magic is in exactly where
to put it and exactly how much stretch put it in and know what
you're doing. And that's what I do.
I teach you exactly where and how to do it and then I take it.
So it's taken me from 2010 to roughly now to gather the amount
of case studies I have and done as much clinical research as I
have and others have done clinical research.
But every protocol I teach you, everything I teach you has now
been studied and proven clinically.
So it's not will it work? It's not might help.
No, it's proven. I have proven it in every right.
So I have proven that if you stretch at this point, attach
here, attach here, this will happen.
It will happen each and every time.
So if it doesn't happen, you did it wrong.
And that's OK because I also teach you how do you figure out
if you've done it wrong? I have made it very simple.
So the magic is probably just in well, the fact that I have spent
this much time figuring out what is that exact thing because you
can't research it until you figure out the exact thing
that's actually happening, right?
So what is the exact thing? And then how do I teach it to
anybody, right? How do I teach it to non
doctorates? How do I teach it to somebody
who hasn't spent 15 years studying equine anatomy right
with it scares people when I tell them you have to tape
insertion origin until I say, hey, you can find that insertion
point on Google. Oh, OK.
Yeah, that's easy. I can do that, right?
Yeah, that's the magic I love. That you are empowering horse
owners, Rebecca, as well, because like you said, we all
like to feel that in a crisis we have a better understanding of
what we can do before we have to call a vet or a farrier or an
expert to come out. It's always better if we can
kind of get a handle on the situation first, not only for
the expense of it and the money in our banks that, you know, we
need to hold on to when we've got horses, but also for the
sense of control as horse owners.
Because I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels like
anything can go wrong at any point.
Because there are so many things we need to get our head around
with horses. And this feeling of actually
knowing I can do this in this scenario is such a brilliant one
throughout the seasons. Yeah, there's, you know, in the
book. Have you, did you get the
opportunity to to see it yet? Stick with success.
No, I would love a copy if there's one going, but if not
I'll buy one after the episode because when you said it and I
thought, oh, I need to get my eyes stuck into this.
Yeah, it's available on Kindle. So you can like download it
today and start reading it and that it's also available on
Amazon all over. So and I think they're they're
printing on demand. So we, we talk about so many
different things. I wanted a book almost like a,
you know, you wish your horse came with a handbook.
It's kind of like a handbook, right?
I'm going to bring up a lot of different things.
I'm going to tell you all the stuff that nobody really wants
to tell you. I say the quiet part out loud.
What does pain actually look like in your horse?
How do you, how do you recognize that that thing that they're
doing right now there, that's pain.
Because one of the issues I see with most horse owners is their
horses screaming and yelling at them.
I'm in pain. I'm in pain and they don't
recognize it, right? And so first, we want to deal
with that. Second, in order to empower you,
I have to educate you. So the book is a lot of
education, but I do it in my traditional style, A lot of
jokes, a lot of wittiness. I want you to enjoy it.
I I don't want you to be reading it and be like, oh, this is like
a textbook. I want you to read it and be
like, I don't want to put this thing down.
So lots of lots of fun stuff, a lot of jokes in there, real
world, real horse cases that I talk about how we did it, but we
talk a lot about nutrition and lifestyle, things you're doing
with your horse you don't realize is causing issues with
your horse. So for that exact reason, as a
horse owner, you feel more confident and more secure with
more education and understanding the horse and knowing about
them. Not what somebody tells you, not
an opinion. This is fact, this is science.
So everything in that book, if I tell you about feeding your
horse, I'm telling you scientifically, your horse's
body was designed to have food in its belly all the time.
So if you want to get away from colics and ulcers and
digestional issues and all kinds of stuff like that, then your
horse is designed right. His anatomy is designed to eat
little bits of food all day long, so you can get rid of 90%
of your digestion issues and colic issues and ulcers and crap
like that just by feeding your horse little bits of food all
day long. Like I tell you the science,
here's what is actually going on with your horse.
And here's the trick right here's here's, in layman's
terms, free feed. That's what we need.
We need layman's terms. We need myth Busters, don't we?
Exactly. Exactly.
Many opinions. In section of that.
Isn't there? There's so many opinions in the
equestrian world and judgment. We mentioned judgement at the
beginning. There is so much judgement in
the equestrian world and it it comes at you from every angle,
whether it be if you've got a horsey family or friends or
where you keep your horse at the yard or the stables or it might
be an instructor, It could be the the.
Advertisers do it to. You all the time they do.
Yes, it is. Hardcore man from every
direction. It is, you know, we'll put it
this way, it's so hard to breakthrough the noise to get to
the fact, right? And because of social media,
because so much stuff is on demand, so much is going on all
the time, it's really hard to know what's an actual fact.
And I think that's one of the biggest.
I think that's why my customers, my certified practitioners, they
believe me, they trust me and they love me is because I'm so
transparent. And it's in the modality, it's
in my website, it's in my social media, it's in the books I
write. I'm just super transparent here
is the fact, right? Because we have to deal with the
noise and the drama all the time.
It's so interesting to sit amongst a group of equestrians
and just listen to the little opinions and Oh well, I do this
with my horse because. You know, my grandpa told me
this one thing and I da da, da, da da, or my friend did this and
I saw him do that and da, da, da, da, da.
And so it's really difficult at times.
But then once somebody gets to say, oh, well, that makes sense.
You mean the the horse's stomach is not designed to sit and eat 2
flakes of hay in a bucket of grain in one setting?
No, Well, that makes sense. Like the stomach can't handle
that. No.
And neither can his intestines. This is why we have such big
issues, right? Oh, OK.
Well, now when when it's just laid out like that, that make
that that's facts. OK, so we do all of that stuff
and the goal. Of your work is the real.
Information. The whole horse approach is not
just about taping, it's also about every aspect of the horse.
In fact, on my website I have a free protocol library.
Pretty much everything you can think of that goes wrong with
your horse, right Pigeon toed, contracted tendons, lower leg
injuries, prevention, neurologic issues, mayor issues.
You know when your mayor's in seizure, she's super marry to
heaves, hives, allergies, seasonal allergies.
It's all in my protocol library and it's all for free.
All of it. OK, and I'm going to tell you in
there, make sure you're feeding this kind of thing.
If you've, if you've got a fracture, a tear, a rupture or
something like that, you need to increase your calcium, your
protein, your magnesium. Like I, I go through and tell
you all the stuff for free. And this is scientifically
what's going to help you lifestyle.
Like we talked about lifestyle. I spend a whole section talking
about stop stalling your horses. They just don't do it.
Stall rest is not good. Your horse will have psychosis
within 72 hours. You're going to get muscle
atrophy in 48 hours and bone density starts decreasing within
24 hours. Knock it off.
Stop doing it. It's not going to help your
horse. So we talked about all of that
stuff. But for that, I want to empower
you. I want to give you all of the
ammunition. I want to give you education
because nobody can take it from you.
It will never grow old. It won't.
Your education will stay with you forever.
And so if I educate you and now all the sudden you're like, oh,
a simple lifestyle change with my horse and I tape them with
this $13 roll of tape for about four weeks and I'm going to see
that massive of a difference. Yes, holy crap, you just changed
my life and. Their life.
Now you've got to Rebecca, we were all hooked when you
mentioned some of your most extreme cases.
Can you talk us through what happened when you took on?
Let's start with the paralysis case that you threw in.
That was it. It was a mic drop moment when
you said that. Can you talk us through what
horse you met and the situation it was in and how the
kinesiology helped this horse to save this horse?
So I was doing a in person certification course and one of
the students there asked me if I would be willing to come look at
her horse. And generally when I, when I
teach, well, I, I stopped teaching live a while ago
because now everything's digital, right?
It's just easier. And so I would get asked that
question all the time and I'd go and I absolutely let me, let me
see your horse. So I went and just a super sweet
horse and her name was Pam and. She's like, she's like, be just
put a. Little lip, it's just like
droopy here. And the little ears are droopy
and the eyes like, you know, And I was like, yeah, so I did a
simple application on him. And I said, just keep this up
for the next. Is that neurologic application?
I, you know, I teach people how to do that all the time.
Like, just keep this up for a while.
And she's like, you really think it's going to work?
And I was like, well, we're going to see, aren't we?
I mean, it's the first paralyzed horse.
I'm working. I'm like, how about you?
And she's like, OK, yeah. I called her.
No, I believe she texted me two days later and was and sent me a
picture of his lip fully closing.
Wow, yeah. You know, and then within
another couple days, like the ears, like do what?
No. Do you know how the horse became
paralyzed? What actually caused the?
Yeah, getting off the the table from the colic surgery, it was
in that when they pulled up they called nerve damage and it
happens to a lot of them, causes nerve damage in the pole, in
some of the facial nerves, things like that.
That's why you see that paralysis that goes down through
the ear, the eye and the lip. That was Rebecca.
For those who've never seen taping on on those areas, did
you have to tape down the head and round the like round the
ears? How do you how do you tape in
that scenario? So the idea.
Is OK, so it worked, right? And then I had to ask myself why
did it work, how did it work and can I reproduce it?
So that's how it always goes. So then I spent a lot of time
finding other horses with paralysis and reproducing.
Reproducing until I can nail down and tell you exactly why
scientifically it's working. OK, So what we do is we
decompress the spine, wherever in the spine the original injury
happened. Because it, if we, I want you to
picture your spine like a highway, a big 48 lane highway.
You've got 4 lanes going One Direction, 4 going the other.
OK, neuro deficit is a 20 car pile up that stops all 8 lanes
of traffic. OK, so we can have them for a
million reasons. This horse, it was coming off
the table, being pulled off the the table.
Some horses it's flipping over a fence.
Some horses it's trailer accidents.
Some horses it's a toxic plant that causes neuro deficits.
Some horses, it's a a parasite that causes different neurologic
issues, right. So it doesn't matter what
started the neurologic issue. What matters is that we have a
highway with a 20 car pile up all right, So decompressing the
spine, so we find where that pile up is.
So for this horse it was in the pole and when we decompress.
The spine that's like. Bringing the records in and
they're going to start pulling a one car out, another car out
another. Now we got one lane of traffic
moving right now. Then we send these little
tentacles along the neural pathway that's damaged.
So for this horse, it went around his ear, went around his
eye, went down his mandible to where his lips are.
OK. And this is like sending 20
record. Teams there.
To pull as many cars out as possible.
How does it work scientifically? Well, nerves, when they're
damaged, there are a couple stages that can happen.
We can have where it's damaged, but not death, right?
And so we're not being able to send the signal to the brain and
then back to maybe the muscle or or whatever.
It could be a tendon or a ligament, but the signal is
being blocked. And so that's why that
decompression on the spine, that's the first thing we do,
because if we just unblock the signal, it could come back
really, really fast, right? If we have inflammation,
inflammation, fluid stasis, that's like.
Bruising Hematomas. Or just fluid sitting underneath
the skin, lymphatic fluid sitting there.
It's called fluid stasis. That will also dampen your
nerves so they can't receive and send signals.
So same principle. We're moving the fluid away,
we're taking that away. That's more cars for getting off
the highway. And the last is nerve death,
right? If if maybe the nerve was
severed somehow or it just was compressed for so long it
actually died off those tentacles that run along to
wherever the problem is, if there's been nerve death, it
starts to create new neural pathways.
You're like, well, is that even possible?
Yes. So Harvard did a study that
proved that you can create new neural pathways.
And so I use the tape to unlock all of those pieces.
I get the swelling out and the compression out.
I start sending the signal back and forth.
If, if I can save that nerve, I'm going to get the fluid off
and the swelling away from it and all this, all of it out
really quick. And if it has that death in it
that I'm setting up new neural pathways right behind it and how
quick that's how that works work.
Rebecca Generally very quickly. Generally very quickly.
So you will get an immediate response.
If the horse is in pain, you will get an immediate response,
right. So let me break this down to in
a simple way. We have what's called a
sympathetic state and we have a parasympathetic state, OK?
And you have it too. But your horses, I mean all, all
species of life habit. So sympathetic state is flight
or flight. OK, Everybody's heard.
That term. All right, parasympathetic state
is rest and rebuild. OK, So your body will not devote
resources, calories or energy to fixing your body as long as you
are in a sympathetic nervous state.
OK, so for. You people who have.
Low immune systems, you get injured, it takes a lot longer
to get over. You have a cold, it takes a lot
longer for you to get better. You're in a sympathetic state
and you need to trigger your parasympathetic nervous system
to kick in. By the way, OK, for a horse,
same principle. So if your horse is in pain, the
tape throws them into a parasympathetic state.
And I'm talking fast fast. By the time if you're putting 3
pieces of tape on your horse because the application calls
for three pieces by tape #2 piece #2 your horse is already
transitioning into a parasympathetic state.
OK, so we see responses right away, immediate responses.
Now it just depends on what we're taping for.
For how quick do we see 100% done right?
So if you've got a completely severed ligament that was
surgically put back together 1618 weeks, right?
If you have a muscle strain from an overworked muscle, you know,
maybe 3 days. If you've got a full with
contracted tendons, like severe contracted tendons, if you get
to 1 day 1-8 days, done. Right, it depends on what it.
Is when you get to it to how long it's going to take to get
it all the way through. So it's but it's fast like I've
got for the most. Part as long as.
You can get to it quickly. It's easy now the.
The scoliosis. Horse We taped her solid 18
months and then she will get retaped to hold position during
every gross spurt until she's six wow but that was a very big
deformity how just trying to find big deal we'll we'll try
and. Imagine it with you, Rebecca.
How severe was the scoliosis? Oh man, you know I'll send you
a. Video of it.
Yeah, we'll we'll overlay it here.
Yeah, she was like in a sea. Like she was in a sea so she she
couldn't walk straight or anything like that.
She just would walk in circles because her spine was like that.
So was she. Did you type up to the hills?
I'm. Imagining a horse that's kind of
typed from head to toe, no? We did traction on her.
Yeah, right. And then we did traction on her.
She is a I'm the only person I believe in the world that
teaches how to do this type of taping.
It's a problem mechanic taping. And basically what I did is I
pulled her so the curve went to the right and then the left
right. So I pulled her hips to the
right and I pulled her rib cage to the left using the tape and
created traction like a like a system.
That. You see, humans have to have
during like severe breaks and stuff where they're, they're
attached to devices that will hold their head in a certain
spot. And they're right.
So I did that with tape. And so every growth spurt, her
body was being pulled straight. Wow.
It's I don't think I've ever said, wow, so much Rebecca in an
episode. It's mine.
It really is. And sometimes you just have to
say it, but I'm hooked by what you're exploring with us today.
And I know that not everyone sees it that way, Rebecca.
And you mentioned the trolls, a part of modern day society
online. You put yourself out there, you
get shot down. Talk us through these trolls
and, and what they say and the kind of response as well to
people that don't believe in what you're doing.
I think you know in the beginning, I can't say.
That I blame them. You know, you see a video and
the response is dramatic. Before and after everybody's
seen a horse with an Abscess. I mean, 3 legged lane, they're
freaking miserable. So I show you a timestamp of a
horse with an Abscess and I show you a timestamp 8 days later of
the horse completely sound and everything's fine.
And it's the same taping application.
You can tell it's the same taping application, right?
And I think the initial response for a lot of people is BS,
right? Red flag that.
Come on. And you know.
I get a lot of. Snake oil or you know, you
should be ashamed of yourself, just taking good people's money
for nothing kind of thing, right And but in the beginning of the
modality before we had so much research, it was OK, you know,
I, we knew that we would be dealing with a lot of that
upfront. You know, we're still
researching it ourselves and collecting case studies
ourselves. You know, now my marketing is
very different, my advertising is very different.
I show you. So I will put on there the
clinical case and then I show you with the application proven
to work, which makes it a lot easier, but I don't think that
there should be. A single critic.
Now for it though, right? Because again, every.
Protocol I put out. There, everything I'm going to
teach you is clinically backed up.
It's clinically proven now. So if somebody were to say to
me, I'm like here's the study, which is why I add the study in,
in every piece of marketing I do and I have it and it's free as
well on my website. You can go get every single case
study that we use and have done and every clinical study that we
use and have done right there for free.
And you can look at them yourselves.
Again, we're about transparent. They we're just going to say,
we're going to say it. If there is something that I
can't clinically prove that I'm still utilizing maybe a group of
1000 case studies is my premises is a strong premises, but I
haven't brought it into a clinical study yet.
I tell you that upfront, right? So there's how many case.
Studies we have with. Outcomes showing the same thing
and clinically like I'm doing a clinical study this year to see
do I have to get into oxygen debt to re to release the GTO
the same way for muscle spasm or hypertonic muscle as if you
don't go into. Oxygen debt is.
There a difference? If so, how much is that
different? So I'm going to do a study on
that specifically. What does that mean to you guys?
It just means can I make the relaxation application better?
That's my goal. Thank you for giving that.
To us exactly right that's. Where that's where I go with it.
It's like I want to know can I do it better?
And so I think that now if. And it sometimes it'll.
Happen a practitioner will call me and be like, well, the vet on
the case has this opinion about taping right?
And it's an opinion and it's completely outdated and we have
research in the opposite complete to the opposite.
We have actual proven research. And when they call me with that,
I'm like give them their research document for crying out
loud. If they see the study, they're
going to go, oh, I mean, most people are level headed enough
to see a research study and go, Oh, so Rebecca, you've, you've
talked us through how things have.
Changed so dramatically and how you've worked and and learnt and
studied over the years from when it first kind of came on the
scene in in 2010 and around that time.
Are you seeing now in 2026, a move with, you know, with
equestrians? A move to.
Want to know to seek out this knowledge to better their horses
lives you're seeing an increase in interest Yeah yeah, you know
we. We have seen a lot of.
Ups and downs, and I think that, you know, because it goes.
Through life cycles of. At first it was trying to get to
the practitioners and the healthcare providers and the
people that, you know, were deemed the right people.
And then I broke from the back and I was like, you know, it's
like the Khakis boys club, you know, I'm like, I I think that
the right people could be anybody.
So once I broke from the club, I saw a massive surge in the
everyday horse owner being like, yeah, I want to learn this.
And so I would say on average for.
Every one practitioner. We get into the ranks, we'll get
5 horse owners, right? So people really want to know
how to take care of their own horse.
They want to know the whole picture.
They're happy to help their horses in any way they can.
And when you make it super affordable for them and it's
proven and it's easy like, you know, I mean to get my education
like you can you operate a smart device or a computer, you're
good. You know, like it's not easy.
I've made life simple. So you take the kind of kind of
the barrier of entry out and you know, people tried to, I think
it was scary up front because you had these vets and
chiropractors and doctors and PTS and physical therapists
saying, well, only professionals can do it.
You can, you know, you can hurt yourself if you tape yourself.
Go to APT, you could hurt your horse if you tape your horse.
Get a professional, right? And then it's like I'm the one
going. Has there?
Ever been an injury? Ever of any species on record,
ever in any country. No, not one.
Why are we lying to people? That's dumb.
You can't hurt yourself. You're not going to hurt your
horse. Stop lying.
Oh my God. It's OK, they can do it.
My 12 year old tapes. Y'all, My 12 year old tapes.
Children as well. Get your children.
Why not? They got a horse, they need to
learn to take care of them. They can tape them, I can get
to. Stall and climbs on it.
Teach them to London to do groundwork and all the carers.
Clean the stall, feed them, take care of.
Them, clean their feet out, groom them.
Yeah. Like how do you feel now 16
years? On with how it's progressed and
how you've progressed in your career and what do you hope for
the next 16 years? Oh I want to help 10.
Million horses. That's my company's goal.
We want to help 10 million, 10 million horses by empowering
equestrians and equine healthcare professionals
worldwide. I am nowhere near slowing down.
I was going to say not not not an easy goal.
Nice, big, huge, great goal waiting for you out there.
Hey, that's easy. You know it, really.
Is it's if if? The impossible is possible.
You know, and I live in a world that the impossible is possible.
I just have to ask the right question.
Got to figure it out. So I have a an amazing team and
we are all very dedicated to the horse and doing what's right by
the horse. We are, you know, one of them.
I have core values. You have to have certain core
values to work with my company, to be a part of my company.
And the number one is to have a servant's heart.
I don't want people that need spotlight.
I want people that will serve and that are in it for the right
reasons. So we just want to help horses.
We're going to keep doing that and we're going to go hard and
strong and I'm going to keep teaching people all over the
world. So that's our goal.
And I do think it's achievable. You know, it's, it's interesting
in the beginning how hard it was to, you know, even to even be a
part of the conversation. And now you know I get asked.
To come lecture. All the time.
And I have to turn a lot of people down.
I have to turn a lot of associations down because, you
know, I also have a herd at home I have to take care of.
I have your 12 year old son and you know, so I have constraints
on life. He goes to school and stuff.
It's not like I'm just let's go, dude, we're out.
We're going to go lecture. I do think it's your purpose.
That you've been put here on the planet to do this work.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
God looked at me and said she doesn't work well with people.
She's going to work well with horses.
No, he. Yeah, I think definitely very
inspired to do it. I definitely think it's my
purpose. I know that horses saved me as a
broken kid in a broken home in a very difficult home life.
And and so I'm going to save them back, you know.
Well, you've certainly inspired us.
Along the way. And thank you so much for taking
the time, Rebecca, to come and talk to us here at Curious
Equestrian. For those who are intrigued, who
want to know more, who want to learn from you, how can they
find you? Oh man, we're all over the
place. Www.echotex.com you can find us
on Facebook, Instagram, Echotex, Equine Technologies Institute.
We've got books in Amazon. We have our own apps on Apple
and Google Echotex app. Yeah, so and we love, we love
y'all like we love the equine community and we always want to
help. So if you need help with your
horse, you can message us and we will respond to you.
We respond to everybody. AI doesn't respond to our people
by the way, it's still us. It's always reassuring to know,
isn't it? It really is.
I do want an AI chat. Bot on my website that like
points people in the right direction but it points once
when it starts having a personality.
That's when it's terrifying, but when you need.
Help with your horse. It needs to be one of us real
people helping you for sure. Yeah.
So we we're big about helping people.
Like in the book, I tell you, e-mail us if you have questions,
if you have a question with your horse, if you struggle, e-mail
us. In every piece of education, I
always end it with if you need help, message me.
Collie, call us. I mean, we, we are easy to get a
hold of really. So definitely like don't be
afraid to reach out. That's how the horse is.
Really the biggest, most incredible cases came around
from somebody being willing to pick up the phone.
And they're really surprised when I'm the one who calls them
back because I'm like, oh, this case is interesting.
Tell me about it. Like, I want to know.
Your passion is contagious. I will be picking up your book
and feeling empowered that, you know, we can actually learn and
educate to be better for our horses.
And in those crisis moments, we don't have to panic or we can
panic a little bit less and know what to do.
So thank you for for giving that to us, Rebecca.
And I can't wait to find out more.
So thank you so much. You're going to come behind the
scenes. So for those who don't know, we
have a subscriber base. Come and join us for exclusive
Q&A's for listener questions, behind the scenes content.
You're going to come behind the scenes, Rebecca, and ask some
listener questions. Yeah, let's do it.