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Janet Hoogervorst has had a passion for horses all her life and after having to put a horse down when he was unable to recover from an injury she decided learn how to prevent and heal injuries to horses so this wouldn’t happen again. This quest to learn more has been a fascinating journey into the eastern philosophy of healing.
Janet originally trained through Equiworks SA doing a 200+ hour course in Equine Body Work (Sports massage for horses); this was followed by Reiki up to Advanced level and an extensive course in the functioning of the Chinese Meridian system for humans. Then the real quest began to translate all this knowledge across to the horse (and dogs and cats). Along the way other modalities have been studied and now Janet uses a collection of the following modalities to treat horses:
The biggest paradigm shift necessary to grasp Traditional Chinese
Medicine (TCM) is the philosophy of prevention rather than cure.
TCM doctors aim to prevent illness rather then cure an illness that
to their mind should not have occurred in the first place.
This is done through maintaining balance in all life. Fundamental to TCM is the concept of “Qi” energy.
“Qi” pulses through all life forms and is the basis of
everything that exists. More
specifically “Qi” moves along the 12 meridians, or energy pathways, in
the body named after the organ through which they flow and 2 extraordinary
vessels that do not link directly to a specific organ but supplement the
interactions between the various meridians.
Over time, the Chinese have noticed that certain points along these meridians have a consistent effect on specific parts of the body. This is because they are gateways on the body surface that allow the practitioner to affect the energy flow along the meridian. These are the acupoints and together with the meridians they make up the meridian system. |
Meridian Therapy is the use of these acupoints to restore and maintain health by restoring balance to the body’s energy flows. In Meridian Therapy the practitioner can use whatever means available to stimulate or sedate acupoints. This could be pressure as in acupressure, needles as in acupuncture, a laser or electric stimulation. What is important is the choice of points. Reiki is the ancient art of “laying on of hands” in order to heal.
It is the use of touch to convey warmth, serenity, love, caring and
healing through the channelling of life force energy. The word Reiki can
be split in 2, Rei and Ki. “Rei” refers to the universal transcendental spirit and
Japanese “Ki” refers to life energy similar to the Chinese concept of
“Qi”. Reiki is not
a religion but a set of techniques that have origins in the Tibetan
healing methodologies. While seemingly worlds apart, both Meridian Therapy and Reiki have
central to them the concept of life energy.
Using Reiki, and touching chosen acupoints has been shown to be a
highly effective method of affecting the energy flows in the body.
Again the choice of points is an important factor in determining
the outcome of the treatment. Another technique is the Japanese Jin Shin Jyutsu.
This is defined as the art of harmonising the life energy in the
body to promote harmony and health. Sound
familiar? The difference is that Jin Shin Jyutsu doesn’t use
acupoints but rather Safety Energy Locks (SELs) and circulation patterns.
These are similar to the Chinese meridians and acupoints but there
are only 26 SELs as apposed to the 350 commonly known acupoints.
Also SELs are much larger (about palm sized on the horse) than the
tiny pinhead sized acupoints. But
its simplicity does not seem to take away from its effectiveness
especially in smaller or nervous animals where finding the acupoints can
be particularly difficult. And combined with Reiki the results can be truly astonishing.
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