THEN -- One of the biggest issues Jalila had when I met her was her legs. Archie, her breeder, said to me more than once, “She had straight legs when she was a baby. I don’t know what happened to her.” Looking at her in May of 2016, it was hard to imagine and when I first showed Jalila to my friend Cindy and asked, “Isn’t she beautiful?” Cindy screwed up her face and said, “All of her legs point in different directions!” And I knew that one of the reasons I had been called upon to do bodywork with Jalila was because it was difficult to trim her feet. Once that right front leg got off the ground, it was so far under her belly that the farrier almost had to work from her left side. She could not rotate it and bring it around to a place where he could work with it. The other part of that equation is her balancing challenge. (Later.)
I was too smitten to care and remained impressed by the way her right front leg had rotated after the shoulder released in just one bodywork session.  I wasn’t sure where we were going with this, but I did not feel stalled out.

​While attending my ANT bodywork class in November 2017, we discussed myofascial lines and I saw a remarkable change in my Mini Aussie’s ability to jump up onto things after the release of his deep ventral line.
I also learned about equine research being done in Denmark. It is technical beyond my interests but visual person that I am, the illustrations caught my eye and I noticed that several of the lines ran in and around the scapula and into the girth area. In January, I got around to seeing if I could find any restrictions that might be pointing Jalila’s left leg out. I used my rose quartz crystal with the F harmonic tuning fork to balance her heart chakra and clear energy pathways around her heartgirth. Next I used my 128 Hz tuning fork on some fascia release points. And then I dragged my hands along the lines looking for sticky spots. Intention rules! I’m not sure exactly what I did but at one point, Jalila got agitated, flattened her ears and threatened to bite me. This reaction came in the area of some acupressure points that can be used to detect ulcers, but I checked them after a couple of days and got no reaction from her at all. And best of all:

​Like I told Jalila’s breeders, “Even I have a hard time believing this!” OMG!!!
So, I did not slack off on GOAL SIX: Continue to support her with regular bodywork and work to develop evenness in the opposing muscle groups of Jillie’s hips and shoulders to support functional posture. She does suffer from the plumber’s wife syndrome but I keep adding to my toolbox.
Now I know Archie was right, that horse was born with straight legs. We will never know what happened to her, but now when I see her legs pointing in awkward directions I know it is a balance issue, not a body issue.

​I recall one of my 2017 goals was: GOAL ONE: Getting Jillie to perform all of her groundwork and liberty tasks in good (functional) posture. I don’t just want her to do something, I want her to do it correctly and well. This will make every element beautiful and beneficial.
Well, for the most part, we didn’t do all that badly but the stopping and backing task needs to be refined and, essentially, redone. My bad. She could care less, “Head up, head down, whatever! Give me the treat!”
Another goal that fits into this frame is GOAL FOUR: Perfect my ability to lead Jillie effectively on a loose line by establishing consistent use of body language and signals to guide her without picking up the line in preparation for liberty work.
This goal I accomplished with more to do, but I did abandon the Agility liberty work in favor of the Straightness Training liberty work because the latter focuses on posture ​and balance in a different light and is consistent with our Straightness Training work.

​I put this together as a lark after Jalila and I had a particularly funny day with our ferrel cat, Willow. I trapped Willow and took her to the animal shelter to be spayed 9 years ago and she has been hanging around ever since. She is aloof and I still cannot pick her up, but as she gets older she’s hanging around more and goes to the arena with me almost every time I take a horse out. She’s revealed quite the personality and I love having her company.
When I say I “accidentally” taught Jalila to stop and back with her head too high, I mean I taught her that by not being focused on the big picture while clicker training. In Clicker work, you get what you click and the results can be aggravating as hell because the horse only does what is rewarded. So, there’s no way around the fact that I allowed the obedience part to get out of balance with the posture part of the exercise.
My editor friend wrote to me to say: Loved the mountain lion video! But I figured I should tell you quickly that you have a typo there and it says mountian lion. Don’t know if you can fix it but hopefully you can before your name is mude.
​Well, sorry about that. Living in rural Idaho, it takes 3 1/2 to 4 hours to upload a short little clip like this one and I'm gonna live with the typo.

Last fall my friend, Lane, was visiting from Berkeley and I was excited for her to meet Jalila who I had been calling Jillie in conversations. When I said the name Jalila, it piqued Lane’s interest. She said, “That’s her name? Jalila? That’s a Sufi name.” It didn’t surprise me. I know Archie often pins Arabic names on foals at Drinkers of the Wind Arabians, but Lane said the name Jalila carried some special meanings that I would find particularly interesting.
In her Sufi guide about the 99 Names of Allah, Al-Jalil is #44:

• Al-Jalil (the -a ending is feminine) refers to the deep ocean of resources in one that builds up internal power. A reservoir of power in repose.
• Strength pooled until it is the right time to act, so that when we express it, it really makes a difference. Like a wave swelling into fullness.
• Working inwardly while showing little outwardly. The power need not act outwardly because it radiates without speaking or acting.
• Developing inner qualities such as certainty, confidence, strength, devotion.

As I reviewed the posts since I began this blog to document Jalila’s improvement, I was surprised at what a project getting this horse put together has been. I’m used to life with horses being one thing after another and I guess I just took it all in stride. Jalila is a force to be reckoned with in my life and I feel I can now safely say that she has emerged on the healthy, sane, and functional side of things. She, like all horses, will require specialized maintenance, I’ll share a few specific concerns shortly, but I can walk out to the pen on any given day with a plan to teach and learn with her and be able to do just that.
Her response to a year and a half of rehab efforts is a gift to me. I have worked with so many horses that have either not made a full recovery or stalled out into retirement, and several have had to be put down when we ran out of options. Jalila has shown me that there is no such thing as failure as long as you are doing the best you can with the knowledge you have, and made me more grateful than ever to every horse who taught me every little thing that made it possible for me to help this one swell like a wave into fullness.

On the left, Jalila in May 6, 2016.
On the right, December 9, 2017. This is also WHAT I SAW in May of 2016.
Fortunately, I was a visionary and not delusional!

​2017 was a tough year in a lot of ways. I begin 2018 with a look back and a look ahead.
The misery of last winter’s weather with over 4’ of snow on the ground and the endless shoveling and relentless cold was accentuated by (my gelding) Parker’s misery as he braved the pain and dysfunction of a severe case of founder that finally took him from me in July. A key event to Parker’s passing was that Shiraz, a 7-year-old Arabian mare, also from Drinkers of the Wind, arrived on the scene. With a companion for Jalila in place, Parker passed his power to Shiraz and left within a week of her arrival.

I took a chair out to sit with Parker while we waited for the vet to arrive.
Jalila and Shiraz hovered over me.

​It was an exhausting time that took me into severe adrenal depletion. One side affect of the adrenal fatigue was that my feet hurt and walking, even in the house with cushy slippers, was painful. (So Parker and I both had extremely painful feet.) The thought of braving inclement weather to work with Jalila was not on my list of things to do. My energy was nonexistent. All I could do with the horses was hang out. Toward the end of summer as I started to feel better, I did some liberty work and dabbled in some Horse Agility exercises.
Joining Marijke de Jong’s Straightness Training program inspired me to work more with the horses but I was consumed by setting up an online class so there was no time to keep up with documentation.
So much for 2017 GOAL SEVEN: Document our progress on my website to share experiences, elicit comments from friends and pressure myself to stay focused.
I managed to make some posts and now feel a need to catch up. Jalila and I have strengthened our bond and Shiraz joined us as a case study in Straightness Training. I will include some of her insights as I continue to document my work with Jalila.
Thank you all for the positive support you offered in 2017 and I wish everyone a happy and fulfilling 2018.