Namaste. “The divine essence in me recognises the divine essence in you.”
It is the customary greeting in yoga — and akin to the connection between a horse and a child in the Horses Helping Humans programme.
Children and horses are both very pure beings“Children and horses are both very pure beings,” says Karen Stollmeyer. “Through their communication and interaction, a sacred space is created where healing on all levels can take place — physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.”
Karen, together with her husband Ernest Matthews, is the owner and founder of Horses Helping Humans, as well as the owner and director of Bliss Yoga Studio.
Her two passions are intertwined seamlessly in the Bliss Yoga Healing Centre she is currently opening near Maracas Beach in north Trinidad, which will offer therapeutic healing for all: including corporate wellness and stress management retreats with yoga and relaxation, as well as a home of hippotherapy for special needs children and horseback riding for the general public who may be interested in natural horsemanship.
The Path to Healing
Hippotherapy, from the Greek word ‘hippos’ meaning horse, is a therapy practiced by occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech-language therapists that uses equine movement as part of a therapy program to achieve functional outcomes.
It was a natural fit for Karen, who is a lifelong equestrian and lover of horses.
She first came across the therapy when she was working in the United States, after having completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Speech Pathology.
“The reality of being a neurological speech therapist was a sobering experience at a young age,” she admits. “Working in hospitals, I saw the worst damage the world could do. I gave my all to my clients, but I still felt that there was something fundamental missing — so I began a journey of self-knowledge.”
Her journey led her to begin practising yoga, which soon became her passion. She also expanded her knowledge of hippotherapy, and underwent an intensive 5-day workshop specific to the therapeutic form.
I decided to leave speech therapy as a career and follow my passion with yogaShortly after, she opened Horses Helping Humans in Miami, but its run was short-lived. “The timing just wasn’t right,” she says. “After 14 years abroad, I came to a turning point where I decided to leave speech therapy as a career and follow my passion with yoga.”
She returned to Trinidad, and opened Bliss Yoga Studio in 2004. But the horses still had a hold on her.
“In September of 2011, I adopted my cousin’s horse Uni, a show jumper who had to be retired because of an injury,” she explains. “At that point I just knew — Horses Helping Humans had to be reborn in Trinidad.”
And, with Uni being the first to champion the equine half of the therapy equation, Horses Helping Humans was reborn in January 2012.
Hippotherapy: Healing with Horses
Hippotherapy is distinct from therapeutic horseback riding, which teaches specific riding skills.
Hippotherapy is distinct from therapeutic horseback riding
Hippotherapy, on the other hand, is practiced by a licensed speech therapist, occupational therapist or physiotherapist, and it uses various aspects of horseback riding and interaction with horses to stimulate the motor and sensory input of a patient.
The therapist guides the movement of the horse and analyses the client’s responses in order to adjust the treatment.
The therapy is used for a wide variety of diagnoses including autism, cerebral palsy, down syndrome, developmental delays, social and communication delays, brain or spinal cord injuries and genetic disorders.
With hippotherapy, the horse influences the patient“With hippotherapy, the horse influences the patient, rather than the other way around as it is with normal riding,” Karen explains. “Holding yourself up on the horse, you build the strength in your trunk. Balance and coordination is needed to stay on the horse as it moves. The gait of the horse mimics the human leg movement, stimulating that response in the brain. Hippotherapy sort of ‘shocks’ the body into understanding the information that is already there but may not be connecting as it should.”
The Horse Magic
Karen has seen ‘the horse magic’, as she terms it, work for patients within only a few sessions.
“Some children start off with their limbs like bamboo, and after a few sessions having to control themselves to stay on the horse, the spine starts to uncurl and the body straightens up,” she says. “One mother called me excitedly saying that for the first time, her son was able to stand up. Another was able to toilet-train her child, and some other parents were finally able to enroll their children in preschool.”
Incredulous, perhaps, but the science is quite simple: in spending time with the horses, children with speech problems will learn to give commands. The big sweeping movements required to groom the horse will help those with motor skills deficiencies. In connecting with the horses, those with autism will develop the tactile and visual impulses to touch and make eye contact.
The real horse magic is the motivationMore that anything, though, the real horse magic is the motivation.
“Can you imagine how hard it is, to get a child — any child, far less one with special needs — to do something they don’t want to do?” she notes, laughing.
She emphasises that every therapy has its benefit, and hippotherapy need not be the only therapy a child is undergoing. It works alongside other therapies, but the approach is quite different in that it may appear to be a respite from ‘therapy’ for the child who may just be interested in spending time with the horses.
She also admits that although some children may be shy or afraid at first, usually their innate curiosity wins over.
“We had one boy who stood outside the stables peeping in; he was so afraid — but if you see him now… you can’t pull him away from the horse!” she laughs. “People often fear what they don’t understand. Once we are able to facilitate that relationship, we help the child to understand the horse, and vice versa, and the fear goes away.”
Yoga and Horses in the Corporate World
Fear of the unknown is a reaction Karen has experienced from others towards her other passion: yoga.
Since the launch of Bliss Yoga in 2004, she has focused on dispelling religious myths and misconceptions about yoga. She also emphasises that her teachings are not just about the physical ‘exercise’ part of yoga, as many local gyms and studios may offer, but a deeper spiritual science to connect the mind and body.
Dispelling religious myths and misconceptions about yogaThrough Bliss, she offers sessions of integral Hatha yoga, teaching the principles of stress management, meditation, relaxation, and energy balance and healing.
Having developed a network throughout the corporate world, she is excited about the facilities at the new Bliss Yoga Healing Centre, where she will be able to unite her two passions — a corporate retreat can be for stress management only, or the participants can also spend some time with the horses if they wish.
It sounds like an unlikely mix — which is precisely why she intends to do it.
“Culturally, we are not naturally exposed to horses the way they are ingrained in other cultures,” Karen says. “The local industry is centred around horse-racing and competitive show jumping, so unless you’re involved in those, the only place you would see horses is on TV, in books and maybe at a parade with the police.”
Through the Healing Centre, she hopes to change this experience in Trinidad and Tobago.
The healing power of hippotherapy and therapeutic horseback ridingShe also looks forward to demonstrating the healing power of hippotherapy and therapeutic horseback riding to the corporate world, and hopes to partner with companies for corporate sponsorship.
“In the past, we had a sponsored programme for children from disadvantaged backgrounds — children who come from remote areas where there is no activity, no special school, and no real childcare apart from their parents,” she reminisces.
“Hippotherapy is the only thing these children may have to help them, and it’s just one step. As a country we still have a long way to go towards understanding the importance of special needs people,” she adds. “I’m blessed to have been able to help these children, in the way they need to be helped — just being able to facilitate this… it’s been quite an amazing ride.”
Further Info
- Horses Helping Humans is a registered NGO, and the programme is offered free to those children with special needs who are unable to afford the therapy. If you would like to help sponsor a child’s therapy, please contact Karen.
- HHH currently has 6 equine staff – 3 big horses and 3 ponies, so there are sizes for all ages.
- Karen and her husband Ernest Matthews are also the driving forces behind the hugely successful annual Trinidad and Tobago World Peace Festival.