A Warm Mid Winter Welcome to my newly updated Website!!!

Hi, I'm Larissa, and welcome!

If you've found your way here, chances are you're passionate about horses, riding, improving your position, or simply understanding how small changes can make a big difference. I hope you'll find something here that inspires you, teaches you something new, or helps you and your horse enjoy the journey a little more. If you are just here as an interested massage client, then I'm sure you will learn something new and who knows, maybe you'll become interested in horses! 😂🤷‍♀️

For more than 15 years I've worked in two professions that, at first glance, seem quite different—equestrian coaching and massage therapy. Over the years, however, I've realised they're both built on the same foundation: understanding movement.

As my coaching has evolved, I've found myself becoming increasingly fascinated by the subtle ways a rider's posture, balance, mobility and movement influence the horse beneath them. Often it's not the obvious mistakes that make the biggest difference, but the small compensations we don't even realise we're making.

One of the biggest influences on this journey has been my schoolmaster, Rocky.

Rocky has become an incredible teacher—not just for the riders who sit on him, but for me as a coach. His level of training, generous temperament, and sensitivity to the rider's seat make him an honest mirror. When a rider becomes more balanced, supple or independent, Rocky immediately rewards them with better quality movement. Likewise, when a rider is asymmetrical, braced or unbalanced, he quietly reflects those influences too.

Watching this process unfold lesson after lesson has reinforced something I have long suspected: the horse is often telling us far more about ourselves than we realise.

It's incredibly rewarding to watch riders who commit to the process gradually develop an independent seat, improved balance, and greater body awareness. As they change, so does Rocky. His movement becomes freer, lighter and more expressive, not because he has changed, but because they have.

This has led me to combine my two worlds more than ever before.

Rather than viewing massage therapy and equestrian coaching as separate professions, I now see them as different ways of helping people move better. Whether I'm treating someone in the clinic or coaching them in the saddle, I'm asking many of the same questions.

How does this person move?

Where are they compensating?

What is limiting them?

And how can we improve it?

Through this blog, I'd love to share some of those observations with you.

We'll explore topics such as rider position, biomechanics, posture, mobility, common asymmetries, polework, training exercises, and the fascinating relationship between the human body and horse performance. Some articles will be practical, some more educational, and others simply observations I've made over many years of coaching and treating people.

My hope is that these blogs encourage you to look beyond simply correcting faults and instead understand why they occur. Because when we understand movement, we can make lasting changes—not just for ourselves, but for our horses too.

If there's a topic you'd love me to explore, or a rider challenge you've always wondered about, I'd love to hear from you. My goal is for this blog to become a resource that helps riders of all levels better understand themselves, their horses, and the partnership between the two.

On a different note, booking an appointment and lesson has now become much easier with an online booking system now available through the website! Private appointments, lessons, clincis, pop up polework and Bootcamps will all be available for online booking, just hit the BOOK NOW button at the top of my site.