Body Awareness and Balanced Movement with Janelle Cameron
If you’re someone like me who doesn’t really consider themselves an athlete, this interview is for you, as it will hopefully change that perception for you as it did for me and drive home the importance of a good movement routine for both your own and your horse’s sake.
In episode #14 of Healing and Horsemanship I spoke with Janelle Cameron, a strength and performance coach for equestrians. She translates her studies of Kinesiology and human physiology to the horse world to help riders stay aligned and moving well, in and out of the saddle.
What I loved about taking with Janelle is that her passion for what she does and her teachings takes the intimidating, perhaps even dreadful part of working out away and turns it into something we can look forward to doing - even in our jeans.
Read on or listen here to learn more about Janelle’s ABC’s which are our base needs for us to be able to move our bodies well, why breathing mechanics are essential in your movement practice and how it will change your life, and how training our bodies is vital so that we are better able to ride through any trip or unexpected movement our horse makes.
Tell us about yourself and your background.
Okay, so I am Janelle Cameron and I am the owner of the Equestrian Motion Coach. I grew up in central Alberta, Canada on a farm with horses and they've always just been a big part of my life and I caught the bug. I keep working with them, and I ranch now and I have cows and I use my horses for all kinds of ranch work, chasing cows, roping cows, all those fun things. And so I have five quarter horses kind of in my remuda right now that I use with some young ones and a retired one. So kind of all over the map in that department, but we do some ranch rodeo and some ranch roping.
I went to school for something called kinesiology, which is the science of human movement. And I just always… so in school it was all based on like the biomechanics, the anatomy, physiology, like all those very technical things - and I was always super intrigued as to how that would connect to the horse world. And so nobody in school knew anything about horses. So after school, I've been kind of on this journey of trying to connect the technical stuff that I learned in school to my horse world. And so that's where I'm at now is I've connected these and I'm still working on connecting the horse and biomechanics and the movement of a human and trying to get them to work in more harmony and flow together because I think that's a big, well, that's a big piece of my story.
I did all the working out. I did all the running. I did like all the things that are supposed to make you a better rider and a better athlete. And there was just always that piece missing of how do I actually ride better because these things are like kind of helping me. Like working out was kind of helping me, but there was still a piece missing as to why I couldn't connect better with my horses. And so that's where the movement piece comes in. And that's where the equestrian motion coach comes in is that movement piece was what I was really missing in my riding and with my horses as I was trying to progress and get better at what I was doing.
How did you even become interested in kinesiology early on in your student life?
So it was actually really just a big crap shoot because I had a friend that was like, hey, my brother is taking this and I think you'd find it really interesting. And I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school. So I was like, yeah, well, it couldn't hurt to like learn more about your body as a human. So I was like, yeah, I'll try that. And so this college that I went to had like a two year diploma. And so I was like, oh, it's just two years. I'll just go do that quick and then I'll move on and do something, whatever. And then I ended up liking it so much that I got a whole degree in it. And yeah, I just think it's fascinating. The more you know, the less you know, you know about things. So learning about the body is one of those things that it's like, man, I've taken all these courses and done all this even since school, like all this continuing education. It's like there's so much to know. And there's so many cool little details of how like our physical bodies are connected to our minds are connected to our nervous systems are connected. Like everything is so connected. And I just think that's super cool.
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Learn more about Janelle
Learn more about Janelle’s work at The Motion Coach, and follow along with her on Instagram @themotioncoach.
