You’re nervous system is the foundation of your riding.
Whatever you are working toward, more ease, more confidence, a deeper partnership with your horse; it all starts in the same place, your nervous system.
Better riding begins beneath the technique.
You can study all the right methods. You can work with excellent trainers. You can understand exactly what your position should look like and what your aids should feel like. And yet, if your nervous system doesn't feel safe in the saddle — if it's bracing, holding, guarding, or scanning for threat — none of that technique lands the way it's supposed to.
This work builds the underlying capacity. The felt sense of safety, the body awareness, the sensory clarity, those are what help create the conditions for learning, so that everything else you're trying to learn actually stick. Think of it as the soil that your riding skills grow in. The richer and more stable that foundation, the more freely you can develop your technique through whatever training methods and disciplines you love.
This work supports your riding no matter what discipline you pursue or what methods you're already working with.
Riders who do this work find they can apply what they learn in lessons more easily, acquire new skills more quickly, and stay calm even when their horse surprises them. They're actually present — in their body, in the moment, in the partnership.
“I think of all the lessons I have invested in to improve my riding, working with Leah and applying these methods, have been some of the most valuable.” - Terra Bortels
Three systems. One integrated approach.
Through a combination of the Feldenkrais Method, Applied Neurology, and Franklin ball work, we address the sensory systems that tell your brain whether it's safe to move freely, or whether it needs to hold on for dear life.
The Feldenkrais Method
Body Awareness & Movement Refinement
Most riders use more effort than they need to — and most of that effort is invisible to them. The Feldenkrais Method is a gentle, exploratory approach that helps you feel what you're actually doing in your body, so you can begin to do something different.
For riders, this means learning to move different parts of your body independently, using your leg without gripping, following your horse's movement without bracing against it. It means finding balance and stability through good skeletal support rather than muscular tension. If you've been struggling with the same habitual pattern for years; a collapsed hip, a tight shoulder, a brace that shows up when your under pressure, this work can help you find a different way through it. Over time, riders notice more symmetry, more ease, and a horse that seems to respond differently, because the static interference is no longer in the way.
“Since working with Leah I haven’t just improved my riding, but also my everyday comfort…” - Augusta Mae Wott
Applied Neurology
Nervous System Training
Applied neurology uses targeted drills and exercises to train the brain's control systems — improving how efficiently your nervous system gathers and processes information. The work can address visual processing, vestibular function, proprioception, breathing, and specific movement patterns, depending on what your nervous system needs most.
For riders, two areas tend to make the biggest immediate difference: vision and the vestibular system. Clearer visual processing improves timing, depth perception, and helps you stay calm under pressure. A more efficient vestibular system supports balance, head control, and the ability to stay grounded on an unpredictable horse. The drills are often simple, but working at this level requires real presence and attention, and the shifts riders notice are genuine.
“ …..Leah has given me life long tools that I can use to not keep repeating the same lessons, over and over, and truly progress with the horses I ride.” - Nichole Krishka
Vision Training In The Saddle Photo credit - WayMaker Equine Media
The Franklin Method
Proprioceptive Feedback & Pelvic Awareness
The Franklin Method uses small, pliable balls to give your body direct, tactile feedback about how it's moving — feedback that's often very hard to access any other way. Used in the saddle, they're an effective tool for developing pelvic mobility, seat bone awareness, and the ability to follow your horse's movement rather than brace against it.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Any rider who wants to ride more freely and with more confidence.
It's for riders who are curious about their own bodies and nervous systems. Who can sit with the reality that real change takes time, and that a plateau isn't the same as going backward. Who are drawn to the idea that developing feel, awareness, and ease is a craft — something built slowly, layer by layer, over a riding life.
It's for riders dealing with fear or confidence challenges, yes — but also for any rider who wants more access to their body, more responsiveness in their aids, more harmony with their horse. For riders who can feel something is getting in the way, even if they can't quite name what it is.
Whatever you're working toward, and whatever methods you're using to get there — this is the work that can make the rest of it possible.
Private sessions are available in person or over Zoom, and are always shaped around where you are — not where you think you should be. I also offer two fully developed workshops — Foundations & Next Steps — each available to teach in person or over Zoom for groups, barns, and equestrian organizations.