The most rewarding aspect of operating as a kinesiologist in rural Fermanagh for the past eight years has been “hearing back from clients who have had a really good result and working with top horses.”

Joan Morton has spent the past decade training in Neuroenergetic Kinesiology and is currently the Institute of Neuroenergetic Kinesiology’s Principal in Ireland. She treats a varied clientele of humans and animals.

The humans are treated at her cosy clinic situated at her Florencecourt home, where she lives with her partner and five children. Joan travels the length and breadth of Ireland to treat the animals – mainly horses, but she has been known to treat a few cows and dogs too.

The Ballyconnell woman has become something of an authority on equine kinesiology and has worked with many prestigious racehorse trainers in Kildare, Meath and the rest of Ireland. She has recently developed an equine kinesiology course and, just last week, Joan has become an approved equine kinesiology training provider through the International Institute for Complimentary Therapists. Her ambition is to grow the business into a kinesiology college. She currently teaches a kinesiology diploma to a number of students and aims to roll out her equine kinesiology course as soon as possible. Next year will really put her on the map when she speaks about equine kinesiology at an International Kinesiology conference in Kirchzarten, Germany. From that she hopes to expand her business into teaching throughout Europe and America.

The main challenge of operating her business to date has been accessing funding for marketing and advertising. “It’s frustrating to know that there’s £7m of LEADER funding to be distributed in rural areas, some of which is for Rural Business Investment,” Joan commented. “I went to a LAG (local area group) workshop recently and I have since found out that I can’t qualify because I don’t employ anyone. There’s not enough support out there for sole traders.”

Another challenge has been “educating people to let them know what kinesiology is, it’s so complex that there’s not one sentence to define kinesiology.”

Joan continued: “People are sceptical. Because kinesiology is so gentle and simple. There’s no deep pressure or massage so people find it hard to understand how something so gentle could have such a profound effect.” 

She is pleased to see more research into this field, including a Foundation Degree in Science, Holistic and Integrated Health Therapies at the North West Regional Collage, on which she will teach a module in 2017.

“Kinesiology is a stress management system,” Joan explained. “A practitioner is trained to access and defuse stress through a method called ‘formatting’ which is a combination of acu points and finger modes. 

“Muscle monitoring gives the practitioner the ability to assess the stress levels in the physical and energetic structures. After the source of the stress has been identified, muscle monitoring allows the practitioner to find what would be the most appropriate correction technique to correct the imbalance. This eliminates the need for guess work, thereby making the corrections very efficient.”

She added: “Someone can come in with a sore knee but their hip could show up in a structure balance. This is where kinesiology is fantastic because it deals with the source of the problem. With kinesiology, there are many different corrections the body can ask for. The correction techniques used are typically acupressure, Neural emotional pathways, emotional stress diffusion, sound healing (tuning forks), chakra balancing, light therapy etc. Muscle monitoring is a way of accessing information that the individual may not be consciously aware of, the same way you are not consciously aware of the processes in place to fight a bacterial infection. It’s just about the flow of information from the brain to the body via the nervous system, and when there is a lot of stress in the body, that flow is affected.”

Joan was a chef  and was suffering from a back problem when a colleague recommended a lady called Orla Brady. Joan visited Orla and her back pain was gone. A few years later, while working in a Hillsborough restaurant, Joan suffered a frozen shoulder and was on painkillers and attending physiotherapy when she recalled Orla. She tracked her down and after one session, her shoulder was better. This was a “light bulb moment” for Joan who then began training with Orla, who taught a diploma in kinesiology.

Joan developed her skills further thorough studying with the Institute of Neuroenergetic Kinesiology in Austria, where she trained in more advanced courses. The institute was founded by Hugo Tobar, who since 1998 has been writing and developing Neuroenergetic Kinesiology courses that go up to doctorate level. It has bases in Australia, USA, Asia, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and now Ireland, where Joan is the Institute’s Principal. 

As Joan progressed through her studies she related what she was learning to horses as well as humans. She had a conversation with Hugo Tobar who had used kinesiology on his wife’s race horses and began applying her skills to horses, with positive results.

“When I started training in kinesiology I was still cooking,” said Joan. “I then started working with the racehorses and I couldn’t believe I was getting paid for doing a job that I really loved. Any money I earned I put into doing more courses.”

Outlining how her business has developed, Joan said: “Since 2008 I have worked with national hunt, flat racing, show jumping, eventing and hunting horses, as well as family pets and even cows.
“I was travelling to Meath and Kildare a lot and was always on the road. In recent years, with the kids, I thought I’d like to work more in the clinic with humans.

“Two years ago I began teaching students. In the future I would like to develop into a college. I am currently teaching a diploma to a group of students. We base ourselves at Tully Mill, Florencecourt. Next month I will host Hugo Tobar for a four-day advanced kinesiology course and a number of students will stay with local accommodation providers while they under-go the course.

“I have recently got an equine kinesiology course accredited worldwide – there are so many people in Europe and America interested in it. Also, I get so many calls from all across Ireland from horse owners and trainers that I really need to teach other therapists because I can’t be everywhere!”

Joan recounted a prestigious race horse trainer who had an issue with under-performing horses and “within three weeks all the horses started to perform really well”; a dog with a brain injury which had been seen by a vet and got the power back in his side after a trip to Joan; and a cow that had been down for three weeks and got up after being balanced by Joan using kinesiology and was found the cow to be deficient in B vitamins and minerals. 

“To me, that’s how powerful kinesiology is,” said Joan, adding: “There are people who need surgery – I’m not going to fix that. Kinesiologists work within the wellness bracket.  Most therapists work to keep people (and animals) healthy and well.”

Asked if people have enough money to pay for extra treatments such as kinesiology, Joan replied: “I worried that I would be affected by the fact that people in the Republic of Ireland pay for all their health care but health care in Northern Ireland is free. But that’s never been an issue. I am happy with my level of clients.”

Operating from rural Fermanagh means a certain level of isolation. “If I was in a city I could go to more networking events such as women in business but in order for me to go from here it would take a whole day,” Joan said: “They could do so much more for us down here. There’s one day workshops now and again. Noelle McAloon in the Council has been great and Fiona in Invest NI was really helpful when doing my business plan. She added: “I’ve got by so far without funding. If you work hard enough, you will succeed. You need to keep re-investing your own funds into your business.”