About Many Hands & Tamara Yates
Tamara Yates is an International Instructor of the Masterson Method of Integrated Equine Performance Bodywork™. She is a double certified Equine Bodywork Practitioner and has over 1500 hours of training in a variety of modalities incorporating them into an integrated approach to her work on horses. In addition to her preeminent skills as an Equine Bodyworker she is first and foremost a horsewoman. Tamara Yates has been training, riding and showing horses for over forty years.
She started with showing Hunters, then moved into Jumpers. After showing hunters and jumpers through her youth she eventually discovered Dressage. Riding dressage for over ten years she successfully showed through 4th level. While working with a Dressage Trainer in 1994 she noticed a top level Reining Horse rider schooling his horse. Having been admittedly very “arrogant” about “Western Riding,” she was struck by how the horse was traveling with its back up, underneath itself with its shoulders up, softly and on a loose rein; being ridden one handed to boot! She had the good fortune to acquire a horse from Tom and Margaret Dorrance to learn to ride as a Reiner. It wasn’t very long before she discovered that this horse knew how to work cows and Tamara began to learn the intricacies of the Reined Cow Horse. She now shows with the NRCHA and the NCRCHA down the fence! This diverse horse experience has created a Masterson Method practitioner with an ability to focus the work on the individual needs of both the unique horse and rider.
Her training as an Equine Bodyworker began years ago when she accompanied an old friend of Tom Dorrance’s as he performed chiropractic work on performance horses all around Northern California. From there she trained with Equissage and learned the more traditional method of massaging horses. Still feeling like something more was needed she found Jim Masterson and his Integrated Equine Performance Bodywork™ method and felt many of the missing pieces were now in place. She was one of the first Masterson Method Certified Practitioners and her method works with the horse instead of on the horse, using the responses of the horse to specific touch to find and release accumulated stress in the connective muscles and tissues of the horse to allow for structural integration and balance. She became a certified Masterson Method Instructor™ and Jim Masterson then hired her to fully develop a rigorous certification program including instruction, extensive interactive field work and performance mastery in order to maintain a high level of quality in his practitioners. She has recently decided to leave that position in order to spend more time at home working on her own practice and Equine Clientele. As a lifelong learner she is double certified and has since taken courses in Equine Bio Mechanics, Acupressure, Myofascial Release and Advanced Equine Anatomy including full dissection. With over 1500 hours of instruction she is now working with an Osteopathic School of Instruction; pursuing any path that will further help our Equine partners.
