The human hand, as concerns the skin, is innervated by C6 (thumb), C7 (index- and middlefinger) and C8 (ringfinger and pinky).
Human movement creates an Ich-Bild (an image of self) on the inside of man’s skull. This image – though vastly distorted – resembles the human figure. Guess which part of the human body demands the largest area of this image, which in medical terms is called the Homunculus?
It is the thumb. Why? I guess because the thumb is involved in almost every physical activity. And, the more often a bodily part is used, the greater the number of nerve cells which supply this part, the larger this part's reproduction in the homunculus...
When riding a balaced horse...
...the pressure of the rider's thumbs halts the horse. That is, a signal from C6 of the human vertebra speaks via the rider's thumb to the horse's long back muscle and commands it to cease activity. The equine long back muscle's major projection is attached to the sixth vertebra (C6) of the horse’s neck. Talking about human/equine correlations...
And here another correlation: Moshe Feldenkrais likens C8 (the ringfinger and the pinky) in the human to the playing of an instrument.
The rider’s ringfinger (C8) directs the horse’s jaw.
To me, the rider, it makes sense that the directing of the horse’s jaw, happening within the nerve correlation C8 - this ephimeral nerve section without corresponding bone, for there is no eighth neck vertebra in the human or the horse - should correspond to the making of music.
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