Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Exploring TTouch with Robyn Hood: Connection, Communication, and Equine Well-being | Ep 22 Equine Assisted World

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Exploring TTouch with Robyn Hood: Connection, Communication, and Equine Well-being | Ep 22 Equine Assisted World · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

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Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
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I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
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author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
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Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
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thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
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I have a request.
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If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
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It really helps us get this work done.
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As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
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And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
0:31
equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
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If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
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com.
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So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
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Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
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Today, I've got Robin Hood.
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That sounds anachronistic, perhaps.
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I don't mean a man in tights with a longbow on his back.
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I mean, the amazing sister of the amazing Linda Tellington Jones.
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Those of you who know about T Touch the Linda Tellington Jones method of
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using touch to ameliorate bond with gosh reach and Help with any kind of
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horse training And people and dogs and so anyone who doesn't know about
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t touch go and type it into google now t touch It's a wonderful thing.
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We've been you know Fans of it and practicing it on our own horses and each
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other and our dogs for over a decade.
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And Linda Tunnington Jones, of course, is a legend within the horse community
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and was one of the first people to bring this idea of healing through
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horses into the mainstream, really.
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Not as many people know about her younger sister.
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And Robin and Linda have been working together for many, many, many years.
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And A lot of the systemization behind the T Touch method one could
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say has, you know, come thanks to this wonderful relationship between
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the sisters and Robin's input.
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So I wanted to, I wanted to not just talk to Linda.
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If you haven't heard our two podcasts with Linda, one on Live Free, Ride
2:16
Free, and one here on Equine Assisted World, go click on those links now.
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But today I want to go a little deeper into T Touch with Robin.
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And look at what are the things that we as equine practitioners need to know.
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What can we benefit from in terms of how we approach,
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touch, interact with our horses?
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How our clients do not just with our horses, but the other social animals
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that we have and with each other, we being social animals as well.
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There's a lot that we can glean from mentors like Robin.
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So even though many of us, of course, hold the well being of the equines we
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work with, you know, in the highest of priorities, because we hold them in
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that priority, we need to talk to people like Robin and learn as much as we can.
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So Robin, thanks so much for coming on the show.
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And please tell us who you are and what is T Touch?
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What's it all about?
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Robyn Hood: That's always a 64, 000 question.
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You know, what is T Touch?
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So, first of all, it's interesting.
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Of course, our family name is Hood and Linda named me actually, I was the second
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last to be born and she came home and said, Oh, you have to name this one Robin.
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The funny thing is our mother's name was Marion.
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So we had made Marion
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and
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Robyn Hood: I have a brother named John.
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So we have little John and made Marion.
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And when I was a child, I used to do a lot of.
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And I'm a horse showman.
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I used to ride two horses from other people.
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And one was called fire tech and one was called little John.
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So here comes Robin Hood riding for your deck.
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So anyway, that was a good laugh for people.
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So I've kind of grown up with that.
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And, and, you know, it was a little tricky when I was younger, but when
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I got married, I chose to keep my own name and I've had the opportunity, you
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know, Linda's 14 years older than I am.
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And I spent a lot of time when I was young, before I was on
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a horse, before I could walk.
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When I could walk, she would, like, throw me on a horse bareback and,
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you know, slap them on the butt so I'd get cantered into the stable.
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My mother was, of course, horrified, but, you know, it's the way it was.
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And then Linda left when I was three.
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She moved to California.
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That was quite hard for me.
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And then I started to go to work with her when I was nine.
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And I got, would go in the summers and fly to California by myself, which,
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you know, back in the day, 1959,
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60 was pretty unusual, especially crossing the border.
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And I.
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I am, I'm so lucky to have have Linda and the thing is, I don't want to be Linda.
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And I think that's actually why our relationship works.
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I always make this kind of joke and it's not that, you know, she's
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kind of the show horse and I'm the workforce and that doesn't mean
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she doesn't work, but I really like kind of being behind the scenes and
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and supporting what she's doing.
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And sometimes.
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redirecting her a little bit because she has a lot of ideas that were at
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least 20 years ahead of her time.
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And, you know, that's the good news and the bad news, you
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know, like, like everything.
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And so, I did a newsletter for, I started in 83, I think, and I did it till 2017.
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Four times a year and about the method and about Linda's travels, which were, I
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mean, incredibly, incredibly interesting.
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And so I, I really, I love this work.
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I love being able to connect with people and their animals, because.
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If we, if we can't relate to the people, it's hard to
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actually have them help their.
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Animals.
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And so it's it for me, learning is constantly like, I believe that we
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can always make something better.
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There's it's not about something is, you know, it has to be like this.
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I think we need a framework of what what I've kind of tried
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to do is make a baseline.
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And then I often say to people that this work is written in sand
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rather than written in stone.
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And I think that it allows people that they learn the basic techniques
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and then they can use that then they can use their intuition or the
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feeling and and, and carry on with it.
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So that's where I think that's kind of the role that I play.
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that I play with Linda.
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Rupert Isaacson: What is T Touch exactly?
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Robyn Hood: So, T Touch, there, there's the question.
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So, I, and I, I actually really prefer in Europe, they call
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it more the Tellington method,
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and
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Robyn Hood: the, because the misnomer is that it's only about touch.
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So, T Touch is basically a, a gentle way of communicating with animals and with
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interacting with animals that is What I say low stress because every time we do
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anything different, there's a certain amount of stress, but it's low stress and
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it's really considering how animals learn.
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And that's our interest is, is in looking at both the learning.
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So we have different components.
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There's the observation, which you do.
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Ideally, you're doing all the time with your animal, you know,
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and what we're looking for is small things, not big things.
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We don't want to wait until they shout at us.
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We'd rather listen to their whispers.
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And, and then of course, there's the body of work known as the Tellington
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T Touch, which is a gentle form of hands on communication with your horse.
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And there are various techniques that we use that are really easy to learn.
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And I think that's one of the things that is, so what's so beautiful about
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this work is that you can teach people it in a pretty short period of time.
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We also have the groundwork.
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And there's, you know, I remember years ago, people were starting
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to do body work on horses.
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It was a, you know, at the time when we started nearly 50 years ago, it
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was considered a little bit odd.
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But so what we found is that you could do body work, but if you didn't
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take that into mindful movement.
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As in the Feldenkrais method, then there was a lot that was missed.
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And unfortunately, there's, there's more and more groundwork being done, but
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it's some of it actually kind of, takes away from any body work you might have
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done because it puts horses in posture.
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It's not functional.
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And so we're looking for functional posture for helping, helping them
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have a different way of moving.
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And of course, we also have Some equipment we use like body
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wraps to bring more awareness.
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We have what we call the joy of riding.
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So it's about this whole, you know, parts of it so you can, we
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started, I've had up to 200 horses here on my property, and we for.
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40 years have started our own horses that way.
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Hundreds of horses we've started.
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So it's a step by step.
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I believe that horse training should be like watching paint dry.
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Shouldn't be exciting.
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Rupert Isaacson: You mentioned something called Feldenkrais.
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What's that?
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Feldenkrais,
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Robyn Hood: Moshe Feldenkrais was an Israeli physicist who had had a and he
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was a he had a physical injury himself, and he was also a master of martial
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arts, and he took what he knew about martial arts and broke down every bit of
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movement in his body, and I still think that Feldenkrais is one of the best kept
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secrets for his intention was to improve the movement and of dancers and athletes
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and their performance, and he ended
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Very serious injury, strokes, cerebral palsy, all sorts of things that, and he,
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there is a, he's got a great Facebook page called the Feldenkrais Method, and
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it shows Moshe working with a young man that had been really not being able to
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move very well with a, with his CP, and in one session made such a difference to the
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possibility, and so it's, so check it out.
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It's something that I think is really neat.
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useful for anyone, whether you have any, you know, disabilities or not, because
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the philosophy of it is so similar.
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Rupert Isaacson: It's an interesting thing.
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I've, I've experienced a bit of Feldenkrais.
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And I always love it when, aI tries its hand with Feldenkrais because it
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comes back as failed in Christ, which I always think is rather wonderful.
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Oh, that's hilarious.
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Oh my God.
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You're failed
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Rupert Isaacson: in Christ.
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You can but the Feldenkrais method, actually in German, what does it mean?
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It just means a field circle.
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It's it's a type of body work that's very, very gentle, as you say, almost
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like sort of chiropractic or osteopathy.
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But without all the cracking and with very, very subtle tiny movements
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and I do know that there has been a, a Crossover, to some degree,
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between Feldenkrais and T Touch.
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Can you talk to us about what are the qualities of these movements?
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Whether for humans with, you know, or for horses.
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Why so subtle?
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Because some of us, for example, me, I like deep pressure.
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You know, I like subtle pressures, but I do like deep pressure.
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Other people I know don't, you know, everybody's nervous system
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is a little bit different.
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So what do you feel is the key with the subtlety of these movements?
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Because, yeah, both Feldenkrais and T Touch, it, it, it's,
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it's not hard, deep pressing.
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It's, it, it is more subtle.
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What, what's the quality?
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Robyn Hood: In the If we think about the nervous system, and we think
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about muscles, so when people like deep tissue massage, like it to
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go in, it may affect the muscle.
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But it's actually the nervous system that tells the muscle what to do.
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And so you, what, what my experience is, I personally don't like deep
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tissue work because it makes me really sore and I'm not really into pain.
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That's, and there's, doesn't mean that, that you can't have a certain
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amount of discomfort and it'd be okay.
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And there, you know, certainly in the, in the Feldenkrais work, there is
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a, There is sort of a portion of it.
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That's not 100 percent gentle.
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There's a depending on the on the practitioner and so on.
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And but you're right.
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It's a lot more like what I would call classical osteopathy because
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there's 2 kinds of osteopathy when there's 1 that's like.
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Healing basically.
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And then there's the one that does is more manipulative.
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I, what, what my experience is, is that first of all, especially with animals,
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we have to find a way to make contact with them that they say it's okay.
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And there's no animal on this planet that I know that when you
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go in and cause discomfort that they're going to go great do more.
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Do more.
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And in fact, some of the techniques that are used on horses that are
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really deep work, they'll say, you know, leave this door open so you can
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get away if they kick you or things like, you know, things like that.
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So it may help in some ways that you're you know, you're releasing
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you're releasing some tissue or something at the moment, but it
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usually comes back pretty quickly.
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So if we don't, so what, what, what I find Is it like we have techniques that
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you can go in deep without going in hard.
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There's a huge, there's a huge difference with, with that and the people that I've
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worked with many people that have had that they maybe use their upper body a lot,
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so they're super tight and they've had a lot to deep tissue work and it helps
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in the moment, but it comes back so, so quickly, the, the sort of discomfort.
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And I remember one groomer who had really tight shoulders.
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And so I Did some lifts with the wraps and I did some different
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things on her shoulders and she told me that I, because of her, her
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sort of preference to heavy work.
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And then she told me that it hadn't really worked.
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I went less, I went less and I went less, but I waited longer.
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And then, as I started this little release with her, her shoulder just kept going
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down and down and down and down and down.
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And she said, Okay.
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I've never felt that release before because my body's always been protective.
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And so I think that, especially with animals, is there's they're
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much more honest in their responses than in a way that than humans are.
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And of course you can be too light.
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T touch falls into the category of light pressure touch.
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You know, the really light touch is that alarming touch, like
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when a fly walks across you.
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That's not what we're looking for.
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Rupert Isaacson: Really don't like that at all.
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Robyn Hood: Well, we wouldn't do that.
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I don't think any any animal really likes it.
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So light pressure touch what I call and there's there's some horses
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that are super, super sensitive and the synapses over fire.
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So when you use light touch, they it's not very comfortable.
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So then what we would do.
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Is apply what I call more positive pressure.
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So it would be diffusing the contact over a larger area, but creating a
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little bit more pressure that soothes that sort of calms the synapses.
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So, so there are times that we'll go in deeper, but it won't.
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Rupert Isaacson: Can you describe for me that does make sense.
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Can you describe for me a fairly typical tea touch session?
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So let's say you arrive at my barn and my horses are hardworking boys and girls.
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So, you know, like me, they've all got a desire to have ameliorative
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touch, you know, on their body.
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So you'll, you know, you'd notice, let's say I've got an older horse
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and You'll notice perhaps he's a little stiff in the withers.
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Maybe he, maybe his stifle is not everything it used to be.
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Despite the fact that we're lunging and doing in hand and doing the best
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we can but nonetheless, you know So let's say we walk in there and you
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you cast your eye over the horse.
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You say yeah Yeah, I can see a couple of wear and tear spots.
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I can see where the horse is perhaps protecting itself Let's say it was
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those two spots withers and stifle.
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Can you describe to me more or less how you would operate.
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And what's going on through your hands?
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What touches are you using?
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How are they helping?
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And how is this creating a bond between you and the horse that I,
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the owner, could then pick up on and continue once you leave the barn?
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Robyn Hood: Now, that's a big question because pretty much our answer
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is usually it depends, you know, because so the first thing is to
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Rupert Isaacson: an imaginary scenario.
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Robyn Hood: So I, so I would say the first thing is, if I have a hard working
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horse that is older, I have lots of old horses in, in my barn, I, I actually
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am looking to help them feel better.
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I, I'm not going to actually go in and I don't want to necessarily
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bring a lot more awareness.
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I want to help them be able to maybe release tension.
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Take deeper breaths help them and I, I wouldn't necessarily go
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to the areas that are, that are described as being the issue.
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I
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Robyn Hood: would probably start on the opposite end of the body because the
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compensation patterns that happen, I want to find places that so I, you know, just
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run my hands over the horse and and watch for their really small response, you know,
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a change in the ear, you know, like a, just different things that they might do.
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And then I'm going to change the contact so that they can
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say, Oh, yeah, this is okay.
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You're okay.
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You're actually going to listen to me rather than going in and doing this.
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So I, I would explore probably extremities in the horse as well.
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So I might You know, ask them to pick up the foot.
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Do some really small leg circles, but not for very long.
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I want to notice how does the horse change their weight?
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How do they change their balance?
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With what ease can they pick up any foot or not?
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Is it with one side easier than the other?
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I may do, probably I would do something with the forelock, like
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doing forelock slides because it actually is kind of like doing the
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tail touches only on the other end.
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I'll do take a hold.
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What are
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Rupert Isaacson: the tail touches?
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Robyn Hood: Oh yeah, right.
18:28
Okay.
18:28
Well, there's a lot.
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So the thing is the tail is, you know, connects the whole spine,
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the back end to the front end.
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And so, I generally on the tail would start standing at the side, a hand
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on the top of the croup because that.
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really lets me feel what's going on for the horse.
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I might start by just stroking the tail hairs from the base of
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the root of the tail out to the end, just at the top of the tail.
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I noticed the response.
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Then I would pick up the hair on the top of the tailbone and pick
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it up and just start just circle the tail like, see, can they?
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Can they actually pick it up?
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Are they tight?
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Are they clamped in the, in the tail?
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And then I just do like a gentle glide with the hair and then slowly release.
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And you'll be able to see the abdominal rectus muscle activates as you do various
19:17
things with the tail, which is incredibly helpful for the back of the horse.
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So I would do that.
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And I also do that with a rider on board.
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I think there is nothing more important.
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Then doing some of the tail, I may circle the tail and, and do like
19:34
a little plug in, if you will.
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So I just gently can the tail come into the body.
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Can they come out?
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What's the horse's response?
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Because when the rider's on board, the horse learns about the functional
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posture of carrying a horse, carrying a rider rather, and that's, and
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so they, they kind of learn, the nervous system learns that it.
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That, oh, that's interesting when the tail is, comes back, my, my back comes up.
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So that's actually gonna feel better.
20:02
Same thing if I take the forelock and I literally just take it
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kind of right by the root.
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I may start with stroking the hair and then I might circle
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the forelock right at the root.
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And then I put a little bit of glide out toward myself with a pause.
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And then slowly carry them that back and what what the writer feels is
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this expansion through the rib cage, and it's incredibly beneficial.
20:31
They feel you feel more when they're with a bareback or bareback pad, but you
20:35
also feel it under the saddle and you see the rider kind of move up and down.
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So the horse kind of gets a better sense of that.
20:42
So.
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I kind of digress there, but I feel that that's a really important.
20:46
So there are a lot of things we may do this gentle flexion of the tailbone.
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And what I notice is that as you just gently, we call it purling, take the
20:56
tailbone in and out gently that you feel different parts of the horse
21:01
moving if you're sitting on them.
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So different parts of the spine moving.
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Rupert Isaacson: Now, you're a well, well, you know, lifelong seasoned horsewoman
21:11
and you, you breed Icelandic horses.
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You've been working at Linda's side for 300 years.
21:16
You know, but of course, many people within the equine
21:21
assisted world, particularly are often relative newcomers to.
21:27
To horse owning and to horsemanship, and it can be a very confusing field.
21:32
And as you know, it's rife with faction and it's rife with shaming, you know,
21:38
if you don't do this, you know, all this sort of emotionally triggering
21:43
language, you know, if you don't do this, you're going to do something terrible
21:46
to your horse and blah, blah, blah.
21:47
So of course what happens is a lot of people come in and they're so
21:50
terrified of doing something adverse.
21:53
To that with their horse or to their horse that they almost are on the side of
21:57
doing too little which of course is Tricky because the horse is a super athlete
22:02
bred for thousands of years to be a super athlete has all this energy and Also
22:08
somebody who hasn't grown up like you able to read horse behavior There's probably
22:13
a note a time you probably can never remember a time when you couldn't read
22:16
horse behavior because it was just all around You it was the family culture, but
22:21
that's not true for a lot of other people.
22:23
So These are some naive questions, but I want you to answer them as best you can.
22:27
How do you know?
22:28
How do you judge?
22:29
How do you discern if a horse is having a positive reaction to what you're doing?
22:34
As opposed to a neutral reaction, or maybe not even a reaction at all.
22:38
Something moves in the body, but it's in response to something that's
22:42
going on half a kilometer away that they're hearing or smelling.
22:46
How do you discern what is a positive response?
22:51
Robyn Hood: It's a good question.
22:52
I would, I would say for me that just teaching people about noticing little
22:59
shifts in weight with the horse.
23:01
And I don't know that we can actually ever really know.
23:05
You know, there's, there's this whole kind of culture that
23:11
people will go, Oh, This is good.
23:13
And this is bad.
23:14
You know, the horse yawns.
23:16
It's good.
23:16
Oh, the horse yawns.
23:17
It's bad.
23:17
The horse licks and chews.
23:18
It's good.
23:19
The horse licks and chews.
23:20
It's bad.
23:20
You know what?
23:21
How do we really
23:22
Rupert Isaacson: confusing?
23:22
Yeah.
23:23
Robyn Hood: And how do we really know?
23:24
And that's where I feel like if we.
23:28
If we pay attention to the small things like does our horse just
23:33
watch it pay attention to the, to the ears what they're doing?
23:36
And that doesn't mean that it's bad.
23:37
It just mainly means that the horse is paying attention.
23:40
Pay attention to the, like, the tension, maybe tension or, or if
23:45
you see lines around the mouth, or maybe you see them yawning.
23:49
And I don't, I think yawning, I think Most of these things, licking and
23:53
chewing, yawning, and so on, blinking, they're a response of the nervous system.
23:57
Rupert Isaacson: They can mean many things.
23:59
Robyn Hood: They can mean lots of things.
24:00
Rupert Isaacson: And
24:00
Robyn Hood: I think it's a huge mistake when we say, you know,
24:03
one is this and one is that.
24:05
I think we have to just be a bit more neutral in our response
24:08
and pay attention to it.
24:09
Like, pay attention to when does it happen.
24:11
If you are doing something, you see a response and you go back to where
24:15
you saw sort of a new more what I would say kind of neutral response.
24:19
Does the horse does the horse change?
24:22
Because I think that's I think so often we don't pay attention to when horses
24:28
are really trying to tell us something.
24:29
So, for example, grooming is one of the biggest things that
24:32
I have people pay attention to.
24:34
That's generally one of our first physical interactions with the horse.
24:39
So if your horse has to be cross tied to be groomed, then I suggest you
24:46
set up a situation where they don't have to be cross tied so you can
24:49
actually see what their response is.
24:51
Do they turn around to do they pin their ears?
24:55
Do they move around?
24:56
Do they turn around to bite you?
24:57
And I had someone Ask me at a class is, you know, does doing
25:01
tea touch make your horse bite?
25:02
And I said, well, not usually.
25:04
And I said, what was happening?
25:05
And she said, well, I was grooming him and he was turning around to bite me.
25:09
And I was grooming him in the stall.
25:10
And I said, well, where do you normally groom?
25:13
She said, he's in cross ties.
25:15
So in the cross dice, he can't give any information.
25:19
He can move his hind end around, but people usually kind
25:22
of tell them to stand still.
25:23
And, you know, if you get, if you get after them enough and you are,
25:28
you know, like positive enough in what you're doing, you can get horses
25:31
to put up with a lot of things if they don't have that restriction.
25:37
Can we go slower when we groom?
25:39
Can we use a different kind of brush?
25:42
Use it on yourself like take a brush on your own arm and brush like I went all
25:47
through Pony Club and of course we're taught you know use this flicking motion.
25:50
Well a lot of horses really don't like that and all it does is move
25:54
the dirt from one place to another.
25:55
So what happens if you turn the brush on the side a bit
25:58
and you do a long slow stroke?
26:01
What happens then?
26:03
And notice what the horse's reaction and I think that's one of the.
26:07
Best ways for people who aren't familiar with horses.
26:10
Is to just start to notice response, like notice, hopefully quiet.
26:16
If it's a big response, then you really ideally change something that you do.
26:21
So I, I think that's a good way.
26:23
And also when you, when you just approach your horse, how
26:26
do you approach your horse?
26:27
You know, if you approach your horse, from the shoulder.
26:31
So I've been importing horses from Iceland since 1977 and in Iceland
26:38
at the time, the only way they could catch a horse was to Put them in a
26:43
small pen, put them in a corner and then walk up to them and catch them.
26:46
They couldn't walk up to them in a pasture and just put a halter on.
26:50
So that was the first thing that we taught our horses is that you could
26:53
be that you could just be walk, you know, walk up and catch them.
26:58
So we'd use a little bit of dried bread and we'd give them a little bread.
27:01
We do a little scratch.
27:02
We'd walk away.
27:03
And then we'd go back up and start that way.
27:06
So I think how we catch horses is also really important.
27:09
How our first interaction, using the back of the hand instead of the palm, is
27:14
it, for most horses, stroking just down the, you know, the side of the neck, is
27:18
much more acceptable for most horses, especially a horse you don't know.
27:23
When you walk towards a horse, If they look at you, this is, you know, in
27:28
past years, we've had so many horses that were hard to catch if I'd stop
27:32
and then I would just look away.
27:34
And then if the horse looked away and then looked back, I could
27:37
always walk up and catch them.
27:39
So I think that just paying attention to.
27:43
Small things in the, in the pasture or in a paddock or whatever, when you start
27:48
to make contact can be really beneficial.
27:51
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I think, I think that sometimes
27:53
one overthinks these things.
27:54
I mean, we're all mammals, and I think all mammals enjoy a certain
27:59
that we have this thing called the mammalian caregiving system.
28:01
So whether we're dogs being suckled, whether we're pigs, whether we're
28:08
horses, whether we're monkeys there's a certain just amount of touch.
28:14
Embracing and the intention long slow strokes, as you've said, and
28:21
these seem to go across all species.
28:23
And then this thing of do they seem to seek more?
28:26
I've got you.
28:26
You talked about the four lock pulls.
28:28
I've got a horse that, you know.
28:29
If you pull his forelock, man, he's just going to be with you going,
28:32
Hey, how about that forelock thing?
28:34
And, you know, and he'll actively like move his head, basically put his head
28:38
right where your hand is and say, I would like some more of that, please.
28:41
It's very, very clear, but he's a very connected sort of, of a
28:45
guy who's very human focused.
28:47
There could be another horse that's shy who might like it, who might not show
28:52
it quite so, blatantly, but nonetheless.
28:55
Appears to exhale, drop the head, half close the eye, do
29:02
sort of things that we might do.
29:04
That a dog might do, that other mammals might do that denote pleasure.
29:07
Because oxytocin, you know, serotonin, endorphins are common to us all, right?
29:12
So, it's, it's, it's interesting to me that you guys at T Touch
29:17
seem to have found your way into.
29:21
a number of ways that, when I observe it, seem to create those hormones
29:27
in the horse, and you seem to have a repertoire of particular types of touch.
29:32
You mentioned some of them now, and those, those listeners who've
29:36
listened to my podcast with Linda will know about this business of
29:40
the circle and a quarter movement.
29:43
Can you talk to me a bit about that?
29:45
What is the value of the circle and a quarter movement?
29:51
How do you do it?
29:53
And what do you observe in terms of the horse's pleasure responses?
30:02
If you were going to say to me, Rupert, over Zoom, I'm going to
30:04
teach you how to do the circle and a quarter thing with your hand.
30:09
How would you do it?
30:11
Robyn Hood: Well, I, I think that I probably, first of all, I kind of look
30:16
at the person and depends a bit on, on their hands, for instance, like if
30:20
you're working with someone who maybe has some arthritis in their hands,
30:24
then I'm going to have them put the whole of the hand on the, on the, so
30:28
the fingers and the, and the palm, not the middle of the palm, because
30:32
that's sort of concave for most people, but just put it gently on the animal.
30:35
And then just think about, Moving the tissue so it's like your hand
30:41
is kind of Velcro to the body and you're going to move the tissue
30:46
in starting in an upward fashion.
30:49
So it's going to start with a lift.
30:50
So if you think about going around this clock, and of course, now that we have
30:54
so many digital clocks, I don't even know how people are going to learn like kids.
30:58
But if 6 on the clock is the lowest point of gravity, you're going to make contact.
31:04
With that, and then you're going to move the skin under your hand.
31:07
The thing that people do a lot of times is they rub.
31:10
And if you instead can move the tissue in approximately a circle and a quarter,
31:16
have a little pause, and then either carry it back towards where six was, Or
31:22
you can just lightly take your hand off and move and move to another place that
31:27
I think the most important thing and I often have people just put their hand
31:30
on their arm so that they can on their upper arm so that they can actually
31:35
feel the movement because the skin is a little bit looser on most people's
31:38
arms, say, then maybe even on a horses.
31:41
And, you know, if the tissue is really tight.
31:45
I actually suggest to people that they imagine that they're moving the tissue,
31:50
because when we imagine doing something, our nervous system does something, and
31:55
something will happen under our hand.
31:58
If because if the tissue is really tight, I see people just kind of rubbing across.
32:01
Now, that doesn't mean it's bad.
32:03
It's just that there's a different experience with that.
32:07
And, and we have so many parts of the hand to use.
32:11
If, if somebody, if if an animal's really sensitive, then
32:15
we might curve our fingers.
32:16
So we're going to use the backs of our first two knuckle joints
32:20
to make that same kind of contact.
32:21
It'll diffuse the contact a little bit.
32:24
I actually have to say, I, I think one of the reasons that the circles are useful.
32:31
is that they're a different habit for people.
32:34
If we, when our habits bypass the thinking part of our brain, right?
32:39
And that's what makes habits useful, and it's what makes them easy.
32:42
We don't have to think about doing a habit, right?
32:45
We have to think about doing something else.
32:48
And so if I want to change something, I have to change something,
32:52
which sounds super obvious.
32:54
But if I can give them some way that's It can't be too different, like that's why I
33:00
look at people's hands and I look at how they just automatically make contact with
33:05
their animals, and then I pick a touch that I think will be a little different.
33:10
Because it's the same with our animals.
33:11
If we want to change habits, we can't just say, other one habit is really bad.
33:15
We're going to take you into something else.
33:17
We have to expand.
33:19
We have to step them out of the habit and then let them come back
33:22
in and step out and come back in so that that comfort zone gets bigger.
33:27
And so that would be the same thing even with people and the
33:30
contact that they're making.
33:31
I might, I might start with somebody and say, what about if you.
33:35
Stroked the horse's mane, maybe what you do is you take a little contact
33:41
at the root of the mane and you do a little circle and a quarter and you
33:44
pause and then you stroke probably in the direction the hair grows.
33:49
So up a little bit and then pause bit because you know, our, our in breath
33:54
is activates the sympathetic and our out breath the parasympathetic,
33:58
which is why that, that external, that exhale Is so important.
34:05
And it's people that I have to warn people.
34:08
I said, you know, I'm not I'm not exasperated.
34:10
I'm not bored.
34:11
That audible exhale is about grounding and it's about and what I find is
34:16
that everyone around me will do it and the animals will do it as well.
34:21
So I think that the circles are important.
34:26
I think they're important because they actually help us to change a habit.
34:30
And yes, they give a different kind of information to the body.
34:35
And if we can change something that we do, I think that's actually
34:39
probably the most important part of it because we start to think, be
34:43
mindful and be present and aware.
34:46
Rupert Isaacson: I think that's a very good point.
34:47
I think, I know that particularly those of us who are lifelong horse
34:53
people tend to have methodologies that we comfort zones for us.
34:58
They came out of the culture that we were born into and
35:03
they have their pros and cons.
35:06
But if we're not learning new languages, well, we're always going to be
35:10
stuck speaking the same old dialect of whatever language it was, which
35:14
will be great in certain contexts and completely useless in others.
35:17
As we know, if I want to, I'm sitting here in Germany, my London, South
35:22
African vernacular is of limited value when I'm trying to order
35:28
a drink in a bar in Frankfurt.
35:29
You know, so I've got to, you know, and it, I think it's, it, it's such an
35:33
interesting thing that while we know as horse people, that there is a whole
35:38
world of equestrian culture universe of different equestrian cultures out there,
35:43
none of which is better or worse than any other because they all have evolved for
35:47
very specific jobs and are good at them.
35:51
So they're presumably they, you know, they work.
35:54
And yet we often have these defensive responses when we come
35:58
across one that's unfamiliar to us.
36:00
Oh, I don't like that.
36:01
Yeah.
36:02
I remember as a kid, once being out hunting in Leicestershire, which is
36:08
the, the, Horse culture I grew up in, which is very much cross country
36:11
riding, jumping, that sort of thing.
36:13
And so hunting was a big part of it.
36:15
And big fences, you know, big hedges.
36:18
So that's what it was all about.
36:20
It was about being brave and riding at the hedge and, you know, getting over.
36:23
And they were, I was listening to two guys discussing, local guys
36:27
discussing an equestrian show they'd seen that had been coming through
36:32
the area in the early eighties.
36:34
And they were like, well, you know, I don't teach my horse to do circus tricks.
36:37
And I remember sitting there on my horse thinking.
36:39
Why not?
36:40
Why wouldn't you?
36:40
Like, what, what's wrong with that?
36:42
And, and why, maybe the horse would enjoy it.
36:44
And why, why do you feel that the thing that we do has more merit than that thing?
36:51
Interesting.
36:52
So interesting that we limit ourselves in this way.
36:55
And of course, therefore, presumably our animals.
36:58
You have within a whole repertoire of different kinds of touches with quite
37:05
exotic names and quite specific movements of the hand and finger that go now beyond
37:12
the circle and a quarter sort of basis.
37:15
Can you give us an example of some of those touches and their names and what
37:20
they mean, what they're for, how they got their names and how we might do them?
37:27
Robyn Hood: When Linda started with this work, and I remember we
37:30
had sort of five basic touches and basically they didn't have a name.
37:34
They had a description, you know, so there was, we would use the flat of the
37:37
hand, or we would there were, it was basically just giving a description.
37:43
And.
37:44
Because Linda's really interested in this concept of light, right, left brain
37:48
learning, what she realized is that first of all, we were working with animals.
37:53
And by the way, T Touch is actually the only modality, like, like contact
37:58
modality that started with animals.
38:02
Like most massage and Reiki and all these things they started with people
38:05
and then people found the value and so they went into, you know, try
38:09
them on their animals fair enough.
38:11
Linda went the opposite way, even though our background you know
38:14
our for in 1963 she and her first husband wrote a book called physical
38:20
therapy for the athletic course.
38:22
So they did do, you know, like typical kind of massage on, on horses.
38:27
But when she, you know, found out about this, the felon Christ,
38:30
she had to change it enough.
38:32
So she, it would be teachable.
38:33
Okay.
38:34
And
38:34
Robyn Hood: so when she, many of the names came from animals that she was working on.
38:40
So for instance, the, the clouded leopard, she was at the Zurich zoo and she was
38:44
working with clouded leopards, have spots.
38:46
And she was working with these young cubs that were quite.
38:50
And she said, okay, so she put her, the pads of her fingers on the spots and she
38:57
moved the spot in a circle and a quarter.
38:59
So that became the clouded leopard, which is kind of the You know, sort
39:03
of our hallmark touch, if you will and then she thought, well, if I
39:06
was to make my fingers a little flatter, which diffuses the contact.
39:10
So the 1st and 2nd flange would be making contact.
39:14
That's when the leopard is lying their paws down, so that
39:17
could be the lying leopard.
39:19
And so it just it developed from that the Python lift.
39:22
It was developed, which is basically, you know, making contact,
39:25
supporting the tissue up a little.
39:28
Pausing and carrying the tissue back down started on Joyce the python.
39:33
And so, so it was, you know, and it was a snake.
39:36
I mean, it was, you know, Linda's experiences with these
39:39
animals has been so profound.
39:41
Joyce was a at the San Diego wild animal park and the, and she had a chronic
39:48
lung infection and typically they keep snakes in very small places and people
39:53
will say a snake wouldn't know the difference if it lived in a shoebox.
39:58
Which is pretty shocking that a person that actually knows
40:01
reptiles would say that.
40:01
Anyway, Joyce was lying across this stage, and she had some troubles she
40:07
had a lot of tough trouble breathing.
40:08
And so Linda started doing these little lifts, just along the side of her body.
40:14
And, excuse me, snakes have an amazing tissue.
40:17
So wonderful to work, do touch on snakes.
40:19
They don't feel anything like people think they're going to feel anyway.
40:22
She's working along doing these little touches along the body, a little
40:26
bit behind the head, and all of a sudden, all of this stuff started to
40:30
just expel out of this snake's nose.
40:34
And so that was quite interesting, but the next day when the snake was brought
40:39
back up onto stage, the snake went right past everybody, went in front of Linda,
40:43
stood up, put her head up and they, they do this little tongue flick to,
40:50
to just check out their environment.
40:51
And that's what he did with his head over her shoulder or
40:53
her head over her shoulder.
40:55
And the, the cameraman, this one cameraman was afraid of snakes and he was actually
41:00
in tears when he watched it because.
41:02
He thought snakes were so awful, and the fact that the snake clearly
41:09
made a connection to her was beyond, beyond his, you know, his knowledge.
41:15
And so that became the Python lift.
41:18
And so many of these touches have either come from a person who found
41:26
that they needed to touch in a different way to make themselves comfortable.
41:30
So for instance, the owl is when you can make a little circle with
41:34
your thumb and your index finger.
41:37
And Linda started using it on her ribs because it's an easy way to make that
41:42
circle and a quarter on your ribs or on your back because your hand isn't twisted.
41:46
And it feels different.
41:48
It's not just that we kind of lie in bed at night and think of how
41:51
can we have these different names.
41:53
They feel different.
41:54
They feel different.
41:55
They're different for people to use.
41:57
And we want to make it accessible.
41:59
So we want to find things that people that individuals can do easily.
42:04
For instance, if somebody is has loose ligaments or is, you know,
42:08
double jointed, the lying leopard will, or the clouded leopard will
42:11
be the hardest touch for them to do.
42:14
Because when they make contact with the pads of the fingers,
42:19
the first joint collapses.
42:22
Which creates more context.
42:23
So for that person, we'd say, ah, do the chimp.
42:25
So curve your fingers and use the back of the fingers or use the
42:30
flat of the hand so that you're not going to have this direct pressure.
42:34
Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're
42:36
considering a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
42:41
taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
42:45
Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
42:51
Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
42:58
developed in conjunction with Dr.
43:00
Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
43:04
We work in the saddle with younger children.
43:07
Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
43:13
It works incredibly well.
43:14
It's now in about 40 countries.
43:17
Check it out.
43:18
If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
43:22
method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
43:26
applied in schools, in homes.
43:28
If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
43:33
at home that will create neuroplasticity.
43:36
when they're not with you.
43:37
Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
43:41
If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
43:44
really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
43:48
in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
43:53
So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
43:56
also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
44:00
And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
44:05
am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
44:08
need, as well as Serving my clients.
44:11
Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
44:16
absolutely gives you this.
44:18
Why was why was Linda working with these zoo animals?
44:22
How did that come about as a horse person?
44:26
Robyn Hood: Why she was working with the snake?
44:28
Rupert Isaacson: Well, yeah, and other zoo animals, the clouded leopards.
44:31
How did that evolve?
44:33
Robyn Hood: Well, some from the Icelandic horses.
44:35
So, Dr.
44:36
Eason Bugle was the director at the Zurich Zoo, and he also had Icelandic
44:39
horses, and he saw what Linda was doing, and he said, well, do you think it could
44:44
help this, whatever the animal was?
44:46
And so she went, she was having a, you know, like a tour of the zoo, and these
44:50
little cubs had a distemper and were like frothing at the nose and so on.
44:55
And she did the raccoon touch, the very, very small touches
44:59
of the tips of the fingers.
45:01
All around the nose, the face and so on.
45:04
And she only did it on one and the others watched and benefited as well.
45:12
Which again is, there's so many things that we don't understand in this life
45:17
and it doesn't mean that they don't work because they all recovered and
45:21
they didn't think that they would.
45:22
Rupert Isaacson: It's very interesting you know that we we have something
45:26
in within horseboy method called sensory work which came out of when
45:30
my son first started going to Betsy the horse that he made the first
45:34
contact with he would just lie on her.
45:37
And I would keep a hand on him to, you know, steady him, but she would graze and
45:43
he would use her body like a big old couch and, but he would find ways he would have
45:49
certain preferred ways to lie on her.
45:51
And when he would turn around on her and lie.
45:57
With his head on her butt, which, and sort of hug the butt,
46:00
we call that the butt hug now.
46:02
You know, within horse boy method.
46:05
The effects on her would be the same as the effect on him.
46:09
She would effectively go into almost a state of hypnosis.
46:13
All his sensory stuff would calm down.
46:16
Her sensory system would clearly calm down.
46:19
But as you say, the other animals in the vicinity, because there were always two
46:24
other horses in the field, whenever he did that, would always begin to come closer.
46:31
And then absolutely mimic the same nervous system release.
46:39
Sort of hypnotic state almost literally drooling with a sort of a string of
46:44
drool Connecting their mouths to the to the grass that she was and we've
46:49
seen this time and time and time again.
46:52
And as you know
46:55
The hormones that we produce for stress are fairly contagious You
47:01
know, they you can that's why you know crowds are dangerous
47:07
but equally what's not so talked about is that pleasure and comfort
47:13
and soothing also seems to be the contact high effectively.
47:18
So when you talked about those clouded leopards, I was thinking about the other
47:21
horses just, and I've observed this with TTouch when, when Linda's been at
47:25
our place and has been working on one of our horses, any horse that's within
47:29
about 25, 30 feet is clearly benefiting.
47:34
and clearly participating.
47:36
When you're moving the skin in these ways, where you're sort of lifting,
47:40
whether it's the python lift or whether it's the owl, or whether it's
47:43
the clouded leopard, are you working with fascia, or are you working with
47:51
epidermis, or are you working with both?
47:54
What do you feel you're accessing mostly, or most directly?
48:00
Robyn Hood: I have no idea.
48:01
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
48:02
That's an honest answer.
48:02
You know,
48:03
Robyn Hood: it's Ricky Schultz is a vet in Denmark and she wrote with another
48:07
German a book on fascia a couple of years ago for for dogs and for horses.
48:10
And she spent three months Fascia,
48:12
Rupert Isaacson: isn't it?
48:12
I'm sorry.
48:12
I had to go there.
48:13
Robyn Hood: Yeah, right.
48:14
There you go.
48:15
She was she spent three months with me on my farm when she was in vet school.
48:19
And and then in, I think in about 2000 and.
48:21
12 as a vet, she wrote she wrote an article called a woman ahead of her
48:26
time about, about Linda and T Touch and it was her feeling that the,
48:31
that the touches affected connective tissue, which connective tissue is
48:36
Fascia is connective tissue, but not all connective tissue is fascia.
48:39
So it's very, very, very connected.
48:42
And in their very old route, like a form of of body work and, you know,
48:48
instead of meridians, like fascia, like fascia, connective tissue
48:51
carries information faster into more areas of body than, than meridian.
48:56
So we don't have to know where they are.
48:58
That's actually, The beauty of this work is so my, my interest is, is
49:05
finding out what the horse says.
49:07
Yes, this is acceptable for me.
49:08
That's the most important thing is.
49:10
Oh, yeah, then they might go.
49:13
Oh, I'm not sure.
49:14
And then you change it a little bit.
49:15
You change the pressure, the speed, the type of touch, the part of the hand.
49:20
You may do a pause.
49:21
And then you go to where they seem okay, and then you kind of move
49:25
away and they go, ah, you get it.
49:27
And from there is when, so, so I feel that that interaction of
49:33
having that animal say, yes, this is okay, is the most important.
49:40
thing that we do.
49:41
So what?
49:42
That's why we also have so many touches because if and when someone
49:46
says my animal can't be touched, I'll kind of go, what have you done?
49:49
And it's like, because if you, you multiply the types of touches with
49:53
the pressure, with the speed, with the direction, and you have infinite numbers.
49:57
Now, we also have the body wraps and what I've started.
50:01
That's what I was going
50:02
Rupert Isaacson: to ask you about next.
50:03
So thank you for taking us there.
50:04
Yeah.
50:04
Robyn Hood: Okay.
50:05
All right.
50:06
So, of course, the body wraps basically bring information
50:11
through the nervous system.
50:12
When I talked to Ricky Schultz about it, she said they also follow fascia lines.
50:16
So maybe that's part of it.
50:17
And what they affect is the superficial fascia.
50:20
And it's, you know, it's interesting how these things progress because I, you
50:23
know, when you were talking about, you know, the sensory integration and so on,
50:26
is that we do things because they work.
50:32
And if they don't work, we do something else.
50:34
And then later on.
50:35
The science proves that they work and it's kind of like, Oh, good.
50:40
Well, we've known that for a long time.
50:41
But, you know, that's kind of nice to have that that sort of validation.
50:45
And so the, the body wraps, give them a sense of where they are in space.
50:50
They're not intended to be give support, but rather feedback.
50:55
What I've started to do is take the wraps because we always did belly lifts.
50:59
Belly lifts are amazing with wraps.
51:01
We started out, you know, for colic with towels and so on.
51:05
The wraps are so much more subtle and my experience is that horses respond
51:11
so well and dogs too, especially if they have any touch sensitivity.
51:16
So any kind of touch defensiveness, which many beings have, the,
51:20
the wraps can be useful.
51:23
So started taking a wrap.
51:25
And instead of putting it necessarily around the body is taking it across
51:29
the body, and either just just put it on the body and either just stretch
51:33
it a little, and then pause and slowly carry release the stretch, or.
51:39
Putting it against the body so that it's, you know, kind of firmly placed, and
51:44
then moving it in a circle and a quarter.
51:46
Once again, you're moving tissue.
51:48
This is way less threatening for beings that have touch, you know, concerns.
51:54
And, or, we started actually with a horse that had a very roached back.
51:59
And of course we have always done, you know, lifts on the legs with the
52:02
wraps, and, you know, so that you're supporting the tissue up a bit,
52:06
and along the neck is also amazing.
52:09
But we thought, well, what would happen if we took it across the top of the
52:12
back, and we actually just gently stretched it down and paused, and
52:18
then we slowly released the stretch.
52:20
And the horse's back went from being really roachy to flattening.
52:24
And that was our first thought of, wow, this could be pretty interesting to do.
52:29
So I have a, one of our instructors in Australia works with a lot of
52:34
racehorses, and she, she uses this with.
52:38
horses with kissing spine, horses with a lot of things that are
52:41
super fit for work, so they can be really sensitive about contact.
52:45
And when I showed this to Rikki Schultz, she said, yes, I think you're really
52:50
affecting the superficial fascia.
52:51
So we call it fascial integration.
52:54
And it's it's interesting because Of course, everybody wants to go
52:58
everything deep and, you know, the fascia, the iron, the fascia, and so on.
53:02
And now, gee, guess what?
53:04
They're finding that maybe it actually is a little more beneficial to do less.
53:09
Rupert Isaacson: Can you describe the wraps?
53:10
I think it's hard for people that haven't seen the body wraps.
53:13
To know what it is you're talking about.
53:16
So, just for listeners, we're not talking about the the horse resembling
53:19
an Egyptian mummy These are Specific wraps that go around specific parts of
53:25
the body and one of the things which I love about them is that you can do
53:30
them in movement And they can have all sorts of beneficial effects there too.
53:35
Could you describe to us please Robin?
53:37
You know, a fairly typical series of types of wrap you would do.
53:43
More or less what they look like.
53:44
What are you actually using for the wraps?
53:47
And, you know, for somebody to get a bit of a pictorial
53:51
understanding of it in their head.
53:53
Robyn Hood: If you've ever had a sprained ankle or a sprained wrist
53:56
or whatever, you will have had some sort of tensor bandage on your wrist.
54:01
You know, you can put it on your wrist or your or your ankle.
54:04
Now on your ankle, they probably put it rather tight for support.
54:07
So it felt good at first, but then it would start to ache after a while.
54:10
So literally, it's any type of elastic bandage.
54:15
Now we pay attention to the amount of stretch there is, but in general,
54:19
even if you had a leg wrap for the horse, the challenge is the German
54:24
ones are really tight, the stretch, but there's some that are really soft.
54:28
You take a wrap.
54:30
The first thing that I would do you could use a polo wrap.
54:32
I mean, if that's what you have and you have nothing else,
54:35
you could use a polo wrap.
54:36
It won't give you the same amount of stretch.
54:38
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
54:38
So ideally, what wrap would you use?
54:41
Robyn Hood: Depends where you live, because there's a lot of ideas.
54:44
So what I do is we use a lot of ace wraps.
54:48
We use Hartman.
54:49
There's different companies that, that make, they're basically
54:53
medical elastic elastic.
54:54
Generally, all cotton is good.
54:56
That's what A stands for, all cotton, elastic, no latex, because it changes
55:01
the way the stretch is, but there's lots that, that are available.
55:04
So, with a, the average horse, a, I would use a 4 inch or 10
55:12
centimeter, that they is pretty common to be, to be sold in the store.
55:18
And that's what most Polo wraps are, is they're about 10 centimeters wide.
55:22
I would start with it just going around the base of the neck.
55:26
And what it does is it helps to release that so many horses brace
55:29
at the base of the neck, and it just gives them an awareness about.
55:34
can they, can they release your, that base of the neck?
55:36
It's the same with people.
55:37
You put a very light wrap around the shoulders.
55:40
They may not, ideally they don't feel it.
55:43
It's not feeling tight.
55:45
And you'll notice in maybe 15 or 20 minutes, the shoulders start to let go.
55:49
They start to actually let go into that wrap.
55:52
So the same kind of thing that I might do, the easiest thing to do, start
55:55
with it around the base of the neck.
55:58
With young horses, the next step that we would do is we would put it around
56:02
the girth area and attach it to the Base wrap or the right wrap that's
56:07
around the base of the neck because we want to prepare them for the feeling
56:10
of something around their middles, you know, or a horse that happens to
56:14
be girthy or, you know, sort of cold backed and so on can also be beneficial.
56:19
Then I, I, ideally you move them after each, after each thing that you, that
56:24
you add if you can, especially the first time, because you can be surprised at the
56:29
amount of change in posture that happens.
56:32
It's just a simple wrap or even a wrap when you move, when you say
56:36
Rupert Isaacson: move them, would you take the wrap off
56:37
and move them or would you move
56:39
Robyn Hood: them with the wrap on take, take them for a little walk
56:41
just to see, just, I mean, just move them a little bit to see what
56:45
does there a change in the posture?
56:46
Is there a change in their balance point is, do they now have a leg at
56:51
each corner or are they really straddle?
56:53
You may see, are they really leaning forward?
56:55
They may take them back so that the chest comes over the front legs.
56:59
You don't know.
57:00
You just observe.
57:01
That's where it's a good practice to simply observe what you're seeing.
57:05
And because this is the other thing, you know, about, about T Touch when I went
57:09
into the sort of application that we have.
57:12
Most body work doesn't take them into kind of mindful movement.
57:16
It's changing a little bit now, but that's what's so important, because
57:19
if we can't change how they move, Just standing still and releasing isn't really
57:25
useful because most people ride their horses or they do something with them.
57:30
And that's why we want to take it and the wraps can help to take that into movement.
57:34
So that's the simplest thing that I have people start with.
57:38
Now, if a horse.
57:40
has worn a rug, like worn some kind of blanket, and they're comfortable
57:46
around things around their hind end, then we might add a wrap that
57:51
goes around the hind quarters.
57:54
Now, what I've started to do is chunking down, because that's the thing, when
57:59
we can break things into small pieces, we can make it easier for people even
58:05
to observe and for horses to accept.
58:08
So I might take that wrap and just between my two hands stretch it
58:15
across the like just one side of the rear end maybe to the tail like so
58:19
it's going just around the buttocks.
58:20
Do a little stretch, pause, and slowly release.
58:24
I might do that from both sides.
58:25
That's going to give you an idea of how the horse might feel when you
58:29
put a little figure eight wrap that goes around the chest, crosses over
58:34
the withers, comes back around the hindquarters, and attaches back to itself,
58:39
which would take two or three wraps depending on the length of your wraps.
58:46
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so you also do a wrap which I've seen, it's intriguing
58:52
to me, around the top of the head.
58:55
Please talk to me about that.
58:59
Robyn Hood: Once again, one of the things that has been so helpful for
59:03
us, you know, you asked how did Linda, you know, how does a horse person go
59:06
to work with these different animals?
59:08
I would say, That I have learned as much working with species that are unfamiliar
59:16
to me and transferring that information to species that are familiar to me, then with
59:22
the knowledge that I have, because as you say, if you're a long time horse person,
59:27
you know, quote unquote, what's right, what's wrong, how, you know, how you do
59:32
things and when you go to a species, you don't know much about or anything about.
59:38
You have to open your mind to something else.
59:41
And so then, so with the head wraps, it started with a dog.
59:47
I remember the dog.
59:48
I had a little face wrap on him because he was doing a lot of barking and so on,
59:53
just to bring awareness around his muzzle.
59:56
And he took his paw and he pushed it up to his forehead.
59:59
And so here, here it is across the forehead and he was absolutely calm
1:00:04
and quiet and totally okay with it.
1:00:07
And so I showed this at one of our advanced trainings and one
1:00:11
of our vets who is a holistic vet said, you know, could be.
1:00:15
That so the, the, the, the front of the forehead is the
1:00:18
start of the governing vessel.
1:00:20
And that is a common point.
1:00:22
So it could be, and it's not about pressure.
1:00:23
It's just about this little awareness that maybe that's one
1:00:27
of the things that's calming them.
1:00:29
Now, we were discussing this at the celebration last weekend.
1:00:33
The other thing is, is that the, the head wrap, where the points that it
1:00:37
does, maybe what it does is it connects our new brain to our old brain.
1:00:42
And so it's connecting the different parts, sort of different
1:00:46
neurological parts of the body.
1:00:50
What we've seen with horses that are, like, say, really hyper excited,
1:00:55
concerned about things, wrap, and I usually start with just take it twice
1:00:59
around the neck, a little, little bit behind the ears, and then bring
1:01:03
one of them forward over the ears.
1:01:05
That's the easiest way to do it for someone.
1:01:08
Horses will suddenly calm down.
1:01:11
They will be, they, they'll still look around, but they're, it,
1:01:14
it just takes 'em down a notch.
1:01:16
Now, if you put it on a horse that's really quiet, it can make them too quiet.
1:01:21
So you just take it off and then it, it's okay.
1:01:23
I think that it also helps them come more into their own bodies rather
1:01:29
than being external, you know, they're these external horses that
1:01:32
they're just aware of everything but not themselves, and I think it helps
1:01:36
to bring them more into themselves.
1:01:38
Certainly helps people.
1:01:41
Rupert Isaacson: I've seen Linda when she was out with us, we had three
1:01:44
stallions who could be quite stallion y.
1:01:46
And she would sometimes work with her fingers inside the mouth.
1:01:51
Not as in jaw flexions, but actually on the gums around the front of the teeth.
1:01:55
I remember the first time I saw her do it, I was like, oh gosh,
1:01:58
I hope you don't lose a finger.
1:02:00
And quite the opposite this seemed to be a massively calming
1:02:04
experience for the horses.
1:02:05
Can you talk to us a little bit about those, those gum releases
1:02:08
and how, what, how they work?
1:02:11
Robyn Hood: Yeah, so the multitouch, if we think about that, the mouth is
1:02:15
one of the closest connections we have to the limbic system, really primary
1:02:20
controller of lots of different, you know, basic functions of the body.
1:02:26
And we can see that in horses and dogs and people, you know, and where people
1:02:31
will say yes, I'm just fine and their upper lip is like really stiff and
1:02:34
really tight when they're totally not.
1:02:36
Fine.
1:02:37
And we see it with horses, too.
1:02:39
And so what we found is that, and, and I recommend to people who aren't
1:02:43
so familiar with horses is, you know, start with the backs of your fingers or
1:02:47
fingers curved and, and do some circular touches around the outside of the muscle.
1:02:55
And
1:02:56
Robyn Hood: you want to hold one hand lightly on the halter on the other
1:02:58
hand, because it's about steadying the horse, like giving the horse a little
1:03:01
bit of a parameter without, you know, holding tightly, but you're safer
1:03:05
that way you're in better balance.
1:03:06
And so you can go around and the, and the chin used to feel around the chin when
1:03:10
horses are super generally emotional about something, the chin may be super tight,
1:03:16
really, really tight so this touch brings awareness people have the same thing.
1:03:21
Going around the outside and then.
1:03:24
You can we have, you know, we teach people about keeping their fingers together
1:03:28
and being able to go in up on the side of the mouth or just gently taking your
1:03:33
side of your index finger and coming around the inside of the upper lip or
1:03:37
the lower lip thumb is really helpful.
1:03:41
And it's actually the thing we recommend to Maori horses, which
1:03:44
is the exact opposite of what you know, people would actually expect.
1:03:49
And, you know, I mean, you can learn so much.
1:03:51
I remember I was teaching somewhere and they had a, you know, a young quarter
1:03:55
horse and the horse had started to become really difficult to bridle.
1:03:59
And so what I did is I went and I did some work on the outside
1:04:02
of the mouth and I went in.
1:04:03
where the gum meets the upper lip with the side of my index finger and just
1:04:08
kind of gently rubbing back and forth.
1:04:11
And if the mouth is dry, wet your hand.
1:04:14
And what I felt was he had a tooth that was cracked and it was hanging.
1:04:19
So he was young and he was changing his teeth.
1:04:22
So imagine what that would feel like for him.
1:04:24
Yes, he's cooperative about being bit, having the bit in, and then
1:04:28
he starts to change his teeth and it hits the, hits the tooth.
1:04:32
Wonder he didn't want it in.
1:04:34
Once they could understand that, they changed what they did.
1:04:37
And I think that one of our, I think the biggest, the most important aspect of
1:04:43
this work is to understand that behavior is a form of communication, particularly
1:04:51
if you have a horse that suddenly the behavior changes, really look deeply,
1:04:57
because in my experience, there is.
1:05:01
Always a reason.
1:05:03
Always.
1:05:08
Rupert Isaacson: Just writing that down.
1:05:12
Behaviour is a form of communication.
1:05:14
Look deeply.
1:05:16
There's always a reason.
1:05:18
I love that.
1:05:20
Robyn Hood: And I, I can tell you that there have been times that I've worked
1:05:22
with horses and I've thought to myself maybe this one just doesn't, you know,
1:05:27
maybe there's one that now they're just, and I have to tell you that on those
1:05:31
horses I've found that there's been such a reason that they didn't cooperate.
1:05:37
That it was a miracle that they could do what they could and, and it's often
1:05:42
not found until a dissection is done.
1:05:45
And in the dissection and there, I mean, Sharon May Davies is doing amazing work
1:05:50
with doing dissections and usually they're on animals that people have gone through
1:05:54
everything, you know, like all sorts of.
1:05:58
You know, sort of westernized and allopathic and some holistic
1:06:02
medicine, and they've, there's nothing that can change what's going on.
1:06:07
And when they do a dissection, they find that organs are in the wrong place.
1:06:11
Things are, there's, ribs are in different, in different configurations.
1:06:16
So I consider That it's a miracle what horses actually do for us in reality.
1:06:24
Rupert Isaacson: No, I, I agree.
1:06:25
And it's, it's an interesting thing too that in our current season of
1:06:31
horsemanship in the West there's of course a very well meaning and it comes
1:06:36
from a good place emphasis on, you know, we don't want our horses to suffer.
1:06:40
So trying to do less or ask less or put less pressure on or whatever.
1:06:45
And.
1:06:46
One of the things that one often gets told is, well, you know, a horse can feel
1:06:51
a fly, you know, walking on its back.
1:06:53
Well, yes, but so can I,
1:06:55
and I
1:06:55
Rupert Isaacson: can feel that.
1:06:57
And sometimes feeling feels not good.
1:07:00
And sometimes that feeling feels good.
1:07:02
And I can wear a backpack and hike up a mountain, even if that backpack isn't.
1:07:09
Made customized for me and if my shoulders are a bit sore after a day or two of
1:07:15
that They seem to get less sore later unless there's something desperately
1:07:19
wrong with the backpack or it's just way too heavy or something So that we
1:07:24
seem to have gotten to a point where?
1:07:26
We're being told that anything with the sympathetic nervous system any kind
1:07:30
of stress is automatically bad And, of course, this isn't necessarily so.
1:07:38
So, yeah, horses can be very stoic about what they put up with people, too.
1:07:42
And I think people often go through life bearing an awful lot of discomfort,
1:07:48
but not necessarily suffering.
1:07:51
Because it becomes familiar.
1:07:52
Sometimes suffering, sometimes not.
1:07:54
Like, something That you mentioned like the tooth hanging
1:07:57
and knocking against a bit.
1:07:59
No doubt, you know
1:08:02
But if someone maybe had the ribs in the wrong place I'm equating it to a
1:08:06
human now or an organ in a weird place but had sort of learned to compensate
1:08:10
for that and go through life or
1:08:14
Are they suffering they might communicate that they are or they might not
1:08:19
communicate they are or they might say no I'm actually not this is sort of my
1:08:23
reality This sort of feels all right to me and then maybe an autopsy would be
1:08:26
done on them and one would look at them go My god, how did you get through life?
1:08:30
So to me?
1:08:30
It's an endless mystery as you say and a miracle I mean, there's the other
1:08:35
thing too, which is that God didn't invent ponies to carry monkeys, right?
1:08:39
So just by sitting up there we're Got to to some degree negatively affect
1:08:46
the thing that's carrying us and yet at the same time a horse can go on
1:08:50
into their 30s quite happily carting monkeys about As you say it's a miracle
1:08:58
And speaking of miracles, you know when we go into the the sphere of the therapeutic.
1:09:04
I always feel that that's where You enter this sort of quantum
1:09:09
area with horses where Suddenly what you think you know about them
1:09:17
Dissolves into a miasma of what's actually going on and you yourself told
1:09:23
me a story I'd love it if you would retell that story about the girl with
1:09:27
cerebral palsy Because I think that that really illustrates that point.
1:09:33
Would you be so kind as to tell listeners that story?
1:09:37
Robyn Hood: Yeah, and I do think
1:09:40
I do think that horses are here to teach us a lot.
1:09:43
I really do believe that.
1:09:45
And I think it.
1:09:46
That we still have to be their stewards
1:09:48
Rupert Isaacson: without a doubt.
1:09:49
Robyn Hood: You know, that's the so I think we have to look at a lot of things.
1:09:52
So, about, I don't know, 35 years ago, I was approached by a family that
1:09:59
had she'd been taking writing lessons at the local therapeutic writing.
1:10:04
Facility and
1:10:06
Rupert Isaacson: Canada.
1:10:07
Robyn Hood: This is in Canada.
1:10:07
And she wanted to they want to get a horse for and we, we
1:10:10
bred Icelandics at that point.
1:10:11
And I had a young Icelandic, like, we don't start our horses until
1:10:15
they're 4 and then we, we start really riding them maybe at 5 and carry on.
1:10:20
And so I said, well, come on out and I have a horse that might be useful
1:10:24
because I wanted a really smooth horse.
1:10:26
And this was a gelding who actually had no trot.
1:10:29
He, he and, and one of the reasons, and you probably know this, but one of
1:10:33
the reasons that gated horses can be so helpful is because their motion is
1:10:38
more side to side than forward and back.
1:10:41
So it actually counterbalance the state that lack of stability with
1:10:46
if riders don't have the light forward and back stability sort of.
1:10:50
like evens it out a little.
1:10:51
So they came out and they put her in her wheelchair and she was like, she
1:10:54
was quite pretty, pretty non verbal.
1:10:57
Like she could make sounds and so on, but she didn't really speak.
1:11:00
And they, so I brought this little horse, Bangsy, out and I, I said, you know,
1:11:04
you can meet him in the wheelchair.
1:11:05
And he put his nose down and he sniffed all around her.
1:11:10
Never seen wheelchair before.
1:11:11
He just sniffed all around him and she loved it.
1:11:13
Of course, he sniffed her hair and he sniffed everything.
1:11:16
And then I said, Well, I think you could put her on him and he studied separated
1:11:22
just like he stood like just like he was.
1:11:25
Racing himself so it'd be very stable for her to be put on and
1:11:29
like her legs kind of out there.
1:11:31
And there he was.
1:11:32
So his father put her on.
1:11:34
And of course, at the time, what he did, he was told to because her legs,
1:11:37
her muscles were very contracted.
1:11:39
He told her, you know, he would pull her legs down.
1:11:42
And I said, can I show you something that might be easier for her?
1:11:46
So I showed some python lift.
1:11:48
So I literally put my hand on the leg and I supported the tissue up a bit.
1:11:52
And I paused.
1:11:54
And then I slowly carried it down and her legs just melted around the horse.
1:11:59
And it was fascinating because whenever she'd come out and her, her father would
1:12:03
go to pull her legs down, she'd point at me to do the other thing with her legs.
1:12:08
So we started off by leading her with him and he was very good.
1:12:13
We had sidewalkers like she was used to, but she'd fallen off with sidewalkers
1:12:16
like she was pretty unbalanced.
1:12:18
We graduated to her riding.
1:12:21
We ponied her.
1:12:21
We found that actually ponying her was the easiest thing because if
1:12:25
she started to lose her balance, we could just kind of, you know, take
1:12:28
her arm and pull her back on it.
1:12:30
And we took her out on the trail.
1:12:32
We took her out and we had it.
1:12:34
The thing is, her parents said, listen, this is so much joy for her.
1:12:38
She would, she would smile and laugh and she would make these kissing
1:12:42
sounds when she wanted to go faster.
1:12:44
And then he would tolt and she would like just grin and then he'd canter, like
1:12:47
a canter, like a little rocking horse.
1:12:50
And she was, she had freedom for the first time in her life.
1:12:55
And I have to say that we moved from Alberta to B.
1:12:58
C.
1:12:59
and that was the thing that was the hardest.
1:13:01
Was leaving her because she had to, she moved to another place, but it wasn't
1:13:06
the same in terms of what she got.
1:13:08
But the relationship, this, this horse, we would know when she was coming out
1:13:12
because he would be standing at the gate 10 minutes before she arrived.
1:13:18
And never any other time.
1:13:19
So we, Oh, well, you know, Eileen must be on her way out and there she is.
1:13:23
But the, the, the joy and the relationship that this horse, I, I feel that this
1:13:28
horse felt it was his purpose in a way to, to to have this person because
1:13:34
she just adored, he would, she would feed him carrots and he would slobber
1:13:37
all over her and she adored it.
1:13:39
You know, it was, it was the thing in her life that gave her, I think the most.
1:13:44
The most freedom.
1:13:45
So it was a very it's very an impactful experience for us.
1:13:52
Rupert Isaacson: I had a horse once.
1:13:54
It was an extraordinary horse.
1:13:55
He died last year.
1:13:57
Ripe old age, just found dead in the field.
1:13:59
The best way to go.
1:14:01
We had a kid come out to us that had drowned and was completely
1:14:07
unresponsive, but alive.
1:14:10
And people said, well, you know, he's sort of a vegetable, you know, he won't
1:14:13
give you any any sort of feedback at all.
1:14:15
Do you think you could do something?
1:14:18
And, you know, you get these emails, you're like, gosh, I really don't
1:14:21
know, I, you know, I'm not hubristic enough to say that we could, but I'm
1:14:27
obviously not going to say don't come.
1:14:29
So.
1:14:30
They came and we were all a bit nervous this quarter horse clue who was a
1:14:37
grumpy old bastard Like he proved to me that I cannot train a horse Anything
1:14:43
that I tried with him was that nope.
1:14:45
No, no, but yet he would do everything if it was his idea so he was the he
1:14:49
was the consummate horse I could always rely on if I had to go say into do
1:14:54
something in the city or stunts like go into a department store or A nightclub
1:15:02
while the band is playing to talk to people about autism and stuff like that.
1:15:06
He'd just be rock solid because he found it interesting, basically,
1:15:09
you know, he'd be like, okay, fine.
1:15:10
That's kind of amusing.
1:15:12
I'll do that.
1:15:12
But if it didn't interest him, he'd be like, no, sorry.
1:15:15
And so my attempts to, you know, dressage the horse were laughable.
1:15:20
But he, this, this
1:15:26
kid in the chair is brought out.
1:15:30
And Clue looks over, he must have been about a hundred meters away in the field.
1:15:40
He looked around and he just came straight over, did exactly what you talked about,
1:15:45
sniffed everything, sniffed the child.
1:15:48
And I wasn't thinking, oh, we're going to work with Clue or anything.
1:15:50
I was just sort of standing there thinking, I don't
1:15:51
know what we're going to do.
1:15:54
And then he began to lick the child
1:15:59
all over the body.
1:16:02
Never seen anything like this before.
1:16:05
Haven't seen it since either.
1:16:06
I don't mean a couple of licks.
1:16:08
I mean A bath, a tongue bath.
1:16:12
What's going on?
1:16:13
I don't know what's going on.
1:16:15
So, long and the short of it, is we put the child on top, and the child began to
1:16:23
respond, and the child began to point, and make noises and indicate what they wanted.
1:16:31
And, what was passing between Clue and this child?
1:16:37
One could only guess at.
1:16:39
What was passing between your girl and that young horse?
1:16:43
How did he know that she was Going to come ten minutes before.
1:16:47
Okay, maybe he could, he could identify the sound of the car at
1:16:51
a certain distance, or something like that, but chances are it
1:16:54
sounded much the same as other cars.
1:16:56
What, what did he know, and how?
1:17:00
As you said earlier in the, in the, in this interview, you
1:17:04
know, observation is everything.
1:17:07
Yeah.
1:17:07
Isn't it
1:17:08
Rupert Isaacson: interesting how often it still leaves us scratching our heads?
1:17:14
Robyn Hood: Yeah.
1:17:17
Wow.
1:17:18
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:17:20
Now you, you don't, of course, just work with horses.
1:17:22
You work with dogs.
1:17:23
And one of the things which we're often.
1:17:27
Desirous of people who work with the equine assisted field to do is
1:17:33
don't just work with horses because Social animals we're social animals.
1:17:38
We monkeys you never know what the person is going to get into you
1:17:42
never know what other Feedback is going to come from other animals.
1:17:51
Talk to us about the work that you do with dogs Because the dog
1:17:54
is the sort of most obvious one that most people have access to.
1:17:57
Most special needs people, most people needing some sort of therapy, they
1:18:00
don't really have access to horses.
1:18:02
They might come out to your barn, they might come out to my barn,
1:18:04
but it's not their daily life.
1:18:05
Dogs can be.
1:18:07
Can you talk to us about the TTouch you do with dogs, and the work you do with dogs?
1:18:12
How similar is it to the work you do with horses, and what are the
1:18:15
contexts that you find it useful in?
1:18:21
Robyn Hood: Well, when we first started, of course, you know, Linda
1:18:24
started the work with horses, and then it was like, oh, Well, could
1:18:27
it could you work with dogs as well?
1:18:29
And could you work with other animals?
1:18:30
And we didn't really know.
1:18:32
My interest in working with people with dogs is to again, have dogs have
1:18:39
as much choices as possible in life.
1:18:41
It's not, you know, none of us have complete choice.
1:18:44
For sure.
1:18:45
I feel like it's so important to pay attention.
1:18:50
I think dogs get misread so often.
1:18:53
I think these dogs, you know, Oh, my dog's so happy to see everybody.
1:18:56
It's like, but are they really like they're so what are they?
1:18:59
What does that look like?
1:19:00
Is what I always ask people is what is that like?
1:19:03
Oh, I'm so happy.
1:19:03
Look like, well, they're bouncing all around and they're, you
1:19:06
know, tails wagging and they're jumping on people and so on.
1:19:08
And it's like, well, Could it be that their behavior is sort of
1:19:12
disproportionate to the situation?
1:19:14
You know, if you, like I, my dog, when I come home or one of my dogs, both of
1:19:18
my dogs, when I come home from being away, they're like super excited.
1:19:21
That's kind of predictable.
1:19:22
But if someone comes that doesn't know a dog at all, and they have this, you
1:19:27
know, super highly aroused behavior, I feel like it's simply arousal and
1:19:32
it isn't necessarily, it may be how they cope with this sort of situation.
1:19:37
And so, I.
1:19:39
Encourage people to be calmer around dogs and not like get into
1:19:44
this, you're such a good dog and this ruffling things with dogs.
1:19:48
They don't know.
1:19:49
And this like, whack, whack, whack is supposed to be such the same with horses.
1:19:53
You know, do you think the horses really think that when we smack
1:19:56
them when we're happy and we smack them when we're mad that it's, you
1:19:59
know, means, you know, it's okay.
1:20:01
So I, I just want people to don't.
1:20:04
One of the ways that we can be able to live in our homes is to help
1:20:09
people build a relationship and understand that they can meet as
1:20:12
many needs as the dogs that they can.
1:20:15
And that's not always easy in the lifestyle.
1:20:18
We live on a farm.
1:20:20
You probably do too.
1:20:21
We, our dogs have a lot of freedom.
1:20:22
We have sheep and we have cows.
1:20:25
And I was thinking about all the animals.
1:20:26
We have sheep and cows that are super friendly.
1:20:28
And so people get to interact with them because they're there
1:20:31
because they've been there.
1:20:33
Yeah.
1:20:33
You know, they've been handled, but they also have freedom.
1:20:36
So, you know, there's that, there's that kind of thing.
1:20:39
So, I would say that the biggest thing is to help dogs and their people be in
1:20:46
physical, emotional and mental balance.
1:20:48
That would be our, our aim.
1:20:51
And if we can help people start to.
1:20:56
Pay attention to that.
1:20:57
They start to observe their dogs in a different way and maybe understand again
1:21:03
their, their behavior a little bit more.
1:21:06
It's dogs really do a lot for us because they live in our homes and
1:21:10
they, they are so, so emotionally attached to people reading their
1:21:15
emotions of how they're feeling.
1:21:16
And if I think that a lot of times that people looked at
1:21:18
their dogs, they could be.
1:21:20
They could know what they're what's going on for them as well and it's
1:21:24
like my acupuncturist would say to me.
1:21:25
So, you know, how are your moods?
1:21:27
And I go, don't ask me ask my husband or ask my kids or ask whatever.
1:21:31
I, I don't necessarily know what's going on, but I feel like
1:21:35
we can really see a reflection.
1:21:36
A lot of times with our dogs.
1:21:38
I would say,
1:21:40
Rupert Isaacson: when you're using T touch with dogs give me some
1:21:43
examples about What you'd use for what situations and what you would show?
1:21:48
Well, and what are the sort of go tos that you you typically find yourself?
1:21:53
So with
1:21:53
Robyn Hood: puppies with puppies isn't i'm going to start puppies
1:21:56
and go to your old age The thing is first thing is with puppies is We,
1:22:00
we use what we call containment.
1:22:02
So contain versus restraint.
1:22:04
Those are kind of words that we use even for bowls, whatever it is.
1:22:07
So if we can teach people to make mindful contact on the body, like
1:22:12
gently stroke the ears, for instance, gently the mouth and the paws, not just.
1:22:17
desensitization, but actually help them be comfortable by doing
1:22:21
little bits of, of touch and contact and so on with the puppy.
1:22:25
So it could be any type of touch.
1:22:27
Usually we teach a little bit of the ear slides maybe a bit of tail touches
1:22:32
and just some gentle work on the body, because that can be so calming for
1:22:37
puppies that are like over the top.
1:22:39
And then as they're going into sort of more, you know, adolescent that
1:22:43
are kind of over the top, then we start into Again, some some touches
1:22:48
because they'll go through a period where maybe they're a little bit.
1:22:53
They're kind of reactive to touch and that doesn't mean in a negative way, but
1:22:56
they get sort of hyperactive, if you will.
1:22:58
So maybe we have to change our touch.
1:22:59
Maybe we have to change what we do.
1:23:01
Maybe we want to take them into mindful movement.
1:23:04
And this is not about, it's not about training the dog.
1:23:08
It's so like with the horses, we use different elements like the labyrinth
1:23:12
and maybe different surfaces and so on, so that we can have short
1:23:15
periods of making a connection with them through doing mindful movement.
1:23:21
Mindful.
1:23:22
And slow movement builds muscle at a deeper level than fast movement.
1:23:26
So if we can have these moments of helping them come into physical
1:23:29
balance, that can be super helpful.
1:23:32
Same with, you know, building a relationship.
1:23:34
Relationship is.
1:23:36
It's so important because it's that relationship that they want to cooperate.
1:23:41
They want to be with you.
1:23:42
They, they, you know, and that's what we're looking for is how can we
1:23:46
build a relationship years ago when we had our, our, our first companion
1:23:51
animal training and it was up here and it was in the winter and it was
1:23:54
really colder than it should be.
1:23:56
So we went down to a local school and there was a
1:24:00
kindergarten class in progress.
1:24:02
So we sent a couple of our practitioners into the kindergarten with a couple of
1:24:07
stuffed dogs to talk to them about how they make contact with their dogs at home.
1:24:12
And We got the feedback that from two of the kids, one of them said, you know,
1:24:18
my, our dog never wanted to be with me.
1:24:21
But after I started, you know, doing these touches, the dog wanted to be with me.
1:24:26
And the same thing with the cat, the cat started to come and sleep on my
1:24:30
bed and I always wanted the cat to make a connection, but it didn't like me.
1:24:35
And it just, you know, it was just showing them a different way of, of making
1:24:39
contact and being mindful with that.
1:24:41
So that was.
1:24:42
You know, that's so powerful when you can when you can give children a way to help
1:24:47
them build a relationship in that way.
1:24:50
And then, of course, with with older dogs, we have a husky
1:24:54
cross that will be 15 in April.
1:24:56
And he so we do.
1:24:59
T touches on him regularly.
1:25:01
He's losing a little bit of, you know, the connection of his back end.
1:25:04
So we put a little Porter wrap where it just goes across the chest, across
1:25:08
over the back, and then attaches.
1:25:09
So it's just one wrap around the chest and one going around the middle.
1:25:14
It stabilizes him to the point that he, he's not losing his own legs.
1:25:18
He can get out and be really, really jaunty.
1:25:22
So, It's you can really use it throughout their whole life and I feel
1:25:27
that when we build relationship with them, they, they want to listen to us.
1:25:32
They, you know, they want to cooperate.
1:25:34
They want to be with it.
1:25:35
So, of course, you can use it with any modality that you're using.
1:25:38
But I feel like it's the, I feel like relationship is what most
1:25:42
people want with their animals.
1:25:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I think it's what most animals want, if they're mammals in
1:25:48
particular, you know, with us and with each other and it's, it's so interesting
1:25:53
how, although, for example, I'm sure this was the case for you when I was growing
1:25:59
up, it was very much the case of dominate.
1:26:03
We weren't actually ever told to dominate in those words, but it was, you make
1:26:08
him do what you, he's got to do what you want to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
1:26:13
That was.
1:26:13
The accepted and and myths like they say the horse didn't want to go past
1:26:18
something or something You know, if you get off, you know, you he's one
1:26:21
you've told him he's one then I realized after a while that it wasn't true
1:26:28
But nonetheless, you know as a kid this is the feedback one was getting
1:26:32
and you could see the utilitarian imperatives that had made that way of
1:26:40
thinking become ingrained in the culture.
1:26:42
However, what it always still came down to when, when you heard people talking
1:26:47
about good horsemen, or when the people really started talking about their horses.
1:26:53
It always came back to relationship, even that, but then
1:26:56
we sort of embarrassed about it.
1:26:57
And they'd be like, well, you know, we don't really want to admit that we're
1:26:59
sentimental or, you know, that we might.
1:27:02
You were allowed to say you loved your horse.
1:27:04
You were allowed to say you loved your dog.
1:27:05
You weren't really allowed to say you loved your kid
1:27:07
or
1:27:07
Rupert Isaacson: your wife or your, you know, or your mom.
1:27:10
But.
1:27:12
It's, you know, we come out of this militaristic society and pony club, you
1:27:18
know, we were all brought up that way.
1:27:20
This came out of the military, you know, and you could see how that
1:27:25
way of screaming at people and effectively making them fall off
1:27:29
actually might be quite useful.
1:27:31
If you were trying to train raw recruits for the cavalry, you know,
1:27:34
and they had to withstand screams, you know, stress falling off,
1:27:38
getting shot out of the saddle.
1:27:40
You know, that's why the sergeant screams in your face, so that,
1:27:43
you know, when you're under fire, you, you know, aren't so stressed.
1:27:47
Okay, in that battle situation, maybe That's useful.
1:27:54
But then what happens when you come out of the battle?
1:27:56
What happens if you're never in the battle?
1:27:57
What happens if you never wanted to be in a battle?
1:28:01
So I think so many of us and so many of our animals have had to
1:28:04
undergo this sort of approach
1:28:08
Which got looked at as a kind of a virtue because it created toughness,
1:28:13
resilience, that sort of thing
1:28:17
But did it really create resilience or did it just create desensitization
1:28:23
with Problematic traumatized behaviors that came out later, you know, and
1:28:28
the answer probably was often Sure.
1:28:32
So, when you guys were first putting T Touch together, as you said earlier
1:28:38
in this conversation, that Linda was about 20 years ahead of her time,
1:28:42
and I think you're right, you know, I think that, I remember when I first
1:28:45
started hearing about her, the type of conversation that we're having
1:28:48
now was not, by any means, the norm.
1:28:51
And, she must have, and you must have, encountered a lot of resistance.
1:28:57
How did you Deal with that.
1:29:03
I mean beyond the kind of okay.
1:29:05
Well, it's all right if people disagree with us But you know, you know, and
1:29:08
I know that you know people in the horse world can be pretty awful you
1:29:11
must have come in for your fair share of that especially in the early years.
1:29:15
What were your strategies for, for coping with that and staying sort
1:29:18
of true to your methods and seeing it sort of borne out over time?
1:29:23
Cause you also must have been asked to question yourselves a lot as well.
1:29:28
I'm sort of intrigued by how you weathered all of that.
1:29:32
And, you know,
1:29:34
Robyn Hood: Yeah, that's a good question.
1:29:38
I, I think that early on there were, because You know, we have articles
1:29:43
dating back to, you know, in the, I think in 1981, Practical Horseman
1:29:48
did a an article called Soften, How to Soften Your Horses Defenses, and
1:29:53
it was primarily about doing that.
1:29:55
It was, it turned into a little booklet, and it, it sold really well,
1:29:59
and from that, we ended up, then we'd start, we'd do these little
1:30:02
workshops, and we'd have people come.
1:30:04
So the people who came, you We're people who are looking for something.
1:30:09
Okay.
1:30:09
Robyn Hood: And so I, so I think that it, it kind of, feel the need.
1:30:13
So, for the most part.
1:30:15
We didn't have people coming.
1:30:18
They didn't pay money to come and go.
1:30:19
Well, this is a load of, you know, whatever.
1:30:22
And and I remember, remember, and when did we go to Australia?
1:30:26
We went to, we went and we did this transformation on the
1:30:28
trail in sometime in the 80s.
1:30:31
And I did a little demo.
1:30:32
We all, I went and I did a little two day demo and there was a couple
1:30:36
there who were He was shortlisted for the, for the Australian three
1:30:40
day team and they were lifelong horse people and so on and so forth.
1:30:43
And they saw it.
1:30:46
And then they, I was coming back to Australia, they organized for me to
1:30:49
come and do a seven day training because what they said was what they saw and
1:30:55
the change that they saw in the horse, they, they were smart enough to realize
1:31:00
that there must be something to it.
1:31:02
You know that I think that's the thing.
1:31:03
And so to be honest, some of the things that happen with
1:31:07
what we do sound ridiculous.
1:31:09
You know, it's just sounds like even, you know, I, I, I'm sometimes just shocked
1:31:15
at some of the things that happen.
1:31:17
And I like that because I, nothing makes me more sort of suspicious
1:31:23
of something when someone says, Oh, piece of cake, easy.
1:31:25
I can fix that that, you know, like these are beings we're working with,
1:31:30
with all these different circumstances.
1:31:31
So, I did have you know, I would have sometimes people come when they, and it
1:31:37
was hard if they brought their own horse.
1:31:40
And they tell the story and so on.
1:31:42
And then we could do things with their horse that they couldn't in
1:31:45
a very, very short period of time.
1:31:47
And we have to be really careful with that because.
1:31:51
It's hard for someone if you, you know, like, Oh, my horse won't let
1:31:54
anybody else do ABC, whatever it is.
1:31:57
And so we didn't like, go right into it, but we would kind of work
1:32:00
our way into that and soon we would be doing ABC that they had trouble
1:32:05
doing and no one else could do.
1:32:07
So you have to be really careful how you talk to those people because
1:32:10
they feel like what was wrong with me that I couldn't do it.
1:32:14
You know,
1:32:16
yeah,
1:32:17
Robyn Hood: exactly.
1:32:18
And we never wanted to have anyone feel like that.
1:32:21
It is not our interest in proving anything.
1:32:24
Nothing.
1:32:25
It's not our interest.
1:32:26
And so, I mean, I remember sometimes I would have, I remember one big
1:32:31
guy that came on a, on a weekend.
1:32:33
I was teaching.
1:32:34
And he stood there with his arms crossed and, you know, kind of
1:32:38
standing back, and then he, and then he started asking me these questions,
1:32:41
and he started asking me the, like, if I, looking at him, I was, you know,
1:32:45
thinking, oh, he's, you know, I'm not sure where the question's coming from.
1:32:50
But I, I took from him that his question was an honest question.
1:32:55
I just said, you know, like, and he said to me after, it was an honest question.
1:32:58
I really wanted.
1:32:59
I really wanted to hear your answer.
1:33:01
And so he got super interested and he trained a lot of horses.
1:33:05
He was with the RCMP and RCMP ride and so on and so forth.
1:33:08
And he started to come, he came to some clinics and he started to incorporate
1:33:12
some of the things that he did.
1:33:14
So the questions are, I love the questions.
1:33:18
I think it's really good because if there were no questions, there'd
1:33:21
be no answers and it's really the questions like they can be intimidating
1:33:27
depending on how you take it.
1:33:28
So I would say in the beginning, it was a bit of a challenge.
1:33:31
Although most of the animals that came to us, they came to us because they hadn't
1:33:36
been able to do anything else with them.
1:33:38
So it was like, it's the same with the dogs.
1:33:40
It was sort of like the last chance, you know, and, and so it, it was, yeah.
1:33:46
You know, I guess it was tricky but, and, and there would be, you know, of
1:33:50
course there's skeptics about, about everything but it was just kind of
1:33:53
holding, holding that place that if they were interested great if they
1:33:57
weren't, I'm not going to argue.
1:33:59
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:34:01
If you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
1:34:07
you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
1:34:12
of dressage training.
1:34:14
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
1:34:22
exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
1:34:28
of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
1:34:35
well being of the horse and the rider.
1:34:38
Intrigued?
1:34:39
Like to know more?
1:34:41
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
1:34:45
Check out the free introduction course.
1:34:47
Take it from there.
1:34:48
I remember.
1:34:51
When the great German dressage rider showing my age here Klaus Balkenholm.
1:34:57
Yeah
1:34:58
Rupert Isaacson: Started bringing Linda over to Germany and he was, you know, the
1:35:03
top winning dressage Olympic Ex policeman.
1:35:07
Not a particularly sentimental dude, I should imagine.
1:35:10
And yet, saw clearly the value of this work.
1:35:15
Tell us a little bit about that and how that evolved.
1:35:20
Because I think there will be people who are listening here who are also
1:35:24
sport and performance riders and so on and very much in that German tradition.
1:35:28
Why did he decide T Touch was a good thing?
1:35:33
And how did you observe and how did he observe that it, his performance horses?
1:35:41
Robyn Hood: Well, I wasn't there with Linda at any time with him, but
1:35:44
what I, what I, you know, understand and see, I think if people are
1:35:53
If they've done a lot with the horse, because my understanding is one of his
1:35:56
horses, he'd spent a lot of time with him, just time, and he would, as sentimental
1:36:01
or not, he would go in the stall, he would just spend time with the horse, and the
1:36:05
horse wasn't responding, and then Linda worked with him, and the horse made a
1:36:10
huge, like a huge response, and I don't know what year that was, but I know
1:36:14
that in the In 1989, when you know, Dr.
1:36:18
Klimka did his last big event at the L.
1:36:21
A.
1:36:21
Equestrian Center.
1:36:23
Rupert Isaacson: That's Reiner Klimka for those, those people
1:36:25
who were born in the last couple decades and don't know who that was.
1:36:29
He was probably the best.
1:36:30
Robyn Hood: And of course his daughter is Ingrid Klimka.
1:36:33
Yeah.
1:36:34
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, his daughter's Ingrid.
1:36:35
Yeah.
1:36:36
Robyn Hood: Yeah.
1:36:36
And and he did.
1:36:37
So, so the scenario was he would take there would be 12 riders to from through
1:36:43
training level through Grand Prix to each to each and 2500 spectators.
1:36:48
Which is pretty intimidating to ride, you know, in front of that
1:36:51
Rupert Isaacson: Germans too.
1:36:52
Yeah.
1:36:53
Robyn Hood: Yeah.
1:36:53
Well, this was in LA.
1:36:55
Okay.
1:36:57
So he was the last one that he did.
1:37:00
And Linda was invited because Linda had met him Linda met
1:37:04
him before close Vulcan Hall.
1:37:06
And and I think, I think he was an amazing man I mean in terms of.
1:37:12
Just in terms of how he interacted with the horses and so on.
1:37:15
So anyway, she we did this.
1:37:18
So the night before it started, there was a little, there was a demo with
1:37:21
some of the horses that were in it.
1:37:22
So Linda did this demo.
1:37:23
We helped.
1:37:24
There were, I don't know, 20 practitioners there and we worked on
1:37:27
the horses in between the lessons.
1:37:30
And so it was fascinating.
1:37:33
There was a horse that had lost his Piaf, Grand Prix horse, but California
1:37:37
horse of the year, then lost the Piaf.
1:37:39
So, when Linda worked with him in the demo, one of the things we noticed is
1:37:43
he was very sensitive on his belly.
1:37:46
And so she would take the wand, you know, the stiff kind of dressage whip
1:37:49
and, and just stroke them all over.
1:37:51
And as.
1:37:52
She got to, he was known for putting boots on him or anything he would like,
1:37:57
he would kick out with his hind legs.
1:37:59
So people had to be careful.
1:38:00
Now, here's the reality.
1:38:01
If that horse wanted to hurt someone, he would.
1:38:04
He's
1:38:04
Robyn Hood: just saying, be careful, careful, be careful.
1:38:06
And they, they were careful.
1:38:07
So anyway, I was asked to work with him to do some body work with them in between.
1:38:13
I, this horse had, his sheath was so dirty, like, and he had
1:38:19
to be, have a general anesthetic to have his sheath cleaned.
1:38:24
General anesthetic.
1:38:26
So I started with him in the stall, and he's the horse that probably taught me
1:38:30
the most about listening to whispers.
1:38:32
And I started with my hand running, started just behind his ears, and just
1:38:36
really quietly running my hand across his body, and whenever he would, and I
1:38:42
mean just, Move in here a bit, I would pause and then I would go back to where
1:38:47
he did this ear or his mouth would move and I, and I worked my way back.
1:38:51
And when I got to the belly, I use the back of my hand.
1:38:54
First, I use the one, the same kind of thing, and I would just pause and then
1:38:58
I took the back of my hand and I worked along the belly and same, same deal.
1:39:03
I got to the sheath area.
1:39:05
I've never seen anything like it in my life.
1:39:07
He probably had two inches of hard shmegma inside the sheath.
1:39:14
Now tell me how you could do Piaf when you had It was that, that uncomfortable.
1:39:20
Rupert Isaacson: Where do you think that had come from?
1:39:22
And why was that in him and not in other horses?
1:39:25
Well, that's a very good question.
1:39:28
Robyn Hood: Very good question.
1:39:28
I don't know, but I think there's something systemically going on that
1:39:32
would create that amount of I don't know what it was, but it was hard.
1:39:37
What was interesting is, when I had listened to him And
1:39:41
this didn't take me very long.
1:39:43
In the first session, I worked with him for, I don't know, less than an hour.
1:39:45
But people would walk by and they'd go, Oh, have you tranquilized him?
1:39:49
Because he was standing there with his head down, no halter on, just
1:39:52
like, like he was tranquilized.
1:39:54
I said, no, but I could work on the outside of the sheet.
1:39:57
He actually wanted me, he wanted contact, because it must
1:40:00
have been so uncomfortable.
1:40:02
So I used the backs of my fingers and just did a bit.
1:40:04
And then I was able to get some, this Excalibur, some softening.
1:40:09
It's a, you know, A product that softens the inside and around the sheath area.
1:40:14
I was able to get it softened and then I was able to get warm water.
1:40:19
I couldn't take anything off because it's like having thick
1:40:21
scabs, but I could soften it.
1:40:23
And by the 3rd day he had pee off.
1:40:26
Interesting,
1:40:27
Robyn Hood: which was, I think was so interesting, but it was fascinating
1:40:30
at this at this event because we, of course, we're showing people
1:40:34
how to use the balance, right?
1:40:35
You know, it's like a second rain around the base of the neck used as a second
1:40:39
rain to just steady the horse and made a huge difference to some of the horses.
1:40:43
And we also put some body wraps and promise wraps, which just went
1:40:46
around the back end of the horse.
1:40:48
And of course, at lunchtime at the L.
1:40:51
A.
1:40:51
Equestrian Center, the people that boarded there, there were like, you know,
1:40:56
20 or 30 horses out there, you know, trying it with their own horses, which
1:41:01
was great, you know, just to be able to kind of offer that and, you know, Dr.
1:41:05
Clinton was such a gracious man.
1:41:07
And, you know, he said he'd never seen so many changes in horses and
1:41:11
riders in such a short period of time.
1:41:13
And he really attributed it to Linda coming in and the work that we did,
1:41:16
which he didn't need to do that.
1:41:18
He's just an amazingly gracious gracious man.
1:41:22
So that was a It was interesting because most of the people that were
1:41:26
there were, were either competitors or really interested in the sport.
1:41:31
Certainly some kind of kind of sport riders.
1:41:33
Now, Linda's also worked with people like Anne Krasinski, who
1:41:36
was on the American jumping team.
1:41:39
And she did a demo with her at Wellington in Florida and had all these people
1:41:44
standing around watching this horse who was known for rushing fences Linda
1:41:48
worked with her, got her riding with a neck ring, nothing else on, and
1:41:52
jumping four foot oxers, coming in really balanced, jumping them, not
1:41:56
rushing after them, slowing down, and it was, it was quite a shock for them.
1:42:01
So, if people see that there can be a difference, then they become interested.
1:42:08
Now, can they always kind of carry, carry on with it?
1:42:12
Because some things Require that we as a human have to make some changes.
1:42:20
And, you know, there's only one thing on this earth that we
1:42:23
have the potential to control.
1:42:26
And that's ourselves.
1:42:29
And when we change something, something will change.
1:42:34
So I always say to people, if something isn't working, I don't care what it
1:42:37
is, just change something a little bit, or pause, or just take a moment.
1:42:42
But just that, that in itself can, can make a huge difference, makes a
1:42:48
difference between how a horse reacts, how a dog reacts, how a person reacts.
1:42:54
Rupert Isaacson: is writing this down.
1:42:55
If something isn't working, change something.
1:43:00
Robyn Hood: And it's so obvious.
1:43:01
It's just that we get so stuck in our, you know, we get so stuck in our
1:43:06
habits because they're so easy to do.
1:43:08
Rupert Isaacson: The devil we know.
1:43:09
And neural pathways that You know, and it doesn't matter that was it Einstein
1:43:15
who said, you know, Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting over and
1:43:20
Robyn Hood: over and expecting a different result.
1:43:21
Rupert Isaacson: But it's also natural human behavior.
1:43:23
And I think one has got to have a bit of compassion for
1:43:26
oneself and for people this way.
1:43:30
I know when we're Teaching people our methods and so on so much of it is
1:43:36
counterintuitive And I think writers don't get enough credit for this The
1:43:42
entire process of doing anything with a horse is counterintuitive both for
1:43:47
the monkey and for the pony You know, we are their predator in the wild So
1:43:53
their instinct is not to let us any certainly not within bow shot or spear
1:43:57
chucking yet they will and They're not designed to take us on their backs.
1:44:06
They will.
1:44:07
We're not designed to balance up there.
1:44:10
We're top heavy, big shoulders, you know, heavy head, wobbling
1:44:15
around on that moving barrel.
1:44:17
Yet, we do.
1:44:19
And if you, you know, when we feel anxious or even unfamiliar
1:44:26
with something, we crouch.
1:44:29
We go into a A sort of a sympathetic nervous system crouch where we can
1:44:34
protect our organs, throw a punch and run away all in the same movement.
1:44:37
We can't do that on a horse, so we'll fall out the front door.
1:44:40
And then of course, we're monkeys, so we want opposable thumbs, so we want to solve
1:44:44
things with our hands and cling on tight to things, and we can't do that either.
1:44:50
So the very fact that any of it can work at all, I'm always intrigued given
1:44:54
that it Both the horse and the human have to go against instinct so much.
1:44:59
And we're also angry, you know, we're angry chimpanzees and
1:45:02
we've got to control that too.
1:45:04
It's, it's, it's, it's a miracle it can happen and yet it does.
1:45:07
So I think that people like you and Linda coming along and Helping to
1:45:13
make that process more joyful, to me, is really the epitome of what
1:45:22
equine assisted means, because in this day and age, we don't need horses.
1:45:27
Some cowboys do.
1:45:29
I would argue that with the therapeutic work that we do, actually that is
1:45:33
optimised by the movement of the horse, so okay, maybe that's a necessary job
1:45:39
for a horse, but we certainly don't need them for transport anymore.
1:45:41
Luckily we don't need them for war.
1:45:43
So the reason why do we have horses?
1:45:45
We have horses.
1:45:45
They make us feel good.
1:45:47
Why do we feel good around horses?
1:45:51
And then sometimes we do things or have experience with horses
1:45:55
that get in the way of that joy.
1:45:58
And then we can end up
1:46:02
thrashing away at that neural pathway.
1:46:05
The very thing that we were hoping would make us so joyful, that we were so
1:46:08
attracted to as a child, the beauty, the freedom, the power, the romance, the dream
1:46:14
like quality of horses, and then suddenly there we are in a cage, being screamed
1:46:18
at, you know, by another monkey, you know, being told, wrong, wrong, you know.
1:46:24
So you guys make it better.
1:46:27
You open that door to joy, and I've seen it.
1:46:29
I've seen it working.
1:46:31
And I felt it in my own body.
1:46:32
I've had Linda put her hands on me and gone, Oh my gosh, this is extraordinary.
1:46:36
If somebody is running a program, and, you know, equine assisted programs
1:46:43
are often Staff, the equines in those programs are often donated horses.
1:46:48
Donated horses are usually donated for a reason.
1:46:50
They're usually messed up.
1:46:52
They've, they've, they've been broken to some degree.
1:46:55
And they're, they may be working the program because they're quiet.
1:47:00
One frequently sees unhappy horses, stiff horses, horses clearly in pain.
1:47:05
And of course, how are these horses supposed to transmit well being
1:47:10
when they themselves don't have it?
1:47:13
If you were to give advice To somebody who was going into this field and getting
1:47:20
their horses from these disparate sources.
1:47:24
What would be your main go tos and piece of advice that, you know, you're in the
1:47:29
pub, someone says, Hey, Robin, I'm gonna start this thing and I'm gonna start
1:47:32
working with autistic kids, or I'm gonna start working with veterans, or I'm gonna
1:47:35
start working with people with trauma.
1:47:37
And yeah, I've got the, you know, some therapy, some
1:47:38
donation horses are coming in.
1:47:40
You probably in your mind would go, Ooh, yeah, I can kind of picture what some
1:47:44
of these horses will be coming in with.
1:47:45
What would your go to one, two, three, to be sure to look out for
1:47:52
and to be sure to do and to be sure to not do be to that person?
1:48:00
Robyn Hood: Good, good question.
1:48:02
I the first thing that That that I do when I kind of see a horse that somebody asked
1:48:08
me to look at the horse, whatever it is.
1:48:10
And I, I kind of get a sense of, first of all, what their overall response
1:48:16
is for just when humans are near them.
1:48:19
And that doesn't mean that I can't.
1:48:21
influence how they feel about humans.
1:48:25
Because there are, there are some horses that once you then, because then I,
1:48:28
I would see if I could put my hands on, start with the back of the hand,
1:48:32
where can you actually make contact?
1:48:34
What's the horse's response to that contact?
1:48:37
So that I can That I can, I guess it depends on also what they're
1:48:41
going to be using the horses for, you know, like, are they expected?
1:48:44
Are they, are they for riding?
1:48:45
Because not all horses are in the, in the, you know, equine assisted therapy.
1:48:50
They're not all for riding.
1:48:50
So that would be one thing that I would what I would, you know, kind of look at.
1:48:56
And then also, the thing is, when we do TTouch on horses, We have so frequently
1:49:03
been able to make pretty dramatic changes in, especially in their, and
1:49:10
I want to say, I don't, attitude.
1:49:12
It's not really that it's their attitude.
1:49:13
It's their experience, their prior experience with humans.
1:49:16
And when you change that, that experience, because you treat them in a different way.
1:49:22
It, it changes them because, you know, we get horses on our farm.
1:49:25
Now, mostly we board horses, but even when I have horses that come up here for
1:49:28
clinics and they have, you know, people will say they do this, this and this.
1:49:33
You hardly ever do it here because we have a different energy
1:49:36
about the attitude that we have.
1:49:39
About the horses and what we expect them to do.
1:49:41
So, I mean, I would encourage anybody to learn even basics of tea touch so
1:49:47
that they can go over the horse and have the horse learn, learn from the
1:49:51
horse, you know, that they'll let the horse know they'll listen to them.
1:49:56
I think that's it is absolutely really is really critical.
1:50:00
And, and of course, I mean, obviously, do you ride most of your horses with saddles?
1:50:06
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
1:50:07
I'm not averse to riding bareback.
1:50:08
But in general, we would ride it with a saddle.
1:50:10
Yeah.
1:50:10
Robyn Hood: No, no, I just, because I mean, I think that's the other
1:50:13
huge challenge is finding saddles that are going to be functioning
1:50:20
well for the horse and, and for the riders, because it's not just enough
1:50:24
that it's for the, for the horse.
1:50:25
So, I mean, there's a lot of things that have to go in, into it.
1:50:29
I, I also would ask them, what's the lifestyle going to be for this horse?
1:50:33
You know, what, you know, are, do they, are they going to have
1:50:37
friends if they have friends?
1:50:38
Do they have enough space to have friends?
1:50:40
You know, like that, because that can be having friend, frenemies can
1:50:44
be worse if you don't have enough space to get away from them, you
1:50:47
know, that, that sort of thing.
1:50:48
So it's not really I can't say that I have enough experience with looking for horses,
1:50:55
but I, I would be looking for horses that I would call functionally sound.
1:50:59
That's to me because none of us are necessarily a hundred percent sound,
1:51:04
but it does depend on what you're going to do with them and how you're going to
1:51:08
ask them and what you're going to do.
1:51:09
And I had a little bit of a theory about,
1:51:14
you know, about this concept of us because a lot of writers period,
1:51:19
whether they're able bodied or not, are not very well balanced.
1:51:25
Now, if you have a course I'm going to say that about
1:51:27
Rupert Isaacson: myself, honestly.
1:51:28
Robyn Hood: Yeah, for sure.
1:51:30
If you have a horse that always has to carry the same rider with the
1:51:35
same, with their same imbalances and doing things exactly the same way.
1:51:40
Is it possible that it can be actually a little bit easier for horses that
1:51:46
carry different riders that maybe have slightly different imbalances, so it's
1:51:51
not constantly being created the same one because I see some less than horses.
1:51:55
And as you were saying earlier, there are horses that kind of go
1:51:57
along and kind of do their job.
1:51:59
And and they're, you know, they're pretty happy about it,
1:52:03
depending on the rider and so on.
1:52:05
And I wonder, though, if that isn't for in some cases.
1:52:10
if it doesn't balance out their body a little bit easier than having the same,
1:52:14
same old, same old rider who does things.
1:52:17
I don't know.
1:52:18
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, so I think, I think, I think what you put your
1:52:20
finger on there is the difference in chronic repetitive and novel.
1:52:26
Yeah, we, we encourage people to do as much in hand work as possible, long
1:52:31
reigning as possible, that sort of thing.
1:52:32
And incorporate that into the sessions because otherwise you'll never have
1:52:36
time to do it, you know, just build that back as much as you can so that it has a
1:52:42
sporting chance of carrying some weight, you know, but it's, it's interesting
1:52:47
how this type of thing is not normally.
1:52:49
Part of the conversation around therapeutic stuff.
1:52:52
It's usually all about how you serve the person, which of course is
1:52:55
vitally important But it leaves out if the horse hasn't got well being.
1:52:59
Well, how how how are you going to track?
1:53:02
So your point too about how is the horse living?
1:53:06
I think is also a very good one.
1:53:08
Is there enough space that if they are living socially it's
1:53:13
functional not dysfunctional?
1:53:15
Because of course now keeping horses in boxes has gotten a bad name.
1:53:19
And I go around so many different stables and I see horses living in every
1:53:23
possible way from having half of the state of Wyoming as their, you know,
1:53:29
thing, or probably, you know, Alberta to, for example, we've got a project
1:53:34
with Horseboy in the middle of Dublin, like in the middle of the city, and
1:53:39
no, the horses have to be in boxes.
1:53:40
Now, it's mitigated by the fact that they get a lot of free movement in
1:53:44
the arena, and they get regularly rotated out to fields in County Meath.
1:53:50
So, you know, people are, you know, they're approaching it rationally and
1:53:54
they're approaching it compassionately.
1:53:55
But I don't think those horses are unhappy at all, because the way
1:53:58
they're engaged and the way that they're worked is Sympathetic.
1:54:03
And I've seen horses that are kept in rather naturalistic
1:54:05
environments be quite depressed.
1:54:06
So it's interesting I've realized that there's no hard and fast rules about
1:54:09
these things It's so much of it seems to be and you were talking about patting
1:54:13
horses, you know, do they like it?
1:54:15
Do they hate it?
1:54:15
Well, I think so much of it is about the intention behind it You know, if
1:54:18
you hug someone and they pat you on the back that can feel immensely supportive.
1:54:24
It can feel also absolutely awful depending on how they pat you and
1:54:29
what the intention is behind the pat.
1:54:31
So I think one of the things I love about your work.
1:54:36
is that the intention is paramount.
1:54:42
You know, I've, I've, I've heard Linda say it so often, put your heart in your hands
1:54:48
and then put your hands on the horse.
1:54:49
And of course, that could be with a person too.
1:54:51
And I remember the first time I heard her say that, I went, Oh, of course.
1:54:55
But Do I do that?
1:54:57
And then as soon as I started consciously doing that, I heard
1:55:01
her say that at Equitano once.
1:55:03
I was like, Oh my gosh, it made such a difference.
1:55:05
And then another thing which I heard from T Touch was Instead of
1:55:09
trying to make your horse feel safe,
1:55:13
or project safety, just project the thought, I.
1:55:20
I'm safety.
1:55:21
I am safe.
1:55:21
I am safety and see what that does yours.
1:55:24
And I started doing it and horses just started coming
1:55:28
and standing right next to me.
1:55:29
So it's so interesting how you guys have, you know, there's great
1:55:33
complexity to your work once you begin and subtlety to your work.
1:55:37
And we started this conversation with Feldenkrais and so on and the
1:55:40
multiple, multiple different ways in which you can touch and feeling
1:55:44
out and listening to the horse.
1:55:45
And yet at the same time, you don't make it so Vague and impossible to follow
1:55:51
there are no steps and you you you you do actually narrow it down to certain
1:55:56
ways to touch that Any of us can do or certain intentions that we can put into
1:55:59
our bodies That are going to transfer that emotion to the horse and it works.
1:56:04
It works.
1:56:04
It works So if people wanted to learn more, how do they do it?
1:56:11
How do they get in touch with you and then if they want to become say a practitioner?
1:56:14
What's the process by which they'd have to go?
1:56:18
Robyn Hood: We, because of COVID, like, you know, before COVID,
1:56:20
I, I traveled five months of the year for pretty much 30 years.
1:56:24
And I loved it, and I didn't think that I had any other choice, you
1:56:28
know, you do what you do, right?
1:56:30
And then COVID hit, and so I had time to put things online, because I wanted
1:56:35
to for years, but I just didn't, I was never home long enough to do it.
1:56:39
And we have a platform called learn.
1:56:42
ttouch.
1:56:44
ca And on that Learn.
1:56:48
ttouch.
1:56:50
ca.
1:56:52
And we have on it, we have some free like little mini module courses
1:56:57
too that like one for horses and a couple for dogs and one for cats.
1:57:02
So people can just like register and they don't pay anything.
1:57:06
They get that, they get that module and kind of takes you
1:57:08
through the, the aspects of it.
1:57:11
Now we have.
1:57:13
We also then have courses that are on very like specific things.
1:57:16
I have a body wrapping, self paced course and intro to T Touch and so on.
1:57:22
And then we have these, the core elements course.
1:57:26
If people want to be practitioners or go deeper into it, I started
1:57:31
doing them for the last almost year is immersion courses where I take
1:57:36
people over Six months actually.
1:57:38
And they, so they, they have lifetime access to the online, which has many,
1:57:43
many hours of the topics broken into pieces and video and PowerPoint and so on.
1:57:49
And then in the immersion classes, I add more information.
1:57:52
Plus we discuss things and go into the detail and.
1:57:57
It's actually worked it's worked really well.
1:57:59
We have a, we have a practitioner in India, the first practitioner in India.
1:58:04
She did it all online and she presented actually at our celebration.
1:58:10
The changes the healing that she's had from dogs and cats in India, and she
1:58:17
has a kind of a private rescue and she works with lots of different rescues.
1:58:21
Phenomenal.
1:58:22
I mean, animals that were given no hope and and and some
1:58:27
of them like in one session.
1:58:28
And as she said, you know, no one was more surprised than than I was.
1:58:32
And again, you know, as I said before, I've done this.
1:58:35
I've done this now for over 40 years and.
1:58:38
I'm still surprised when it works.
1:58:40
And so is Linda.
1:58:41
And I love that because I would hate to do something that you felt so,
1:58:46
oh, you do this because you can't know, we know that there'll be a
1:58:50
change, but we don't know what.
1:58:52
And that's the, you know, the part of looking for it.
1:58:54
So there's a lot that can be done online.
1:58:57
I'm, I'm going to Linda's going to be.
1:59:01
Not sure how much she'll be in Europe this year.
1:59:03
She'll be in Ewa.
1:59:04
I'm coming for a few days for Ewa, just to
1:59:07
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, you well, great.
1:59:07
We'll meet then.
1:59:08
'cause we'll be there.
1:59:08
Yeah,
1:59:08
Robyn Hood: yeah, yeah.
1:59:09
I, I'll be there for the last three days to be at the party, the
1:59:11
50th anniversary party and so on.
1:59:13
Rupert Isaacson: 50
1:59:13
years.
1:59:14
Gosh.
1:59:14
Wow.
1:59:15
Robyn Hood: I know.
1:59:15
It's, it's, it's just, it's just remarkable.
1:59:18
And you know, I just have to say, I mean, my sister, there's
1:59:22
nobody that is as she's just.
1:59:27
She cares a lot and she's just so open to to to people.
1:59:31
She'll do a lot for people and I, you know, she's really very, very remarkable.
1:59:37
And then I'll be in England doing something with horses and
1:59:40
dogs in April in France in April as well, doing a few things.
1:59:44
And then in Holland.
1:59:45
Just doing the work with dogs in Holland.
1:59:48
So ideally, and we do have practitioners in different countries,
1:59:52
too, that are doing workshops.
1:59:54
So, so because we don't do so many in person things, my concept of this online
2:00:00
is that if people can also go to workshops with people who are You know, who are
2:00:06
qualified practitioners and get the hands on portion, because what they have to
2:00:11
do is demonstrate to us through video or in person or whatever a competency
2:00:16
that,
2:00:16
Robyn Hood: you know, that that's, that's the thing.
2:00:18
And I mean, the beauty of this is that.
2:00:21
Even if you know a little bit you can that you can really help and the more
2:00:25
you know in some ways the less you teach I mean because you try to pare it
2:00:29
down to what might be the most helpful for that person in in that moment.
2:00:35
Rupert Isaacson: So if somebody wanted to go down the route or serve learning to
2:00:39
become a practitioner and or eventually trainer, it all starts with learn dot.
2:00:43
Yeah,
2:00:46
Robyn Hood: or going to if you, if you have the availability of
2:00:49
going to a workshop with someone, of course, that can be your first.
2:00:52
Rupert Isaacson: But would you find those workshops on that website?
2:00:55
Robyn Hood: The website, the website that you're going to find the
2:00:58
international ones on is, is ttouch.
2:01:02
com.
2:01:02
Rupert Isaacson: ttouch.
2:01:04
com.
2:01:04
Okay.
2:01:05
So if I'm sitting in.
2:01:07
London or Dubai or Rio de Janeiro.
2:01:12
And I want to see if there's a trainer or practitioner near me
2:01:16
that I can go to a live course with.
2:01:18
That will be ttouch.
2:01:19
com.
2:01:20
Robyn Hood: Yeah, that'll, that'll give you, there are some, like the
2:01:22
German ones aren't on because they're, they have their own guild site.
2:01:27
There are, I don't know the names of all the websites of the specific
2:01:31
countries, like Germany has, has, A lot of practitioners, Austria.
2:01:38
Just trying to think of what countries have active websites right now?
2:01:43
Switzerland, probably the uk South Africa.
2:01:47
Would there
2:01:48
Rupert Isaacson: be links to those sites on T Touch,
2:01:50
Robyn Hood: yes.
2:01:50
On t touch.com,
2:01:51
there are links to the international Okay.
2:01:54
Perfect Sites.
2:01:55
And if they don't see something on like the site or a pro or
2:01:58
a listing or whatever, if they go to one of those, that's.
2:02:01
The best the best response.
2:02:04
I, of
2:02:04
Rupert Isaacson: course, found the German one.
2:02:05
It's ttouch.
2:02:06
de.
2:02:07
Yeah, there
2:02:07
Robyn Hood: you go.
2:02:08
There you go.
2:02:09
Yeah.
2:02:09
Rupert Isaacson: Which, by the way, immediately translated to English.
2:02:11
Robyn Hood: Yeah, no, it's a good, it's a really good website.
2:02:14
Rupert Isaacson: But if, if people know that ttouch.
2:02:15
com is the sort of central hub, and then they could find some links to
2:02:19
what's relevant to their country there.
2:02:21
Yeah.
2:02:21
But if they want to learn online, it's learn.
2:02:24
Dot t
2:02:25
Robyn Hood: touch dot c a.
2:02:27
And actually the a lot of the online courses if they're if
2:02:31
they're with zoom attachments like with zoom classes will also be on
2:02:36
the t touch dot com events page.
2:02:43
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, well, luckily for us, my wife is heading
2:02:47
down the practitioner path.
2:02:50
Robyn Hood: Yes, she is.
2:02:50
Our
2:02:51
Rupert Isaacson: horses benefit massively.
2:02:53
And I couldn't support it more.
2:02:55
I think that.
2:02:56
I know that, I see that, what you guys do is not only something
2:03:01
that's special to you and Linda, but it's highly transferable.
2:03:04
I've seen lots of people learn it and get amazing outcomes with
2:03:08
their animals and with each other.
2:03:11
Robyn Hood: And, you know, I think that's the, the thing Linda's always been.
2:03:16
I mean, the whole thing we've been so open to what we want to share the work.
2:03:19
If you're interested, we're, we're happy to teach you.
2:03:21
We're not going to, we're not going to try to make, we're not going to try to
2:03:24
convince someone that they, that they need to learn it, but we're absolutely there.
2:03:29
And it doesn't matter if Linda can do it, or if I can do it, or if other
2:03:33
teachers, the aim of it is to teach the average person to be able to do
2:03:38
it with their own animal, because it really, you know, we can't, you We can't
2:03:41
have every animal, so it makes sense that we can teach people how to do it.
2:03:46
That, that's really, that's the deal.
2:03:50
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely, you know, it's, it, I think
2:03:52
the other thing which is so
2:03:56
immediately apparent when one goes to a T Touch event is the
2:04:02
loving quality of the community.
2:04:04
And you know, with us, with Horseboy, it's quite similar.
2:04:07
It's an international community of people that really support each other
2:04:10
and really like each other and go out of their way to try and help each other.
2:04:14
And I've really seen that with the T Touch community.
2:04:17
It's, I think the sort of person who's attracted to it is always.
2:04:22
Connected, caring human.
2:04:24
So when you get a bunch of them together, it's a very nice place to be.
2:04:27
I'm looking forward to Ecuador 2020.
2:04:29
We saw
2:04:30
Robyn Hood: that at the celebration.
2:04:31
We had some, we had a number of people that were pretty new.
2:04:34
I don't even know how they got there, but they, they were just struck by
2:04:39
the welcoming part of this kind of this, you know, family community.
2:04:46
And It's so much fun to just meet new people and, and and have them, you know,
2:04:52
just become engaged in the work, but they, you know, they have to have a, they
2:04:55
have to have interest, you know, it's like there's a, there's, there's a reason
2:05:00
that, you know, that things that things happen, that things happen as they do.
2:05:05
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
2:05:06
And you know, in the world of factionalism and rivalry that can
2:05:11
so often typify the horse world.
2:05:15
It's such a breath of fresh air to come across people like you, so hats off.
2:05:22
Robyn Hood: Thank you.
2:05:22
Thank you.
2:05:23
I mean, it's fun.
2:05:24
I wouldn't do it if it's fun.
2:05:25
It's like we had a great keynote speaker that she's that spent a year
2:05:29
with me before she went into vet school and and she said her theory is this.
2:05:35
If it's not fun, don't do it.
2:05:38
And if you have to do it, make it fun.
2:05:41
And I'm writing that
2:05:42
Rupert Isaacson: one down too.
2:05:43
If it's not fun, don't do it.
2:05:48
And if it's not fun.
2:05:51
Robyn Hood: No, if you have to do it.
2:05:53
Rupert Isaacson: And if you have to do it.
2:05:54
Robyn Hood: Yeah.
2:05:55
Thank you.
2:05:55
And if you have
2:05:55
Rupert Isaacson: to do it.
2:05:56
Make it
2:06:00
fun.
2:06:00
Lovely words to live by.
2:06:02
Robyn Hood: They, yeah, they are.
2:06:03
She gave such a great presentations and you know, about working with
2:06:07
senior, do you know, senior animals?
2:06:09
And she had just such she was fun.
2:06:11
It was a great, great presentation and it was, we just had, we had a lot of fun.
2:06:15
A lot of fun.
2:06:16
At the, at the subway.
2:06:17
Rupert Isaacson: Who was that?
2:06:18
Who was that speaker?
2:06:19
Robyn Hood: Her name is Stephanie Cote.
2:06:21
C-O-T-E-C.
2:06:23
Rupert Isaacson: Cote as in the, like in the French?
2:06:25
Robyn Hood: Yeah.
2:06:25
Yeah, yeah.
2:06:26
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, we'll, we'll look up.
2:06:27
Sounds like someone I should have on the show.
2:06:29
Robyn Hood: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
2:06:30
She's amazing.
2:06:31
Stephanie with a
2:06:32
Rupert Isaacson: PH, I'm writing it down.
2:06:33
Yeah,
2:06:33
Robyn Hood: PH.
2:06:33
Stephanie with a PH.
2:06:34
I can, I can
2:06:36
Rupert Isaacson: get
2:06:36
Robyn Hood: you her email if you like.
2:06:37
You
2:06:38
Rupert Isaacson: do.
2:06:39
That would be grand.
2:06:41
Robyn Hood: Yeah.
2:06:41
Rupert Isaacson: Well, Robin, it's been an honor.
2:06:43
Thank you so much for coming on and giving us wisdom.
2:06:46
Robyn Hood: My
2:06:46
Rupert Isaacson: pleasure.
2:06:46
My pleasure.
2:06:47
It
2:06:47
Robyn Hood: was so nice to meet you, and I look forward to seeing you in Germany.
2:06:51
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
2:06:52
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