Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Healing at Full Gallop: Trick Riding, Roman Riding & the Power of Movement with Celisse Barrett | EP 43

Transcript

Healing at Full Gallop: Trick Riding, Roman Riding & the Power of Movement with Celisse Barrett | EP 43 · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

0:00
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
0:02
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
0:05
author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
0:08
Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
0:12
thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
0:15
I have a request.
0:16
If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
0:22
It really helps us get this work done.
0:24
As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
0:27
And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
0:31
equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
0:35
If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
0:40
com.
0:41
So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
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Today I've got Celisse Barrett.
0:49
There's a lot of people who come on the show who do the impossible.
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That tends to be why I select them.
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And many of you out there who are involved in this equine assisted
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world do the impossible, but Celisse really does the impossible.
1:04
She and her husband Jason, run this thing that shouldn't really work,
1:08
but does called equestrian chaos, where they not just trick ride
1:15
professionally, not just mounted archery professionally or girl team, but they
1:21
also do it with and for special needs.
1:24
So they go between the professional shows and running
1:30
this as a special needs program.
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When I first heard about it, I was not skeptical.
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I was just intrigued, went and witnessed it for myself with Rowan, my
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son, 2019, and Sise and her compadre.
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Brooke had my son, my anxious son standing up on a horse.
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Incredible.
1:55
And then I watched people with all kinds of special needs from TBIs that.
2:03
Had rendered the brain and the body, let's say, compromised in the extreme to
2:12
people with barely verbal, nonverbal to the hypoxic, a DDH, you know, everything,
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everything, everything in the show.
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And it knocked me on my butt.
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There aren't many people out there who can do what Sise Barrett does.
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So thank you Cise for coming on the show.
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Please tell us who you are, what you do, why on earth you do it.
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'cause it's bloody hard work and you know, how did you get here?
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Tell us about the program and you.
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Celisse Barrett: Wow, that's a, that's a very big question.
2:47
Well, I started because it was actually honestly a selfish start in the beginning.
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I moved to Mobile, Alabama with my husband and I really, I found
3:05
trick riding right before I left.
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And when I found trick riding, I found something that just, it
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inspired me to the fullest physically.
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When you don't know what you're able to do and then you're finally suddenly able
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to do what seems like the impossible.
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You realize, well, at least for me, I realized that I wanted to push my body
3:28
much further into this extreme type of writing, and it gave me confidence
3:38
in a way that I had never felt before.
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And it wasn't really like a it wasn't so much about being on stage as it was that
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I could physically achieve a certain goal.
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Yeah.
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And when I had physical confidence, it gave me personal confidence.
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If that, were you
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Rupert Isaacson: not so personally confident before trick writing?
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Celisse Barrett: I don't think I really was, to be honest.
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And I think a lot of that comes from my music background.
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I'm also a classical musician.
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Of course you are.
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And I went through
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Rupert Isaacson: What's your, what's your instrument?
4:17
Celisse Barrett: Flute?
4:18
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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Celisse Barrett: I played flute for, since I was seven years old.
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And I played it all through high school.
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I actually went to Howard w Blake School of the Performing Arts,
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and I had to audition in high school to get into that school.
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And it was
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Rupert Isaacson: Where is that, where in the US is that school?
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Celisse Barrett: In Tampa?
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Tampa Bay.
4:34
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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Florida.
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Celisse Barrett: They had opened up as a magnet school and I was the second year.
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Student they didn't have seniors the first year.
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And the second year that was open as a magnet performing arts school.
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I joined.
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And I think because of the music background, you know,
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perfect practice means perfect.
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Right?
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That's how you get, and music is so critical that I think all the years
5:00
of being beat up classically training.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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Celisse Barrett: Because it's, it's cutthroat.
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I mean, I guess all entertainment and performing arts is cutthroat
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in a way, but with your instrument, you're not able to hide behind your
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instrument the way you can hide, I guess, somewhat behind a horse.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
5:18
Celisse Barrett: And if that, I don't know if that makes sense or resonates.
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Oh, I've
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Rupert Isaacson: hidden behind a few horses in my time.
5:24
Celisse Barrett: Yeah, yeah.
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Like, oh, I didn't do it, but maybe the horse did it.
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I don't know what happened.
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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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But
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Celisse Barrett: when you're playing on stage it's all out there from your breath
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to your, I mean, the second you walk out there, you are in charge of everything.
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If you go flat, you can't blame the flute.
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It is all you.
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And I think I was just so, I was so tired of being critiqued all the time that I
5:47
had scholarships to go into college for music, and I turned them down because I
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was, it was too much, almost too much.
5:57
Mm-hmm.
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I had, like, at one point I had 20 pieces.
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I was playing from soloist, pieces to I was a part of the,
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the school had a symphony.
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The school actually, when we did musicals for musical, the musical
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theater department, the school did not have recorded audio.
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It was all live, played by the students in the orchestra pit.
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We were the first high school to have an orchestra pit in the United
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Rupert Isaacson: States.
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Celisse Barrett: Wow.
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So when I say it was a heavy music program, it was so heavy.
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We had to audition every year for all county and all State.
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That was a requirement.
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We had to audition for Julliard.
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That was a requirement.
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Okay.
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Like that tells you how extreme it was.
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And so, and after every performance, there's always that person in
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the background that's saying, Hey, here's what you did great.
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Here's what you did bad.
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Yeah.
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And a lot of times I always felt like it was more bad than good.
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Rupert Isaacson: Right.
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And,
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Celisse Barrett: and so no, I wasn't a very confident person coming out of into
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the performing arts world at that time.
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My life.
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And
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Rupert Isaacson: you've always been a horse woman, right?
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You'd always been around horses?
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Oh
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Celisse Barrett: yes.
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I've been around horses my whole life.
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Horses were kind of my hobby.
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I've been riding since I was three, and they were, I tried to get outta
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horses several times throughout high school, and I always just kind of
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found myself falling back to them.
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Rupert Isaacson: Why did you try and get out of horses?
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Celisse Barrett: I think because I was so.
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Smothered in the classical music world.
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That time was an issue, and especially in high school for me.
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And once I stopped competing with horses, I kind of lost my way for a little while.
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When I got on my own and I'm like, well, what do I do if I
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don't have $150,000 show horse?
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Which I never, ever had.
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How do I, what, what do I do with the skills that I had acquired in horses?
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What was
7:51
Rupert Isaacson: your showing discipline?
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Celisse Barrett: I showed American Saddlebreds Morgan's saddle seat mainly.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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Celisse Barrett: But yeah, I showed Morgan's Arabians, national Show,
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horses, American Saddlebreds, all those really hotheaded horses that don't stand
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still when you're trying to mount up onto them and take 'em into the story.
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And why do
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Rupert Isaacson: you, why them, why that style?
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Celisse Barrett: The, I loved how hot they were.
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Mm-hmm.
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I loved the energy underneath me that I felt with them.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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Celisse Barrett: It was like riding a firecracker.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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I mean,
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Celisse Barrett: you never knew which way it was gonna go.
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At least for me.
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But I love the thrill of how much energy I felt underneath
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me when I was showing on them.
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And I loved being in the competitive show ring, but it was just so expensive.
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Every time we would compete to go into a show, it was, I mean, this
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was what, 25, 30 years ago now?
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I mean, it was.
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I think my show bill at the end of the year was over $10,000.
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Rupert Isaacson: Wow.
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Back then.
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Yeah,
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Celisse Barrett: that's back then.
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Right?
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And that's, yeah.
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So, and that was just, that wasn't
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Rupert Isaacson: even like the top shows.
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Yeah,
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Celisse Barrett: no, that wasn't even the top.
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No, I never went to the world or anything like that.
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I didn't have a horse competitive enough I to even make it to the top.
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And so I kind of got in a funk because I, I mean, I had horses, but I didn't,
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I had a horse, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my horse.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
9:11
Celisse Barrett: And I finally found a I was reading the newspaper when
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they actually had jobs listed in the newspaper, and Dixie Stampede was
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coming into town to Orlando, Florida.
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And I was like, well, shoot, I ride horses as a hobby.
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I play, I've been a performer my whole life with music.
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Why don't I just go ahead and get on stage with a horse?
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Like they were, they were
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Rupert Isaacson: auditioning riders for the show.
9:39
They were
9:39
Celisse Barrett: auditioning for riders.
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Yes.
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They had opened up a brand new show and they had no riders yet to fill the
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Orlando location in Orlando, Florida.
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And I was like, well, let me just drive over to Kissimmee, Florida where they
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were holding the auditions and let me see if I'm good enough to do it.
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And I had enough stage presence from the, my music.
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For all those years that I knew what I was supposed to do on
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stage, but I never really thought about combining the two together.
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Um Mm.
10:13
And trying out for an equestrian theater.
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And that's when they hired me.
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That's where I found trick riding when I saw trick riding
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for the very first time ever.
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And I was blown, blown away.
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And what was Dixon
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Rupert Isaacson: Stampede?
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What kind of a show was it?
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Celisse Barrett: The Dixie Stampede originally was a show between the
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Confederates versus the Yankees.
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North versus South.
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Okay.
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So the first part of the show would be it would introduce all
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the rider in a 10 person drill.
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There would be a bunch of specialty acts, trick riding, Roman riding some
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dancing different, some carriage stuff.
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They herded some buffalo in the beginning of the show, and then they would go on the
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second half of the show was a competition between the north and the south.
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And, and the
10:57
Rupert Isaacson: competition would be what trick riding?
11:00
Celisse Barrett: Actually, no.
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The trick riding was one of the specialty acts in the beginning.
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Okay.
11:03
The competition started out with like the ring game.
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They got the, the soldiers would take out their swords and they would ride
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under this apparatus that came down from the ceiling that held rings.
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Oh yeah.
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And whoever speared the most rings won that side for their team.
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And then another show was, or another game was barrel racing.
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The girls would do a serpentine pattern, one for the north and one for the south.
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Three girls, three on each side.
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And the first person to finish.
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Won a medal for their team, ostrich racing.
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That was at the time there was ostrich racing in the show.
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And
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Rupert Isaacson: as if that had anything to do with the civil War.
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Celisse Barrett: Absolutely.
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Of course, you know how many people rode into the infantry on a freaking bird
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that you can't control, by the way.
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I don't, you can't control them.
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So, yeah, it was, it was a wild show.
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It was, it was fun.
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Rupert Isaacson: And where first did you do, how did that for
11:55
Celisse Barrett: I did that for four years
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Rupert Isaacson: and you ended up, you could have been in any one of those acts.
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So why the trick writing?
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Celisse Barrett: I was blown away when I saw this girl.
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Her name was Leslie, and I saw her turn upside down on her horse, drop
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the reins and fly upside down in the arena from point A to point B.
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And that it was just, to me it was magic to see how well that horse ran for her.
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She had no control over the horse whatsoever.
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And that horse just knew the pattern
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period.
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And that was the first time I'd ever really witnessed anything
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like that coming from saddle seat.
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And I think between saddle seat and music, everything is about personal control.
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Control, control, control, yeah.
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Rupert Isaacson: Perfectionism.
12:44
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
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And then to all of a sudden, watch this girl let go of the reins,
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her horse run the pattern and the horse just carry her flawlessly.
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It blew me away.
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And then to see the next trick and then the next trick, and then
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the next trick, and now it like, but of course, trick riding,
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Rupert Isaacson: we all know is like all stunt all about
13:02
control and preparation and it is otherwise you get killed, you know?
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So
13:07
Celisse Barrett: yeah.
13:08
Rupert Isaacson: It must to some degree also appeal to that side of you.
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Celisse Barrett: The, the freeness of it is what appealed to me so much
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because yes, even though it is the way we practice it is so controlled.
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Of course you don't see that out there when you see it in the arena.
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First time you just see the final picture and you're going, holy cow.
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How do you get to that?
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Oh, I think
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Rupert Isaacson: we all can see that the amount of precision and control is insane.
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Insane.
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Yeah.
13:37
You know, I think we, that is loud and clear.
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Even it, it does not appear like chaos, you know, at all.
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It looks like a science applied, you know, at speed.
13:47
Yeah, sure.
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You know, but okay, so you do this for four years.
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You get involved in trick writing and you become very good at it.
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What gave you the idea to mix special needs with this?
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Celisse Barrett: Well,
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I always had a passion.
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It was just something I always did in school.
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When I was in sixth grade, I was a peer facilitator and
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I worked with children that.
14:11
Had special needs and I would go and tutor them after school.
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My cousin.
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But why,
14:15
Rupert Isaacson: why?
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There's usually a story behind it.
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Celisse Barrett: I don't, I don't really know why.
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I was just always wrong.
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Did you wake
14:22
Rupert Isaacson: up one day and like, oh, I want to tutor special needs kids?
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I mean, and you had a lot of stuff going on too.
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You didn't really have a lot of time.
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Celisse Barrett: I think because of
14:36
how I grew up in middle school, in high school and my personal experiences, I
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always had, I don't know, it was always just instinctual for me to help others.
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Rupert Isaacson: My cousin.
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Were you bullied?
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Did you have a tough time?
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Celisse Barrett: I had a very tough time, especially in middle school.
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Yes.
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Why?
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I had a very tough time.
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Why middle?
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What happened?
14:54
I was bullied a lot.
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In what
14:56
Rupert Isaacson: sort of a way and why do you think, why were you bullied?
14:58
What was, what was the target?
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Celisse Barrett: I think it was,
15:08
I don't really know why I was bullied.
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To be honest, I was kind of, and my middle school, it was also a magnet school,
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but we were not in a great part of town.
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And honestly, I was bullied by a lot of the local kids.
15:24
Mm-hmm.
15:25
Magnet schools, you have to have a percentage of, of the
15:29
district children in with the
15:32
the gifted
15:33
With the gifted kids.
15:34
Yeah.
15:35
And.
15:36
Back then, I think bullying was just kind of part of, I mean, it
15:41
was a kind of a rite of passage.
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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
15:43
And I can't
15:43
Celisse Barrett: tell you how many times on the basketball court when I,
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I hated basketball and PE because these girls would come up to me and I can't
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tell you how many times I was called the cream filling of the Oreo cookie.
15:58
Okay.
15:58
And they
15:58
would, two of them would come up and they would just be ready to
16:01
like smash into me on both sides.
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And I'm like, oh my God, this is gonna hurt so bad.
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And but you couldn't say, back then, you couldn't say anything.
16:09
You just took it and then you just went on with your day.
16:12
Yeah.
16:12
And so I don't know if I just had a compassion for those that I
16:17
always thought were the underdog.
16:20
But I always noticed the people that were sitting by themselves at
16:23
the lunch in the lunchroom, Uhhuh.
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And I would always go and sit with those people.
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Like, you're sitting by yourself.
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Who are you?
16:30
Tell me more about you.
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And I would always try to befriend those that didn't
16:33
seem like they had any friends.
16:34
'cause I always felt, even I had a story, no one wanted to hear it.
16:39
But even I had one as a kid, so.
16:41
Mm.
16:41
I'm sure
16:41
these, my other kids, my other peers at the time had a story too.
16:47
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
16:47
Celisse Barrett: And you know, and middle school's tough.
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Middle school kids don't.
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Yes.
16:51
The kids are mean.
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I mean, I'm sorry, but at that time, I mean it, you just.
16:56
I was the minority at the, at that school.
16:59
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
16:59
Celisse Barrett: And actually both my schools, middle school and
17:01
high school, I was the minority.
17:02
Although it did change in high school some the bullying
17:05
definitely died away a lot more.
17:08
I think it's just a middle school thing
17:09
Rupert Isaacson: that really
17:11
Celisse Barrett: hit me hard.
17:13
So much so that I hate, like I remember walking into high school
17:15
dreading that I was gonna have to endure four more years of this,
17:19
Type of peer real, these dealing with all these different
17:24
peers and these relationships.
17:25
But I realized it changed a little bit in high school when it wasn't nearly as
17:28
cutthroat as it was in middle school.
17:30
Rupert Isaacson: So you started volunteering to tutor special needs kids.
17:34
But that's quite a long way from trick riding with special needs kids.
17:40
Yeah.
17:40
That's a tall order.
17:41
What gave you the idea to do what, what, what made you
17:44
think that was even possible?
17:46
Celisse Barrett: Well, it, for me, it started with an accident
17:52
back to those ostriches Okay.
17:54
That we mentioned earlier.
17:56
I had an accident on one of the birds at the St.
17:59
Dixie Stampede, and I had to learn how to walk again after that.
18:05
Rupert Isaacson: Wow.
18:05
What happened?
18:05
And.
18:07
Celisse Barrett: My, it was a rehearsal and we had new birds that were in the show
18:10
that were practicing to go into the show.
18:12
And
18:13
Rupert Isaacson: just the situations one finds oneself in, in life, right?
18:15
Yeah,
18:16
Celisse Barrett: right.
18:16
Right.
18:16
Here I'm on an
18:17
Rupert Isaacson: ostrich that, I dunno,
18:20
Celisse Barrett: brand new ostrich 350 pound bird that had, there's a
18:23
reason why they survived the Ice Age.
18:25
Yeah.
18:26
But so we were running this rehearsal and I remember thinking like, man,
18:30
this is, these birds are not running well, let's just get this over with.
18:33
We're we, I feel like we need more people out here.
18:35
It was just, it was complete chaos.
18:38
And so they're like, all right, well we wanna take these, this bird one more time.
18:41
We need someone to ride it.
18:42
And I could ride the birds without, they had a little harness that went
18:45
underneath their wings and that you held onto, well, many times in the show, if
18:50
you're getting imbalanced in the show with your scores, if the south has like
18:54
five medals and the north only has one, you might wanna start thinking about
18:58
throwing the race for audience, for the audience's standpoint, because you don't
19:03
want the show to be blown away and no chance for the other side not to win.
19:07
So during the ostrich race, I could easily throw the race if I needed
19:10
to, to even out the playing field.
19:12
And I didn't necessarily need a a harness to ride.
19:15
Well, they didn't have a harness ready during this rehearsal.
19:19
And I was like, forget it, let just get on the bird.
19:20
Let's end this rehearsal.
19:22
Let's go.
19:24
And I get on the bird and this bird is running wild and.
19:29
Before I know it, I'm coming off the bird and my leg slips in between
19:33
the bird's legs while it's running.
19:35
And I tore four ligaments in my knee, like it snapped.
19:39
Like I could, I heard my knee snap, like rubber bands.
19:42
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
19:43
And just from the kick that fell out.
19:46
Celisse Barrett: Yeah.
19:46
Well, it got caught the, into the, it, it got caught between the bird's legs.
19:50
So it was like putting my knee into like a grinding wheel.
19:53
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
19:54
Celisse Barrett: And it just, there's, yeah.
19:56
I mean, there's a reason why those birds, they tell you
19:59
stay away from the front legs.
20:00
Yeah.
20:00
They are so strong.
20:02
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
20:03
Celisse Barrett: And so I completely jacked up my knee that day and it
20:08
took me probably about two years before I could walk without a limp.
20:13
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
20:13
Celisse Barrett: And I remember saying, if I can ever trick ride again, I will never
20:20
take walking for granted because I finally had found the thing that I love most.
20:26
I found that thing that put me in my flow zone.
20:29
Mm-hmm.
20:30
That place where I, it didn't matter how many people that watched or
20:34
didn't watch, I loved trick riding.
20:36
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
20:37
I loved
20:37
Celisse Barrett: how it felt physically, mentally, emotionally,
20:40
and, and the connection that I had with my trick riding horses.
20:45
And it's a different connection than I've had with any other type of horse.
20:48
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
20:49
Celisse Barrett: I mean, you're trusting them with everything that you have and
20:52
you're saying, carry me from point A to point B and carry me fully confidently.
20:57
Without flaw.
20:58
And they, and my trick riding horses, they did it so perfectly.
21:02
And then when I tore my knee and had to learn how to walk again, all I could think
21:09
of was, oh my God, please don't let this be the last time I ever experienced this.
21:14
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
21:15
Celisse Barrett: Especially to a stupid bird of all things.
21:19
So
21:19
Rupert Isaacson: I presume that you then couldn't go on with the show
21:21
after you had that accident, right?
21:23
Celisse Barrett: Correct.
21:24
I actually went up and auditioned for Caval at the time and came back
21:28
and had the accident a week later and had to call Caval and tell them
21:32
Rupert Isaacson: I can't
21:32
Celisse Barrett: go.
21:34
And so anyway, so yeah, that started a very long road and that is basically
21:41
the, that was the catalyst that inspired me to work with those that
21:50
didn't have the same abilities that
21:52
Rupert Isaacson: I had.
21:53
But what made you think that you knew the dangers?
21:56
I mean, what made you think that that was possible to do with
21:59
this very vulnerable population?
22:03
Celisse Barrett: Because I was able to get it back and do it again.
22:06
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
22:06
If
22:06
Celisse Barrett: I could rebuild myself and really work hard and belief,
22:12
belief was the biggest thing I had to.
22:15
It took me a while to get out of my mental funk that I was in,
22:18
and I finally just had to believe enough that I could do it again.
22:22
And I remember pushing through pain like nobody else had ever pushed
22:26
through pain before in my life.
22:27
Like, I mean, I know like there's, there's a type of pain that you go through
22:30
when you're trying to learn any type of circus art, and you kind of take that
22:34
pain as a rite of passage and it make what doesn't kill you make you stronger.
22:38
And I was like, all right, if I can get through this, then
22:40
I can get through anything.
22:42
And I knew what it was like to feel like I had everything and then
22:47
to instantly have it taken away.
22:48
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
22:50
Celisse Barrett: And it wasn't even doing the thing that I loved.
22:53
Yeah.
22:53
And I honestly hated the ostriches.
22:56
It was like my least favorite thing to do.
22:58
And but so anyway, once I got that, once I got myself physically back my
23:04
first show was at a special needs camp.
23:08
And now my husband hasn't been involved.
23:10
Jason has been involved with this camp since he was 12 years old.
23:14
And we were moving to Mobile, Alabama.
23:16
We just had our daughter.
23:17
And by the
23:17
Rupert Isaacson: way, listeners, we're gonna be having Jason, who's
23:19
also incredible on our other podcast, live Free, ride Free quite soon.
23:25
So you will get a bit of Jason all.
23:27
Yeah.
23:27
Yeah.
23:28
You're gonna love him.
23:28
Celisse Barrett: He's he's great.
23:29
Yeah.
23:29
He's brilliant.
23:30
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, he's brilliant.
23:31
Celisse Barrett: And so he is like, well, I really wanna take you
23:33
to this camp that I grew up with as a kid, which was Camp Smile.
23:36
And he had spent his whole life working with special needs.
23:40
And so I was like, awesome, let's go check it out and see.
23:43
Do you think they would want me to trick ride?
23:46
Now mind you, this is not far past my injury.
23:50
Since then, I've had a kid, Jason, and I had a, a daughter in 2007,
23:56
and my accident was in 2005.
23:59
So my first trick riding show outside of the Dixie Stampede
24:04
was this special needs camp.
24:07
And again, coming from that cutthroat
24:14
era of entertainment, this accident honestly, was probably the best
24:19
thing that ever happened to me.
24:20
And I can't believe I'm actually saying that, but in hindsight, it
24:23
really was because it forced me to leave the Dixie Stampede, or it forced
24:28
me to relieve all my peers, and it forced me to find something completely
24:32
hidden that I had no idea existed.
24:35
And I remember standing up on my horse for the first time to perform.
24:41
D And this is your own
24:41
Rupert Isaacson: horse that you brought in, trained and brought
24:43
to the camp, or you joined a team?
24:46
Yes.
24:47
Celisse Barrett: Okay.
24:47
No, no, no.
24:47
I'm sorry.
24:47
Yes.
24:47
I bought my own horse.
24:48
I actually bought my trick riding horse from the Dixie Stampede before I left.
24:51
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
24:52
Celisse Barrett: And took him with me.
24:56
And hope, and he'd been kind
24:57
Rupert Isaacson: of out of work all this time.
24:58
And then you'd, you'd gone and had a kid.
25:00
How'd you, how'd you feed yourself?
25:03
Celisse Barrett: I actually temporarily worked as a court reporter in Tampa
25:07
at the courthouse for a while.
25:08
And that's what I did when I was pregnant with Marley.
25:11
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
25:12
Celisse Barrett: And I worked for the juvenile dependency courts for the,
25:21
for Tampa's I think 15th Precinct.
25:24
I worked under Judge Sheehan, and that is probably the worst job you
25:27
can ever have while you're pregnant.
25:29
Because I was in there with all juveniles, they were all kids that were either going
25:35
through termination of parental rights.
25:37
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
25:38
Celisse Barrett: It was a very hard, it was easier for me to work in.
25:41
Go ahead.
25:42
Rupert Isaacson: I said oi.
25:43
Yeah.
25:43
I mean, that just must have been Oh yeah.
25:44
Heartbreaking.
25:46
Celisse Barrett: It was, it was, it was very heartbreaking.
25:48
I would've much rather been in 15 murder trials constantly then have to
25:52
deal with kids with parental rights and getting their parents taken,
25:56
getting them taken away from their parents or their parents just not
26:01
being fit enough to care for them.
26:05
And it was a very heartbreaking thing to be put into.
26:09
And it,
26:11
Rupert Isaacson: by the way, how did you end up, that seems, again, so random.
26:13
How did you end up as a court reporter?
26:14
That's a fairly specialist job.
26:17
Celisse Barrett: It is.
26:18
I had a friend working in the courts at the time and she knew I was looking
26:21
for work and she actually hooked me up with the job and yeah, I did some
26:26
training and it wasn't the same as a stenographer because they're starting
26:30
to change some of the courts houses.
26:32
They changed how they do transcribing.
26:35
Mm-hmm.
26:36
And everybody is on their own microphone Okay.
26:39
When they're in these court cases.
26:41
And so my job was to go in there, hook up everyone's microphone to them and make
26:45
sure that I annotated on my own program who was speaking when, because when
26:53
you're dealing with like a kid trial with minors, you would have not only the, the
26:58
parents would have their own attorney, the kid would have their own attorney.
27:02
They would also have a guardian ad litem yeah.
27:04
Speaking for them.
27:05
They'd have social workers involved.
27:07
Like sometimes I'd be sitting at a table of 16 people.
27:09
Yeah.
27:10
Rupert Isaacson: And
27:10
Celisse Barrett: you wouldn't know whose voice was who.
27:12
And so it was my job to connect the voice to the
27:15
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
27:15
And the
27:16
Celisse Barrett: transcripts to the court hearings.
27:18
Rupert Isaacson: So again, I could see how for your special needs training
27:22
to watch children going through that kind of trauma and pain, and a lot
27:27
of these kids must have been special needs as well of one kind or another.
27:30
Some of them
27:30
Celisse Barrett: were,
27:31
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
27:31
Celisse Barrett: Some of them were a lot of them was they,
27:34
it was a product of poverty.
27:37
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
27:37
Celisse Barrett: And I hate to say it, and at the time you don't
27:40
realize how much poverty does affect.
27:44
Families.
27:45
But when you come from nothing,
27:49
and there's nothing to give and no life experience to give,
27:54
you only learn one way to live.
27:56
And a lot of these kids were just part of the, they were just
28:01
constantly wrapped up in the system.
28:03
I mean, and if they weren't in, some of them were foster
28:06
kids that weren't working out.
28:07
Yeah.
28:08
Parents wanted to adopt them.
28:09
And then they, I mean, there were, there were some beautiful
28:12
proceedings that happened.
28:13
The adoptions were great.
28:15
They were all adoptions are done off the record.
28:17
And those were wins.
28:19
But for every win there was 50 losses.
28:23
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
28:24
Celisse Barrett: And to see it in such a big city and see the
28:26
system, I mean, it was very hard.
28:31
Yeah.
28:31
It was very hard to see it, it was very hard to watch it.
28:34
Some of it was poverty, some of it was just, I mean, kids needed
28:37
to be out of these situations.
28:38
Some of it was not good.
28:40
It was the best thing for them to leave.
28:42
The hardest one though, was to watch siblings be separated.
28:45
Mm.
28:45
That was where it really kind of hit you in the gut.
28:48
Rupert Isaacson: And why did, there were, why did they separate siblings?
28:50
Why would they do that?
28:51
Celisse Barrett: Because maybe they were coming from a bad home
28:54
and maybe one foster family could take two of the six siblings.
28:58
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
28:58
They weren't,
28:59
Celisse Barrett: some of the families coming in weren't able to take all
29:01
of the siblings into all together.
29:02
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
29:02
Yeah.
29:02
Large families.
29:04
Celisse Barrett: There were some great families that would come in and try
29:06
to take, I'll take two of the brothers if you take two of his sisters and
29:09
we'll have play dates together Yeah.
29:11
Where they can kind of keep the connection of the siblings.
29:12
So they did have some great outcomes like that.
29:15
But you're talking Tampa Bay, it is a huge city.
29:19
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
29:19
Celisse Barrett: Millions of people in that city.
29:21
Yeah.
29:21
I mean, if it's that bad there, imagine where it's like in cities that are bigger.
29:25
Yeah.
29:25
And and so that was a very eyeopening thing for me.
29:28
And so I did learn very quickly what it was like to not have opportunity
29:33
and to know that these kids may never have anything in their life
29:37
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
29:37
Other than
29:38
Celisse Barrett: just hopes to have a roof over their head and a place to call home.
29:41
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
29:42
Celisse Barrett: And for a child not living with any sort of
29:46
what's the word I'm looking for?
29:48
Connection and having some commonality in life like daily where, you know,
29:53
you know, you're gonna come home and mom is gonna be there and dad is
29:56
gonna be there and no support system.
29:58
It's hard for kids and they just get, I mean, as a kid you think you're,
30:03
you're still growing and you're still impressionable and all these kids
30:06
are just being kind of chucked away.
30:08
Yeah.
30:08
And people are, the adults are trying to do the best that they can, but none of
30:13
it is setting the kids up for success.
30:16
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
30:17
Celisse Barrett: Because they're just jumping from one home to another.
30:18
And you gotta think from.
30:21
Set from two and three years old to 18, those are some very
30:24
impressionable years of a child's life.
30:27
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
30:27
I mean,
30:27
Celisse Barrett: that's where all the major programming happens.
30:29
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
30:29
Celisse Barrett: And if you have no constant programming, you, I
30:33
mean, they're setting up to fail.
30:35
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
30:36
Celisse Barrett: And that was the hardest part to think about the job.
30:39
And I'm sitting here pregnant with Marley and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm
30:43
about to bring a kid into this world.
30:45
And I really didn't have anything at the time.
30:46
I had that job and I had my horse.
30:49
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
30:49
But
30:50
Celisse Barrett: I had nothing outside of that.
30:51
And Jason, we had just gotten back together.
30:54
I'm sure you'll hear more about our story through him, but he'll, he
30:57
had just gotten off of a cruise ship and Marley was not even born yet.
31:03
He, she was born two weeks after he got off of his cruise ship job.
31:07
And and that's how we were bringing a baby into this world.
31:09
And I'm like, oh my gosh, I hope to God I can give her something.
31:13
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
31:13
Celisse Barrett: Outside of what I'm seeing, because when
31:15
you're in it just every day, it was just too much negativity.
31:19
Mm-hmm.
31:19
And so I think that really port that kind of unconsciously did turn over into my
31:25
work building what we built with the kids.
31:28
Because not only if your special needs, but again, poverty plays a huge role
31:34
into what people can and can't do and what they're allowed, what they're
31:38
accessible for and not accessible for.
31:41
And and I never wanted.
31:43
Any of our clients or students to not have access to things that they
31:48
wanted to try or possibly needed because finances were an issue.
31:52
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
31:53
Okay.
31:54
So you do this ca camp.
31:56
You do a performance at the Camp, camp Smile.
31:59
And what gives you the idea to start an act that is both a kind
32:06
of professional level act and also a special needs program?
32:12
Celisse Barrett: Well, I now, mind you, I came from the mental mindset of
32:16
classical music and equestrian theater.
32:20
Both were very cutthroat, but I went into this camp and I did this horrific
32:28
performance of trick riding in my mind.
32:31
I'm like, oh my gosh, this was the worst thing I've ever done.
32:33
What am I doing?
32:35
Those kids cheered so loudly.
32:38
Mm-hmm.
32:39
And they wanted to see the same stunt over and over.
32:43
Okay.
32:43
And over and over.
32:45
And I was like, you know what?
32:47
Fine.
32:47
I'll give it to 'em.
32:48
If they wanna see it again, I will do it again.
32:50
And I did it again and again and
32:52
Rupert Isaacson: again.
32:53
Yeah.
32:53
Celisse Barrett: And it was just as good the first time as it was the eighth time.
32:58
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
32:59
But I've performed it, you know, it's so true.
33:02
I've been on a play date, for example, with kids in the forest with horses riding
33:07
with them, and then there's a tree down.
33:10
This has happened a couple of times, particularly in Germany, and so I've
33:13
had to give the kid to my sidewalk and jump the horse over the log and then
33:21
retrieve the kid on the other side, and they'll make me do it like 20 times.
33:25
They're like, well, you know, that is, yeah.
33:26
I, I, I so know what you mean it.
33:28
Yeah.
33:29
And it makes you look at the whole thing through a very different lens.
33:32
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
33:34
And that was the lens that changed everything, that it turned, it put
33:37
on a new filter on my camera, and I was like, wow, wait a minute.
33:42
In my mind, from what I came from, it was absurd to do it 10 times
33:49
over and over and over again.
33:50
The same stunt where people would normally get bored, but these kids, it
33:54
was like, they were like powerhouses and they just kept getting more energized
33:57
and more energized every time I did it.
33:59
And that was like when the first light bulb came on in my head, and
34:08
I realized at that time that what I had to offer was enough.
34:12
Okay.
34:12
I didn't have to be the best at that time.
34:17
I just had to.
34:19
Be exactly who I was at that moment in time.
34:22
And that was kind of my big, I guess, epiphany into trying, well actually it's
34:28
actually, it happened right after that.
34:29
So I did my performance.
34:31
They loved it.
34:33
Same tricks over and over again.
34:35
They didn't care.
34:35
It was epic every single time.
34:37
And then I went down, another woman was directing the horse program at the time,
34:42
and I wanted to walk down and see what they were doing in their horse program.
34:46
And I get down to the bottom of the field where, and I'm watching them ride
34:49
and they're like, Hey, ly, look at me.
34:53
I can do a trick too.
34:55
And then they would let go of the horn and put their hands out to the
34:57
side or put their hands up in the air.
34:59
And that was their big trick.
35:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
35:01
And
35:01
Celisse Barrett: that was when I had the aha moment.
35:03
And I'm like, oh, okay, wait a minute.
35:08
Obviously know that holding onto a horse with no hands is not a trick,
35:12
but in their minds it was a trick.
35:14
Absolutely.
35:14
It's all a matter
35:15
Rupert Isaacson: of perception.
35:16
Celisse Barrett: Exactly.
35:17
And I was like, you know what?
35:20
I could work with this.
35:21
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
35:21
Celisse Barrett: This is cool.
35:23
And never in a million years did I ever, when I started trick writing,
35:26
did I think I would be incorporating it into the special needs world.
35:30
Okay.
35:30
And, but then I realized those kids taught me how empowering it was.
35:37
And I'm like, if they were this empowered by what little bit that
35:40
I did, how much more empowered can they be if I actually let them try?
35:47
And that's when it all started.
35:49
Rupert Isaacson: Now I can immediately hear like 25 old school therapeutic
35:56
riding people going, it's so dangerous.
35:58
You can't do that.
35:59
You know?
35:59
You can't.
36:00
Oh
36:00
yeah.
36:00
Do you know, because I get all that right.
36:02
You can't work with kids at the Canor, you can't work with
36:05
kids who can't wear a helmet.
36:07
You can't do this, you can't do that.
36:10
And of course, one absolutely can.
36:14
And I, I'm being used to be the one who gets the stick, you know, for doing those
36:18
sorts of things and like right into you and you're like, how do you even do it?
36:23
It's like, my hat's off to you.
36:24
So, yeah.
36:25
So you decided to do this.
36:27
Talk to me about how you envisaged the program and how you got it going
36:34
and then where you sort of encountered reality with it and then Yeah.
36:39
Yeah.
36:39
The whole sort of growth and maturation process of it.
36:43
'cause it's intriguing.
36:45
Celisse Barrett: So Ssie Lowell, she was the director of Camp Smile at the time.
36:50
The camp was moving and they were moving to a location where the
36:55
old therapeutic writing destruct instructor who was PATH certified,
36:59
could no longer travel that far.
37:02
And I said, well, how, and did that,
37:03
Rupert Isaacson: by the way, did that PATH instructor like what you were doing?
37:06
'cause path can sometimes be a little bit.
37:10
Celisse Barrett: I don't think she really, because at the time I had just
37:12
done the demonstration, I hadn't really do dove into therapeutic writing.
37:17
Yeah.
37:18
Or trained to do anything with equine therapy at that time.
37:21
And I don't, she really didn't have an opinion either way of it.
37:27
Right.
37:27
She was just there to put the kids.
37:29
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
37:29
Because you weren you weren't coming into her world as far
37:31
as she was concerned, right?
37:32
Correct.
37:32
Celisse Barrett: Correct.
37:33
I wasn't, I wasn't, yes, yes.
37:34
But she wasn't like,
37:34
Rupert Isaacson: wow, we should do this with the kids.
37:36
Like she must once she saw, or was she, I mean, once she saw the kids
37:41
throwing their hands in the air and say, Hey Miss Ali, I have a trick too.
37:45
Was she sort of inspired by that and coming to you saying, Hey, we should
37:48
do something like this here, or
37:50
Celisse Barrett: no?
37:51
I, I think it was more or less a Oh, that's really cute.
37:54
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
37:55
Celisse Barrett: And that's where it was left.
37:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
37:57
Celisse Barrett: And so, well, the next year I called the camp, I called
37:59
the director and I said, Hey, do you want me to come back and trick ride?
38:02
She said, well, we're moving locations.
38:04
We're not gonna have a horse program this year because the woman running
38:07
it can't come down to run the program.
38:10
And I said, well, what do you mean you can't have, like,
38:14
you're not having horses.
38:15
Like they come to camp for horses.
38:17
That is their, the one time of year they actually get on a horse
38:22
that's, they come to camp for that.
38:23
You have to have horses.
38:24
She's like, well, we don't have anyone that we trust that can run the program.
38:28
And I said, well, what does it take to run the program?
38:32
I mean, I've got horses that are great.
38:34
I mean, they're.
38:35
Circus horses, what, what can I do?
38:38
And and she said, well, you would use your professional horses.
38:42
And I said, well, what other horses would I use?
38:45
I, they're the ones I trust the most.
38:47
Mm-hmm.
38:47
Of course I would use my professional horses.
38:50
And I had only had two horses at the time, and I said, but I can train
38:56
some other horses if you have any horses that, or know of any of them.
39:00
And the director happened to own a couple horses and she said, well, let's,
39:03
if you want to try it, let's try it.
39:05
I'll help you get started.
39:08
And I had other couple other people that had helped with the horse program at the
39:12
old camp and and she said, I'll hook you up with these people and let's see what
39:17
we can do and if you like it, then I'll pay to go get you certified through path.
39:23
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
39:24
Celisse Barrett: And I did it the first year and of course I put on another
39:28
little trick riding show for the kids.
39:30
And we did that opening day and I just started using the little things
39:36
that I had learned at Dixie and a couple of little circuses and shows
39:41
that I worked for at the time, and incorporated those skills on a very
39:45
basic level into the therapy program.
39:48
One because I didn't really want my horses to be.
39:55
They weren't really lesson horses at the time.
39:58
Mm-hmm.
39:58
They were still my professional horses, so I didn't want the kids to be up there
40:02
and pulling on their mouths and mm-hmm.
40:04
And hurting 'em.
40:05
And I mean, it was completely out of their territory, but I knew the horses
40:09
were bombproof 'cause what they had been ex what my horses had been exposed to
40:13
Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
40:14
Celisse Barrett: Through my career.
40:15
And so
40:20
we did that for a year and then I was like, look, I'll, I'll, I'll take it over.
40:25
I wasn't actively performing at the time.
40:27
I was still training for trick writing, but I was doing little gigs here and
40:31
there with, you know, a circus group
40:33
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
40:33
Celisse Barrett: Once or twice a year.
40:35
And outside of that, I was still looking for work.
40:37
I was working at a pet store down the road just trying to earn
40:40
money and put food on the table.
40:42
And Jason was working as a massage therapist at the at a big spa
40:46
downtown, at the Battle House.
40:48
So we hadn't really opened a huge program yet.
40:52
And
40:53
we were offered a place in West Mobile.
40:57
A family had, a woman had moved out of her house and the landowners
41:02
were looking for somebody to kind of take care of the property.
41:05
And it happened to be a s there happened to be a seven stall barn and seven acres.
41:10
And they said, if you wanna move your horses here and start a
41:13
therapeutic riding program in mobile, we'd love for you to do it here.
41:18
And it was just like the golden ticket I had driven by this property.
41:22
I don't know how many hundreds of times.
41:24
And the opportunity to leave was, or to leave where I was,
41:29
was, it was just perfect timing.
41:30
And you know, when it says when the stars align or when things just line up without
41:35
question and you just, I don't know.
41:36
I felt like I just had to kind of run with it.
41:38
How random was it that this person needed somebody to watch their house live on the
41:41
property and I could use it as my own?
41:45
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
41:46
Celisse Barrett: And I knew there was a need for therapy in town.
41:50
I was the first path instructor in Mobile, Alabama.
41:54
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
41:55
But you don't normally meet path instructors that are trick riders.
41:59
You must be no one of a kind.
42:01
Celisse Barrett: I definitely I actually, when we did our path training, I stopped
42:05
telling people what I did because I didn't wanna talk about trick writing anymore.
42:09
I was just, I, I don't know.
42:11
I just, what was their reaction?
42:13
Rupert Isaacson: The average path person?
42:15
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42:18
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42:22
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42:26
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43:34
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43:37
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43:42
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43:59
Celisse Barrett: It, it was more or less how
44:06
I felt, I feel like, so for the traditional path person,
44:11
I feel like it was, oh.
44:15
You're one of those,
44:19
I'm like, one of what, what does that mean?
44:21
And I understand why, because if you only have seen rodeo trick riding and
44:26
you don't know what you're watching, yes, it looks absolutely crazy and mad.
44:33
And it looks like absolute chaos.
44:35
But as you know, as well as I do that, it is completely not like
44:39
that when it comes to trick writing.
44:41
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
44:41
And
44:41
Celisse Barrett: I also had the chance for a while to work as a cosac writer with
44:45
a circus family for a show called Cir.
44:48
Well, it's now called Cir Maceo, owned by Alicia Oppe.
44:51
And Cosac Riding is really where I found
44:59
how important it was for
45:04
Rhythm.
45:05
It's where I learned rhythm and cadence with the horse.
45:08
Because for trick riding, you're in a open field and you're
45:10
running from point A to point B.
45:12
When you're in the circus ring, you're running in a circle and you can constantly
45:16
keep your flow going in the circle.
45:19
And it's almost like you can, it's a difference be, it's almost
45:24
like you can feel like you can break dance on the horse versus.
45:28
Just throwing a trick out and holding it for a second and then
45:30
coming back up and being done.
45:31
You can keep it, you can keep all the movements going and flowing.
45:34
And I, that's a show that you came and saw was in our circus ring.
45:36
The cossack ring.
45:38
And so
45:39
Rupert Isaacson: does cosac, is cossack riding defined by the ring?
45:42
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
45:43
Okay.
45:44
Yes.
45:45
And I think also in Europe too, I mean, a lot of them are cosac riders.
45:48
Mm-hmm.
45:49
Most of them train in the circle.
45:51
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
45:51
Celisse Barrett: But you can do it outside of the ring, but yeah,
45:53
mostly it's in America, it's trick riding if you're in the rodeo arena
45:57
and cosac, if you're in the circus.
45:59
Rupert Isaacson: Got it.
46:00
Celisse Barrett: Although the tricks are the same for the most part.
46:03
Saddles are a little different, but it all the same for the most part.
46:07
But in the ring you have more control of the horse.
46:09
Yeah.
46:10
You can counter along, you can run alongside of the horse no matter how fast
46:13
they're going there, there is more of a rhythm and a more of a balance to it
46:17
than there is just in a big open field.
46:18
The horses require a little more collection and a little
46:22
more training, I think, than the typical trick riding horse.
46:25
Rupert Isaacson: I would say that's, that I have found, observed.
46:28
Yes.
46:28
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
46:29
Rupert Isaacson: So, but you find yourself among all the path people and
46:33
you're like, well, this is what I do.
46:35
And, and did you have some skepticism about, or I did.
46:40
Did they just assume that you were gonna not do that with your therapy?
46:43
Celisse Barrett: I think they assumed that I wasn't going to do that with
46:46
my therapy, although they I actually did put the students and one of
46:50
the instructors through one of my clinics at Path while I was there.
46:53
Did you?
46:54
Which was a lot of fun.
46:55
One of the ladies I taught her a cool trick and she was
46:59
worried that she couldn't do it because she had rods in her back.
47:02
Rupert Isaacson: Uhhuh.
47:02
She was actually
47:02
Celisse Barrett: one of the, she was one of my peers at the time her name was Ann.
47:05
And I was like, I'm pretty sure you can do this move.
47:08
Like, you're, you're gonna be good.
47:10
And sure enough she did it first try.
47:12
And she was the oldest one out of the students and and
47:16
put everyone else to shame.
47:18
And so that was really cool.
47:19
'cause she got, she was super confident after she was able
47:21
to do this little maneuver.
47:22
It was all outta standstill of course.
47:24
And we kept it very safe.
47:25
But yeah, I knew once I set foot in path territory that my, what I was doing with
47:32
my kids was going to be questioned a lot.
47:35
Yeah.
47:35
Because everything was about saddles, helmets.
47:38
Safety, safety, safety, safety.
47:41
And yes, obviously you want to be safe and no, you don't wanna get anybody hurt.
47:49
Yeah.
47:49
But when they just don't know that world that you come from, they don't realize
47:54
how many times I've practiced on a barrel.
47:57
A stationary barrel before I ever put that stunt on a horse, or
48:01
how many pull-ups that I've done before I ever tried to vault.
48:05
Mm-hmm.
48:06
I mean, there's so much behind the scenes that people don't realize that
48:08
happens when you're a true rider.
48:10
Yeah.
48:10
An insane
48:10
Rupert Isaacson: amount of preparation that goes into training the horses to be
48:13
Celisse Barrett: Oh,
48:15
Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
48:15
Reliable.
48:17
Celisse Barrett: Absolutely.
48:17
Rupert Isaacson: Probably more, much more reliable and certainly
48:20
fitter and more supple and happier and more fulfilled than your average
48:25
therapy horse in a therapy program.
48:27
Yeah.
48:28
Celisse Barrett: Yes, absolutely.
48:29
And that was one thing that was really interesting that I did find in this,
48:33
along in this journey, was when I was using horses for the program.
48:37
'cause I, I went to path, did my certification, and I was
48:42
already teaching at the time.
48:43
They didn't know exactly what I was teaching.
48:45
And I was so nervous at the time to tell anybody, because I'm new
48:48
to this therapeutic riding role.
48:50
I didn't wanna lose my credentials over something that I knew the
48:54
kids, I mean, the kids loved it.
48:56
They loved learning how to turn around backwards on the horse.
48:59
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
48:59
Celisse Barrett: Of course, we had, we had someone leading the horse.
49:01
We had two sidewalks.
49:03
I mean, there was no chance this kid was coming off the horse.
49:06
And I knew how good my horses were.
49:08
So unless a bomb went off, there was nothing that was gonna happen.
49:13
And but I was just terrified to tell anybody.
49:16
'cause as soon as I would open that door, it was instantly just slammed in my face.
49:20
I remember
49:20
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
49:21
Now, the ju the negativity and the judgments unfortunately
49:25
with Path have been.
49:27
Quite shocking to me actually through the last 20 years of Horse Boy Method.
49:33
And the limitations oh yeah.
49:35
And the lack of preparation of horses and really the lack, you know, and
49:42
the knee jerk responses to condemn anything new that comes in while sort of
49:50
assuming that they're the gold standard.
49:52
And you look at them from the outside as a horse person, they're
49:55
like a proper pro horse person.
49:56
You're like, Hmm, sorry, but that's not very good.
50:00
You know?
50:00
And your horses aren't happy and they don't feel good, and if they
50:04
don't have wellbeing, how can they give wellbeing to a kid?
50:07
So, you know, there are of course many amazing path programs out there,
50:13
but we definitely found that the leadership of the organization was
50:20
antipathetic really to healing.
50:24
Celisse Barrett: Yeah.
50:24
Because it, well, and you're right, people can, the horses
50:26
were miserable.
50:28
Rupert Isaacson: Sorry, say that again.
50:29
I coughed over you.
50:30
I,
50:30
Celisse Barrett: I, you're good.
50:31
I said the horses were miserable.
50:32
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
50:33
Celisse Barrett: They had 35 horses in that program.
50:36
At the time and you couldn't take one horse up to that ramp
50:40
before they would start biting.
50:41
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
50:42
Celisse Barrett: And I'm like, these horses are not happy.
50:44
These horses.
50:44
Like, I don't, I loved it when they wanted me to sidewalk.
50:47
I didn't wanna be a leader of any of those horses because I
50:49
didn't want my arm shoot off.
50:51
And I can't, I mean, not all path, like, like you said, not all path
50:55
instructors are bad by any means.
50:57
But as soon as I would, I remember we worked with one child who had very
51:02
low tone, no head control whatsoever.
51:06
And they put this big helmet on this child.
51:08
And I was like, well, why haven't you used, have you thought
51:11
about using wrestling helmets?
51:13
Their foam, their lightweight?
51:14
I use them all the time for the camp.
51:16
Mm-hmm.
51:17
I mean, 'cause the camp that I directed, the pro the horse program that I
51:20
directed at this camp, it was more or less working with kids and adults.
51:25
Not all of the kids and adults would make the cut as a therapeutic riding candidate.
51:30
A lot of it, a lot of them made the cut as more like make a wish.
51:34
Kids where you didn't know if they were gonna be here next year.
51:37
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
51:38
Celisse Barrett: And their bodies weren't gonna be able to hold
51:41
up to a therapeutic program.
51:42
But should they have the opportunity to sit on the back of a horse?
51:46
Absolutely.
51:47
And who am I to sit there and say, if the parents are saying yes, the directors
51:51
are saying yes, the child is saying, please, yes, let me sit on a horse.
51:57
Well, if I can give that to them, then why shouldn't I?
51:59
Especially if this is gonna be their last.
52:01
So you
52:01
Rupert Isaacson: know how to prepare a horse that's safe to do that job.
52:04
And happy to do that job.
52:06
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
52:07
Rupert Isaacson: And I've seen your horses and I, I know how supple and well
52:11
muscled and mentally and emotionally happy they are because of all the,
52:17
you know, excellent training that you guys do your, your whole team.
52:21
So yeah, a horse like that is going to be able to say yes.
52:25
And it's, you know, I was upper in Michigan earlier this year at a path
52:31
center doing one, a training for one of our programs called Renew.
52:34
And they also were putting incredible time and training into their horses.
52:40
And suddenly it was, you know, I walked into there and go, wow, I'm not
52:43
used to seeing something, you know, of this caliber where the horses are
52:47
like fit and well and muscled and all being lunged and all being worked and
52:51
trail ridden and happy so that when they come in with the kids and, you
52:54
know, ridden in good dressage as well.
52:56
So when they come in with the kids, they're like, yeah,
52:58
rock and roll, let's go.
52:59
But in a soft, sweet way.
53:02
Sure.
53:02
But as you know, you know, so I, you know, I thought, wow, that is
53:05
a gold standard renew, by the way.
53:06
I'm sh giving a shout out to renew.
53:08
And Melissa who runs Renew 'cause they, they are amazing up
53:11
there in Grand Rapids mission.
53:12
I was just
53:12
Celisse Barrett: gonna ask you who was it?
53:13
'cause I, I was curious.
53:14
Yeah, it's
53:14
Rupert Isaacson: I'll connect you.
53:15
But yeah, renew is the program, grand Rapids Michigan.
53:19
And yeah, Melissa, who runs it, I'll, I'll put you in contact
53:22
'cause it's, it's, it's top notch.
53:26
But these of course are people who are also very, very educated
53:29
horse people and very open to
53:34
whatever field of excellence they can find to bring into their thing.
53:40
I, I can absolutely imagine how people must have looked at you
53:45
way back then and you Oh yeah.
53:47
Would've felt, yeah.
53:48
I just can't tell 'em, I just can't tell 'em what I'm doing.
53:50
Celisse Barrett: I couldn't, I had to, I mean, I had to lie and I felt so bad
53:53
because I wanted to be honest and I wanted to share the work, but every time
53:57
I did a door was slammed in my face.
53:59
And that's actually what led me to finding you.
54:03
Yeah.
54:04
Back in, I think we talked in 2017 or 2018 originally, and when you called me back
54:12
over the phone, I remember recognizing your voice from the documentary and
54:17
I'm like, oh my gosh, I know this voice and you left a message and I could not
54:22
believe you actually called me back.
54:25
I was floored that you were gonna even give me the time of day because
54:30
for so long, I mean, it was just one slam after another and I'm just
54:34
like, oh my gosh, is this, is anyone gonna listen to what I have to say?
54:39
Because that only word, can you describe
54:40
Rupert Isaacson: some of those slams?
54:41
Like, can you give us a couple of situations?
54:44
Celisse Barrett: So one was the, like the wrestling helmet.
54:48
That was one where I realized, okay, what I'm doing is a little bit outside
54:53
the box and I'm gonna have to be very careful with how I present this.
54:58
The lady had told me, I said, well, have you tried a wrestling
55:01
helmet on this student?
55:02
The kid can't hold his head up.
55:04
So you've got a two and a half pound helmet on this child's head.
55:08
Let's go to a wrestling helmet that's half a pound or a quarter
55:11
of a pound, like very lightweight.
55:13
And the woman replied, well, it's not gonna help the kid from, if
55:19
the kid falls off and hit it head.
55:22
It's not gonna stop the kid from getting hurt.
55:24
And I'm looking at the child going, this child is so fragile.
55:27
If this kid comes off the horse, it's gonna get hurt no matter what.
55:32
Hmm.
55:33
So if your helmet's not gonna stop the, I mean, if you're telling me
55:37
that the wrestling helmet is not gonna provide enough protection
55:40
for the child in general, like this kid has no head control, period.
55:45
Rupert Isaacson: Well, right.
55:45
And your, and your heavy helmet may actually damage this child's neck.
55:49
Celisse Barrett: Exactly.
55:49
Yeah.
55:50
Because with trick riding, we don't, we don't pr I mean, I've
55:52
been hurt trick riding with helmets.
55:54
Yeah.
55:54
Like, it, it hyperextends your neck.
55:56
It can hurt your vertebrae.
55:57
It can cause nerve damage.
55:59
Yes.
55:59
I believe helmets are a great thing for certain things that you're doing, but
56:03
for any type of gymnastic type sport, you've got to have the flexibility
56:06
in your vertebrae and in your body.
56:08
And a helmet can actually cause damage.
56:11
Yes.
56:11
It keeps you from a traumatic brain injury, but it doesn't
56:13
keep you from breaking your neck.
56:15
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
56:15
It's very interesting that, for example, the vaulters, you know,
56:17
even at international level, nobody makes them wear helmets.
56:20
No one
56:21
Celisse Barrett: no
56:22
Rupert Isaacson: has anything bad to say about them not wearing helmets.
56:24
And they are standing up on horses, you know, cantering around and
56:28
jumping up and down on them, you know, and somehow it's accepted.
56:33
And of course it should be because if they were wearing helmets they
56:35
wouldn't, they'd injure themselves.
56:37
But it's so interesting how people separate, you know,
56:40
what's acceptable and what's not.
56:43
I'll tell you a funny story.
56:44
When my wife IA and I went to do our first trainings in Germany with
56:50
Horse boy we were at the office of the German Curatorium of Therapeutic
56:56
Riding, which is not like Path or RDA or Horse Boy or anything.
57:00
It's not like some standalone nonprofit.
57:02
It's a wing of government and it's a wing of the health ministry.
57:07
It's actually, you know, paid for and all of that by government there.
57:12
And because they were one of the first early adopters of, of equine assisted
57:15
staff, you know, way back in the fifties.
57:18
And we were nervous.
57:21
So we had put together, you know, a bunch of pictures of us working with helmets.
57:27
'cause we'd taken a lot of flack even though we'd written our own
57:31
insurance policies for when kids that could not, and of course most of our
57:34
kids did wear helmets, but the ones that couldn't neurologically Right.
57:37
We weren't going to traumatize them by making them do that.
57:40
Sure.
57:40
Anyway, we're, we're sitting there in the waiting room and we are
57:45
going through all the official literature and all the photographs.
57:50
Not one kid wearing a helmet.
57:53
We go into the, to have the interview with the director and we are like,
57:58
we've just been bricking ourselves out there, you know, and Yeah.
58:02
You know, what's the story?
58:03
And they're like, oh, we went through that 30 years ago.
58:06
Yes, there are many, many kids for whom wearing a helmet is deleterious.
58:10
So, the, the whole point is prepare your horse properly and yeah.
58:15
Be prepared in your practice, and then you're okay with this, but if
58:21
you're not, then, then you're not.
58:22
Yeah.
58:23
Yeah.
58:23
So, okay, so you, you, you ran into that, what, what other, you know,
58:28
'cause the standing up on the course I.
58:33
Celisse Barrett: Oh, well, that I never showed the videos of because I knew
58:38
instantly I was gonna get flack for that.
58:40
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
58:41
Celisse Barrett: Because how can you ensure that the kid isn't gonna
58:44
hurt themselves if they don't jump off or, you know, whatever and
58:48
Well, and at the time, path had just changed their back riding rules.
58:53
Yeah.
58:54
So we did a lot of back riding in our program.
58:58
Yeah.
58:58
I mean, we still do.
58:59
We, we believe in it wholeheartedly and we'll never change.
59:02
I mean, you have to back ride with some of these kids, and especially if
59:04
you're teaching them a certain stunt or you're teaching them a certain
59:07
balance, you gotta be their safety.
59:09
Absolutely.
59:09
So, one of them was, I sent her a video of Rock, my student who I
59:17
based a lot of my program around him because he was so untouchable
59:22
for so many, but not for me and him.
59:27
Like we had our thing and it was good.
59:29
And he was my inspiration to keep pushing and keep going for kids that
59:34
had, that were dealing with major sensory issues and overstimulation problems.
59:39
And so I sent a video of him into, I guess kind of like my path mentor.
59:44
And the first thing she commented on was not about the video at all, but what was
59:48
about my lunge line touching the floor.
59:51
And I'm like, that's what you saw over.
59:55
Like, he just did all this really cool stuff.
59:58
It was all like he had a sidewalk the whole time.
1:00:00
There's a safety person there jogging alongside of the horse.
1:00:03
He would step off the side of the horse, he would touch the ground while
1:00:05
the horse was moving at a trot in the sacking, and then he'd get back up on
1:00:09
the horse and get back to the saddle.
1:00:11
And I mean, not talking, I mean, we're talking about proprio reception
1:00:15
and the vestibular system and all of these great things that are
1:00:18
happening inside Rocky's brain.
1:00:21
And the only thing she had to say was, that was good, but
1:00:24
your lunge line's on the ground.
1:00:27
And I'm like, it.
1:00:28
Yeah.
1:00:28
Because he was dismounting and taking a bow and I waster turning the horse.
1:00:32
Nevermind.
1:00:33
And so I was just like, okay, I don't know if I'm gonna get
1:00:38
anywhere with any of these people.
1:00:40
And I couldn't bring any of this up, but I mean, I went to the regional
1:00:43
conference at the little Red Barn and I wanted to speak so badly, but I was
1:00:50
just afraid to share anything because any little bits and pieces I would share
1:00:56
would just get immediately shot down.
1:00:58
I mean, you would have people reamed, like for putting a child
1:01:04
on a horse without a helmet.
1:01:05
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:01:06
And it's interesting that the whole back riding thing, you know, one things
1:01:09
that struck me as so strange about that is it's completely racist because
1:01:13
what it's saying is they're writing off the entire culture of Northern Asia.
1:01:20
Which is big like including Mongolia and Kazakhstan is, and you know,
1:01:24
it's how all the kids grow up riding to ev all pretty much all of the
1:01:28
Americas west of the Mississippi.
1:01:30
'cause that's how most of the kids grow up in front of mom and dad in a west
1:01:34
and all of Central and South America.
1:01:36
So you're gonna, and you're just going to blanket from some White East coast
1:01:46
hunty idea of what equitation is because of course there are many equitation
1:01:54
that it never occurred to anyone that this was actually incredibly racist.
1:01:57
You know?
1:01:58
The, the people, the, the, the Mongolians or the Texans or the
1:02:03
Chileans or the, you know, would just be outraged by this because they said,
1:02:07
you know, we get around on horseback.
1:02:09
You guys do this as a hobby.
1:02:11
We live on horseback.
1:02:13
Yeah,
1:02:13
Celisse Barrett: absolutely.
1:02:14
Absolutely.
1:02:14
We rely on
1:02:14
Rupert Isaacson: horseback.
1:02:15
We do not have cars, you know, and we know horses and we know how to look
1:02:19
after horses 'cause we rely on them.
1:02:21
You do not.
1:02:22
Yeah.
1:02:22
You, you board them.
1:02:24
How dare you, you know, suggest that we, but what was interesting, I I, I
1:02:29
remember once 2018, actually the same year I think you came out, I was speaking
1:02:33
in Denver at the university there.
1:02:36
'cause they have that amazing program.
1:02:38
The human animal, connection institute there.
1:02:42
Mm-hmm.
1:02:42
On by Nina Fry, who's a visionary.
1:02:45
And I was quite honest on stage about how obstructive and even quite
1:02:51
vicious path had been towards us when we first appeared on the scene.
1:02:55
And what I didn't realize and how sad it had made me as an autism dad
1:02:58
because it made me realize, oh, you, you don't really want to help people
1:03:02
like my son because, you know, if you did, you'd be looking at everything.
1:03:07
But no, you're, you're closing off.
1:03:08
So what I didn't realize was that all of the puff board
1:03:12
were actually in the audience.
1:03:14
And but Betsy, I dunno if you remember Betsy, wonderful.
1:03:17
Betsy Carl, who was running the horse boy program at the time, happened to be a very
1:03:22
senior path instructor and still working one day a week at the Big Path place
1:03:27
in, in Austin, which is actually where we pioneered our program with veterans.
1:03:33
And I said, so what happened is I got an email saying we were in the audience,
1:03:38
should we talk from the path people?
1:03:40
Like, oh, this actually could be quite good.
1:03:41
So I, I said, yes, absolutely.
1:03:43
So, but I asked Betsy to be on the call too because she's a path
1:03:46
instructor and, so first thing I got was, well, we've never badmouthed you.
1:03:51
And we, I was like, oh, come on.
1:03:52
Why are we even having this conversation?
1:03:53
You know, of course you have, you know, but my question is why?
1:03:57
Like, what's your beef?
1:03:59
And they finally said, well, we think you are dangerous.
1:04:01
And I said, well, why?
1:04:02
What's the danger?
1:04:03
Like touch wood if in 15 back then now 20 years or more of practice,
1:04:09
we've never had an accident.
1:04:10
So, and we are op you know, we operate in 40 countries with scores of location,
1:04:15
so what danger are you referring to?
1:04:18
And they said, well, it's the back riding.
1:04:20
And I said, well, okay, but we haven't had any accidents with this.
1:04:23
And then they said, well, when we did it path we had it,
1:04:28
and then the penny dropped.
1:04:29
And I was like, well, of course you did, because you don't prepare your horse's
1:04:33
backs, you don't prepare your riders, you don't prepare the horses in collection.
1:04:38
You don't do any of that.
1:04:39
So if you take, yeah, some horse with a saw back that's just been donated
1:04:43
and you plunk some big old, you know, western saddle on you know, that sore
1:04:49
back and then you put a person and a half up there that's not gonna go well.
1:04:54
So fortunately Betsy, who was the you know, on the call, said, she
1:05:00
actually came, she cut in and she said, listen, I'm a senior path
1:05:03
instructor and I've never seen horses as well prepared as horse sport.
1:05:07
And it's, for me, it's the gold standard.
1:05:09
And so I said, listen, I, I get it.
1:05:13
You guys shouldn't back ride, but why are you condemning other people?
1:05:19
Who do you know who, who do, who do it?
1:05:21
Well, surely we should all be collaborating through
1:05:25
our different fields.
1:05:26
Surely that is what we should be doing.
1:05:29
So anyway yeah, it, it's been a struggle and I can only imagine
1:05:35
for you because you're taking it way further than, than we are.
1:05:39
And even the name of your program, equestrian Chaos, it's going to,
1:05:42
it's, it's, it's a great name.
1:05:44
'cause it's a great show and of course it's going to trigger them.
1:05:47
However, I have seen your show.
1:05:50
And I have seen you do the impossible.
1:05:53
And of course it's anything but chaotic.
1:05:55
It's of course precision work.
1:05:58
Can you talk to me now about, okay, so you realized that you had to,
1:06:04
you know, just go do your own thing.
1:06:07
How did you get insured and then how did you grow the program?
1:06:13
Celisse Barrett: We were insured through esure.
1:06:17
And I will say that there were things that I, and I hate to say this now, but there
1:06:23
were things I absolutely could not list on my insurance that I was doing, especially
1:06:28
here in the US because I knew that it wasn't, they were gonna look at it and
1:06:32
they were gonna go, what are you doing?
1:06:34
Why are you doing this?
1:06:36
And, you know, for something that, I mean, yes, I was certified as a path
1:06:39
instructor and I tried as best as I could to meet all of those standards.
1:06:46
And yes, I So you're insured through that agree that Yes, and I was insured through,
1:06:50
Rupert Isaacson: but you must have had a bit of a white knuckle going on,
1:06:52
like, shit, you know, if, if there were something were to happen and it turns
1:06:56
out that the kids doing a, a trick, would I, would my insurance hold up?
1:07:02
Celisse Barrett: Oh yeah, absolutely.
1:07:03
I was nervous as hell all the time, to be perfectly honest.
1:07:07
Okay.
1:07:07
But when I had parents coming up to me saying, Hey, can you teach my kid this?
1:07:16
There's one part of me that's going
1:07:19
do I do this for the greater good or do I do it for the insurance companies?
1:07:24
And I always had to pick the greater good because these parents were desperate.
1:07:29
They wanted something that worked and they were leaving other therapy
1:07:31
centers because they weren't getting
1:07:34
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
1:07:34
Celisse Barrett: the same.
1:07:36
Rupert Isaacson: You're so brave.
1:07:37
What gave you the courage?
1:07:40
Because you had, you had a kid, you had a, a livelihood.
1:07:43
You know, what gave you the courage?
1:07:44
It,
1:07:44
Celisse Barrett: you know, it was one of those things where
1:07:46
you just, I just had to trust,
1:07:51
I don't know, whatever you wanna call it, universe, God, however,
1:07:54
that, you know, you're just, you just gotta go with a gut feeling.
1:07:58
And that's what I did.
1:07:59
And yes, I always kept it very, very controlled.
1:08:03
We never pushed, we never took risk with the kids, ever.
1:08:09
Just because I didn't, you know, one, I didn't want the red tape and
1:08:12
I didn't want people breathing down my neck and I didn't want us to be
1:08:15
shut down because it was such a cool thing that we were doing with them.
1:08:18
And it was working, it was working phenomenally.
1:08:21
Which is partly, again, reason why I contacted your program.
1:08:24
I mean, I couldn't find anybody to give me any continuing education hours or
1:08:27
to tell me why it was working so well.
1:08:29
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:08:29
I'm
1:08:30
Celisse Barrett: like, I'm having these kids up here who are.
1:08:33
I mean, I mean, we're not doing anything wild and insane.
1:08:36
I mean, they're moving at a walk and at a trot, very few are moving at
1:08:40
a canner, doing tricks, but stand still at a walk and at a trot.
1:08:44
And they're getting this full physical workout, not including the, all the
1:08:48
benefits that come with what's happening physically within their bodies.
1:08:53
And, but I know when it's unchartered territory, it's hard to get those,
1:08:59
to get others to believe you in what you're in the work that you're
1:09:03
doing and that it is beneficial.
1:09:04
Yeah.
1:09:05
Well, where's the, where's the data?
1:09:06
That's what everyone wants.
1:09:07
Where's the data?
1:09:08
Show me the, show me the medical benefits of it.
1:09:10
I'm like, I'm a, I'm a nobody out here.
1:09:12
Like I'm seeing the results.
1:09:13
I've got a waiting list of 40 people that wanna come in on this program,
1:09:17
but I, I can't take anyone else.
1:09:20
I don't have the funds to show you all the data.
1:09:23
I mean, I can give you my notes that I wrote every day
1:09:25
after every after every lesson.
1:09:27
But I mean, I tried to get doctors to come out and look at what I was doing.
1:09:30
I tried to get physical therapists to come out to watch what I was doing.
1:09:34
And at the time, I mean, again, we're talking now 10, 15 years
1:09:37
ago, people were still afraid.
1:09:40
I mean, and that's right when all that, that path stuff happened and I
1:09:48
just kind hidden the shadows for a while and I probably could have
1:09:51
grown the program much bigger.
1:09:54
But when you are hiding in the shadows.
1:09:57
It's hard to speak your truth when you don't know how it's going to
1:10:01
be reciprocated from Well, it's not
1:10:03
Rupert Isaacson: a good idea to speak the truth when the Spanish Inquisition
1:10:05
are the ones you're speaking to.
1:10:07
Celisse Barrett: Exactly.
1:10:08
And so they're gonna
1:10:09
Rupert Isaacson: be, they're not gonna do good things with that truth.
1:10:11
Yeah.
1:10:12
Celisse Barrett: No, and, and back to the path thing for a second, like,
1:10:14
and it, it did bother me when they did banned back riding because what
1:10:17
bothered me most was if you offered hippotherapy, you could back ride.
1:10:23
I'm like, oh, so if you can only bill it under insurance,
1:10:26
you can offer back riding.
1:10:27
But a therapeutic riding instructor can't back ride with their students.
1:10:32
Rupert Isaacson: Just
1:10:33
Celisse Barrett: because I'm not a physical therapist or an occupational
1:10:35
therapist or a speech language pathologist, I can't back ride.
1:10:39
And that really turned me sour.
1:10:40
I'm like, so they have to be approved by insurance and I have to be able
1:10:47
to bill insurance to be able to do these things with these kids.
1:10:50
And it was just for me, I'm like, since when did the insurance
1:10:53
companies have to dictate what can and can't be done or approved?
1:10:58
And that always soured me.
1:11:00
And I was like, you know what?
1:11:01
I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing.
1:11:02
The parents are asking for it.
1:11:04
I can't tell them No, the benefits are, I mean, you could see the
1:11:09
benefits right then and there.
1:11:10
I mean, and it was empowering these kids in ways that I've
1:11:13
never seen any other program do.
1:11:16
Rupert Isaacson: Well, you have a, because I think, I think what's so
1:11:18
wonderful is it's not just this, this is not just the thing you're
1:11:21
doing, you know, in the ring, in the.
1:11:26
Equine assisted sessions, which is amazing enough.
1:11:32
Oh, that's my ghost.
1:11:35
But you are including them in the show, and that's something which
1:11:40
I wanna go into in a little while.
1:11:42
But just before we get to your show, and, you know, some of the stuff I've seen you,
1:11:46
you, you do in there at what point did you sort of become, if you like, legitimized?
1:11:53
Did it shift at a certain point?
1:11:58
Celisse Barrett: It probably shifted,
1:12:03
I wanna say around 2015 1415 when
1:12:16
there was, with no doubt in my mind
1:12:21
this is what needed to happen.
1:12:23
And it wasn't for, there's nothing big that really set it off that
1:12:28
just, I was just tired of hiding from it all, to be perfectly honest.
1:12:34
Yeah.
1:12:35
And I'm like, someone's gonna have something to say.
1:12:37
If they put me on the chopping block, then whatever, I'll just go
1:12:39
on the chopping block and I guess.
1:12:41
No, I mean, all press is good press.
1:12:44
I don't, I don't know.
1:12:45
But
1:12:48
I was tired of being nervous about it.
1:12:50
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:12:50
I mean,
1:12:51
Celisse Barrett: and just being nervous on a daily basis is
1:12:52
enough to send anyone spiraling.
1:12:56
You know, emotionally.
1:12:57
And
1:12:58
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
1:12:58
Celisse Barrett: we knew it needed to happen.
1:12:59
We knew what we needed to build it.
1:13:02
Just, if I couldn't get anyone to listen, then fine.
1:13:05
I'm just gonna do it on my own and not worry about path, not worry about
1:13:08
keeping my credentials, not worrying about doing it by the book and making
1:13:12
my own, just making our own thing.
1:13:15
Rupert Isaacson: Did your insurance status change?
1:13:16
Did you, did you, did you change it at a certain point?
1:13:20
Celisse Barrett: No, I did not.
1:13:22
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:13:23
Celisse Barrett: I went into it and they all knew when they signed my
1:13:25
release form, that trick writing was not covered under my insurance.
1:13:27
That, you know, this is at your own risk.
1:13:30
Okay.
1:13:30
And what was shocking to me was that all the parents did not care.
1:13:35
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:13:35
if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
1:13:41
you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
1:13:46
of dressage training.
1:13:47
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
1:13:56
exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
1:14:02
of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
1:14:09
well being of the horse and the rider.
1:14:12
Intrigued?
1:14:13
Like to know more?
1:14:14
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
1:14:19
Check out the free introduction course.
1:14:21
Take it from there.
1:14:22
They
1:14:22
Celisse Barrett: were like, sign this up, we don't care.
1:14:25
Okay.
1:14:25
It's working.
1:14:26
I'd have parents tell me we went to Boston for treatment and the same
1:14:30
benefits they would get in my backyard were the same benefits that they kept
1:14:33
flying to Boston and staying there for two weeks and then coming back home.
1:14:36
They're like, so why do we fly to Boston if we can come just see you.
1:14:39
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:14:40
Absolute.
1:14:40
And I'm, I'm like, wow.
1:14:42
Celisse Barrett: That was, that was big to hear.
1:14:45
But also heavy at the same time because I knew that, all right, this is.
1:14:52
I gotta just keep fighting for what I know we can do and what these kids need.
1:14:56
I mean, it was great for the horses, it was great for the kids.
1:14:59
I mean, it was a win-win for everybody all the way around.
1:15:01
Mm-hmm.
1:15:02
I mean, in the best horses for this program were trick riding horses.
1:15:05
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:15:05
No, I would agree.
1:15:07
I would agree.
1:15:08
Having seen your, having seen your horses and your program, so
1:15:11
talk us through your methodology.
1:15:16
What tricks, what are your go-tos like, I saw what you did with my son and he
1:15:23
was standing by the end of it, you took him through this very systematic step
1:15:27
by step thing with the stationary horse in the small Cossack arena and mm-hmm.
1:15:35
By the end of that process, you and Brooke had him standing on
1:15:40
the horse and he came out of it.
1:15:41
Do you remember how ecstatic he was on that Yes.
1:15:45
Visit with you And not just that, but also all the stuff he was doing
1:15:48
on the quad with Jason and mm-hmm.
1:15:51
It's, for him it was a, even that was 2019.
1:15:55
It's one of the high point memories that he has.
1:15:58
So I watched you work in this really systematic and Brooke way.
1:16:04
Shout out to Brooke 'cause she's incredible too.
1:16:07
Your right hand.
1:16:08
And also Marley, your daughter who's in a league of her own talk us through.
1:16:16
The step by step methodology of equestrian chaos and what you do.
1:16:21
Celisse Barrett: So I had to learn to break it down literally from step one.
1:16:29
If you want to,
1:16:34
if you want to be able to, okay, let's just use standing up, for example.
1:16:39
Well, if you wanna be able to do the hippodrome, you gotta be able to
1:16:42
put your feet in the straps first.
1:16:44
That's where it starts.
1:16:45
And so
1:16:48
that would be, for example, that would be step one.
1:16:51
Let's actually, no, that wouldn't even be step one that, do you get
1:16:54
your feet in the hippodrome straps?
1:16:56
Well, we're gonna sit on the croup of the horse for a second.
1:16:59
We're just gonna go here and put our feet in this position, if you can do that.
1:17:03
Okay, good.
1:17:03
You've got step one.
1:17:04
Now let's go to step two.
1:17:06
We're gonna slide back again in this weird, uncomfortable area on
1:17:10
the horse, and then we're gonna put our feet in these straps.
1:17:14
Excellent.
1:17:14
You did that.
1:17:15
Perfect.
1:17:15
Let's take your feet out.
1:17:16
Let's slide back to the saddle again.
1:17:18
Now let's try step three.
1:17:20
We're gonna slide back to the horse, put our feet in the straps.
1:17:24
Now we're going to sit back to the saddle where you're in a
1:17:27
more of a scrunched up position.
1:17:29
It's a little more uncomfortable if you're comfortable with that.
1:17:33
Perfect.
1:17:34
Now we're gonna go on to step four, where you're gonna.
1:17:38
Put your feet in the straps or slide your feet back, put your feet up on the,
1:17:41
into the straps slide back forward again.
1:17:44
Then we're going to lift ourselves up a little bit and hang onto the horn
1:17:48
and hang onto the main of that horse.
1:17:50
We're not gonna really stand up, we're just gonna kind of crouch for a minute.
1:17:55
Does that feel comfortable?
1:17:57
Okay.
1:17:57
If it's a yes, then we'll continue from there.
1:17:59
If it's a no, that's all we're gonna do.
1:18:02
We're only gonna get to whatever.
1:18:03
I mean, I'm talking, breaking it down.
1:18:05
Every movement is a step in this line of teaching.
1:18:09
So rowan's sake, he, he did all of it.
1:18:13
He got to the back of the horse, got his feet in the straps.
1:18:16
We will also provide security as well.
1:18:19
We'll hold onto the ankle, into the shin.
1:18:21
Just like you were, if you were balancing on standing on somebody's
1:18:24
shoulders, you're gonna give them a little support on their shins.
1:18:26
That way they can kind of have a little more bracing
1:18:29
and feel a little more stable.
1:18:31
So that's what we did with Rowan.
1:18:33
Now let's see if you can stand up higher, because if you can crouch on the horse
1:18:38
in that what kind of position, I guess kind of a jockey type position, then
1:18:43
you can absolutely stand all the way up.
1:18:46
But mentally standing up is a lot different than just
1:18:51
crouching in your safety zone.
1:18:53
So.
1:18:54
That's what we did.
1:18:55
Again, let's crouch and let's see how that feels.
1:18:58
Does that feel okay?
1:18:59
Can you let go for a second while crouching, you know?
1:19:02
Now my first rule is always find the horn.
1:19:04
So once they get into that position, I'll have them let go for a second.
1:19:07
Then I have them reach for the horn again, and then I have them softly sit back down.
1:19:12
And then all of a sudden, once they've gone through all those little tiny
1:19:15
steps, then the next one is, all right, let's see if you can stand.
1:19:19
And we're not gonna move, we're just gonna keep the horse still.
1:19:22
You're gonna stand, we're gonna count.
1:19:23
We give, we give a count, because that's a goal.
1:19:25
If we can get to three, the person is focused on hitting that number
1:19:29
three and not so much, you know, how long do I have to be up here?
1:19:32
There's a clear focused goal, number three.
1:19:35
So we'll stand up 1, 2, 3, and then we're gonna find that horn like we
1:19:40
talked about, and we're gonna sit down nice and soft on the horse's back.
1:19:43
And if they can do all that, and with somebody in the back, on the back of the
1:19:47
horse, helping them, supporting them with sidewalks and someone leading the horse,
1:19:52
we can go through all those motions.
1:19:54
Then we can put it into motion at a walk, and then we start it all over again.
1:20:00
Hey, you just went into this position on the croup of the horse.
1:20:02
You're gonna sit there and we're just gonna walk, and you're gonna
1:20:05
feel what that feels like, period.
1:20:08
And then once they discover, oh, well that doesn't feel so bad, I can do it.
1:20:14
Okay, great.
1:20:15
Now let's put those feet in the straps.
1:20:18
Then once they realize they can balance, I mean, if they can do everything that
1:20:21
I put them through at a standstill, they can definitely do it in motion.
1:20:24
It's just being able to get them to believe they can do it.
1:20:29
So it's training in this very basic baby step type method,
1:20:35
but with the belief constantly reassuring, Hey, look, you did it.
1:20:39
Yes.
1:20:40
All right.
1:20:40
If you got this, then you can definitely do this move.
1:20:45
Rupert Isaacson: Tell me about the support people.
1:20:47
So you're talking about having someone on the horse with them to stabilize
1:20:51
them as well as the ground people?
1:20:53
Because of course if, if someone is sort of adult size and they need to come off
1:20:56
quickly, it's hard if they're, if they're standing up to sort of dismount them and
1:21:02
they might weigh 200 pounds, you know?
1:21:03
So, you know, and, and Brooke for example, you know, I watched her
1:21:07
when she was up there with Rowan.
1:21:08
I mean, she's half his size right?
1:21:10
Of course.
1:21:10
She's incredibly strong, incredibly athletic, and incredibly professional
1:21:14
in what she does to see how you could stabilize large people.
1:21:22
Talk to us about how do you, what's your system for organizing the support people?
1:21:28
Celisse Barrett: So I use everything from gait belts, different types
1:21:32
of safety rigging, if I have to put it on the person if they cannot.
1:21:37
Feel, if they don't feel comfortable doing everything at a standstill,
1:21:41
we don't go onto anything in motion.
1:21:43
We simply can, can, and you'll have someone
1:21:45
Rupert Isaacson: up there with the horse on the horse with them stabilizing
1:21:47
them sometimes also at the standstill.
1:21:49
Right?
1:21:49
Absolutely.
1:21:50
Almost like a vaulting team on a horse.
1:21:53
Celisse Barrett: Correct.
1:21:54
Yeah.
1:21:54
Those Olympic vaulting teams that require four and five riders
1:21:57
on a horse at one time, but yet we can't back ride with ours.
1:21:59
Yeah.
1:22:00
Those
1:22:00
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
1:22:03
Celisse Barrett: Yeah.
1:22:03
So, yeah, I'll have somebody up there to help stabilize.
1:22:06
And now if they do get to a certain weight where we don't, where we
1:22:09
know we can't physically hold them.
1:22:11
Yeah.
1:22:11
We'll, we'll, we'll do another maneuver.
1:22:14
'Cause we don't wanna put ourselves.
1:22:16
Okay.
1:22:16
What would you, what would
1:22:16
Rupert Isaacson: you do in, in the case of someone who's at that size?
1:22:20
Celisse Barrett: I would probably, let's start with learning
1:22:22
how to ride backwards first.
1:22:24
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:22:25
Celisse Barrett: Let's start with learning how to do it around the world where
1:22:28
they're still in control and if they do slide off the horse, we are there to catch
1:22:33
them and guide them to the ground at a much slower pace where they're much lower.
1:22:37
Rowan was an exception because yes, he was tall, but he was still within the
1:22:41
weight limit that we felt comfortable.
1:22:43
Yeah, yeah,
1:22:44
yeah.
1:22:44
Whereas somebody who's, you know, 225 pounds, we probably wouldn't do that
1:22:49
because that would be, unless I had, you know, something, some belay rigging set
1:22:55
up where, you know, we could actually attach them to a harness, which is,
1:22:58
that's one of our goals for the future that maybe we'll get to in this podcast.
1:23:01
But, yeah.
1:23:02
Our goal even, well, what we would like to do is be able to, when as we're
1:23:06
rebuilding our program, have a facility where you ever watch ice skaters practice.
1:23:14
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:23:14
When they
1:23:14
Celisse Barrett: practice all the lifts and they practice the triple axles and all
1:23:18
those spins, they have a, a belay system that's on a track in the rink so they
1:23:24
can practice these things without ever killing themselves landing on the ice.
1:23:28
Rupert Isaacson: Like a sort of aerial support.
1:23:30
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
1:23:31
I would love, my dream is to build an arena where I could use that track to be,
1:23:39
to keep this program going where people of all shapes and sizes could experience
1:23:47
what we do, but with full safety rigging.
1:23:52
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:23:52
Celisse Barrett: Somebody with my knee injury, the best thing
1:23:56
for my knees was Roman riding.
1:23:58
If I, I never thought I'd say that in a million years.
1:24:00
That's counterintuitive.
1:24:01
Yeah.
1:24:02
The stability that I gained after tearing both my acls and learning how
1:24:07
to, like, teaching myself again how to Roman ride, no matter what form of
1:24:10
physical therapy I did Roman riding made me so, made my knees so strong.
1:24:16
The only problem with Roman riding is what happens when you
1:24:20
eat dirt and hit the ground.
1:24:21
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:24:22
Celisse Barrett: So if you could have a safety contraption.
1:24:26
Put in a covered arena where you wouldn't have to worry about rehabbing
1:24:31
people, you wouldn't have to worry about hitting the ground, and you could still
1:24:34
get all the benefits of Roman riding.
1:24:35
And if for whatever reason they lost their balance, it wouldn't hurt the horse.
1:24:39
You would just catch 'em on the rigging and, you know,
1:24:42
you just have to reset again.
1:24:43
You could, your goals could get so much further than just having to
1:24:49
worry about having so many spotters.
1:24:51
So there was always limits to you follow where I'm You follow what I'm saying?
1:24:55
Rupert Isaacson: I do, absolutely.
1:24:56
And I'm gonna, we're gonna get there where actually I want to find out what it would
1:25:01
cost to put that in and, you know, do a bit of a shout out to our listenership and
1:25:07
our viewership to perhaps help with that.
1:25:10
Have you, but just before we, we we go to that stuff.
1:25:14
Have you had special needs people Roman writing?
1:25:18
Celisse Barrett: I have Incredible.
1:25:19
Rupert Isaacson: You had Rock Roman
1:25:20
Celisse Barrett: writing.
1:25:21
Rupert Isaacson: Tell, so tell us about Rock.
1:25:23
Give us Rock's biography.
1:25:24
Okay.
1:25:25
And how did you get in Roman writing and what was the result for him?
1:25:29
Celisse Barrett: Oh, I love Rocky.
1:25:30
Rocky's great.
1:25:30
So Rock came to us back in the, my very first days after
1:25:34
me becoming a path instructor.
1:25:38
And I was doing everything by the book The Way Path.
1:25:40
Said it, do it like this, do it like this.
1:25:43
And I was like, okay, I'm gonna stick to what I know, what I've been taught, and.
1:25:49
It wasn't working.
1:25:51
Yeah,
1:25:52
he, he had a great, he had a great like first month and then all
1:25:55
of a sudden he's regressing bad.
1:25:58
He's trying to bite me.
1:26:00
He's hitting the horse, he's hitting his family members.
1:26:03
He's biting the sidewalks, he's hitting them.
1:26:05
And anytime he was on a horse, it was just going backwards and
1:26:11
I was failing him as a teacher.
1:26:13
Rupert Isaacson: And why was it going backwards?
1:26:16
Celisse Barrett: I'm sorry?
1:26:17
Rupert Isaacson: Why was it going backwards?
1:26:19
Celisse Barrett: Oh, why well, at the time I didn't know why it was going
1:26:22
backwards, but he was definitely not comfortable and it was not putting him in
1:26:27
that state that I wanted to see him in.
1:26:30
He would get on the horse for a minute and then he was off again.
1:26:33
And Rocky, if you, once you know about him and his family, like,
1:26:38
oh, Rocky is an adrenaline junkie.
1:26:39
He's the kid that you have to call the fire department for because he's climbed
1:26:43
a tree and he literally can't get down.
1:26:45
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
1:26:45
Celisse Barrett: And so
1:26:48
I was hoping and praying that his mom would ask me to
1:26:52
teach him how to trick ride.
1:26:53
I'm like, I feel like Rocky wants more than he just, he doesn't want pony rides.
1:26:58
He needs something where he can physically challenge himself.
1:27:03
Because when you know about his history again, and he can obviously
1:27:05
Rupert Isaacson: follow, follow direction.
1:27:07
Right.
1:27:07
He can follow top down instructions.
1:27:09
Celisse Barrett: He can to a point.
1:27:11
His brother was a huge cult.
1:27:13
His brother was a huge asset to me, teaching Rocky how to trick ride.
1:27:17
So we stopped riding after a while.
1:27:20
His mom's like, you know what?
1:27:21
He's getting violent.
1:27:22
Let's just stop for a minute.
1:27:23
His mom happened to be a professional dancer at one point
1:27:26
in her life for a football team.
1:27:29
I believe she was a dancer for the Dallas Cowboys.
1:27:32
And she called me up and she's like, look, do you mind
1:27:37
teaching him how to trick ride?
1:27:39
And I was like, what?
1:27:41
Rupert Isaacson: What was his diagnosis, by the way?
1:27:44
Celisse Barrett: Au Autism.
1:27:45
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:27:46
Celisse Barrett: That's, that's it.
1:27:46
I don't know where he is.
1:27:49
He is, he gets overstimulated very easily.
1:27:54
He has no patience to wait for anything.
1:27:56
He's not very verbal.
1:27:58
He will talk once in a while, but it's, you're not gonna have a
1:28:03
conversation with Rock the way you and me and Rowan have a conversation.
1:28:07
Okay.
1:28:07
He is very different and when he does get angry, he lashes out and or he runs.
1:28:13
Mm-hmm.
1:28:13
And that boy can run like nobody's business.
1:28:16
Um mm-hmm.
1:28:17
That's the story for another day.
1:28:18
But chase him down with a car once he took off.
1:28:22
He was, he was like a half mile down the street before I could even get outta
1:28:25
the driveway with his helmet on, though.
1:28:28
He had his helmet on, so at least everyone knew where he was running from.
1:28:32
I'm like, oh my gosh.
1:28:34
But anyway but I was really worried in the beginning if it was going to work
1:28:38
because for a kid who got overstimulated about everything, now she's asking
1:28:42
me to teach him how to trick ride.
1:28:44
Now I have to touch him.
1:28:46
I have to physically move him in certain positions and how
1:28:49
is he going to receive that?
1:28:52
And as soon as he realized what I was asking to do and he could tune into
1:28:57
the sensation of having to balance on the horse, everything changed.
1:29:02
It was like a flip switched in Rocky's head and he wanted more of it.
1:29:08
So by the end, and we did this for five or six years, when you came to
1:29:12
the show, you saw Rock probably in the most uncomfortable experience that
1:29:19
he's had because he had just hurt his leg and he wanted to be in the show so
1:29:23
badly, but he didn't have the ability to do all of the stunts that he was
1:29:26
doing because his leg was in a cast.
1:29:29
But he still wanted to be there.
1:29:30
Rock when we would do shows, our, our call time for every
1:29:34
student was an hour before a show.
1:29:36
Rocky's call time was five minutes before the show started, because
1:29:39
if he sat around, I would lose him.
1:29:42
Yeah.
1:29:43
Like he would, he, he, he could not sit around and wait.
1:29:46
That was not what Rocky did.
1:29:47
So by the end of it, Rocky Could Rock, could step off the side of the
1:29:54
horse at a run, touch the ground.
1:29:57
Get back up on the horse.
1:29:58
He could do it around the world of complete 1 360, turn on the
1:30:03
horses in the saddle at a run.
1:30:05
And he could stand, stand up with
1:30:07
Rupert Isaacson: the horse in Cantor.
1:30:07
Celisse Barrett: In a cantor.
1:30:08
Yes.
1:30:09
And he could stand up on the horse at a run.
1:30:14
Rupert Isaacson: At what age?
1:30:14
Celisse Barrett: And, and he was 16 or 17.
1:30:18
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:30:19
Celisse Barrett: When he was, when before he, we program.
1:30:22
It's funny, I can
1:30:23
Rupert Isaacson: feel my own neurons firing.
1:30:26
Boom.
1:30:26
As you talk through the process, even at the standstill.
1:30:30
Yeah.
1:30:30
Let alone what the explosion of neuroplasticity that this must cause.
1:30:37
Celisse Barrett: Oh.
1:30:37
Oh.
1:30:37
And he learned how to vault.
1:30:39
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:30:39
At a
1:30:39
Celisse Barrett: trot.
1:30:40
He never trotted at a canner, but he trotted at a, he vaulted at a trot.
1:30:43
And the day he figured out how to vault up onto the horse, tr trying to teach
1:30:47
a nonverbal man basically how to can't, how to manipulate their bodies to jump up
1:30:56
on a, on a moving animal was so tricky.
1:30:59
But he did it.
1:31:02
And
1:31:03
Rupert Isaacson: incredible.
1:31:04
Celisse Barrett: A lot of it was us, like whisking him up there at
1:31:07
just the right time to help him understand what he was supposed to do.
1:31:10
But Rock was a kid that he, if he could feel it, he could do it.
1:31:13
Okay.
1:31:14
And once he felt it, he loved it.
1:31:15
And I remember like in the show, the show that you watched, I don't know
1:31:19
if you were there the very last day.
1:31:21
No.
1:31:21
You had left, the people watched him.
1:31:24
He was having a moment because he had his leg in the cast and
1:31:26
it was overstimulating for him.
1:31:28
Rupert Isaacson: And I looked
1:31:29
Celisse Barrett: at him, I said, Rocky, do you want a canter on Romeo?
1:31:33
And he said, yes.
1:31:34
And I said, okay.
1:31:36
So what we would do, and he was overstimulated, was I'd just take him out
1:31:39
there in the ring and I would just canter I'd, I'd say, all right, Romeo Hop and
1:31:45
Romeo would just canter in the circle.
1:31:47
Everybody thought that was the trick.
1:31:49
That was not the trick.
1:31:50
That was me getting rocky back, mentally focused.
1:31:53
And we would just go around and around and around and until I could
1:31:57
see the calm just come over him.
1:31:59
'cause he just, he loved the ride.
1:32:01
He loved
1:32:02
Rupert Isaacson: the, almost like lunging a horse and
1:32:02
waiting till the eye gets soft.
1:32:04
Yeah.
1:32:04
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
1:32:05
That's exact It's, that's exactly it.
1:32:07
Yes.
1:32:07
I would lunge rocky on the horse waiting till his eyes just softened up.
1:32:12
And then he was like, okay, I'm good.
1:32:13
And everyone started to cheer.
1:32:15
And Rocky would look at me and I look at him and we're like, we haven't
1:32:19
even gotten started yet, guys.
1:32:20
Like that was just, that was the warmup.
1:32:21
Hang on.
1:32:24
And so, but for a boy who couldn't be touched to a boy who now wanted to perform
1:32:29
in front of lights and sound and all this other stimulate, stimulating environmental
1:32:37
stressors, he freaking thrived in it.
1:32:40
Hmm.
1:32:41
And the reason why I always talk about him is because I knew if I
1:32:47
could get a breakthrough with rock.
1:32:50
Then I could get a breakthrough with so many others because he was
1:32:53
so hard to get a breakthrough with.
1:32:56
And it was just, again, learning more about him.
1:32:59
Who was he?
1:32:59
He loved adrenaline.
1:33:01
The Roman riding, he did very great.
1:33:03
He did great with that in the beginning.
1:33:06
How did you get, how did
1:33:06
Rupert Isaacson: you show him how to do it?
1:33:08
Did you have to stand behind him?
1:33:10
Celisse Barrett: Yes, there were actually, oh, this was a lot of people.
1:33:13
We had two per, two people on the head of each Roman riding horse.
1:33:17
And then we had a sidewalk on
1:33:22
the one, the left side of the horse.
1:33:24
On the left horse.
1:33:25
A sidewalk on the right side of the horse or on the, I'm sorry.
1:33:30
The right when you're ro riding, you have a left foot and a right foot horse.
1:33:33
You have one side walker on the left, one side walker on the right horse.
1:33:36
And then we had two back riders.
1:33:38
Wow.
1:33:39
And I had ropes set up.
1:33:41
Yeah.
1:33:41
So to get him to rum and ride, it took 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 of us
1:33:47
to give him this experience.
1:33:48
And so I would back ride.
1:33:50
Brooke would back ride on the other woman riding horse.
1:33:53
And then as he would, and then we were, her and I were on the cr of the horses.
1:33:57
And then I would just show him, all right, step one, you're gonna kneel.
1:34:01
And rock was really great at copying what we did.
1:34:04
And so what was neat was once he was able to stand up and he was
1:34:09
holding onto ropes that I had onto the, I had placed on the rigging.
1:34:13
He never had the reins in his hands.
1:34:16
But once he was able to stand up, his body would self adjust.
1:34:20
Like you could see him losing his balance and he would pick up his foot
1:34:23
and he would put it down in a new place on the back of the horse naturally
1:34:26
without me having to say anything.
1:34:28
And so it was really teaching him to find this self-awareness that he had to find.
1:34:38
Instinctually, there's nothing but when it comes to Roman riding, you
1:34:42
can tell everybody in the world what to do, but there's a matter
1:34:46
of just doing it and getting up there and standing on the animals.
1:34:49
I mean, it, it's, I think it's the hardest stunt to do, honestly.
1:34:53
Yeah.
1:34:53
I mean, it's the one stunt you're not attached to the horse, to, you're
1:34:56
literally surfing on two surfboards that have two different minds of their
1:35:00
own and they're not always going the same speed and they're not always,
1:35:04
you know, moving in the same rhythm.
1:35:06
Yeah.
1:35:06
And so
1:35:09
what he was doing naturally was I was, I was floored by it because he was being
1:35:17
able to, being able to self adjust and he, he wouldn't last very long in the arena.
1:35:24
He would maybe last, he could maybe stand for a full lap around the arena, which
1:35:27
is actually pretty good out a, that's lot Roman
1:35:29
riding.
1:35:29
Like, that's a lot.
1:35:30
Before, like, it was a lot, but, and he did it so well.
1:35:34
And he just really learned how to move his body.
1:35:35
No.
1:35:35
Did he ever take the reins and Roman ride?
1:35:37
No, he did not.
1:35:39
But could he stand on two moving horses walking around an arena?
1:35:42
Yes, he could.
1:35:43
Rupert Isaacson: And he could do that in the show, and that's
1:35:45
Celisse Barrett: hard.
1:35:45
He never did that in the show.
1:35:47
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:35:47
No.
1:35:48
But
1:35:49
But even so, yeah, it's a massive achievement.
1:35:52
Celisse Barrett: Yes, absolutely.
1:35:53
The show was, the show was harder for Roman riding because
1:35:56
we were in such a smaller area
1:35:58
Yeah.
1:35:58
Of our performances.
1:35:59
And that for him to Roman ride, we really needed to be like on our track at home
1:36:04
where we had a lot of straight lines so he could really find his balance.
1:36:08
I could
1:36:09
Rupert Isaacson: see that.
1:36:10
But each of the fact that you do it at all where is Rocky now?
1:36:13
What, what, what's he doing?
1:36:16
Celisse Barrett: I have not seen Rock in probably for three, three
1:36:21
years, probably since COVID.
1:36:23
He has gone through,
1:36:26
he's gone through quite a bit.
1:36:28
I know with him he is, had some,
1:36:36
he is, had some issues again where he is become, I mean,
1:36:38
he, he's outgrown his mom now.
1:36:40
He's like six foot two or whatever, and he's strong as an ox.
1:36:45
And so there were some behavioral issues that they were working.
1:36:49
On with him and the horse that he was, Roman Ro the hor Romeo has since retired.
1:36:54
Yeah.
1:36:54
Romeo's 23 now.
1:36:56
So I
1:36:57
Rupert Isaacson: remember Romeo.
1:36:58
Celisse Barrett: Yeah.
1:36:58
He's, he's still around.
1:36:59
And so when Romeo kind of started fizzling out and Rocky started
1:37:04
getting bigger, I knew that I was gonna have to find another horse.
1:37:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:37:08
Celisse Barrett: And 'cause Romeo could only take, you know, do so much.
1:37:11
And at that time, I mean that was, he was 19, Romeo was 19 at the time, 18 or 19.
1:37:17
And so it was just becoming a little bit much for Romeo to be able, and it,
1:37:21
it all kind, everything kind of changed during c for us in the equestrian
1:37:26
chaos show that we were once doing.
1:37:29
Yeah.
1:37:29
And and so now that we have a new herd of horses I haven't really seen rock,
1:37:35
but I would like to bring him back out and start doing some more stuff with him
1:37:38
once the new horses are a little more,
1:37:41
Rupert Isaacson: is he living at home?
1:37:42
Is he in an assisted living situation?
1:37:45
Celisse Barrett: He is at, he is at home right now.
1:37:47
He did go to a hospital for a while.
1:37:49
He was becoming violent again.
1:37:51
And unfortunately there was no choice but to send him to a hospital.
1:37:57
Yeah.
1:37:57
Because he was becoming dangerous and this is, no, it's not confidential.
1:38:03
This is all stuff his mother has posted online.
1:38:06
Okay.
1:38:06
And.
1:38:07
I believe now what they are doing with him.
1:38:10
And that's been very helpful.
1:38:11
I don't know how much you know about ketamine infusions.
1:38:14
Rupert Isaacson: I do, yes.
1:38:15
Celisse Barrett: But he is actually going through ketamine treatments.
1:38:17
He goes once a month.
1:38:18
How interesting.
1:38:19
Have no infusion and has been, is
1:38:21
Rupert Isaacson: that in the state of Alabama?
1:38:23
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
1:38:24
Rupert Isaacson: And they've legalized that there.
1:38:25
That's so interesting to me because it's such a conservative state.
1:38:28
Celisse Barrett: Yeah.
1:38:29
There's a place called Holistic Health in Theodore, Alabama, and they do ketamine
1:38:32
infusions, and they've been doing it with rock, and it has been a game
1:38:35
changer for him, according to his mom.
1:38:39
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:38:39
So,
1:38:41
Celisse Barrett: We talked about a month ago about the infusions actually.
1:38:44
And she's like, he still has problems, but they're nothing like they were.
1:38:48
And he can come, he's living at home.
1:38:50
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:38:51
Celisse Barrett: But, but you know, I mean, that is a, you know,
1:38:53
I often do wonder a lot of my students, what's gonna happen as they
1:38:58
Rupert Isaacson: age, age out.
1:38:58
Well, it would be very interesting to bring him back.
1:38:59
As you, you may know, I dunno if you know that, you know, since we've
1:39:04
been in contact, we, we have a new program called INE Equine Integration.
1:39:09
And Taine is a, is a Mongolian word.
1:39:11
It's for the WildHorse, it means honored one or revered one.
1:39:15
And I've always rather like the fact that the Mongolians sort of honor the
1:39:20
essential wild nature of the horse.
1:39:21
And so I wanted to nick that for, you know, a program title.
1:39:26
I like that.
1:39:27
But what it is, is, you know, we, as you know, incorporate all the dressage.
1:39:32
And we started running out of time because we had so many clients to
1:39:36
train and condition the horses.
1:39:38
And I went through a lot of stress and then I had like a duh moment.
1:39:41
I'm like, it's the clients who are the trainers.
1:39:44
They should be the trainers.
1:39:45
They, they're so good with the horses.
1:39:48
The horses love them.
1:39:49
They can absolutely lunge horses, work in hand with horses, long rein horses.
1:39:54
And out of that, a program called Tacking has arisen, which quickly took off also
1:40:01
with veterans and first responders.
1:40:03
And 'cause, you know, we could say, Hey, this horse is broken in service.
1:40:06
You know, 'cause donation horses often are, would you help me put
1:40:10
this horse back together please?
1:40:12
So it can serve this autistic person over there.
1:40:15
And the horse gets what it needs.
1:40:17
The adult artist or the veteran or the person with trauma or whatever
1:40:21
kind gets what they need without ever having to talk because it's just, they
1:40:25
are repairing this horse, which is of course a metaphor for themselves.
1:40:29
And learning to be like really good horse trainers.
1:40:32
And then of course the barn owner is I me is, is getting what they need
1:40:37
because that takes all the stress away because suddenly the thing that
1:40:41
I was battling for time to do is now incorporated into the, it is a program.
1:40:45
And I wonder if something like that might be good for him.
1:40:48
So that might be the next stage for us to talk about, to bring that program perhaps.
1:40:54
To equestrian chaos, because that was gonna be my next question actually.
1:40:58
You know, d as you describe what you have to do, including sitting on the croup and
1:41:03
that sort of thing, I know again, you'll have, you know, a bunch of listeners,
1:41:05
you can't sit on the croup of a horse.
1:41:07
Yeah.
1:41:07
Well, you can of course, if you strengthen the croup massively.
1:41:13
Right.
1:41:14
And train the horse that way.
1:41:16
But, you know, set the horse up for success by, so talk to
1:41:20
us about how you condition and train and strengthen the horses.
1:41:24
What's the process?
1:41:26
Celisse Barrett: We always start in the round, in the round pin first, always.
1:41:32
We do a lot of working in checks with the horse.
1:41:35
We try to get the horse balanced moving freely as much as we can.
1:41:39
Without moving checks means
1:41:40
Rupert Isaacson: like side res?
1:41:41
Celisse Barrett: Side res?
1:41:42
Yes.
1:41:42
Yeah.
1:41:43
Yeah.
1:41:43
Just trying side res.
1:41:44
Yes.
1:41:45
All strengthening and balance first.
1:41:46
I've learned very quickly that it's very easy to throw horses back out Yes.
1:41:50
If they're not ready for trick riding.
1:41:52
Yes.
1:41:52
So, we prepare them in the ring equally on both sides.
1:41:56
First then once we get a little bit of flexibility, then
1:42:00
we start working on cardio.
1:42:02
And we do a lot of Marley's big into Polo Cross and she's one of my main
1:42:08
cardio trainers, I guess out here.
1:42:10
But she can put some cardio on a horse like nobody's business.
1:42:13
And she controls their stats.
1:42:15
She watches their.
1:42:16
Still monitor their heartbeat, their respira respiratory rate, and we
1:42:21
wanna get them to a certain point in their cardio so we can kind of push
1:42:25
further into the flexibility work.
1:42:27
Mm-hmm.
1:42:27
And then when it comes to, and all this happens, I mean, it sounds like it's
1:42:32
fast, but it's not all this can happen.
1:42:34
It depends on the horse, but anywhere from a month to three
1:42:37
months, depending on where the horse is and how much they re but
1:42:45
Rupert Isaacson: once they're, and once they're in the program,
1:42:47
what's your conditioning, strengthening sort of day-to-day?
1:42:51
Yeah.
1:42:51
Celisse Barrett: For, so basically once they're in the program, they're
1:42:53
still working on a lunge line between one to two days a week.
1:42:57
Okay.
1:42:57
Just if they're not working, then they're, we don't ever bring them in.
1:43:00
Yeah.
1:43:01
Side brains on just
1:43:02
Rupert Isaacson: working that back muscle.
1:43:03
Working the top line.
1:43:03
Yeah.
1:43:03
Just
1:43:04
Celisse Barrett: working the back muscles.
1:43:05
And then we take them out when we start with tricks,
1:43:09
everything is done very slowly.
1:43:11
It's much harder for a horse to balance the slower that
1:43:13
they are, the weaker they are.
1:43:14
Okay.
1:43:15
And so we start with very little weight shifting on both
1:43:19
sides of the animal first.
1:43:20
Okay.
1:43:21
We'll step off the side of the horse, we'll say, okay, we'll walk
1:43:24
this straight line down the side of the arena, then we'll get back to
1:43:27
the saddle, and then we're gonna do the same thing on the other side.
1:43:30
We may do that for
1:43:34
another couple of weeks.
1:43:37
Until I know that their back is good and then we'll pick it up to a trot.
1:43:43
Again, doing it all in very small increments until it just
1:43:46
becomes natural for the horse.
1:43:49
We try our, we don't wanna ever soar them too fast because we want them to
1:43:54
always like what their job is and mm-hmm.
1:43:56
What they do.
1:43:57
We do a lot of trail riding when we can.
1:43:59
Everyone needs a vacation and the horses need it too.
1:44:01
If they're constantly working in the ring, they don't wanna go in the ring.
1:44:05
So,
1:44:06
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
1:44:07
Celisse Barrett: We do a lot of liberty stuff with our horses as well.
1:44:10
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:44:11
Celisse Barrett: Just to keep it, keep it fun, keep them
1:44:13
moving and keep them engaged.
1:44:15
Mm-hmm.
1:44:15
But normally, I mean, their work week, it's typically when we're finished doing
1:44:19
it all, usually we're trick riding on them once or twice a week with practices.
1:44:24
And then the rest is just the fine tuning work, whether it's cardio, whether we're
1:44:28
working on maybe tr working more off fine tuning leg pressure or you know,
1:44:34
Roman riding if they're, we kind of take that as a win 'cause it kind of works.
1:44:39
Both we're working cardio.
1:44:41
Roman riding's a lot of cardio For the horse, it's not so much, and for
1:44:45
us, it's not really like trick riding.
1:44:46
I mean, it's, you're taking the weight off of you and you're putting yourself,
1:44:50
I mean, you're distributing your weight on two horses instead of one.
1:44:52
And so, mm-hmm.
1:44:53
We do a lot of ponying with our horses as well.
1:44:56
If we know one needs cardio, but it maybe it's too weak, then we pony the
1:44:59
one horse while we're long trotting while we're riding the other horse.
1:45:02
Mm-hmm.
1:45:03
And so we just kind of constantly try to change it up like that.
1:45:07
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:45:07
But with, with sort of solid lunging, two to three times a week to keep that
1:45:13
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
1:45:13
Rupert Isaacson: Back muscle in the loin and the croup.
1:45:15
Strong.
1:45:16
Celisse Barrett: Lots of cavalletti constantly working on
1:45:19
footwork, lunging over cavalletti.
1:45:21
Sometimes we'll put a small jump in the arena or in the ring just so they
1:45:25
can really fine tune their footing and get confident within themselves.
1:45:29
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:45:30
Celisse Barrett: And that's, that's a lot of it for the most part.
1:45:32
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's a lot.
1:45:33
It, it, well, but it, you know,
1:45:37
as you know, many, many therapeutic riding places do not do this.
1:45:41
And so horses may or may not be there for really well in body and mind.
1:45:48
And the question in my mind if, if they're not, is how can they transmit wellbeing
1:45:54
if they themselves don't have it to give.
1:45:56
And it's often not the fault I think of the people who might be running a
1:46:00
program where that's not going on because.
1:46:03
Maybe they haven't had that education.
1:46:05
But it's you know, I know I'm always looking for people who are really
1:46:09
open to how, how can we get better and better at our horsemanship?
1:46:15
Not, yeah.
1:46:16
Just say, well, I I don't do that stuff because I only do this stuff, you know?
1:46:20
Okay.
1:46:21
So there's one other person I'd like you to tell us about a little bit.
1:46:27
I remember during the show there was a very big African American
1:46:33
young man who had, had suffered a terrible football injury, right?
1:46:38
Um mm-hmm.
1:46:39
And I found him really intriguing because
1:46:46
there was
1:46:50
so much going on inside of him.
1:46:53
Yes.
1:46:54
But what he could express was so, so, so just, you know, a twinkle
1:46:59
in the eye and a half smile from that man, you know, said volumes.
1:47:05
Tell us a little about him and how he ended up in your program and,
1:47:09
and, and where he went with you.
1:47:11
Celisse Barrett: That was Tim . I met him at Camp Smile.
1:47:14
He came to Camp Smile the year after he had his football accident.
1:47:20
He was given an award.
1:47:23
He was on his way to pro.
1:47:24
And people were starting to look at him.
1:47:26
Scouts were looking at him and he was the
1:47:34
What's the word I'm looking for?
1:47:35
The result of the helmet defects that were going, that were happening.
1:47:41
What was that?
1:47:41
So we got hit on the field in his helmet.
1:47:44
He had a, he had a defective helmet,
1:47:46
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
1:47:46
Celisse Barrett: And suffered a traumatic brain injury.
1:47:48
He got hit on the field, was conscious.
1:47:50
And then right about two or three minutes after he was hit he
1:47:54
collapsed and suffered a brain bleed.
1:47:58
And that is what paralyzed him on his left side completely.
1:48:03
So when he came to us, he was probably about 250 pounds strong as an ox
1:48:10
because he just came from like a full football career or on his way
1:48:15
to doing a full-time football career, to now living in a wheelchair.
1:48:19
And the fight for Tim was to try to get him as independent as possible
1:48:26
in trying to get his brain to rewire everything as best as we could.
1:48:32
That was the doctor's plan.
1:48:33
The mom, his mom was a warrior of a woman, and I tell you, she fought
1:48:37
for him like every person needs.
1:48:41
Evelyn, his mom, like Evelyn was amazing, is amazing.
1:48:44
And just such a fighter for him.
1:48:46
But he lost everything on his left side.
1:48:50
He lost the ability to talk.
1:48:52
He lost the ability to walk.
1:48:54
And so
1:48:57
when we started working with him, I'm like, okay, if we can't, if you can't use
1:49:02
your left side, let's use your right side.
1:49:04
And coming from he, oh, and also before Tim had his accident, he actually
1:49:11
was a musician as well, and he cut his own record in a recording studio.
1:49:15
So in our show, when he would perform his act, he wanted to perform it to his song
1:49:21
and he wanted people to hear his voice.
1:49:24
So we always played that when he would take the stage.
1:49:27
'cause we wanted people to know who Tim was.
1:49:30
'cause he was still Tim and he was a rap
1:49:31
Rupert Isaacson: singer, right?
1:49:32
Celisse Barrett: He was, yes he was.
1:49:34
And so, in the beginning it took five of us, five or six of us, to
1:49:38
successfully give Tim a horse experience.
1:49:41
And then by the time you saw him, he could ride for short periods of time.
1:49:48
He could ride totally on his own with the right horse.
1:49:52
We would never leave him alone
1:49:56
very long.
1:49:57
Because obviously if he were to fall.
1:50:01
He was high risk with already having a brain injury.
1:50:04
We didn't want him to, we, we'd always keep things very controlled.
1:50:08
Mm-hmm.
1:50:08
And in the show, the horse knew exactly what he was supposed to do.
1:50:10
Every single time we practiced the same act over and over again.
1:50:14
So it didn't throw the horse for any, we didn't throw the horse any curve balls.
1:50:19
Sebastian has the horse that he rode, knew his job like a Saint.
1:50:23
Sebastian knew when he goes into the ring, he's gonna have to do this.
1:50:26
And now Tim did all that with Sebastian, but we did it
1:50:29
over and over and over again.
1:50:31
Right.
1:50:31
What Tim loved, his favorite thing was when the stunt guys would come out.
1:50:36
Now, I used I've trained, I, I dabble in movies.
1:50:40
I can't say like I'm a professional movie stunt person,
1:50:43
but I've, I've been in a few.
1:50:46
And so I would do stunt trainings for our friends in the movie world and I would
1:50:51
teach them how to fall off of horses.
1:50:53
We had the best horses to do it.
1:50:55
And so we would take our horses to our friend's place that had a
1:50:58
big sandpit, and we would let them practice falls in a very controlled
1:51:02
environment so nobody would get hurt.
1:51:04
And Tim loved those days.
1:51:07
He would line up in the line with the stuntman in his wheelchair,
1:51:11
ready to be put on a horse and ready to be thrown off of the horse.
1:51:14
I'm like, Tim, what are you doing, dude?
1:51:16
I'm not gonna throw you off of a horse.
1:51:17
You have a traumatic brain injury.
1:51:18
You know this.
1:51:18
Right.
1:51:19
And he knew, like, he would laugh about it, but he would
1:51:21
just, he would try to be sneaky.
1:51:22
He always had a funny sense of humor about it and trying to sneak
1:51:26
into the line like, I'm not gonna see him for me to throw him up on a
1:51:29
horse, just to throw him off again.
1:51:31
But he loved I think coming from football and coming from entertainment,
1:51:35
he also loved the idea of the show.
1:51:37
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:51:38
Celisse Barrett: And when I asked him if he wanted to be in it, he was the one
1:51:40
that picked out that Viking outfit and put himself in for like a freaking warrior.
1:51:46
And
1:51:49
he just, he, he never took no for an answer.
1:51:52
And I think that's, he, he had so much heart, I I say has like, he's not here.
1:51:59
He's still here with us.
1:52:00
But he has, he has so much incredible heart that nothing was going to
1:52:04
ever hold Tim back in his world.
1:52:07
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:52:08
Celisse Barrett: And I think that's the secret to a lot of what we do just in life
1:52:11
in general, is if we could be more like Tim and not give ourselves limitations.
1:52:17
Yes.
1:52:17
Tim knew what he used to do.
1:52:19
He remembers grabbing the football and running through the, the goal
1:52:22
lines and making the field goals.
1:52:23
And like he remembers that he'll never do that again, but
1:52:28
he could get up on the horse.
1:52:30
We could get him on the horse and we could put a spear in his hand and
1:52:35
teach him how to manipulate a spear.
1:52:39
That was so empowering to him, and he always wanted to try
1:52:42
to take it to the next level.
1:52:45
And
1:52:50
he was his, like, I would push him.
1:52:54
He wanted to be, and he wanted it to be pushed like an athlete.
1:52:56
Mm-hmm.
1:52:57
And if there was no pain, there was no progress.
1:52:59
And I remember like, I would ask him like, you good?
1:53:02
You wanna go again?
1:53:03
And he would say more, whether I was stretching him at the time or trying to
1:53:07
get his arm to move to a certain position where he could learn how to spin the
1:53:11
staff properly or learn how to throw it.
1:53:14
Sometimes he would catch it and it would turn around and knock 'em in the head
1:53:16
because he didn't have, you know, at the time, he didn't have enough muscle
1:53:19
stability to catch it with the momentum.
1:53:21
Eventually he did, but he was just the perfect example of not giving up on
1:53:27
anything and wanting his independence.
1:53:30
And so we tried to give that to him as much as we possibly could.
1:53:34
And everything that he did in the show was done by him.
1:53:37
He picked all of the moves that he showed off.
1:53:40
He basically wrote his own act and that's, we wanted him to, I mean, he had a voice.
1:53:46
Mm-hmm.
1:53:47
Maybe not the same voice you and I have, but he still had one.
1:53:50
Or still has one.
1:53:51
So he wanted to ride to his music.
1:53:53
He wanted to manipulate the spear, or I guess a bo staff really
1:53:58
in a martial arts type fashion.
1:53:59
He wanted to manipulate the staff.
1:54:01
He would spin it around his his head.
1:54:03
He would tuck it underneath his shoulder.
1:54:05
He would strike at certain things with the staff with one
1:54:07
arm while he was on the horse.
1:54:09
And then we'd throw it back and forth to each other while he was on, I was
1:54:12
on the ground and he was on the horse.
1:54:14
Mm-hmm.
1:54:14
Just little warrior moves that you would see a martial artist do, and
1:54:21
that gave him so much purpose.
1:54:25
Mm.
1:54:25
And he thrived on it.
1:54:28
And he never would've gotten that really anywhere else.
1:54:33
No, I agree.
1:54:33
Because
1:54:34
he, you treat people with a brain injury in a certain way.
1:54:38
I mean, you treat anybody with knee injury in a certain way.
1:54:41
I mean, I'm doing physical therapy right now, and it's walking
1:54:48
into the doctor's office again.
1:54:49
You're like, all right, here we go again.
1:54:51
You know?
1:54:51
And I am of sound, mind and body, and I can't imagine people who have to
1:54:55
live in it every single day, 24 7.
1:54:57
It's just Yeah.
1:54:59
Who spend their entire lives walking into an office where, okay,
1:55:02
well here's what we're gonna do.
1:55:03
Let's open the book up.
1:55:04
Here's what the exercises you can do.
1:55:06
This is all you can do.
1:55:07
Let's not think outside the box.
1:55:09
Mm-hmm.
1:55:10
And it, it just becomes very, it feels very hopeless.
1:55:14
Yeah.
1:55:14
I think for a lot of people.
1:55:16
And we never wanted it to feel hopeless for Tim.
1:55:19
And so we were always trying to find the next cool thing.
1:55:21
Oh, one thing we did with him was if he got bored with the spear,
1:55:27
we would give him a shield and I would start throwing things at him.
1:55:32
Those little stress balls or whatever you'd find the little foam objects,
1:55:36
I would find all sorts of random stuff, and I'd just start chucking
1:55:39
it at him and making him deflect it.
1:55:43
And he freaking loved that game.
1:55:45
And it, and it wasn't like an easy game either.
1:55:47
I wouldn't make it easy on him.
1:55:48
Like I would try to actually peg him if I could.
1:55:51
'cause he didn't want me to take it easy.
1:55:52
And and if he could deflect it fast enough, I mean, he'd start laughing
1:55:57
and, and it was again, another, another empower, something so simple becoming
1:56:02
so empowering by just putting a shield in his hands saying, all right, dodge
1:56:06
this and don't let it hit your horse.
1:56:10
I mean, he was like, all right, done.
1:56:12
But that was, that was his story.
1:56:14
And they I remember his mom fighting for him so hard to he was, they wanted
1:56:21
to get him a standing wheelchair so he wouldn't have pressure sores.
1:56:25
That was a thing that they were worried about battling.
1:56:28
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:56:28
Do you know
1:56:29
Celisse Barrett: how much those things cost?
1:56:31
Rupert Isaacson: Hundreds of thousands.
1:56:33
Celisse Barrett: About the cost of a Mercedes?
1:56:35
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:56:36
Yeah,
1:56:36
Celisse Barrett: yeah, yeah.
1:56:37
Rupert Isaacson: I
1:56:37
Celisse Barrett: think with their, with their credit.
1:56:42
That they got, whatever, I think they paid out $65,000 for this standing wheelchair.
1:56:48
They got one.
1:56:49
They finally got one.
1:56:50
But it wasn't without,
1:56:52
Rupert Isaacson: it is, it is just incredible to me that in countries
1:56:56
as prosperous as our own, I'm sitting here in Europe, you're sitting
1:57:00
there in the USA, we are in the most prosperous nations in the world.
1:57:06
That this is not subsidized by government is just, well, it's a
1:57:15
poor show because we can afford it.
1:57:17
Yeah.
1:57:18
Yeah.
1:57:19
I'm very, very glad to hear that he got one though.
1:57:22
Celisse Barrett: He did.
1:57:24
Rupert Isaacson: And also to feel himself standing must be so empowering too for,
1:57:28
you know, big man and to, to, to regain his, for anyone to stand, obviously,
1:57:34
but to regain his power to some degree.
1:57:37
Celisse Barrett: Yeah, absolutely.
1:57:40
I mean, to be able to walk into a grocery store and to be able to get the
1:57:43
tomato soup off the top shelf instead of having to ask somebody or to be able to
1:57:49
talk, look at somebody eye level Yeah.
1:57:51
And have a conversation with them.
1:57:53
I mean, that's,
1:57:55
Rupert Isaacson: well be total of them that, yeah.
1:57:57
Yeah.
1:57:58
Celisse Barrett: We were there.
1:57:59
The, his mom invited us the day he got it.
1:58:02
They did a little party for him and they presented him with it.
1:58:05
And we played some music.
1:58:06
And I remember dancing with him for the first time.
1:58:08
I was like, we can dance.
1:58:10
Check it out.
1:58:10
How cool is this?
1:58:12
And the news came out and they did this whole thing about it.
1:58:15
And it was really, it was just fantastic.
1:58:18
And to see him just light up like a Christmas tree.
1:58:21
Yeah.
1:58:21
But I mean, you know, that wheelchair didn't cost $65,000 to make
1:58:27
Rupert Isaacson: No, no way.
1:58:28
You
1:58:29
Celisse Barrett: know, it didn't.
1:58:29
No.
1:58:30
And I'm like, why, why $65,000?
1:58:34
That could better somebody's life.
1:58:36
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:58:36
Celisse Barrett: You're gonna charge them.
1:58:37
I mean, they've already like, I mean, this kid was on his way to
1:58:41
going pro and heading, like colleges were already recruiting him.
1:58:45
And now his mom and his mom, he was the last one, the youngest one.
1:58:49
And now his mom, his senior year of high school has to stop all of
1:58:53
her life because her baby just got hurt and now needs 24 hour care.
1:58:59
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:58:59
Celisse Barrett: Like, that's, that's a hard hit.
1:59:01
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:59:03
Celisse Barrett: I mean, on everybody, not just Tim, but the whole family.
1:59:07
I mean, yeah, Tim just had his whole life taken away just like that.
1:59:11
And then now mom who thinks her son's about to move out and go to college
1:59:14
and have a family and wife of his own.
1:59:16
Now all that's out the window.
1:59:19
Yeah.
1:59:19
I mean, so yeah, there's, there's definitely something, I don't know.
1:59:26
You just, you just wonder what's, what the future holds for a lot of
1:59:31
these people in these circumstances.
1:59:34
Because we work with lots of programs where a lot of the, we work with a
1:59:38
program called the Dream Program, and it's, they are all adults and a lot of
1:59:44
the time they show up to our facility.
1:59:47
And these adults are 40, 50 years old and their parents are 80.
1:59:52
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:59:53
Celisse Barrett: And they're like, we just, we're trying to create
1:59:55
a network, a village for people.
1:59:57
'cause when we pass away, what are we gonna do?
2:00:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:00:01
Celisse Barrett: And you know, and there's, there's just a lot of, a
2:00:03
lot of things that need to change.
2:00:05
I don't have the answers to all of that.
2:00:07
But we try our best to help bridge those gaps and be a, an
2:00:10
oasis in a desert for those that
2:00:16
I guess are kind of running dry.
2:00:17
I don't know.
2:00:19
But Tim, as far as Tim goes, I know he is doing great.
2:00:21
I haven't seen him in a couple years.
2:00:23
But we talked to his mom not too long ago.
2:00:25
She remarried to a great guy and he is got a great support system now.
2:00:29
And she's not having to do it all on her own.
2:00:31
Okay.
2:00:31
That was a big thing for her.
2:00:33
Yeah.
2:00:34
I mean,
2:00:34
Rupert Isaacson: good.
2:00:35
You can
2:00:35
Celisse Barrett: only lift him for so long.
2:00:36
I mean, he's still a full grown man, so,
2:00:39
Rupert Isaacson: well, again, maybe he can go into the horse training side.
2:00:42
It's, it's interesting.
2:00:43
My friend, henrik Bergoff and his wife, giddy Bergoff, who run the amazing
2:00:48
Horse Boy place at Green Care Farm in central Germany and their son Julian,
2:00:53
who's equally amazing in a wheelchair.
2:00:55
We've taken him fox hunting.
2:00:57
Celisse Barrett: Really?
2:00:58
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
2:00:59
Awesome.
2:00:59
Three years now.
2:01:01
Okay.
2:01:02
Spina bifida, big western south, and yes, of course we're adapting it and
2:01:08
working with the hunt to choreograph it, you know, somewhat, but he's, he's
2:01:14
crossing country and he's also trained.
2:01:18
He can, he can train my horses in pf in his wheelchair.
2:01:22
Wow.
2:01:23
Celisse Barrett: That's fabulous.
2:01:24
And I
2:01:24
Rupert Isaacson: think more and more, that's kind of where we
2:01:25
need to go as people get adult, you know, to say, well come into
2:01:29
the program and be a team member.
2:01:31
No longer be a service user.
2:01:33
Right.
2:01:34
Be a service provider.
2:01:36
You've reached that point Now here's a question before we move to, because
2:01:39
we're approaching the two hour mark.
2:01:41
I just want to ask you a bit, you know, to, to do what you do is predicated
2:01:44
to some degree on people being able to follow instruction, follow top down
2:01:48
instruction with that kind of cognition.
2:01:50
What do you do when you have, like, when Rowan was very small, he,
2:01:53
there's no way he could have followed any kind of top down and strapping.
2:01:56
What do you do in those cases?
2:01:59
Go back to the back riding and such?
2:02:01
Celisse Barrett: What we do in those cases is we basically just follow their lead.
2:02:05
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
2:02:06
And what
2:02:06
Celisse Barrett: they enjoy and what they wanna do.
2:02:07
If all they enjoy doing is getting on the horse and maybe just trotting
2:02:13
around in the woods, and if I back ride with them and they like that sensation,
2:02:17
then we just kind of stop there.
2:02:19
If that's where we're getting progress, then we'll go to
2:02:21
that point and then we mm-hmm.
2:02:23
I don't push it further than what they're Right.
2:02:25
You're not a
2:02:25
Rupert Isaacson: wedded to the trick thing.
2:02:26
Yeah.
2:02:27
Yeah.
2:02:27
Celisse Barrett: Sure.
2:02:27
Yeah, absolutely.
2:02:29
No, we do lots of things.
2:02:30
We have a sensory, not right now, at our new place, but we had a sensory trail in
2:02:34
our woods where we would take them out and we would draw on the trees with chalk.
2:02:38
You would play hide and seek with the hor on, on the horses or off the horses.
2:02:42
It really just depended on what the student wanted.
2:02:45
One little girl that we had, she loves, this is all
2:02:48
Rupert Isaacson: dear to my horse boy heart to hear this.
2:02:49
Yeah.
2:02:49
Yep.
2:02:51
She loves
2:02:51
Celisse Barrett: sign language.
2:02:52
She, she understood words, but she would not speak on her own.
2:02:57
But once I taught her some sign language then she, she jumped on board with that.
2:03:03
And every time, like I, we had this little snail statue on our
2:03:09
trail and every time we had passed the snail, she would sign snail
2:03:12
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
2:03:12
Or I would
2:03:12
Celisse Barrett: say right or left and give her the sign for it.
2:03:15
And then she would tell me which way she'd wanna go with her hands
2:03:18
instead of having to verbalize it.
2:03:19
And so.
2:03:21
We, whatever they, whatever they wanted to play.
2:03:23
We had this game of with foam noodles and one, these two twins that were
2:03:28
autistic, they would come out and we would play the telescope game and we
2:03:31
put the foam noodles up to our eyeballs, like telescopes, and we would try to
2:03:34
find mom and dad through the telescope.
2:03:37
And that was, that was what we did.
2:03:40
And then we'd find them, we'd go and we'd try to run mom and dad over.
2:03:43
They want, they thought that was the funniest thing, was
2:03:45
to run them over on the horse.
2:03:47
So, but we did so whatever, whatever just made them want to be there.
2:03:52
That's what we did with them.
2:03:53
We tried to make it a complete yes.
2:03:54
Environment.
2:03:55
We tried to not make it an environment of nos.
2:03:57
Mm-hmm.
2:03:58
Because they get told that enough.
2:04:00
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
2:04:00
Absolutely.
2:04:01
And yeah, I think for people who are listening watches too, one really
2:04:07
has to take this seriously, this yes.
2:04:08
Environment.
2:04:09
Because when you're dealing with someone with autom, so many people say
2:04:15
the word autism or work with autism, don't even know what the word means.
2:04:19
The word is the Greek word for, for the self auto, like automatic moves by itself.
2:04:24
Autom, selfism.
2:04:25
So locked within the self.
2:04:27
The difficulty is the relationship with the exterior world.
2:04:30
So there's not a massive desire like there is between.
2:04:35
So you or I who have more or less the neurotypical brain.
2:04:39
We are compulsive communicators.
2:04:41
That's our species.
2:04:42
This is.
2:04:43
These are people within our species who don't feel
2:04:46
necessarily that same compulsion.
2:04:48
So if somebody like Rowan, when he, my son, when he was very small to speak
2:04:56
or communicate directly, it was as difficult as it for me to learn Cantonese.
2:05:01
You know, something.
2:05:02
So if you then, while I'm trying to learn Cantonese, say no, so stop you
2:05:07
know, well, I'm not gonna be very motivated to keep going 'cause it's
2:05:11
a schlep, it's a massive effort.
2:05:13
You know, why would I continue to make this effort?
2:05:16
So, yeah.
2:05:16
One of the things I really appreciate about what you do is
2:05:19
it is this environment of yes.
2:05:20
And you absolutely set the environment up so you don't have all the dangerous
2:05:25
stuff that you would have to say no to.
2:05:27
So, and then it's, it's, it's such a, it's such a ridiculous irony
2:05:33
that someone might sort of, from the traditional path thing might look at
2:05:36
you and say, oh, that's dangerous.
2:05:38
Where in fact you take such care of the safety to a level that's in the
2:05:43
stratosphere compared to what's going on at the average, you know, place
2:05:50
and the level of professionalism.
2:05:52
And yet there you are having to justify it.
2:05:55
But you create the absolute, you know, your work is masterful, frankly.
2:05:59
It's masterful.
2:06:00
Celisse Barrett: Well, thank you.
2:06:01
I,
2:06:01
Rupert Isaacson: I, I take my hat off.
2:06:03
You are one of my heroes.
2:06:04
You and Jason, Beth and Brooke, and Marley.
2:06:07
And I still to this day, scratch my head.
2:06:10
And when I watch you kind of create this quantum world where what should
2:06:15
not be able to happen happens.
2:06:18
You know, at Horse Boy we obviously train people to do what we do.
2:06:21
There's horse boy method, there's movement method, there's TAing.
2:06:24
We have these different programs to, to train people to do
2:06:27
what you do is very difficult.
2:06:28
Would you, do you have the desire to sort of expand and train people in what
2:06:34
you do and sort of create a methodology?
2:06:36
Or are you content rather to be a, sort of a flagship gold standard
2:06:42
of showing what's possible?
2:06:44
Because it takes, you know, so much spec specific expertise
2:06:48
to deliver what you deliver.
2:06:50
And then in the, which case, where do you want it to go and how can we help?
2:06:54
Celisse Barrett: I would love to
2:06:58
be able to bring this to other facilities.
2:07:02
I think there is such a need for it.
2:07:04
And once you could have a handful of instructors that really understood how
2:07:09
structured it was or how structured it is.
2:07:13
Mm.
2:07:13
They would not see, they wouldn't see the chaos, but they would
2:07:18
see the, I mean, even with chaos, the name Equestrian Chaos, there
2:07:22
is, there's an order to chaos.
2:07:24
There's an order to the cosmos and we don't under, just because
2:07:27
you don't understand it doesn't mean that it's not there.
2:07:29
That it doesn't exist.
2:07:30
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
2:07:30
Celisse Barrett: And so even though it says Equestrian Chaos is the name, and
2:07:34
people go, oh my gosh, what is that?
2:07:36
It's kind of a play on words because it really, yes, horses can be
2:07:41
absolutely chaotic in a second, but
2:07:45
Rupert Isaacson: there's also not doing kinds of things that you do.
2:07:47
No, absolutely.
2:07:49
But, you know, theatrically, and I think in terms of the minds of the service
2:07:54
users, the clients who are coming to you, this idea that you're giving them a
2:08:00
part of the show, equestrian chaos with the, the excitement, the passion, the
2:08:08
dreamlike setting free that, that, okay.
2:08:13
It's actually incredibly structured and, and a detail like all, all performances
2:08:17
are as you started with your flute and, you know, but I think to call it that
2:08:22
name is both incredibly brave because you caught the disapproval of the disapproves.
2:08:29
And at the same time it means that anyone who's like overly therapized being told
2:08:34
what to do every day, they just, that name alone is gonna make you think, Ooh,
2:08:41
that might be an experience worth having.
2:08:44
I think I wanna go check out those people.
2:08:47
So do you feel, do you feel it's transferrable?
2:08:49
Do you feel, you, are you working on a methodology, for example, to train people?
2:08:54
Could I get trained?
2:08:55
Celisse Barrett: Absolutely.
2:08:57
110%.
2:08:58
And I think it, it has to start with the instructors first.
2:09:02
I can teach, I mean, I can teach this to kids all day long, but until the
2:09:06
instructors believe that they can even do it, the buck stops right there and it
2:09:10
comes with, but you've got to train 'em
2:09:11
Rupert Isaacson: how to produce the horse that can do it too, right?
2:09:13
Sure,
2:09:14
Celisse Barrett: yes.
2:09:14
Yeah, absolutely.
2:09:15
But you can start at a very basic level.
2:09:17
I mean, you don't have to train the horse to be able to accept
2:09:23
double vaults in a tail drag.
2:09:25
Yeah.
2:09:25
Or under the belly.
2:09:26
Or under the neck.
2:09:27
I mean, you don't have to go into that deep of, of, of, of training with therapy.
2:09:32
But you a horse, yours,
2:09:33
Rupert Isaacson: horse, you could absolutely trust even if you're
2:09:34
doing it static or to walk.
2:09:37
Celisse Barrett: Sure.
2:09:38
Yes.
2:09:38
Yeah.
2:09:39
Even if you had a barrel, I mean, you could do it on a, on, on a barrel.
2:09:44
Rupert Isaacson: Ah, you could do it on a barrel.
2:09:45
That is so true.
2:09:45
Yeah, absolutely.
2:09:47
I mean, on a vaulting barrel.
2:09:48
Celisse Barrett: Yeah.
2:09:49
Until you finesse your, until you finesse it yourself.
2:09:51
But yes, we actually have a program that we started to write years ago and
2:09:55
it's still sitting in my Google Drive folder that we had a step-by-step thing.
2:10:00
You've got no time to develop it.
2:10:01
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
2:10:01
Celisse Barrett: yeah.
2:10:01
We had names for every type of Mount dismount that our, and our students,
2:10:06
we followed them, whatever, however they got on the horse, we put a name
2:10:09
for it, and that's what we called it.
2:10:11
And they actually helped us write the program without even knowing it.
2:10:14
And and I, I've kind of struggled on, I try, I did a couple lectures on
2:10:21
this program a couple years ago and.
2:10:25
When you say circus, it almost puts a halt on people that are older or older
2:10:33
trainers that want to maybe learn it because they're like circus trick riding.
2:10:36
Whoa.
2:10:37
That's, that's, I, I can't do that.
2:10:40
Yeah.
2:10:40
And immediately there's an instant mental block and I'm like, no, that's,
2:10:43
that's not what I'm, no, you don't have to be a circus performer to do
2:10:47
what I'm trying to share with you guys.
2:10:50
Like, and you don't have to have a circus horse to do this.
2:10:53
You just have to have an open mind.
2:10:54
That is it.
2:10:55
Period.
2:10:56
And so now I've toyed around with changing it to maybe let's calling it
2:11:00
a performing arts therapeutic program.
2:11:03
I was gonna say,
2:11:03
Rupert Isaacson: as soon as you say like, circus arts or something, or as
2:11:06
you say performance, it changes, it changes the perception, doesn't it?
2:11:09
Yeah.
2:11:09
Celisse Barrett: Correct.
2:11:10
And I think a performing arts program would be more would be more accepting than
2:11:15
saying circus, even though it's, well, you
2:11:17
Rupert Isaacson: know, there's it, this is a fortuitous bit of timing
2:11:20
because I'm currently in conversation with a, an amazing theater group in
2:11:24
London called Chicken Shed Who, 'cause it started in a chicken shed and it's
2:11:30
now really this big, big theater.
2:11:31
Yeah, yeah.
2:11:31
They, they, they were given like a shed, which had been a chicken shed.
2:11:34
So it had the feathers, you know, on somebody's, you know, farm.
2:11:38
And that's where they began.
2:11:39
And it's a special needs theater group.
2:11:40
They're at the point now where they actually run degree programs in.
2:11:44
The performing arts for special needs and through special needs through
2:11:48
London, through universities, and I think it's Middlesex University
2:11:51
and they've kind of grown, grown, grown, grown, grown like this.
2:11:54
And we are you remember we had talked ages ago and we still should be talking
2:11:59
about, but adapting the horse boy for a, a show with equestrian chaos
2:12:03
and we need to pick this up again.
2:12:05
And we are doing the same thing with them.
2:12:08
And because they're not riders, they're not.
2:12:12
And a lot of the performers are also special needs.
2:12:15
So I wanted them to take the story and see what they do with it.
2:12:19
And also have Roan be, you know, obviously a voice in this and a producer
2:12:23
and a narrator and you know, a writer.
2:12:26
But these people are going to need, when, when you said vaulting barrels
2:12:30
and just immediately thought, oh yes.
2:12:33
In the show, in a theater in London, you could have people riding and trick
2:12:42
riding on barrels that are moving to some degree and doing that thing.
2:12:49
And we would need someone who knows how to teach and we would need a consultant.
2:12:52
And I think that person might be Sice Barrett.
2:12:57
Celisse Barrett: Oh, I know about that.
2:12:58
What do you think?
2:12:58
I know her.
2:12:59
Yeah.
2:13:00
Do you know her?
2:13:00
That sounds great.
2:13:01
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:13:03
Celisse Barrett: We've done that.
2:13:03
So when we teach, we also teach adaptive archery since the archery has taken off.
2:13:08
And the one thing we do is we put, we actually strap barrels
2:13:12
to a trailer, a flatbed trailer.
2:13:15
And when they're learning how to load the arrow in motion before putting
2:13:20
on the horse and wasting the horse's energy and theirs we hook it up to
2:13:25
our car and we drive around the arena and it's like a, that's a good idea.
2:13:28
Can line up like a dang rollercoaster ride.
2:13:30
They're like me next, me next.
2:13:32
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
2:13:32
I would do it.
2:13:33
Celisse Barrett: I, oh, I totally do.
2:13:35
I love it when we hook up the barrels.
2:13:36
But yeah, we practice loading in motion that way.
2:13:38
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
2:13:39
Celisse Barrett: And yeah, put put a, you could put a vaulting barrel easy
2:13:41
on some wheels and make it a whole theatrical thing and have people pull
2:13:46
it through the stage and while doing different tricks and things on the horse.
2:13:50
Oh yeah.
2:13:50
You could, you could totally do that.
2:13:52
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
2:13:53
That's, so I think, I think we need to meet in London and workshop this.
2:13:58
Celisse Barrett: Perfect.
2:13:58
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:14:00
Celisse Barrett: Yes.
2:14:00
You
2:14:00
Rupert Isaacson: willing to come?
2:14:02
Celisse Barrett: Let's do it when you wanna do it.
2:14:03
Okay.
2:14:03
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
2:14:04
It'll be this coming year and if you can come up with your sort
2:14:10
of level one entry training.
2:14:12
Okay.
2:14:13
For sort of points.
2:14:14
I will, I will take it.
2:14:15
You know, and I think most of our re most of our viewers and listeners would too.
2:14:20
So please.
2:14:21
So we're all like, okay, when are we all gonna do our equestrian chaos workshop?
2:14:25
And you now have a new facility.
2:14:28
I know you guys travel, of course, a lot with the show, but you, you have
2:14:32
a new facility in Mississippi, sort of close to New Orleans, um right.
2:14:38
It's sort of not far over the state line.
2:14:40
We're
2:14:40
Celisse Barrett: about two hours from New Orleans.
2:14:42
Right.
2:14:42
We're 20, yeah.
2:14:44
24 miles from the mobile state line.
2:14:46
We're right on the state line.
2:14:48
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
2:14:48
So you are, you are.
2:14:49
It's, it's, you know, yeah.
2:14:49
It's, it's doable.
2:14:50
So I think a lot of people would also love to come out and check out your program.
2:14:54
How do we support you?
2:14:56
How do people donate to you?
2:14:58
How do people come to you to be working students?
2:15:01
Just give us all the coordinates.
2:15:03
Celisse Barrett: So right now our website is equestrian chaos.com.
2:15:07
There is a my email directly on there, if someone wants to contact
2:15:11
me about donating something specific.
2:15:13
We are literally rebuilding from the ground up.
2:15:16
When we moved to this new facility, the facility was, we weren't
2:15:21
expecting to have to move so quickly.
2:15:23
We were renting the other facility we were at for 14 years and we had three
2:15:27
months to move everything to find a place to close on it, move the barn.
2:15:31
So we are currently getting.
2:15:35
Electricity run to the back 14 acres that we have that has no
2:15:39
electric or water right now that's actually happening as we speak.
2:15:44
And the next step will be to build out our arena the way we need to actually
2:15:49
have it a professional arena that we need.
2:15:51
We would
2:15:51
Rupert Isaacson: love to have a an aerial support system.
2:15:55
Celisse Barrett: Oh my gosh, yes.
2:15:56
Rupert Isaacson: That travels with people.
2:15:57
What does that cost to put in?
2:15:59
Celisse Barrett: That would be a, that's a million dollar question.
2:16:02
I don't know, to be perfectly honest.
2:16:03
I know it's gonna cost, I would, I mean, I would have to guess my first thought
2:16:08
is anywhere between 25 to $50,000 to put something like that in so much.
2:16:12
So that's very doable.
2:16:13
It may not, it, I, I mean, nowadays I feel like it's definitely doable.
2:16:18
I've never actually researched it further than just looking
2:16:23
at how it is set up, cost up.
2:16:26
Oh, that would be great to do if we could do that.
2:16:27
And if you can do that,
2:16:28
Rupert Isaacson: we'll do a, we'll do a GoFundMe through Horse Boy to help
2:16:32
you raise money for that, because
2:16:34
Celisse Barrett: that would be phenomenal.
2:16:35
Rupert Isaacson: I mean, I, I, I can't, there's just no argument that that's
2:16:39
gonna massively improve quality of life.
2:16:43
And if you, and if you are also training people, I think, in the
2:16:46
circus arts and to be prac equine practitioners or therapeutic
2:16:51
practitioners within this sphere.
2:16:55
They're gonna need to also go through a certain amount of training
2:16:58
that yes, these types of harnesses would be really useful for.
2:17:02
So we would get behind that.
2:17:05
And
2:17:05
Celisse Barrett: there's so many people that could benefit from it.
2:17:07
I mean, not just from the prac, I mean, even the practitioners,
2:17:10
nobody wants to fall and get hurt.
2:17:11
I understand that.
2:17:12
110%.
2:17:13
I'm on that team 110%.
2:17:16
And I don't want anyone falling and getting hurt if they don't have to.
2:17:18
And the rehab benefits, like, yeah, I taught this woman into her
2:17:23
seventies and there are so many times
2:17:26
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
2:17:26
Where I
2:17:27
Celisse Barrett: wish I just had a har, a safety harness for
2:17:29
her because her anxiety Yeah.
2:17:31
Rupert Isaacson: I could totally see this with people who've had suffer
2:17:34
strokes, people who aren't so mobile.
2:17:37
Yes.
2:17:38
I mean, gosh.
2:17:39
Celisse Barrett: And they could gain it back without having any
2:17:41
fear and without any risk of falls.
2:17:43
Oh, I mean, that, that would be you, you'd change the whole game.
2:17:47
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it would.
2:17:47
So yeah, I, that's my So what K would do it?
2:17:52
Well, let's, let's say what?
2:17:53
Let's get that money.
2:17:54
Let's get that money.
2:17:55
Yeah.
2:17:56
And by the way, listeners and viewers they are a nonprofit.
2:18:00
Correct?
2:18:01
You are a nonprofit.
2:18:02
Yes, we're a nonprofit.
2:18:02
Yes.
2:18:02
So you, you can donate tax deductible and you should give Sise money now.
2:18:09
Write to her, go to her website, equestrian chaos.com.
2:18:13
Do you have a donate button on there?
2:18:15
Yes.
2:18:15
Do you have We do.
2:18:17
Okay on the website.
2:18:18
Please go to equestrian chaos.com
2:18:20
and hit the donate button and send.
2:18:24
Money so that they can do more.
2:18:27
Please.
2:18:27
I'm asking you as Rupert Auntie Rupert is, you know, making this request.
2:18:34
Auntie Rupert.
2:18:35
All right.
2:18:36
Listen Sise, this has been as always a delight.
2:18:40
It's always a delight to talk to you and to Jason, and to Brooke and to Mar.
2:18:45
Let's talk further about these projects.
2:18:49
Yes.
2:18:49
And I'd like you to come back on the show, Okay.
2:18:53
You know, in a little while and tell us, you know, how you're growing.
2:18:56
'cause I, I think we all kind of want more equestrian chaos in our lives.
2:19:01
Yeah.
2:19:02
Celisse Barrett: Everyone needs equestrian chaos in their lives.
2:19:04
Rupert Isaacson: Everyone needs, whether it's my
2:19:05
Celisse Barrett: chaos or their own, but they all need it.
2:19:06
It's good for 'em.
2:19:08
Rupert Isaacson: I was building cross country jumps today on the
2:19:10
mountain behind our farm and going around them and enjoying my equest.
2:19:18
And whether it's happening at the level that Tim was doing it or at
2:19:22
the kind of extreme level that Rocky was doing it, you know what, what
2:19:26
occurred to me about what Tim and Rocky were doing in your stories is I know
2:19:32
many, many, many able bodied writers, you've never done anything like that.
2:19:38
Celisse Barrett: That was really the inspiration behind
2:19:40
the whole show when I wrote it.
2:19:42
And it really wasn't.
2:19:44
It was for them.
2:19:46
But it wasn't for them, it was for the audience.
2:19:50
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:19:50
Because I,
2:19:50
Celisse Barrett: I got tired of hearing, oh, I can't do this, or
2:19:55
I'm too old, or, oh, I, there's no way I could ever do that.
2:19:58
And all of a sudden you just hear immediate defeat out of people's mouths.
2:20:03
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:20:04
Celisse Barrett: And we're human, like humans are amazing
2:20:09
Rupert Isaacson: creature.
2:20:09
Yeah.
2:20:09
With the most adaptable species.
2:20:11
Celisse Barrett: We adapt, we study, we can, we can imitate, we can, I mean, yeah,
2:20:17
if you could put all of our abilities into one human, I mean, if you could believe
2:20:21
that, you could do, I mean, there's people that are blind that echo locate.
2:20:25
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:20:25
Celisse Barrett: So we have the ability to be our own superheroes,
2:20:30
but you have to believe that it has to come from somewhere first.
2:20:33
And it ha it starts with believing.
2:20:35
And so the whole idea behind equestrian chaos was to take our audience on
2:20:39
this emotional rollercoaster of all these different wow factors
2:20:43
from extreme stunts to extreme impossibilities becoming possibilities.
2:20:50
Like watching people like Tim and Rock and Sarah in the show who, I mean Sarah, she
2:20:58
only wanted to be looked at as an equal.
2:21:00
She's now, and she wrote that poem and she wrote Romeo in the show.
2:21:04
And she was the one that actually did pretty, she did really well with
2:21:07
the Mounted archery during COVID.
2:21:09
But she's a pro, she's now a professor at a university.
2:21:14
And the professor who writes Grant, she helps me write grants.
2:21:17
She's a brilliant brain.
2:21:19
And I mean, I call her to re to read some of my grants and
2:21:24
she'll, she'll refine them.
2:21:26
So she really
2:21:26
Rupert Isaacson: has, she really has become a team member.
2:21:28
Celisse Barrett: Oh yeah.
2:21:29
She's phenomenal.
2:21:30
And then now she calls me because she called me a couple weeks ago
2:21:33
wanting to know how to adapt her class because she had a few people
2:21:37
with special needs in her class.
2:21:38
And she's like, all right, I need your advice.
2:21:39
I'm like, whoa.
2:21:40
The doctor's coming to me for advice because she's working on her
2:21:43
doctorate now, and I've just been so humbled by And what was her special
2:21:46
Rupert Isaacson: need?
2:21:47
Celisse Barrett: She has cerebral palsy.
2:21:49
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
2:21:50
Celisse Barrett: Or has cerebral palsy.
2:21:51
And her big thing was in the show, we would dismount her
2:21:54
in front of the audience.
2:21:55
She would come out riding on the horse, and then she would dismount off of
2:21:58
Romeo and we would bring her, her canes.
2:22:00
And nobody knew that she couldn't walk.
2:22:02
That's right.
2:22:03
And that was, that was her statement.
2:22:05
She asked to do that.
2:22:07
Rupert Isaacson: Do you remember her phone?
2:22:10
Celisse Barrett: I remember parts of it.
2:22:11
It's actually on our I believe it's on our website or on our YouTube video, but it
2:22:15
Rupert Isaacson: What is the part that springs to mind the fragment that
2:22:23
Celisse Barrett: the last line.
2:22:24
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
2:22:25
Celisse Barrett: In flight.
2:22:26
She is free
2:22:28
Rupert Isaacson: in flight.
2:22:30
Cheers.
2:22:30
Free.
2:22:31
Celisse Barrett: Yeah.
2:22:33
Rupert Isaacson: In flight.
2:22:33
Cheers.
2:22:34
Free.
2:22:35
Celisse Barrett: That's the very last line of her poem.
2:22:37
Rupert Isaacson: If I could think of anything that epitomizes you
2:22:41
and what you do, it's in flight.
2:22:44
She is free and by extension, freeing everybody else who
2:22:51
comes into contact with you.
2:22:53
You know, I think that's the perfect note to end on.
2:22:59
Celisse Barrett: I agree.
2:22:59
Rupert Isaacson: Sise, it's been an honor.
2:23:01
Thank you so much.
2:23:03
Celisse Barrett: Likewise.
2:23:04
Rupert Isaacson: And let's keep talking.
2:23:06
Celisse Barrett: Sounds good.
2:23:07
Talk about London.
2:23:08
I'm looking forward to it.
2:23:09
Rupert Isaacson: Well, all right, my friend.
2:23:11
Celisse Barrett: All right.
2:23:11
Rupert Isaacson: Talk soon.
2:23:12
Till next time.
2:23:13
All right.
2:23:14
Love to work.
2:23:15
Bye-Bye.
2:23:16
Celisse Barrett: Bye.
2:23:16
Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
2:23:20
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2:23:25
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2:24:24
Long Ride Home and The Healing Land.
2:24:28
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