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Riding When Your Body Hurts · Equestrian Tea Time

15:01
Isabeau: How is your mare doing who had the surgery?
15:05
Emma: So she is doing perfect.
15:07
Emma: She's just fine.
15:10
Emma: Um, I see a little scar tissue by where her incisions were, but I thought it might be a little worse, like for her hips and things, but she seems just fine.
15:20
Isabeau: So you had uterus and ovaries removed?
15:25
Isabeau: You may have just removed both ovaries.
15:29
Isabeau: Gotcha.
15:29
Isabeau: So what have you noticed?
15:31
Isabeau: Is there any change in her behavior or her riches?
15:35
Emma: I have noticed that she stopped like screaming at the neighbor horses as much and gotcha.
15:43
Emma: Going and presenting herself to my Geldine.
15:46
Emma: So I'd say there's been a little change.
15:49
Isabeau: Yeah.
15:51
Emma: I think I am looking for a home for my other Geldine.
15:56
Emma: I'm putting him up for sale this year.
15:58
Emma: He's been ridden and we got back on him last spring a little bit, but really he's like a like a companion horse unless someone wants a project.
16:08
Emma: Um, and he seems like real stable now and healthy.
16:12
Emma: So he I don't know, he's bored and a little lonely, and I just think he would do better finding somebody who wants to do something with him.
16:22
Isabeau: Two horses in my third brother gets along with our epic.
16:26
Isabeau: So he gets to go out with a friend, and they have a nice field up front with grass and trees.
16:30
Isabeau: And my other guy, my ten-year-old Dutch guy, he's just too aggressive with other horses, and our property is just not big enough for that much chasing and around.
16:41
Isabeau: Another building is also just too much, it's just too aggressive.
16:44
Isabeau: So they go out by themselves, but as a result, my guy doesn't like it to go out.
16:48
Isabeau: So it might go out there for three hours, but sometimes it might just go out for five or fifteen minutes, and then it comes over and it bends on the gate, which is a foot.
16:57
Isabeau: And I tried to electrify the gates, and we have so many gates.
17:01
Isabeau: You know, if you electrify one, it just moves on to the next one.
17:04
Isabeau: So I put sex up in the stable yard, so I'll often let them loose with the stable yard and he can wander in and out of the board and come visit me.
17:13
Isabeau: At least this is when we have grass in the yard.
17:18
Isabeau: We've got six horses here, and only two of them are really living the lifestyle that we would like them all to live, and the rest of them are all getting turned out by themselves for one or another.
17:27
Isabeau: It's hard to get them.
17:29
Isabeau: The lifestyle that we had really hoped that they would have.
17:35
Emma: Yeah, and I think just go in, go be in a pasture or be a companion horse for somebody, or maybe somebody wants to get on him because there's no like reason not to.
17:46
Emma: I just can't really work anymore.
17:48
Emma: He's like a thoroughbred horse with a lot of energy.
17:57
Emma: I can't with my disability, I just need to cut down to what your apples is so much freaking work.
18:04
Isabeau: Oh, it looks like so much fun when we're young, and then we get older and we're not young anymore.
18:08
Isabeau: And we're like dick.
18:09
Isabeau: This is a lot of work, and it's a lot of money, and I'm living, and I'm spending an increasing amount of money on um trying to keep my body going.
18:20
Isabeau: I have a massage lady who comes with a massage that stretches me.
18:23
Isabeau: I have inflatable massage boots for my legs, I have red light backwards, I have to take my left foot every day because the father's of my left foot.
18:33
Isabeau: I got a whole of my left foot that doesn't want to hear my body and trying to persuade it to show up every day.
18:39
Isabeau: Does that become like my second job?
18:41
Emma: I just I was just saying, I think Shelby Dennis and she's been talking all week about her back and shoulder, and that's been like my problem at this point.
18:50
Emma: I don't want to get dragged around.
18:51
Emma: I'm just gonna let go.
19:00
Isabeau: But there's a good argument to be said that it's way less stressful and physical enough to, you know.
19:15
Isabeau: If there was somebody at half my age, he probably would be doing more now.
19:18
Isabeau: But my hips are really stuffed.
19:20
Isabeau: I'm probably I would be doing a lot more.
19:23
Isabeau: I'm just starting to take him out of the ring.
19:26
Isabeau: He's doing great, and I keep him in work, but I haven't done nearly as much as I would have if I wasn't like trying to deal with the fact that I myself am in pain so many days, which 20 years ago I would have been taking them off these cigarettes, and I'm just I'm not up to that right now.
19:44
Emma: I have little these little rolling office chairs all over the place, and the horses also use them as toys, like in the arena, because I leave them.
19:52
Emma: So I guess that's a product suggestion I have is these little Amazon rolling chairs are like twenty dollars, and there's nothing that could hurt a horse.
20:02
Emma: You can keep them in the arena, and they like come in half if they mess with it because it is on there.
20:08
Emma: But I've had one outside for like a year and it looks brand new.
20:12
Emma: I have taken to getting to one spot and sitting down and tying my horse up and grooming her sitting down, and I've taught her to like put her hooves in my lap or on a mountain block, and then I will take her out to the arena and I have a rolling chair out there, and I'm taken to lunging her while sitting.
20:31
Isabeau: Was it Pat Corelli?
20:32
Isabeau: You had a famous woman in Germany in the motorized wheelchair.
20:37
Isabeau: Oh, yeah, that's Pat Corelli.
20:41
Emma: That free DVD from Pat Corelli when he was really advertising real hard was that like early 2000s.
20:49
Emma: Maybe it was a VHS tape, but like he said about like a DVD or something, but that was what I thought was so cool.
20:55
Emma: And why I'm gonna get those books and stuff was that lady in the wheelchair with the freedom.
21:00
Emma: I could really relate.
21:02
Isabeau: Even if you don't have a dramatic entry, every 10 years, roughly your body's gonna chuck you around here because metabolism slows down and start doing things like pick it up the shoulder, I get up to that, and that's why I sleep on a climbershare.
21:15
Isabeau: I've got slept in the bed for a few decades now, partially just because of the cumulative repetitive workload, the bucking stalls and everything.
21:28
Isabeau: Um, I've got a couple of crooked fingers here.
21:31
Isabeau: I had a couple times where I got out of bed lame, and I think at high time I realized I might actually have fallen off and had a head injury and not remembered it because I got out of bed.
21:42
Isabeau: I'd be like, I'm limping.
21:44
Isabeau: Why am I limping?
21:45
Isabeau: Nothing happened.
21:46
Isabeau: And now I'm like, you know, I wonder if I fell off.
21:58
Emma: Like they are now, and I'm Of those first helmets, they were totaled, so totaled, and no way I didn't have a little bit of a concussion or something, and I just never thought of it.
22:08
Emma: I bet a lot of equestrians have some game damage.
22:13
Isabeau: But then again, it happens every every decade.
22:15
Isabeau: Your body cooks another gear, and you have to start adjusting to how do I get my body to work now?
22:23
Isabeau: And then you get those lucky people who still look like gymnasts when they're 60, and I hate them.
22:28
Emma: I have taken to swimming, and that has really helped me just keep my fitness.
22:33
Emma: So I'm trying to cut down my herd and cut down what's going on at the farm so that I can maybe get to riding a horse or yes, lunging my horses and things long line.
22:45
Isabeau: Yes, they're doing all those kinds of things.
22:47
Isabeau: So as long as we're talking about product reviews, since I have paid for so many online uh courses, I can give feedback.
22:55
Isabeau: I'm currently in a French classical dressage program, the Schooling Made Simple program with Derek and Joe Clark, and they are fleet coral instructors.
23:03
Isabeau: I did a bunch of round pen training when I was your age in my early 30s.
23:07
Isabeau: I worked for a breeding farm that was very big into that.
23:10
Isabeau: And we had a cowboy who came out every other month and did clinics with us.
23:14
Isabeau: He taught me condition response training, and then I did a bunch of work with Mary Wanless.
23:20
Isabeau: I was in Miraca Jong's online classical dressage training for program.
23:24
Isabeau: I've now been, I was in the Cindy Green's program.
23:26
Isabeau: I've been in a lot of online programs.
23:29
Isabeau: So the French classical dressage, I've never done this before, and I wanted to uh try it.
23:33
Isabeau: And it is really good.
23:34
Isabeau: Derek is a really good coach, he's somebody who just has the uh knack, and he's really good about looking at the horse and the rider and picking out the thing that they should work on that would be the most productive for them at this point in time.
23:47
Isabeau: Him and his wife used to be at the Olympic level and growing, so they've got international level experience at a sport, and the French stuff is interesting, it's very different from when I had been working in the rider mechanics program.
24:03
Isabeau: The French stuff very much starts with rain and bit checking contact.
24:08
Isabeau: I've never done that kind of learning system before.
24:11
Isabeau: So if anyone wants to try it, a program is not too big, they're very nice.
24:16
Isabeau: And yes, the information is very interesting, and I'm finding him to be a really good coach.
24:22
Isabeau: And Pivot just came out with their latest version of the app, the Pivot Arena.
24:27
Isabeau: Of course, now they want you to pay for it, but it is a lot better, it's much faster, it tracks the horses better.
24:37
Isabeau: The lesson program is bet is better.
24:39
Isabeau: So for people who have tried Pivot in the past and been frustrated, they should go back and do the two-week trial on the pivot arena and see how it works for you now.
24:48
Emma: A little more information on Philippe Carl.
24:50
Emma: I had seen, I'll find the YouTube video and we'll send it to you.
24:54
Emma: But this young lady started a podcast, she's been interviewing some really cool people.
24:59
Emma: She did a really long interview with Philippe Carl, very informative.
25:03
Emma: So if you want to get to know like what his philosophy is, what he thinks about dressage, what dressage is to him, and all that, he explains it very well in like an hour-long video.
25:14
Isabeau: Um, yeah, I think this is inside the menege.
25:19
Isabeau: So the two Philippe Carl books that I got are the Twisted Truths of Modern Dressage by Philippe Carl, and then the art of writing, classical dressage.
25:28
Isabeau: So that's his classic.
25:30
Emma: Yes, that was like the first classical dressage book I read, and I love that.
25:34
Emma: I like the French style, it's very, very much in my vein of the kind of dressage I'd want to learn.
25:40
Isabeau: There's a ton of information online.
25:43
Isabeau: You can probably spend a long time going through all of Amelia Newcomb's uh videos before you actually join her course because she has what thousands of videos on YouTube or something like that.
25:55
Isabeau: I mean, she puts out a tremendous amount of contact.
25:59
Emma: She does, and she keeps up really good with you through email and uh she has a free group and a lot of good discussion and support.
26:07
Emma: And this is the thing is who do I pick?
26:10
Emma: Who do I want to learn from first?
26:12
Emma: And I have to say, as a dressage instructor who's been through all of these and read all the classics, we're all interpreting the best that we can.
26:21
Emma: And to me, even someone as different as like Amelia, who's in the competition world more, or Philippe, who's talking about uh doing the best for the horse wherever it's at, we're all doing the same thing.
26:35
Emma: We've all got a good foundation of classical horsemanship.
26:39
Emma: You can learn from all of them, it depends on how you learn and who's able to get that information to you.
26:46
Isabeau: Yeah, there's a lot about style and individual content.
26:51
Isabeau: So, with Derek and Joe's program, one of the biggest problems I had, it was a horsemanship issue, and they were the only people I've taken lessons from several instructors in the past few years.
27:01
Isabeau: And after watching me for a while, they're like, you know, I think your saddle is bothering your horse.
27:05
Isabeau: So I got a saddle fitter out, and over a few months, got some new saddles, and he's doing much better now that I changed his saddles.
27:13
Isabeau: So the techniques are useful, but if there's an underlying problem with them willing to step away from the table of contents of the book of how it's supposed to be done, you probably need a new saddle because honestly, it looks like you're doing everything you should do, and the horse is not responding.
27:29
Isabeau: So Joe is a saddle fitter.
27:32
Isabeau: So between the two of them, they were pretty sure that the saddle was bothering the horse.
27:36
Isabeau: And yes, he's way better now.
27:38
Isabeau: I had a couple different saddle fitters out.
27:40
Isabeau: I had a rep from the custom brand saddles come out and adjust the tree and change the flocking and do stuff like that.
27:48
Isabeau: And uh, he's better now.
27:50
Isabeau: So if you have not get yourself in an online program.
27:54
Isabeau: I know a lot of people are hesitant about seeing themselves on video, and it might have helped that when I did my first video online program, it was in hand.
28:03
Isabeau: It was, but yeah, it's okay.
28:05
Isabeau: You will get over it.
28:06
Isabeau: You learn so much, and it's so valuable to get the video of you working with your own animals.
28:11
Isabeau: You learn so much.
28:12
Isabeau: Whenever something pops up for somebody's free webinar, I just put in my email.
28:18
Isabeau: That's awesome.
28:18
Isabeau: Yeah, give me your free webinar, watch them all.
28:21
Isabeau: You will find somebody who appeals to you.
28:24
Isabeau: And a lot of them have levels now, too.
28:26
Isabeau: For just a few bucks, you can join their basic program, you get the materials, and you can go through it yourself.
28:31
Isabeau: You can go up another level where you join a group call once a month, another level where you can send in a video once a month.
28:38
Isabeau: So, you know, you don't have to necessarily jump into the whole thing.
28:42
Isabeau: You can just join at the cheapest tier, look around their material, try some of their techniques.
28:47
Isabeau: Everybody's got a private Facebook group, show up in there, see what they're saying, what kind of videos they're um they're posting, all that kind of uh stuff.
28:57
Isabeau: Yeah.
29:00
Isabeau: Thanks for bringing that up.
29:01
Isabeau: Inside the menege is a really great uh podcast.
29:05
Emma: I watched that like twice and sent it to a lot of people who I've been trying to convince to just go ahead and try to read some of these classics, and his book is probably one of the easiest to read.
29:18
Emma: Um so, but I think it's really important to go through the classics, but at the same time, it's really hard for somebody like me.
29:26
Emma: I'm like a very visual learner, and I have a hard time figuring out what they're talking about when we're talking about like lateral work and these these pat patterns in gymnastics.
29:37
Emma: And so I've ended up using Helio's horsemanship.
29:42
Emma: He goes through those really well, um, step by step, like the in-hand work and working up to it and the mechanics of that.
29:51
Emma: What's the person's name with that?
29:53
Emma: But then I sent that to a few students who tried like watch these free YouTube videos, and they were like, I'm totally lost, I'm at a different point.
30:03
Emma: So I think it's so interesting.
30:06
Isabeau: What is that person's name?
30:08
Emma: Um that is um the guy you know who is a New York Times bestseller.
30:15
Emma: Um uh starts with an H.
30:19
Emma: He's in England.
30:21
Isabeau: Um He's in England, New York Times bestsage guy.
30:24
Emma: He's a dressage guy, classical dressage guy.
30:28
Isabeau: Classical dressage guy in in England starts starts with an H.
30:33
Isabeau: You're killing me.
30:34
Isabeau: I don't care.
30:36
Isabeau: It's it's Rupert, sorry.
30:39
Isabeau: Oh, uh it's not Rupert Isaacson.
30:42
Isabeau: Yeah, it's yes, it's hard to pigeonhole him.
30:46
Emma: Yes, on in-hand work in classical dressage and why and the mechanics of it.
30:54
Emma: And I'm sure a lot of really great stuff on his online thing, but just it kind of depends on where you're at in your education.
31:03
Emma: Sometimes you need somebody to take a look at you and the horse.
31:08
Isabeau: I feel old when people bring up his name because I was active on the Chronicle of the Horse discussion boards earlier on when he was introducing his work with the horses, and people were very suspicious of it that this guy who was not, you know, a hunter jumper trader or a western trainer or basically an average human being decided he was gonna go to the best people in the world and and learn about the horsemanship.
31:34
Isabeau: And now that I've learned more about him, this guy is like a global reporter or an international jet setter and has been around the world a lot, and is just one of these kinds of people who's like, Well, I have an interest in something, I'm gonna go to the place in the world where they do it best and learn directly from these masters.
31:53
Isabeau: Most of us just don't have that kind of access.
31:56
Isabeau: We are not gonna be going to the classical just school in Portugal or wherever it is, and getting lessons from these few people.
32:05
Isabeau: And he has that kind of access when he had a curiosity in training horses.
32:10
Isabeau: He was able to just go directly to people to learn.
32:14
Isabeau: When he came onto the horse scene, a lot of people were very offended by somebody who'd only been doing it for a few years, professed to be able to train horses to do these things, and he did it in partnership with the work he was doing with his autistic son.
32:28
Isabeau: Um, and now, of course, the guy has a tremendous amount of experience because it's been a few decades now.
32:33
Isabeau: And at the beginning of the internet, it was a little dodgy.
32:35
Isabeau: There were some real scallywags who popped up out of nowhere claiming to be horse master folks.
32:41
Isabeau: So it was very tricky because there certainly were some people who really didn't have much in the way of credentials who were proclaiming themselves to be grand high masters of classical horse horsemanship.
32:53
Isabeau: But actually, I had a phone call with him way back when, when those people in the Chronicle of the Horse Board wanted to take him to a task.
33:00
Isabeau: And then only recently have I checked back in with some of his programs and stuff.
33:04
Isabeau: He's regressed so much more where he was then.
33:07
Emma: I had I had read one of his books in passing years ago on autism because I have an autistic child, and and then I made the connection way later because he just in passing is like, Yes, this is horse trading.
33:22
Emma: I'm also a New York Times bestseller.
33:24
Emma: I'm just like, wow, what an interesting guy! Yeah, very interesting.
33:28
Isabeau: He's almost like an Anthony Bourdain um horses.
33:32
Isabeau: One of these people who just like when he wants something, he just goes to that part of the planet, you know.
33:40
Emma: You know, and there's a certain amount of privilege with that, but for sure, yes.
33:44
Emma: I'm very lucky because I kind of learn a lot of things from people like that, because they've been willing to share with me, or I've gotten into things at the beginning, like when Shauna Crash was first starting her online stuff.
33:59
Emma: We were attending her free webinars and gleaning all the information we could, and yeah, there's so much out there if you just have a good foundation, I think, of like horsemanship and just yeah, English and Western basics.
34:15
Isabeau: But there is almost too much online now.
34:18
Isabeau: Not almost that there is, there's just so many and so much.
34:22
Isabeau: And as one of my instructors used to say, you pay your money and you take your uh choice.
34:26
Isabeau: Get in with this program for so many months and see what you can learn.
34:30
Isabeau: If it doesn't work for you, go on to something else.
34:33
Isabeau: But to a certain extent, you do have to jump in, start watching, start doing, start learning, figure out which method works for you.
34:41
Isabeau: Um, you said you're a visual learner.
34:44
Isabeau: You know, for me, it's mostly I get the visual and the written only in hindsight.
34:49
Isabeau: Mostly it's a feel thing, you know, yeah.
34:52
Isabeau: Handling the horse or either being on them or handling them from the ground, which means I'm useless as an instructor because it's really difficult to transmit that to somebody else.
35:04
Isabeau: And it's so personal.
35:05
Isabeau: What I do with a horse is very strictly about my relationship with them and might not have anything to do with the relationship you would have with the same horse.
35:14
Isabeau: It's uh so it's uh it makes me useless as an instructor, and um means that yeah, all my progress is mostly made when I'm directly working with the horses, handling them, riding them.
35:26
Isabeau: Then I go back and I read the book, and oh yeah, I see, I think I understand that now, but I certainly couldn't understand it just from reading the book or from watching it.
35:36
Isabeau: I have to have a field sense, understand, and ending.
35:40
Isabeau: Um, and then I learned that's how I learn stuff and how I find stuff.
35:44
Emma: I often am like, oh, that's what they were talking about.
35:48
Emma: That's what they 10 years later.
35:51
Isabeau: All right, I don't want to hold you up forever.
35:53
Isabeau: Was there anything else you wanted to chat about?
35:55
Isabeau: I think we've had ourselves a good chat here.
35:57
Isabeau: You came up with some really good things.
35:59
Isabeau: The inside the Benege podcast was gold.
36:02
Emma: I had some product suggestions just for like horseback riding schools.
36:07
Emma: Go for it, yeah.
36:09
Emma: And I'm putting together a series, I'm not sure if it's gonna be on Patreon or YouTube, on just all the things I would do to run a small riding program if I was starting out.
36:20
Emma: So one of the things is products because I go through so much tack and things, just one horse, one lesson horse.
36:30
Emma: It's crazy.
36:32
Emma: So I've been getting bio thane tack for the lesson horses recently, and like two-horse tack for that.
36:42
Emma: That bio thane, when you're in lessons, is sitting outside more than it should, it's getting messier than it should.
36:49
Emma: And I actually have horses or students break bridles like all the time.
36:54
Emma: I almost added like a you break it, you buy it$75 policy because it was happening so much.
37:03
Emma: So I suggest you always keep two on hand.
37:07
Emma: If I bought a cheap leather bridle, it would break on its own, especially out here in New Mexico.
37:13
Emma: It's just like dry and either dry and hot or dry and cold, and leather just cracks on us.
37:20
Emma: So the biohane for like halters or halter bridle combo, and then you can go bitless and not bitless, it's very convenient, clip-on reins type thing.
37:32
Emma: And then one thing I don't like for lessons is flat reins, because you know, new students, the horse goes to just like rub its face, and they're not always keeping an eye on where the reins are.
37:48
Emma: So I always do like round rope reins that clip on, are good.
37:53
Emma: Um, and then seat savers for all your saddles because people like to wear those grippy britches.
38:03
Emma: Ah, yes, and they will destroy your leather on your seat.
38:07
Emma: And I've had saddles that get literal little holes in them, and that doesn't happen at all if I just put one of those cheap little seat savers on my saddles.
38:18
Emma: There's it's just getting so much use.
38:20
Emma: I always have an extra bridle, I always have extra stirrup leathers, I always have an extra girth, and I always have one of those edible billets for my English or Western saddles because these are all the things that will break one day.
38:34
Emma: And to fix your tack during lesson or or keep going, you need those things.
38:39
Emma: And then I just also always keep a pair of boots for each of my horses in case they get uh lose a shoe or get an abscess or have a sore front feet, or who knows, just always have some boots and one brand for grooming supplies and halters and blankets that just seems to last here in the US is the tough one brand.
39:08
Emma: I know they sell it everywhere.
39:10
Emma: And then my last suggestion is that lesson programs, I know there's some debate about rope halters between people because of their harshness and this and that, but those things last.
39:25
Emma: If you need something to last 10 years and leave it outside, even use it as a gate latch in an emergency, like those rope holders, man.
39:36
Emma: I've had some for over 10 years that look brand new, even when I leave them outside.
39:43
Emma: So, like that is their benefit, and why I'll think a lot of people use them.
39:50
Isabeau: All right, well, that's a really good uh list list of things.
39:54
Isabeau: I think that works.
39:56
Isabeau: We did good.
39:56
Isabeau: We've got uh some intellectual products and then some real world in real life stuff.
40:02
Isabeau: So that's a good mix.
40:04
Emma: Giveaway, and that would be good to do on if we do a holiday gift guide or something, and so I will do the gifts.
40:12
Emma: I was wondering if you might want to put together a list of these like online programs you recommend, their subject, and maybe just a sentence on why how it's helpful.
40:27
Isabeau: I like it, that's a good idea.
40:29
Isabeau: Yes, the holidays are coming up.
40:32
Isabeau: I can do that.
40:33
Emma: Okay I might just do like a holiday special for online instruction or something.
40:42
Isabeau: That sounds a good idea.
40:43
Isabeau: It is October.
40:44
Isabeau: I just keep thinking about snow and cold.
40:45
Isabeau: I completely forget about the fact that there's holidays too.
40:50
Emma: Me too, but with the candle business, I'm getting my holiday cents now.
40:54
Emma: They're almost all sold out, so you gotta be like doing the holidays in October.
41:00
Emma: Yeah, it's pretty competitive, and there's only a couple companies we're all getting yourself from.
41:05
Emma: Anyway, all right.
41:06
Emma: Well, have a good day.