Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / Time Travel Through the Classical Canon: Xenophon Press, Emotional Mastery & the Future of Horsemanship with Richard Williams EP 47

Transcript

Time Travel Through the Classical Canon: Xenophon Press, Emotional Mastery & the Future of Horsemanship with Richard Williams EP 47 · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
• 0:01
  Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
• 0:06
  The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I want to say a huge thank you to you, our
• 0:13
  audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do here, please give it a thumbs up,
• 0:19
  like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really, really helps us to make the pro.
• 0:24
  To find out about our certification courses, online video libraries,
• 0:29
  books, and other courses, please go to rupertisaacson.com.
• 0:34
  So now let's jump in.
• 0:36
  All right, I have Richard Williams.
• 0:39
  Richard Williams is the publisher of a niche publishing company, which happens
• 0:46
  to be international called Zenon Press, named after the Greek philosopher
• 0:53
  Zenon, but it's an equine largely classical equine publishing company.
• 1:00
  Why is it named after a Greek philosopher?
• 1:02
  Because Xon, the Greek philosopher Xenophon, was also a master horseman
• 1:07
  who not, was not just the pupil of Socrates and the best mate
• 1:13
  and perhaps a bit rival of Plato.
• 1:16
  But he also wrote the first European book.
• 1:20
  That we know of on what we would today called dressage.
• 1:23
  And he was also a military dude and many other things too.
• 1:27
  So he is an all round educated bloke from Greece about 3000 years ago,
• 1:33
  and Richard Williams, who publishes the Zenon presses publishing the
• 1:40
  canon of Creed of this tradition that those of us who are horse nerds have
• 1:50
  inherited and he's keeping it alive.
• 1:53
  If you think about the Library of Alexandria, the legendary library of
• 1:56
  Alexandria before it burned, or think about what's housed in Oxford University
• 2:03
  or Heidelberg University or Harvard, or any of these August institutions that
• 2:11
  keep we, we trust them to kind of keep these canons of human knowledge going.
• 2:18
  Even if we never look at them, that's what Xenophon Press is.
• 2:22
  But Xenophon Press, of course, is more practical, is we do actually
• 2:24
  still train our horses from this.
• 2:27
  As you can imagine, this being a bit of a niche thing, it's not exactly
• 2:31
  gonna make you the kind of money that going off to be an MBA and working for
• 2:36
  multinationals in Dubai might make you, you have to be passionate about this.
• 2:44
  It really is, at the end of the day, an act of philosophy, an act of love.
• 2:48
  So, Richard, I have been reading and working from these books
• 2:53
  of yours for quite a while now.
• 2:55
  I think I'm into my second decade of it.
• 2:58
  And you keep 'em coming and you keep publishing them.
• 3:02
  It's not making you a vast amount of money, but you are contributing to
• 3:06
  Western civilization in a huge way.
• 3:09
  Why on earth do you do this?
• 3:11
  How do you do this?
• 3:12
  How do you kinda make it work?
• 3:14
  And what can we learn?
• 3:17
  From this, thank you for coming on the show over to you.
• 3:20
  Why you do this?
• 3:22
  Richard Williams: Well, thank you for the introduction.
• 3:24
  Why?
• 3:25
  It's a couple of, couple of reasons.
• 3:27
  First of all, I really wanna learn, and I realize that what I want
• 3:35
  to learn might not even be widely known by people who are alive today.
• 3:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 3:42
  Richard Williams: And or if they are alive today,
• 3:46
  I'm not that portable, so I can't necessarily get to, you know, this little
• 3:52
  village in Portugal or, you know, the hill town in Vienna or outside of Vienna.
• 4:00
  I can't necessarily travel around.
• 4:03
  . So this loving to learn I couldn't necessarily transport myself around.
• 4:08
  And at the time when the opportunity to buy Fin Press came
• 4:14
  up, I, we were living in a remote area and we had two small kids.
• 4:21
  And when I was a bachelor, I could go to Europe and did go to Europe
• 4:29
  and travel around the country and take lessons from whomever.
• 4:33
  And I basically looked at my wife, my lovely wife, Francis, my better
• 4:39
  half, and said tag, you're it.
• 4:43
  You're my writing teacher now, and I'm your writing teacher,
• 4:48
  and that's all we have.
• 4:50
  And then.
• 4:51
  Basically what I realized when this opportunity came up to buy Zenif and
• 4:57
  press, it was owned by Ivan Belov.
• 5:01
  He was in his eighties and not really able to continue and having failing health
• 5:08
  and his wife's health was failing and he couldn't really fulfill the books I had,
• 5:14
  he couldn't fulfill orders for books.
• 5:17
  And I said, look, I don't want any of these books to go outta print,
• 5:20
  so I don't wanna overstep, but if you want help with this, if you
• 5:25
  want me to ship out your books for you, I would be happy to do that.
• 5:29
  Or anything that made sense to keep your, what you started here
• 5:33
  to keep it alive let me know.
• 5:36
  And he said, well, that's good to know.
• 5:38
  And nobody else had made him that offer.
• 5:41
  And then within.
• 5:44
  Six months or a year he asked me to purchase.
• 5:47
  So what what I realize now in hindsight is that this le doing these books, you
• 5:57
  end up having to read the books when you edit them or translate them and edit them.
• 6:04
  If somebody else is doing the translation, you end up having to read as a publisher.
• 6:09
  And I'm the publisher slash editor Francis is the acquisitions editor.
• 6:16
  So if I am too close to the book and can't see mistakes or can't
• 6:22
  see areas that could be improved, then I have Francis look at it.
• 6:27
  Just could you have a, and she'll go through the entire book.
• 6:32
  But I realized what I could do is I could actually time travel.
• 6:39
  One of the first books that we did with this was Dom Diago de Braganza
• 6:46
  dressage in the French tradition.
• 6:48
  He was a Portuguese master, a friend of Nuna Oliveira's a
• 6:53
  sometimes riding with Nuna Olivera.
• 6:56
  But this guy was, oh, like today, he would probably be, you know, 96 or a hundred.
• 7:02
  He passed away a few years ago.
• 7:05
  But I basically got to meet his equestrian knowledge through through
• 7:13
  translating or helping the translator.
• 7:16
  You know, refine his translation, reading that book.
• 7:20
  So I got to meet this guy and also the distillation of his, of an entire
• 7:27
  lifetime of equestrian knowledge.
• 7:30
  And so then I said, well, it's great that I had, you know, a teacher here and a
• 7:35
  teacher there, one of which is in Vienna, one's in Budapest, one's in California.
• 7:41
  But I'm not there now.
• 7:42
  So this is a way to not just trans, I could actually time travel,
• 7:49
  but also space travel, right?
• 7:51
  I could travel and, and glean this information.
• 7:55
  So that was magical because I said to myself, well, what if the person that
• 8:02
  knows the answer to the question that I'm seeking is possibly no longer living?
• 8:08
  What if they were from a different century?
• 8:11
  Just because they were in a different century doesn't make them invalid.
• 8:16
  We all have finite lifetimes.
• 8:18
  So this is what I really love about it is because sometimes I feel, you know, I was
• 8:26
  maybe born in the wrong century, you know?
• 8:29
  Do you ever have that feeling like you should have been born
• 8:31
  in the 1930s or, you know,
• 8:34
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm disabused from that.
• 8:35
  Anytime I go to the dentist and then I'm like, actually I'm, I'm quite happy to be
• 8:41
  Richard Williams: that whole new set of, you know, teeth that you got by, you know,
• 8:45
  just dropping a few thousand is fine.
• 8:47
  Yeah.
• 8:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 8:48
  Richard Williams: So there, of course, we're having the benefit, we get the
• 8:51
  benefit of the modern convenience of today's world and advances in science.
• 8:57
  But we also, we also should not be turning our, our back on these
• 9:05
  people who basically often lived right next door to or above, or in
• 9:12
  an apartment adjacent to the stables.
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  They didn't have the internet, they didn't have tv, they didn't have
• 9:17
  movies, they didn't have automobiles.
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  If they wanted to go anywhere, they had to.
• 9:23
  Saddle up a horse or they had to get their carriage together with
• 9:27
  horses and then go somewhere Right.
• 9:30
  With their horses.
• 9:32
  So they were spending, but if
• 9:33
  Rupert Isaacson: the horse failed them, they had a real problem.
• 9:35
  They might die.
• 9:35
  Yeah.
• 9:36
  Richard Williams: Right, right.
• 9:37
  And but they, they, and they were spending all of their waking hours horse.
• 9:43
  Right.
• 9:43
  It was all about the horse.
• 9:44
  So we don't even have people today that are really, we have very, very
• 9:50
  few people today who are doing that, where they're immersed, completely
• 9:56
  immersed, not just for, like, I go for an a week long immersion,
• 9:59
  but I go for a lifelong immersion.
• 10:02
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 10:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:05
  Richard Williams: So yeah,
• 10:05
  Rupert Isaacson: I, I think you've, you've, you've hit your, you put your
• 10:08
  finger on the word classical, which is that classical means something that
• 10:12
  endures down the generations and is past from generation to generation.
• 10:17
  I got it from grandma, and she got it from her grandma.
• 10:21
  Why?
• 10:21
  Because it still functions,
• 10:23
  Richard Williams: right?
• 10:24
  And the the thing is like if we're trying to learn technology that's
• 10:29
  up to date in 1920, you know what?
• 10:33
  We're going to be completely out of date because technology has actually changed.
• 10:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:38
  And it's changing.
• 10:39
  And the rate of change of technology and industry, right?
• 10:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:45
  Is, is always changing.
• 10:48
  If you're up to speed for the 1920, you know, internet protocols and the thing
• 10:54
  that's going on there, you're five years outta date or six years outta date.
• 10:59
  But the thing that keeps bringing us back to why this knowledge doesn't need to
• 11:05
  change that much is because the horse.
• 11:09
  The horse as an entity really actually hasn't changed that much.
• 11:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 11:15
  Richard Williams: They still respond in the same ways.
• 11:18
  They still have the same needs.
• 11:20
  It's a grazing animal.
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  You know, it's not a piece of machinery that we're like a, like an Nvidia chip
• 11:29
  that is going, you know, a thousand times faster than it did a half a year ago.
• 11:34
  It's, that's not happening with horses.
• 11:37
  They're keeping us grounded in that reality, and that's what,
• 11:42
  that is the primary reason why the knowledge that they had in 1729.
• 11:49
  You can read that and just say, okay, well maybe we've had advances in shoeing
• 11:53
  and we know a little bit more about the biochemistry of feeding, but in
• 11:59
  terms of the way the horse actually responds to us and our training and
• 12:04
  our seat and our exercises, we must.
• 12:07
  Avail.
• 12:08
  I think we have to avail ourselves of what they knew then, because these people
• 12:12
  were spending, you know, 12 hours in the barn, a a day, 365 times the lifetime.
• 12:21
  So they learn, they have way more time in the barn.
• 12:25
  I mean, you have a lot of time in the barn and around horses, and so do I, but
• 12:28
  we also have other things that we do.
• 12:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:32
  So we don't, we can't even compete with the amount of exposure, the
• 12:36
  trial and error that these people had.
• 12:38
  So that's what makes them, that's what, why you know, Gustav Steinbach
• 12:44
  is, you know, knows what he's talking about because he basically lived it.
• 12:50
  He lived it.
• 12:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:51
  And we don't, even, even the experts that we have today, they didn't have that.
• 12:56
  This kind of same exposure.
• 12:57
  Very, very few people.
• 12:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Very, it's an interesting thing.
• 13:01
  Let's go back to Xenophon himself.
• 13:03
  You know, your.
• 13:04
  Press is named after Xenophon.
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  Xenophon is the ultimate sort of classical example because all we horse people, if
• 13:13
  we have any sense read him and then we read all the people that came after him.
• 13:19
  But he's not just taught as a horse dude.
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  He's taught at West Point Military Academy or a Sandhurst military
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  Academy as the master of the tactical retreat for having brought 10,000 Greek
• 13:30
  mercenaries more or less safely home, out of enemy territory from Baghdad
• 13:35
  to Greece on foot in 300 BC or so.
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  And then 400 bc.
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  And then he is also taught in philosophy schools as the complement
• 13:47
  to Plato and perhaps he's the father of stoic philosophy and so on.
• 13:51
  And so, and the point is that there's relevance.
• 13:55
  So much relevance today.
• 13:57
  Still from people like that, whether they're in military tactic, you
• 14:02
  know, tactics or whether they're in philosophy or whether they're in
• 14:05
  horsemanship or no matter or science or no matter what they're in, I
• 14:10
  agree to take a modernist approach
• 14:16
  puts the lie to where modernism, what modernism is.
• 14:22
  'cause modernism comes out of the thing that came before modernism and
• 14:25
  we think, oh, something's ancient.
• 14:28
  Well, it wasn't ancient when it was written, and so it still works today.
• 14:32
  You know?
• 14:32
  Then we're talking, actually, what we're actually talking
• 14:35
  about is the present moment.
• 14:37
  And I think when people are putting their mindfulness hats on and
• 14:42
  that sort of thing, talking about the present moment, what's often
• 14:46
  forgotten is that the past and the future are also the present moment.
• 14:49
  There are all these present moments and I feel that you are
• 14:54
  making those available, but.
• 14:56
  Why the passion for it and why the passion for this particular type of riding.
• 15:01
  Why, why aren't you roping?
• 15:02
  Why aren't you jumping?
• 15:03
  Why aren't you riding races?
• 15:05
  What, what, what is it about this, what they call classical riding?
• 15:10
  What is it that makes it so addictive that you would consign yourself to, in order
• 15:17
  to be able to bring out all these books?
• 15:20
  Why is it so beautiful?
• 15:22
  Richard Williams: I think it comes down to basically, you know, one or two words.
• 15:29
  It comes down to truth.
• 15:31
  It really comes down to, you know, is it true?
• 15:36
  Is it kind?
• 15:39
  Is it helpful?
• 15:40
  You know, it, it, it is basically that, you know, so we can come up
• 15:46
  with ways of tricking horses or signaling horses to tall with their
• 15:53
  right front leg seven times as we scratch them on the wither seven times.
• 15:57
  We can, we can do cues, but the classical, the classical methodology,
• 16:05
  and that's kind of how I sort, what I keep is like if it speaks a language,
• 16:13
  you try it with a horse and you try it a few, a few different ways.
• 16:17
  If you try it with a horse and it works, and wait a minute, this horse
• 16:21
  just got brought to you like last week.
• 16:24
  We don't even know what this horse's training is, but if you try this
• 16:30
  method that is in that classical cannon, it helps the horse.
• 16:36
  Understand.
• 16:37
  It helps you communicate with the horse.
• 16:40
  It helps you convey your intention to the horse, and there is a back and
• 16:45
  forth then, then it's worth keeping.
• 16:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 16:50
  Richard Williams: And we cannot, there's no way that we can be so egotistical
• 16:56
  ourselves in our own life to say, okay, well I'm, you know, 80 years or,
• 17:02
  you know, God willing, you know, and in my vast experience, our, my vast
• 17:08
  experience or your vast experience in your lifetime cannot compete with the
• 17:13
  thousands and thousands of horsemen and horsewomen and horses over the
• 17:20
  thousands of years that has aggregated.
• 17:25
  This trial and error experience and knowledge to distill, Hey,
• 17:32
  we tried a bunch of stuff, this is actually what works.
• 17:38
  Hmm.
• 17:39
  So I don't think of myself really as, oh, you, Richard,
• 17:44
  you're a dressage instructor.
• 17:46
  Not really.
• 17:47
  I really am trying to teach horsemanship that works.
• 17:54
  Horsemanship.
• 17:55
  That actually works because it res, it actually is effective with most horses,
• 18:00
  with most riders most of the time.
• 18:02
  A methodology.
• 18:03
  And I'm always trying to add to that, refine that.
• 18:07
  Sometimes even dispense, maybe say, Hey, I've decided something
• 18:13
  that I did 10 years ago.
• 18:15
  I'm now.
• 18:16
  Revising because I found in this situation, I could do something different.
• 18:21
  So I, like, I teach people in western saddles, I teach people you know, in dumb
• 18:29
  of a Cara saddles in English saddles.
• 18:33
  I teach quote unquote Western dressage.
• 18:35
  I even had a, a barn that I went to where all the people were Western.
• 18:41
  It was a western barn.
• 18:44
  And they said, can you teach us to do, you know, quote unquote side paths?
• 18:48
  And I'm like, yes.
• 18:50
  Among other things the only thing I require is I do need you to
• 18:54
  have a bit that has a joint in it, you know, a little snapple bit.
• 18:58
  Like that's really the only thing that I, 'cause I, I can't really
• 19:02
  be doing this with a, a rigid bit.
• 19:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 19:05
  Richard Williams: But you can ride whatever saddle makes you feel
• 19:07
  comfortable or what you're going to use when I'm, when I'm gone.
• 19:12
  I mean, the majority of people that I teach are in English saddles.
• 19:15
  But I don't think of myself as classical as being dressy.
• 19:22
  Right?
• 19:23
  I think of classical as being, this is the methodology that has been handed down
• 19:30
  to us through trial and error experiment,
• 19:34
  Rupert Isaacson: right?
• 19:34
  But there is something beautiful about it.
• 19:36
  What is beautiful about it?
• 19:37
  Why is this way of writing like it's aesthetically beautiful, right?
• 19:40
  It looks beautiful.
• 19:41
  Why does it look beautiful?
• 19:43
  How does it feel?
• 19:44
  Talk to us about that.
• 19:46
  Where does that beauty come from, and why is that important?
• 19:50
  Richard Williams: The beauty is because it is the, the classical way is like
• 19:56
  having the correct key in the door and turning the latch that allows
• 20:05
  us to enter into the horse's being.
• 20:10
  It, it allows us to enter in store instead of riding at the horse
• 20:17
  or on the horse or to the horse.
• 20:22
  We are riding with the horse if we're really doing correct, correct.
• 20:29
  Riding.
• 20:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 20:29
  So you become the center you are, if you
• 20:32
  Richard Williams: like,
• 20:32
  Rupert Isaacson: in the horse.
• 20:33
  Richard Williams: The horse actually stops seeing you as a threat on his back
• 20:38
  and, and actually enjoys having you on his back and wants to carry you around.
• 20:46
  And the, the, and that q you know, the Q power that you get from riding horses
• 20:55
  is, it's like a life force for me.
• 20:59
  It's like a life force.
• 21:01
  Like, you know, I just saw something, you know, where they were showing the
• 21:06
  where they were showing all of the original actors of Star Trek and mm-hmm.
• 21:11
  You Scottie and, you know, Le Leonard Nemoy.
• 21:16
  And, and we're in the year right now, 2026.
• 21:20
  And, and I, and the last one they show is William Shatner.
• 21:25
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 21:26
  Richard Williams: And, and, and I said, and then all these people had died in
• 21:30
  their sixties and seventies and you know, some very early, unfortunately.
• 21:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 21:35
  Richard Williams: And, and I said to Francis, my better half, I said, do
• 21:41
  you realize how old William Shatner is?
• 21:45
  And he's still alive.
• 21:46
  He's 96 or 94.
• 21:48
  And she said to me, well, you know why he.
• 21:51
  You know why he is still alive.
• 21:55
  And I, I said, well, luck.
• 21:58
  No.
• 21:58
  And she said, no, he continues to ride horses.
• 22:03
  He continues.
• 22:05
  Yeah.
• 22:05
  And it's, it bring, it's a life force.
• 22:09
  This interchange of energy between the rider and the horse keeps us youthful.
• 22:17
  And she's a physician and, you know, and has seen many, many
• 22:21
  lives and run a nursing home.
• 22:22
  And I, I really believe that it's like, you know, for riders,
• 22:27
  her saying is once you, once you stop riding, it's kind of over.
• 22:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 22:34
  Richard Williams: So, you know, I hope you and I, and all of our
• 22:38
  people that are listening to this get to keep riding in some fashion.
• 22:44
  You know, you into our, eighth or ninth decade?
• 22:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, you know what's interesting is when my son,
• 22:51
  you know the story, but you know, when my son became verbal, he was
• 22:55
  autistic and nonverbal in the saddle in front of me, and I found, mm-hmm.
• 22:58
  When I rode a horse in a way that was towards that classical way.
• 23:05
  I didn't know so much about it at the time.
• 23:07
  When I started riding in this collected way with my son, which originally I
• 23:11
  was doing just for safety to make it more balanced, I didn't really know
• 23:16
  the system behind it at that point.
• 23:18
  It felt very, very beautiful.
• 23:20
  Like it felt beautiful.
• 23:22
  And we all go and look at those pictures from the Barak era and the classical
• 23:27
  era of Greece and Rome and whatever, and we see horses in this very round shape
• 23:32
  and this very round shape with elevated movement looks aesthetically beautiful.
• 23:38
  That's why they made paintings of it and did sculptures of it.
• 23:41
  And that same feeling of beauty, of course, translates through your
• 23:44
  body when you're on the horse.
• 23:45
  My son became verbal and then neuroscientists explained
• 23:50
  to me later, oh yeah.
• 23:51
  The reason that feels beautiful Rupert is 'cause it act is actually
• 23:55
  making you produce a hormone.
• 23:57
  It's rocking your hips in this rhythmic way, not unlike making
• 24:01
  love, not unlike dancing.
• 24:03
  And when you do those things you produce.
• 24:06
  The hormone oxytocin.
• 24:08
  Oxytocin is the best physical feeling of all of the happy hormones.
• 24:14
  You've got your dopamine, you got your endorphins, you got your
• 24:17
  serotonin, and you got your oxytocin.
• 24:19
  Oxytocin is the one that gives you the really ecstatic feel, and it's
• 24:25
  there to make you communicate.
• 24:27
  It's a hormone of communication.
• 24:28
  So of course you also communicate cross species with this other
• 24:33
  animal and across the predator prey barrier, which is almost miraculous.
• 24:37
  And then of course there's the aesthetic side.
• 24:39
  Now, I didn't know all that before I started doing it, but once the
• 24:44
  neuroscientists explained to me, to me, I was like, oh, well that
• 24:48
  makes perfect sense then why people would've pursued this as an art for
• 24:52
  hundreds of years, thousands of years.
• 24:54
  Because not only is it really functional, you can stop, start, spin, catch a
• 24:58
  cow, fight a bull, fight another man on horseback, but you can also heal yourself.
• 25:04
  Arm of mental illness because it feels so good and it makes you
• 25:11
  communicate within your species, cross species with nature in general.
• 25:16
  You're open for communication 'cause of the oxytocin and the sciences.
• 25:21
  Arts and sciences of course, are completely connected to
• 25:26
  the classical riding thing.
• 25:28
  We've talked about xenophon having been a philosopher,
• 25:31
  having been a military tactician.
• 25:34
  And philosophy, of course, back in the ancient Greek era was not limited to
• 25:39
  sitting around talking about stuff.
• 25:41
  It meant science as well.
• 25:43
  It meant anything that was inquiry.
• 25:45
  So all these guys were playing with the sciences.
• 25:47
  And then I've noticed in a lot of the books that you've published,
• 25:52
  is a from the 18, from the 17th century is a good example.
• 25:56
  From the 18th century is a good example.
• 25:58
  Eisenberg from the 18th century is a good example there.
• 26:01
  A lot of these people are talking about the link between classical riding,
• 26:08
  effectively three dimensional riding, not just going from point A to point B,
• 26:13
  but going to the side to side, going up in the air, going down to the ground,
• 26:17
  going backwards, spinning, being able to do this in a soft, non-resistant way.
• 26:25
  There being a real correlation between people that do this and people that
• 26:30
  do arts and sciences and that you need academies that teach all of this stuff.
• 26:35
  Can you go into a little bit of this history and you publish all these people?
• 26:38
  Why were they saying this?
• 26:40
  Why were they noticing?
• 26:42
  This link between this type of riding and training of a horse and this type of
• 26:46
  mind that could then go into the sciences and the arts and further on from there.
• 26:52
  Talk to us about this link.
• 26:55
  Richard Williams: I'm looking to see if I have a copy of
• 26:58
  that book, if you don't mind.
• 27:00
  It,
• 27:01
  Rupert Isaacson: which one?
• 27:01
  Blue.
• 27:02
  Blue Al or
• 27:03
  Richard Williams: no, it, the one that I'm looking for is the one by Toni.
• 27:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, yes.
• 27:11
  While you're looking for it, I'm gonna tell the, the viewers
• 27:13
  and readers what that is.
• 27:14
  So there's a really good book that's by the Xon Press, by an Italian
• 27:19
  author and academic called Tamini.
• 27:22
  And I think you need to find his age of chivalry website.
• 27:26
  He really goes into this he.
• 27:29
  Wrote a very good book recently about the early Renaissance Italian masters
• 27:37
  and how they founded academies based upon the idea of Socrates, Zenon, and Plato.
• 27:44
  But, you know, a couple of thousand years later where you could come to learn
• 27:48
  usually in Naples, but then they grew out from Naples the arts of horsemanship
• 27:55
  riding, but also fencing, mathematics, languages astronomy you name it.
• 28:02
  And the reason was that rather than just teaching people how to
• 28:08
  be warriors on horseback, they were now teaching people to be diplomats
• 28:17
  so that you would go into a foreign court and be able to hold your own.
• 28:23
  In the saddle, in conversation, in science, et cetera, et cetera, and
• 28:27
  you would be perceived as a man of, of who is, who's cultivated
• 28:32
  and civilized and three dimensional what we now call a Renaissance man.
• 28:38
  But it starts, of course, in the actual Renaissance and it
• 28:40
  horsemanship at the key with this can.
• 28:42
  Yeah.
• 28:43
  I've, I've given a bit of preamble to Thomas Sini.
• 28:45
  Take, take us in.
• 28:47
  Richard Williams: So this is the book is that, is that visible?
• 28:50
  Rupert Isaacson: It blurs and then it comes out.
• 28:52
  But we, we'll put a, we'll put a link in the, at the end, just read us the title.
• 28:57
  Richard Williams: So the name of the book is called The Italian
• 29:01
  Tradition of Equestrian Art,
• 29:03
  Rupert Isaacson: the Italian Tradition of Equestrian Art,
• 29:06
  Richard Williams: and it's by Giovanni Batista Toni.
• 29:11
  And the subtitle is A Survey of the treatises on horsemanship from the
• 29:16
  Renaissance and the centuries following.
• 29:20
  And, and I, I think it's about 10 years ago.
• 29:26
  It was about 2016 that we published this.
• 29:29
  And GB is what I call him.
• 29:32
  That's what a lot of people call him short for Giovanni Batista.
• 29:37
  So GB actually has his own press now and he publishes works in Italian.
• 29:45
  Some of the authors that we have published in, in English, for
• 29:51
  example, GB Thomasine in Italy, they are publishing works in Italian.
• 29:58
  And another notable example is Werner Pusher in Austria.
• 30:06
  We published the Austrian Art of Writing in English and he has since.
• 30:12
  Opened his own press and publishes, you know, Austrian works in, in German.
• 30:20
  And I'm just kind of proud of that because they sort of, I think they sort
• 30:24
  of saw what I was doing in English and I'm really happy that they're publishing
• 30:28
  those works in their local countries.
• 30:31
  But and bringing back a lot of these works and we have very, very
• 30:35
  friendly relationship with these authors who are now publishers.
• 30:41
  And I'll tell you another story about them, but, but what was
• 30:45
  going on in the Renaissance?
• 30:47
  As you know, Italy was just a series of little, city states, you know,
• 30:53
  there was little fiefdoms, you know, that's probably an English word,
• 30:57
  but there are little principalities.
• 31:01
  So you would have there, it wasn't a nation, it was an area that was separated
• 31:07
  off from a lot of the rest of Europe by its geography being a long peninsula.
• 31:14
  But these land, and they
• 31:16
  Rupert Isaacson: had the legacy of, of the Roman Empire and the papacy of course.
• 31:20
  Richard Williams: Right, right.
• 31:21
  So they had these land areas and they would have a certain area that let's say
• 31:28
  a Duke or or a Baron or whatever would.
• 31:35
  Be in charge of protecting the local people.
• 31:38
  And it was of course the futile system.
• 31:40
  So there were serfs in the field working the fields, and
• 31:45
  it was a hierarchical system.
• 31:47
  But at the head of that was usually a family.
• 31:51
  You know, one that comes to mind is the cheese, right?
• 31:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 31:55
  Richard Williams: So all of these medic cheese, and it was a
• 31:58
  patriarchal system pretty much.
• 32:02
  So the Medici senior would have offspring and, and then these offspring would
• 32:10
  sooner or later become teenagers.
• 32:13
  So the little tiny baby that was cute.
• 32:15
  The new male heir to the, to the family fortune or to the response rose into a
• 32:21
  Rupert Isaacson: psychopath like Chere Boer.
• 32:22
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 32:23
  Because as soon as he turns goes into puberty at the age
• 32:26
  of 12, 13, 14, 15 suddenly.
• 32:30
  His parents become stupid and he's rebelling against them.
• 32:37
  He doesn't listen to them, and they just, he
• 32:41
  Rupert Isaacson: declares war in his local neighbor.
• 32:43
  Richard Williams: Right, right.
• 32:43
  Yeah.
• 32:44
  So what they learned is like, oh, we'll send him off to a,
• 32:49
  a kind of boarding school.
• 32:50
  The name of these schools back then was called the School of Horsemanship.
• 32:56
  So, but horsemanship was not the only thing taught there.
• 33:01
  And so what was the goal?
• 33:02
  It was like usually a, a four year process on average between the
• 33:08
  age of 14 and 18 or 16 and 20.
• 33:13
  And sometimes the, they the, the curriculum lasted longer than four years.
• 33:19
  Sometimes it was six years.
• 33:20
  Sometimes it took longer if somebody was stubborn, but many things were
• 33:25
  taught in the school of horsemanship.
• 33:28
  And in including, but not limited to, you know, fencing,
• 33:33
  public speaking, mathematics
• 33:37
  Rupert Isaacson: sciences.
• 33:38
  Yeah.
• 33:38
  Richard Williams: Dancing
• 33:40
  Rupert Isaacson: sportsmanship
• 33:41
  Richard Williams: and, and horsemanship.
• 33:42
  Why was horsemanship so important?
• 33:45
  Because that was transportation.
• 33:47
  There were no, there were no cars.
• 33:50
  There were the, the transportation was the horse.
• 33:54
  And if you were going to be a leader, you needed to be moving out
• 33:57
  front to direct either surveys of the land or patrols or what, what
• 34:06
  you tried to do, do is avoid war.
• 34:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:10
  But if you had to go to war, you had to show yourself as a leader.
• 34:14
  And, and so you knew, you had, you had to know how to ride a horse and once.
• 34:23
  The, the offspring graduated from this, this school of horsemanship
• 34:30
  through this wide curriculum that included these life skills.
• 34:35
  Then they could go back to their village or their principality
• 34:41
  Rupert Isaacson: that
• 34:41
  Richard Williams: coastal
• 34:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 34:42
  Richard Williams: And, and be, you know, next in line for the
• 34:46
  throne or next in line as a leader.
• 34:49
  So you start out as a snot-nosed teenager, lipping off your parents.
• 34:55
  And here's what, here's the great equalizer.
• 34:58
  When a lot of the horses that were used in these schools, the stallions, the males
• 35:06
  and the female horses were kept separate.
• 35:09
  So in the tradition was that female horses were used at breeding farms, and
• 35:15
  they were also used often in carriages.
• 35:19
  So for carriage riding, basically because of the mare's
• 35:26
  structure of having the longer
• 35:29
  Rupert Isaacson: back
• 35:30
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 35:30
  Longer back and having the abdomen be able to be opening and having the pelvis invert
• 35:38
  a little bit to be able to birth Foles.
• 35:42
  And the stallion has a more tucked pelvis in general from breeding
• 35:48
  and from, you know, fighting with other stallions naturally.
• 35:52
  So the stallions were the horse of choice and castration wasn't really widely done.
• 36:01
  And in some countries, like on the Iberian Peninsula, male horses are often just left
• 36:06
  as stallions as a normal course mm-hmm.
• 36:10
  Of, of protocol, but.
• 36:12
  What would happen is these teenage boys who had been liping off their parents
• 36:19
  and telling them that they didn't know what they were talking about, they
• 36:22
  would go to these schools and, and then the teacher, the ride in teacher would
• 36:29
  basically say, okay, you're everybody off.
• 36:33
  Just go ahead and ride the stallion and try that with the stallion,
• 36:38
  with the 1200 pound pound stallion.
• 36:41
  And pretty soon the stallion gave feedback as to what kind of behavior
• 36:49
  was going to be acceptable and what was going to be thrown off.
• 36:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:54
  So if you know, I have this story of when my, when we got our very, very first
• 36:58
  horse I was 11 and my brother was 13.
• 37:05
  And my sister was eight, and I may have told this story before, but my
• 37:11
  brother was right at that age of 13.
• 37:14
  So he had been watching shows like gun smoke and and Bonanza, right
• 37:19
  on tv, black and white versions.
• 37:21
  So my parents didn't know what to do.
• 37:24
  We got this little pony and my brother got on the Little Pony and it was a
• 37:29
  marere and it was probably 14 hands.
• 37:34
  And he got on and they looked at the three of us and they said, okay,
• 37:38
  this is actually for Kathy, my little sister who is eight, but we're not
• 37:43
  going to sacrifice Kathy first.
• 37:45
  Let's put Mark on.
• 37:48
  So they put my brother on and my brother, who had not ridden horses before,
• 37:53
  and his only example was gun smoke.
• 37:56
  And bonanza of the TV shows.
• 37:59
  He just remembered a guy getting on and kicking the horse with both legs and then
• 38:04
  taking off, you know, after he fell out of the second floor, you know, the John Wayne
• 38:08
  movie falling out of the second floor, balcony of the saloon and then taking off.
• 38:14
  So he got on and he just kicked the horse while she took off with him
• 38:18
  and, and galloped out of sight behind the L-shaped barn galloped and, you
• 38:25
  know, the very fast movement of feet.
• 38:28
  And then, he completely disappeared and she promptly galloped straight towards
• 38:35
  the muck heap, which was a giant pile of straw and horseshit that was being
• 38:40
  pushed into a wet area on the farm.
• 38:43
  And then did a sudden lurching stop very much like the Thewell
• 38:48
  cartoons, Uhhuh, and he went ass over tea kettles and was thrown off.
• 38:54
  She didn't even buck, she just went from a Gallup to a sudden stop.
• 38:58
  And he landed directly in the manure pile.
• 39:01
  And so we didn't even keep up with this because it was around the corner and the
• 39:08
  mayor came trotting back with the rains, drooped down, very proud of herself.
• 39:13
  And we, we were thinking, where, where's Mark?
• 39:17
  And he came around the corner and I heard many, many swear words that I
• 39:21
  had never heard up until that point.
• 39:23
  I didn't even know they existed, but it was a new list of vocabulary.
• 39:28
  And, but this is an example of how a horse will tell you that
• 39:35
  what you're doing is unacceptable.
• 39:37
  And so the horse being 1200 pounds and us not being 1200
• 39:42
  pounds, the horse guides us.
• 39:44
  It has this civilizing effect on people because it sorts for
• 39:50
  the right kind of behavior.
• 39:51
  So if a rider is going to learn from the horse, the rider starts to refine
• 40:00
  their aids and starts to eliminate the.
• 40:03
  Abusive coarse rough aids because a lot of horses just won't tolerate that.
• 40:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 40:11
  Richard Williams: And then we can take that to the nth degree when we, when goes
• 40:16
  towards art, where we start culturing the riders TT or the tactfulness of
• 40:24
  the rider, where we see riders, and we've seen in the, in the 18th century.
• 40:32
  Like in Eisenberg or Inal or in sinned, where, where the big boast, the big
• 40:41
  bragging about what makes a great horse person, a great horse person, is
• 40:47
  that we basically cannot see the aids.
• 40:51
  We, the rider sits there.
• 40:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 40:53
  It looks, it seems like to happen just by like Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar.
• 40:56
  It just seems like right.
• 40:58
  Richard Williams: Right.
• 40:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Guitar plays itself.
• 40:59
  Yeah.
• 40:59
  Yeah.
• 41:00
  Richard Williams: Make playing the guitar without moving your fingers.
• 41:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 41:03
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 41:04
  And, and so this was, people realized that this is, that is mastery.
• 41:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 41:10
  As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm an autism dad and we have
• 41:15
  a whole career before this podcast in helping people with neurodivergence,
• 41:22
  either who are professionals in the field.
• 41:25
  Are you a therapist?
• 41:26
  Are you a caregiver?
• 41:28
  Are you a parent?
• 41:29
  Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?
• 41:33
  When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004,
• 41:38
  I really didn't know what to do.
• 41:39
  So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult
• 41:45
  autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.
• 41:48
  Temple Grandin.
• 41:49
  And she told me what to do.
• 41:50
  And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years.
• 41:55
  That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped
• 42:00
  countless, countless thousands of others reach the same goal.
• 42:04
  Working in schools, working at home, working in therapy settings.
• 42:09
  If you would like to learn this cutting edge, neuroscience backed
• 42:13
  approach, it's called Movement Method.
• 42:16
  You can learn it online, you can learn it very, very simply.
• 42:19
  It's almost laughably simple.
• 42:23
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• 42:26
  Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.
• 42:29
  Grandin and see what results can follow.
• 42:34
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• 42:39
  com Sign up as a gold member.
• 42:42
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• 42:45
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• 42:47
  Let us know how it goes for you.
• 42:50
  We really want to know.
• 42:50
  We really want to help people like me, people like you, out there
• 42:55
  live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens.
• 42:59
  Richard Williams: That is when, because the horse has now welcomed you because
• 43:03
  you deserve to be welcomed because you acted, you know, in a way that
• 43:09
  respects the horse's nature and sees him as a partner and not as a vehicle.
• 43:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 43:16
  Richard Williams: So, did I answer your question?
• 43:18
  You
• 43:18
  Rupert Isaacson: did.
• 43:18
  And, and it, it, I think we could, what it's coming down to is preparing the
• 43:25
  person that goes through that academy as to be a diplomat and an ambassador.
• 43:29
  You know, it's interesting, Leonardo da Vinci said a man in public life must
• 43:34
  learn to ride beautifully because he will be seen on horseback everywhere he goes.
• 43:40
  If he looks like a dick, you know.
• 43:42
  And he's bouncing about up there like a sack of potatoes he'll be laughed at and
• 43:48
  clearly he won't have mastery and he could be unseated easily and fall in the mud.
• 43:52
  If you chuck something at his horse, if you spook his horse down goes the king.
• 43:56
  And when, but also it will humble the young prince so that he
• 44:02
  doesn't get too above himself.
• 44:03
  And I've actually had personal experience of this when I was a boy
• 44:06
  growing up as a young teenager in Leicestershire in the uk, which is a big
• 44:12
  fox hunting area, lots of big jumping.
• 44:14
  And Prince Charles, who's now King Charles, used to come and hunt with us.
• 44:19
  And you would see him, you know, face down in a ditch the same way you'd
• 44:23
  see anyone else face down in a ditch because that's just the laws of physics.
• 44:28
  And the laws of physics don't care if you have a, a title that
• 44:32
  other monkeys thought up for you.
• 44:34
  The laws of physics are the laws of physics, and he wouldn't.
• 44:38
  Stand upon his dignity or his honor.
• 44:41
  If he was chucked off the horse and then ordered the horse's head to be cut off
• 44:44
  or anything, he'd get up, laugh, brush himself down, say, well, we're only
• 44:48
  human if he could get back up and go on.
• 44:50
  And so I, I think with the tradition of horsemanship and people in power,
• 44:55
  there has been this really interesting interplay through the classical ages
• 45:01
  of, it's both an exercise in humility and it's an exercise in mastery.
• 45:06
  And of course, there is no mastery without humility.
• 45:09
  What everyone who comes into contact with a horse and tries particularly
• 45:14
  to ride in three dimensions, I think encounters, is that the horse does
• 45:19
  not care what's in your bank account.
• 45:22
  You had better humble yourself to the system that is necessary because
• 45:28
  this animal thinks fors itself and has its own reactions, its own
• 45:32
  opinions, its own sense of humor.
• 45:34
  You, by the way, are the butt of the joke.
• 45:36
  'cause who else is there to be the but of the joke?
• 45:38
  And how you deal with that is going to be to some degree how
• 45:42
  you deal with your commonwealth.
• 45:43
  If you are forcing and terrorizing your horse, you're probably
• 45:47
  gonna be a tyrant to your people.
• 45:49
  You know, we can actually see this, I think in
• 45:53
  generally in how people behave with animals is often how
• 45:56
  they'll behave with, with humans.
• 45:58
  So you then published of course a book which was written in the early 16 hundreds
• 46:05
  by a man called Antoine de Plu who had been one of the northern European, in
• 46:10
  this case, French students at one of these academies because of course, the sons
• 46:15
  of the nobility of Northern Europe also sent their scions or so were, were also
• 46:21
  sent down to these academies to learn all these arts and come back and become
• 46:27
  sort of polished courtier back home.
• 46:31
  And Pelle came back to the King of France where he was then
• 46:35
  hired to train the king's horses.
• 46:38
  And he said, listen, siah, we need actually four of these academies,
• 46:42
  which we have down in Italy.
• 46:44
  France is a square.
• 46:45
  Let's have one sort of at each point of the square on the inside because
• 46:50
  our young nobility are outta control.
• 46:53
  They are, if they're not dualing with each other.
• 46:57
  And of course, when they kill each other in duals, this breaks up states.
• 47:00
  It shatters the local economy.
• 47:02
  And then when they get older, if they survive, they just simply declare war on
• 47:05
  each other, or worse war on the crown.
• 47:08
  We've had a hundred years of, you know, chaotic civil war.
• 47:12
  Spain is to the south of us, and it's dominating the world Right now.
• 47:16
  We have a much richer agricultural base and trade based than Spain does.
• 47:22
  Apart from the Americas.
• 47:23
  We could supersede Spain.
• 47:25
  In Europe as the dominant power, as long as those pesky
• 47:28
  englanders don't get there first.
• 47:31
  But we'll never do it unless we get control of our young
• 47:35
  aristocracy because right now they're just messing everything up.
• 47:40
  What he said is Xenophon.
• 47:42
  These guys from the Greek, these guys from these renaissance academies down
• 47:48
  in Italy are making a good point.
• 47:52
  If you are going to train a horse and learn to ride a horse three dimensionally
• 47:56
  like this with these invisible aids and contain and manage all this power
• 48:01
  gracefully, then you have to do one thing.
• 48:05
  You have to be able to get control of your emotions.
• 48:11
  Emotional regulation, we talked about oxytocin, emotional regulation,
• 48:16
  being able to handle your shit.
• 48:18
  If you can do this, you can probably kind of get by in life, but if you can't.
• 48:23
  Maybe not.
• 48:24
  And he said, you know, this is what our aristocracy needs.
• 48:26
  They need to learn how to handle their emotions, their hotheads.
• 48:30
  And the king went for it because of that book that you now still publish.
• 48:34
  And that's why we of course ended up with all those French words
• 48:37
  because they nationalized it.
• 48:38
  That's why we have dressage massage pf Robert Traver, all these words.
• 48:44
  So I think it's been really born out that to learn to ride a horse in this
• 48:50
  complex way is, requires you to get control of your own complexities.
• 48:57
  How do you feel that your publishing of this canon of people doing
• 49:04
  this over the last few hundred years could kind of help us today?
• 49:08
  'cause we are, I would say, I think it's fair to say we're
• 49:10
  living in uncertain times again.
• 49:12
  And a lot of the stability that we have taken for granted in the last 90 years.
• 49:19
  80 years is beginning to fray and fragment.
• 49:24
  What can your books, what can this kind of classical horsemanship teach us and
• 49:29
  help us with now in this modern era?
• 49:32
  Richard Williams: So the reason I'm, I'm going to answer that, but the
• 49:37
  reason, so why was, why was horsemanship effective at getting those, those
• 49:48
  French youths or the Italian youths, or the Europeans able, why and how,
• 49:55
  what is the nature of horsemanship?
• 49:57
  This is the question that, how is it that that
• 50:04
  taught those people for emo to do emotional regulation?
• 50:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 50:10
  Richard Williams: So I have the an I know the answer to that because when we are
• 50:18
  emotionally dysregulated in our minds, we are often worrying or fretting about the
• 50:31
  things that might happen in the future.
• 50:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 50:35
  Richard Williams: We're also regretting or having guilt about the things
• 50:40
  that did or didn't have in the past.
• 50:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 50:45
  Richard Williams: And what the horse does for you to succeed and let's just say even
• 50:50
  survive on horseback today, or whether it's in 1562 or in 1658 or tomorrow, what.
• 51:05
  Good horsemanship, classical horsemanship, and this is not really
• 51:10
  maybe underlined in these classical texts.
• 51:17
  It's probably assumed for you to succeed.
• 51:22
  You.
• 51:22
  The horse lives in the present, the horse lives in this moment and the next second.
• 51:33
  But the horse isn't regretting, isn't living a life of regret
• 51:40
  and the horse not really worrying about what might happen tomorrow.
• 51:46
  The horse is just dealing with what is happening now, and if you want to be a
• 51:50
  horse, a good horse man, or a good horse woman, or a good horse person, mm-hmm.
• 52:00
  Then you need to become more like the horse.
• 52:03
  You need to ride empathizing, understanding how the
• 52:09
  horse perceives the world.
• 52:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Ah, it's mindfulness.
• 52:11
  It, yeah.
• 52:12
  You have to be in, you have to be present with the horse
• 52:15
  Richard Williams: and, and you have to, you can't, your mind cannot
• 52:18
  be racing forward into the future.
• 52:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 52:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 52:22
  Richard Williams: And it can't be living a life of, oh my God, when I
• 52:25
  was 13 that appaloosa took off with me through the barbed wire fence.
• 52:30
  And that's gonna happen, you know, in the next five minutes.
• 52:33
  Well, you're not riding an appaloosa.
• 52:35
  There's no barbed wire fence.
• 52:37
  Fence.
• 52:37
  You're riding a draft horse now.
• 52:39
  So it's, things are quite different.
• 52:42
  So this, this idea of worry.
• 52:45
  A fretting about the past, worrying about the future does not serve you
• 52:50
  because while your mind is preoccupied with those threats and worries and
• 52:57
  the emotions that go along with them, these thoughts that are, you know,
• 53:02
  your, just because your thought is happening doesn't mean it's real.
• 53:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 53:06
  Richard Williams: It does not mean it's real.
• 53:08
  I have
• 53:08
  Rupert Isaacson: noticed this about my thoughts.
• 53:11
  They're often, they're often wrong.
• 53:13
  You know
• 53:14
  Richard Williams: what is actually real is what is actually occurring right now.
• 53:19
  That is what we're doing, and that is actually where we belong.
• 53:24
  So this is the, this is why horsemanship worked more than the lecture on physics
• 53:33
  or more than the lecture on here's how you give a public address or and really
• 53:38
  to be a good DA dancer, you know, with a partner, you need to be right in that
• 53:44
  moment and planning maybe four, three seconds ahead of where you are now.
• 53:48
  There's not,
• 53:49
  Rupert Isaacson: and it is a dance.
• 53:50
  It is a dance when you with a
• 53:51
  Richard Williams: horse.
• 53:51
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:52
  So this is why and how it was a sorting process and effective if, mm.
• 54:00
  Now, I don't think, you know, I'm looking for the place in the, I'm looking for
• 54:07
  the place in these texts where they really te tell about this idea of like,
• 54:12
  bringing yourself back to the now.
• 54:15
  And there's two words that come that we have the benefit of that do this for us.
• 54:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 54:23
  And this is what I try to imbue all of my teaching with what I
• 54:27
  try to do the as basically the first step and one is breathing.
• 54:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 54:34
  Richard Williams: That, and, and it, it's not really, I'm looking forward in
• 54:38
  de lag but I don't necessarily see it.
• 54:42
  That may have been like common sense or just assumed that people
• 54:46
  are going to continue to breathe.
• 54:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 54:47
  But this breathing of bringing yourself.
• 54:51
  Into the now of, of what is actually going on right now.
• 54:56
  What are not, what you're worried about or not what he did five minutes ago
• 55:01
  or what he didn't do five minutes ago.
• 55:04
  And the other huge important thing is that you need to trust your feel.
• 55:12
  You need to develop, feel in these parts of your body, your inner thighs,
• 55:18
  your inner calves your backside.
• 55:21
  You know, there's not really in these disparate parts of our body, like
• 55:27
  we in in the way we go through life.
• 55:31
  We do a lot of this feel by our hands and by our eyes, right?
• 55:37
  And our sense of balance.
• 55:40
  But it, it, it trains us to create neuro pathways to.
• 55:48
  Other parts of our body, like basically the whole, the, the parts
• 55:53
  of our body that may be ignored.
• 55:56
  And I think this is the, this is actually the mechanism by which it calms this
• 56:02
  is necessary to, to be a good rider.
• 56:06
  This is what is kind of.
• 56:09
  Therapeutic for me as a writer, I, I mean, I have, you know, this
• 56:15
  person that wants a check, did I remember to fill out that form?
• 56:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 56:19
  Have I returned this library book?
• 56:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 56:21
  Richard Williams: Is my, has my computer updated?
• 56:24
  Did I call the plumber?
• 56:26
  Did I remember to go get the dishwasher, the replacement dishwasher?
• 56:30
  All of this stuff.
• 56:32
  And that I can't remember whether I've done or all this worrying, right.
• 56:37
  When I go through the gate to our barn, I have a commitment
• 56:41
  to myself and, and Francis.
• 56:44
  And we have a commitment to each other that we're just going to focus on the
• 56:48
  horses where we can't be talking about other stuff because it's actually unsafe.
• 56:53
  It's completely unsafe.
• 56:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 56:55
  Richard Williams: To be distracted.
• 56:56
  Yeah.
• 56:56
  So if you're
• 56:57
  Rupert Isaacson: operating dangerous machinery, you, you gotta be.
• 57:00
  Richard Williams: Completely, completely and utterly focused.
• 57:04
  So this, this skill of focusing on what is the, just the next right thing to
• 57:11
  do, the next one right thing to do.
• 57:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 57:15
  Richard Williams: This is a skill that is, first of all, it's calming because
• 57:23
  you're only having one thing to do.
• 57:26
  And people who think that riding is multitasking, I really think are wrong.
• 57:35
  I think that what you need to do is hold yourself in balance and then only.
• 57:43
  Feel, what is going on right now and what is the next one thing, one thing that
• 57:49
  I could do to improve the status quo.
• 57:53
  And then look at, okay, I'm going to do this one thing that I guess, or
• 57:57
  remember this is the right thing to do.
• 57:59
  And now we have a new, two seconds later we have a new status
• 58:03
  quo and we have a new moment.
• 58:05
  And then that moment we can ask the same question, do I
• 58:10
  need to make any changes here?
• 58:11
  What do I feel?
• 58:13
  So this idea of feeling and going from moment to moment and then
• 58:18
  asking ourselves, this is a kind of physical meditation, and what
• 58:25
  the horse is to me is the horse is this three dimensional mirror.
• 58:33
  It's just reflecting back.
• 58:37
  And it's reflecting back your inter your interface, your physical and spiritual
• 58:43
  interface with this living being
• 58:47
  Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
• 58:47
  Richard Williams: That is kind of adjudicating.
• 58:49
  It's kind of judging you.
• 58:51
  It might be ignoring you, it might be resisting you and it might be responding
• 58:56
  to you and it might be responding to you in ways that are challenging.
• 59:03
  And there's also responses where the horse is yielding and saying,
• 59:08
  yes, I will, this, these experiences are what happens in life, right?
• 59:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 59:14
  When you go to the villagers and say, well, we really need to make this fence
• 59:19
  around here so the sheep don't get out.
• 59:21
  Right?
• 59:21
  We really need to do that because the sheep are wandering
• 59:25
  and then you have a villager.
• 59:27
  Who doesn't wanna make the fence or is going to resist you.
• 59:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 59:32
  And, and so these skills of like, well, how do you deal with that?
• 59:37
  How do you deal with that?
• 59:38
  You have to keep regrouping and reinforcing.
• 59:40
  You have to repeat.
• 59:43
  But on the other hand, the other villager who makes the sheep fence,
• 59:47
  you say, good job, fantastic job.
• 59:51
  I have more responsibility for you.
• 59:53
  I'm going to reward you for keeping the flock together.
• 59:59
  So these skills that you learn on horsemanship, in horsemanship, they're
• 1:00:04
  still, they're still valid today because they teach us, the horse
• 1:00:12
  teaches us this feedback system.
• 1:00:15
  If you're willing to pay attention, these same things are going on.
• 1:00:21
  In life.
• 1:00:22
  This is why therapeutic horseback riding is not a gimmick.
• 1:00:27
  Yeah.
• 1:00:28
  Because the horse is always giving you this honest feedback and it's
• 1:00:33
  either, you know, following you, following your lead because you
• 1:00:38
  proved yourself as a reliable mm-hmm.
• 1:00:41
  And believable leader, or the horse is ignoring you mm-hmm.
• 1:00:46
  Because you were not compelling or the horse is opposing you.
• 1:00:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:53
  Basically, or the fourth thing is you and the horse have harmonized
• 1:01:00
  and seem to be doing the same thing.
• 1:01:03
  These are basically the four conditions of horseback riding.
• 1:01:06
  But these in a way you could argue, are the four conditions of life.
• 1:01:11
  Rupert Isaacson: I agree.
• 1:01:12
  It's interesting.
• 1:01:13
  Two things came up for me while you were talking, of course.
• 1:01:15
  One is that, you know, in the, in these previous centuries this type of
• 1:01:21
  fine riding was seen as a way to train people who are gonna have to be leaders
• 1:01:26
  to lead well, because it's not just about finding and maintaining balance.
• 1:01:30
  Of course, what we know is that it's about what you do with the
• 1:01:34
  loss of balance, the process that you were just describing with.
• 1:01:38
  You know, one villager opposes you, one villager goes with you,
• 1:01:41
  one villager is neutral, but this can shift moment to moment.
• 1:01:46
  The horse's reactions to you shift moment to moment.
• 1:01:49
  You have this great moment and then you have a terrible moment.
• 1:01:51
  Then maybe you retrieve that and you have a great moment again.
• 1:01:54
  And if this is in war or out hunting, this could be life or death for you.
• 1:01:59
  If it's in the man in the arena, that's perhaps where you are refining the
• 1:02:03
  skills so that when you go out into those other situations when balance is lost.
• 1:02:09
  You can retrieve quicker.
• 1:02:14
  And then I thought, okay, and that's sort of the old patriarchal
• 1:02:18
  world which was largely run by particular types of psychopath.
• 1:02:23
  And, you know, great, great genocides have been committed on the backs of horses as
• 1:02:27
  we know by very skilled riders, but also very human humane riders have opposed
• 1:02:37
  that process of genocide and inhumanity.
• 1:02:42
  And it seems that the people who really dedicated themselves to
• 1:02:47
  the write the kind of books that you now publish were generally in
• 1:02:51
  the early centuries, men of great humanity and compassion and kindness.
• 1:02:57
  And they were, the, the underlying message they're saying is, be kind
• 1:03:03
  and compassionate to your horse.
• 1:03:05
  Be kind and compassionate to your fellow man.
• 1:03:07
  Then of course, you hit the 19, the early 19 hundreds and we have suffrage.
• 1:03:14
  And suddenly we have a massive influx of women into the upper echelons of riding
• 1:03:23
  who prove that it's, it's not a male dominated thing at all, and it seems to
• 1:03:28
  serve as a bit of a springboard for the feminist movement in that an awful lot
• 1:03:34
  of those economically powerful women who got behind the suffrage movement in
• 1:03:41
  the early 20th century were horse women and were horsewomen who tried to ride
• 1:03:48
  and deal with their horses in this way.
• 1:03:50
  And now we are at this next juncture where we are rethinking our, our relationship.
• 1:03:56
  With horses at all.
• 1:03:58
  And we are realizing that, back to that oxytocin thing we were talking
• 1:04:02
  about earlier, and this emotional intelligence thing that we've been
• 1:04:05
  talking about subsequently, that the same system that was perhaps created
• 1:04:12
  for us to sit on a horse to harm our fellow man in the most efficient way
• 1:04:17
  possible by being in three dimensions of movement, could, like martial arts,
• 1:04:23
  could also be used to heal our fellow man.
• 1:04:27
  And we've seen, I think in recent years, a growing dysfunction with
• 1:04:34
  sport riding, particularly sport dressage, where it seems to be
• 1:04:38
  harming horses and people again.
• 1:04:41
  And now I feel that the bubble is beginning to burst and that
• 1:04:44
  the, what we've learned through therapeutic riding, as you just
• 1:04:47
  said, is now perhaps gonna spill out into taking us into a new form of.
• 1:04:55
  What the next form of, if you like, classical riding is, we've talked about
• 1:04:59
  the effect of the good effect of this type of horsemanship, and this is the
• 1:05:08
  books that you publish on the human.
• 1:05:10
  What about on the horse?
• 1:05:12
  What does this classical thing do for the animal that is giving
• 1:05:17
  itself to us so generously and so
• 1:05:20
  Richard Williams: well?
• 1:05:22
  Right, so the horse's probably the, I, I read this recently, the horse's, the
• 1:05:33
  biggest single other living entity that has contributed to the civilization
• 1:05:41
  of man and, and to our progress because, and, and this went on for
• 1:05:48
  centuries, they allowed us to be mobile.
• 1:05:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:05:53
  Richard Williams: They allowed us to save our backs.
• 1:05:55
  They allowed us to move around.
• 1:05:58
  They allowed us to lead, they allowed us to go borrow their legs and go really fast
• 1:06:05
  and, and get around and and survey lands and all, all the things that horses do.
• 1:06:13
  So, because it wasn't dogs
• 1:06:17
  Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
• 1:06:18
  Richard Williams: And it wasn't oxen and it wasn't giraffes, and you
• 1:06:24
  can't have elephants go everywhere.
• 1:06:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:06:28
  As you may know, if you've been following my work, we are also horsey folk here.
• 1:06:33
  And we have been training horses for many, many years in the manner of
• 1:06:37
  the old classical dressage masters.
• 1:06:41
  This is something which is often very confusing for people.
• 1:06:44
  We shine a light on that murky, difficult stuff and make it crystal clear.
• 1:06:50
  If you'd like to learn to train your horse in the manner of the old masters and
• 1:06:54
  really have fun and joy for you and your equine, go to our website, heliosharmony.
• 1:07:00
  com Sign up as a premium member.
• 1:07:03
  and begin to take the Helios Harmony course, which will take you from zero
• 1:07:07
  to the Piaf, where the horse is dancing on the spot in hand on the ground.
• 1:07:13
  And then from there, you can develop out to anywhere you want to.
• 1:07:18
  Heliosharmony.
• 1:07:19
  com to unlock the secrets of the old masters.
• 1:07:23
  Richard Williams: So, so the, the horse more than any other
• 1:07:26
  living creature has had that.
• 1:07:29
  So we have a lot of experience over, you know, millennia working with horses
• 1:07:37
  as you know, you know, the riders from the steps and, and earlier people,
• 1:07:43
  you know, the North American, native Amer North Americans were on the
• 1:07:47
  planes and had already, you know, been riding horses around hurting buffalo
• 1:07:54
  and hunting, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:07:57
  So there, in, in disconnected cultures
• 1:08:03
  Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
• 1:08:05
  Richard Williams: Geographically disconnected, humans were
• 1:08:08
  coming to the same conclusion.
• 1:08:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:10
  So, and the bonds that people had with horses were extremely rewarding and
• 1:08:17
  people were very beholden to the horse.
• 1:08:21
  So I think for these reasons that we're, we're
• 1:08:27
  we know have historically benefited us, it's not necessary.
• 1:08:33
  It's not necessary for the same reasons.
• 1:08:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:39
  Richard Williams: That it was in the past because now we
• 1:08:41
  have, you know, Teslas, right?
• 1:08:43
  So we have a,
• 1:08:43
  Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
• 1:08:44
  We
• 1:08:44
  Richard Williams: have a Tesla or we have a Volkswagen Jetta or we have a moped.
• 1:08:49
  So we're not necessarily using them for transportation, but the horse
• 1:08:54
  is not obsolete because it still has these character building qualities.
• 1:09:01
  And we know from experience that delving into waywardness, let's just
• 1:09:10
  call it waywardness, that has been in the human condition as long as we
• 1:09:15
  have had humans waywardness of people losing the path, losing the way through.
• 1:09:26
  Debauchery or indulgences?
• 1:09:30
  This has always been, this is, you know, we hear about the opium dens
• 1:09:34
  and we hear about, you know, crime.
• 1:09:37
  These are people who are, are not availed of the benefits of horsemanship.
• 1:09:45
  So horsemanship does have this ability to heal.
• 1:09:49
  If you're an executive and you have a high stress job, then going to
• 1:09:54
  the barn and spending time with your horse is super rewarding.
• 1:10:01
  It can be su and very, very therapeutic.
• 1:10:05
  And therapeutic in an interactive way.
• 1:10:09
  That's not the same as going to see a therapist going to see
• 1:10:13
  in talking about your problems.
• 1:10:14
  But actually it is a.
• 1:10:16
  Physical Asana.
• 1:10:18
  It's a physical meditation.
• 1:10:21
  It's a, it's a experience.
• 1:10:23
  You know, you're moving through when you're, when you are going to see your
• 1:10:27
  therapist and you sit in, you lay on the sofa, you sit in the chair, that's
• 1:10:32
  talk therapy, which is legitimate.
• 1:10:35
  It's, but the, the physical, the physical meditation, and it's
• 1:10:42
  really, it's, it's all of the things.
• 1:10:45
  It's your action, it's your motion, it's your touch.
• 1:10:50
  It can be also your speech.
• 1:10:54
  The validity of that.
• 1:10:55
  That is really what needs to be put forward, because I think, okay, the
• 1:10:59
  window might be why ther, why is therapeutic riding like a thing?
• 1:11:08
  Because maybe it was discovered and.
• 1:11:13
  People realized, okay, well all this talk therapy is not really helping these
• 1:11:17
  people, but we do this physical asana.
• 1:11:21
  We do this kind of physical kind of meditation and experience,
• 1:11:26
  and then like with your son and, and others, it awakens something.
• 1:11:32
  Well, that is just as therapeutic.
• 1:11:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:11:36
  Richard Williams: For an, for a, an everyday person.
• 1:11:41
  But why did you seek this?
• 1:11:46
  Well, you didn't necessarily even seek it.
• 1:11:49
  You stumbled upon it, right?
• 1:11:51
  You had the, you were doubling your son in front of you and you're like, wait,
• 1:11:55
  I'm noticing he's actually talking now.
• 1:11:59
  So you, you, you, I, I don't know exactly what your experience is, but
• 1:12:04
  so you were really, really looking.
• 1:12:08
  For a solution.
• 1:12:10
  So you were open to like anything, you know.
• 1:12:13
  What about a sailing trip?
• 1:12:15
  What about riding horses?
• 1:12:16
  It could have been, it could have what?
• 1:12:18
  A camping trip.
• 1:12:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Just 'cause I like riding horses doesn't mean I was
• 1:12:20
  in any way attached to this thing happening on the back of a horse.
• 1:12:24
  Absolutely.
• 1:12:24
  Richard Williams: Right, right.
• 1:12:25
  So, but one could, not to put words in your mouth, but you might have
• 1:12:30
  been somewhat desperate, right?
• 1:12:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:12:33
  Like you're Or I more than somewhat desperate.
• 1:12:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:12:37
  Richard Williams: You're, you're at your wits end and I'm like,
• 1:12:39
  I will actually try anything.
• 1:12:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:12:41
  Richard Williams: So, so it is a healing it ha Horses have a healing.
• 1:12:51
  Quality to them.
• 1:12:52
  I mean, I have people that come to my barn and they're not real.
• 1:12:57
  They've had, you know, touch and go experiences with horses and they, they
• 1:13:02
  come and they just say, can I just come and groom your horses for you?
• 1:13:07
  And they're like, they're, I watch, I, I le I give them the safety, you
• 1:13:12
  know, don't go behind the horse.
• 1:13:14
  This is how we tie them.
• 1:13:16
  We close the stall door, you know, this is how you pick up their feet.
• 1:13:20
  And then I basically leave them on their own.
• 1:13:22
  This is how you brush, you brush, you know, directionally with the,
• 1:13:28
  the, the direction of the hair.
• 1:13:31
  And I look on them and I don't hover and I just watch the
• 1:13:35
  effect that this has on people.
• 1:13:39
  And it's.
• 1:13:41
  Completely regenerative.
• 1:13:43
  Not even riding.
• 1:13:45
  Not even riding, just being around the horse.
• 1:13:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:13:50
  Richard Williams: So through observation, I just know Yeah, that's really valuable.
• 1:13:55
  And they are a species on this planet, and we have, when we ignored or we
• 1:14:01
  exploited other species they became extinct when we didn't take care of them.
• 1:14:08
  So I, there's a huge value.
• 1:14:11
  It's not just like, yeah, it's nice to have some horses running around.
• 1:14:14
  I mean, humans will always, you know, want to say the human nature is always
• 1:14:21
  gonna say, well, what's in it for me?
• 1:14:24
  What's in it for the human?
• 1:14:26
  How is this gonna make our life better?
• 1:14:28
  And so I think that's really what is incumbent upon moving
• 1:14:34
  from this point forward.
• 1:14:36
  What is the future of horses?
• 1:14:37
  And I think to the work that you're doing with therapeutic riding, but it really,
• 1:14:44
  we could just expand that and just say, you know, are you tired of scrolling on
• 1:14:52
  Facebook and looking at your screen time being seven, eight hours a day times 365
• 1:15:00
  days a year, times the rest of your life?
• 1:15:05
  Is that really bringing you meaning in your life?
• 1:15:09
  Is it really helping you or is it making you more anxious or is it making you less?
• 1:15:15
  Physically active.
• 1:15:18
  Hmm.
• 1:15:18
  And that in itself is an addiction.
• 1:15:22
  I mean, we also run, you have other enterprises that you run.
• 1:15:26
  One of the things that, that we run is an addiction practice.
• 1:15:31
  And both Francis and I are involved in that.
• 1:15:34
  And I would really like to start exploring that, the use of horses with addicts.
• 1:15:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:15:48
  Richard Williams: You know,
• 1:15:49
  Rupert Isaacson: that's, that's a, that's a, a no brainer.
• 1:15:52
  And I think that is perhaps the next place you and I should go together.
• 1:15:55
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 1:15:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:15:57
  'cause you know, with our, with our programs ta, the TA program in
• 1:16:00
  particular, which is classical horse training from the ground as its
• 1:16:03
  own therapy, you know, and back to.
• 1:16:06
  That, that program arrived out of necessity for us.
• 1:16:10
  Also out of desperation because once we were working in our therapeutic riding
• 1:16:16
  program, with so many people starting to come in and, and having to produce horses
• 1:16:22
  that could go collectively and had enough wellbeing had, were overflowing with
• 1:16:28
  wellbeing, physical and mental themselves.
• 1:16:31
  That's of course what the classical approach gives you because it gives
• 1:16:35
  you a horse that's well muscled over the back, particularly where
• 1:16:38
  you're gonna sit that is supple.
• 1:16:41
  Basically a horse that's effectively going through a constant yoga
• 1:16:44
  process for the body and the mind.
• 1:16:47
  That is really what classical horsemanship is.
• 1:16:49
  We ran out of time to.
• 1:16:53
  'cause it's time consuming to do this for horses.
• 1:16:55
  And we began to panic a bit.
• 1:16:57
  Okay, what's gonna happen?
• 1:16:58
  We can't let our horses go downhill if they haven't got wellbeing.
• 1:17:02
  How can they give wellbeing?
• 1:17:04
  And then we're like, duh.
• 1:17:06
  Our clients should be the horse trainers.
• 1:17:08
  They are perfectly capable of doing this.
• 1:17:11
  And then it became this four way win, win, win win thing because the
• 1:17:15
  horse was getting what it needed.
• 1:17:16
  We were getting what we needed, which was lack of stress.
• 1:17:20
  The clients, the adult clients that were coming in were getting empowerment
• 1:17:24
  through learning how to rehab and maintain these donated horses.
• 1:17:29
  And of course the child that was going to then benefit from that same horse down
• 1:17:34
  the road was also getting that benefit.
• 1:17:36
  And, but it was the classical system that allowed it to happen.
• 1:17:40
  And without your books, we wouldn't have been able to do it because
• 1:17:44
  yes, we went and we studied with a.
• 1:17:47
  Real classical masters, like the great new Luis Lenza in Portugal, who's a product
• 1:17:51
  of the great Nuno Olivea who you publish.
• 1:17:54
  But you can't be 24 7 with these people.
• 1:17:56
  And you have to, as Nuno Olivea has himself said, don't let
• 1:18:01
  the classical writing books on your bookshelf gather dust.
• 1:18:05
  You know?
• 1:18:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:18:05
  Constantly go to them and learn and then try to apply it in practice.
• 1:18:11
  Without you producing this cannon, it wouldn't happen.
• 1:18:16
  So what I wanna ask is, we come towards the close, 'cause we're at the two and
• 1:18:20
  a half hour mark, and we can pick this conversation up again in a later podcast.
• 1:18:24
  And I think we should is if you were gonna get going, you're a newbie to
• 1:18:30
  this and you want to explore like the four or five books through the centuries
• 1:18:36
  that are gonna give you the best.
• 1:18:39
  Trajectory, the best overview for the human point of view
• 1:18:42
  and the horse point of view.
• 1:18:44
  What are those four or five books that you could say out of this entire cannon,
• 1:18:49
  these are the guys you should start with.
• 1:18:52
  Richard Williams: Well, I would ask you the same thing.
• 1:18:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Ooh.
• 1:18:56
  Does that mean I get to have a go?
• 1:18:58
  Richard Williams: Yeah, you get to have a go.
• 1:19:00
  I mean, all right.
• 1:19:02
  I'm interested in, you know, I always think it's more fun to answer a
• 1:19:09
  question with a question, you know?
• 1:19:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:19:12
  Richard Williams: It's a
• 1:19:12
  Rupert Isaacson: way, well, okay.
• 1:19:13
  All right.
• 1:19:13
  I'll, I'll, I'll have a crack.
• 1:19:14
  I'll have my crack at it and see, see where we intersect.
• 1:19:17
  We'll make it like a Venn diagram.
• 1:19:19
  I reckon you have to start with Xenophon because it's the, it's the
• 1:19:26
  genesis and then what one realizes with Xenophon is, oh, he's actually writing
• 1:19:30
  almost two and a half thousand years after this thing has been invented.
• 1:19:35
  Out there somewhere on the Western Russian Ukrainian step and has
• 1:19:37
  gone down through Mesopotamia.
• 1:19:39
  He's just happens to be the first European who writes about it, but it is way older.
• 1:19:45
  And he tells us this, he tells us, I got this from the Persians, and the
• 1:19:49
  Persians got this from other people.
• 1:19:50
  And that puts it in perspective.
• 1:19:52
  And I think that's really useful in our post-colonial society as well to say it's
• 1:19:58
  not a white person thing became adopted by white people, but it didn't start there.
• 1:20:03
  That's an, that's an interesting common humanity pulling together thing.
• 1:20:07
  Okay.
• 1:20:08
  So I think you've gotta start with Xenophon and his basic principles.
• 1:20:12
  Then I think for me the next one is a big jump.
• 1:20:19
  And it's, thomas's book, which you talked about, about the early Italian masters who
• 1:20:25
  were coming out of the Iberian tradition.
• 1:20:28
  And there was a historical reason why the Spanish Portuguese
• 1:20:31
  thing jumped across into Italy.
• 1:20:33
  I won't bore the readers with it.
• 1:20:34
  Now.
• 1:20:35
  You can we'll talk about it on another podcast and how these academies began
• 1:20:40
  that reflected the old Greek academies.
• 1:20:42
  And this to some degree changed the political landscape of Europe.
• 1:20:46
  And then I think for me, the next one is lager writing in Francois Hoon lager
• 1:20:55
  writing in the early 18th century in.
• 1:21:00
  France because he is the one that I find is the clearest to follow.
• 1:21:05
  You can, if you have a basic understanding of the classical principles, you can,
• 1:21:10
  you can use him like a textbook in your arena today and it's gonna work.
• 1:21:14
  He's, he's thought it all through and he presents it in non esoteric
• 1:21:19
  language and really does give you a, an overview to work from, which also
• 1:21:26
  shows you how it benefits your horse.
• 1:21:29
  After that, I think it's important to do a dual reading of both the
• 1:21:36
  German dude Steinbeck and whatever you can read around the French dude
• 1:21:46
  Boer, because they had to cope with different kinds of horses coming in.
• 1:21:51
  A change in horsemanship and that created the schism that we have today between
• 1:21:56
  these two types of dressage, which have been forever at war with each other.
• 1:21:59
  It's good to understand why these people did what they did, but I think
• 1:22:03
  Boucher himself is hard to read.
• 1:22:04
  So I would favor that book Resonate on Boer, where he explains Boer and
• 1:22:12
  then Steinberg himself in gymnasium de the, the, the, the gymnasium,
• 1:22:17
  the training of the horse where he's pointing us towards how you gotta
• 1:22:21
  kind of go with warm bloods a bit.
• 1:22:23
  And then I feel that after that one has to look at Nuno Oliver Oliveira.
• 1:22:28
  But the problem with Nuno Oliveira, because he brings all these traditions
• 1:22:32
  together, is that his own stuff is really tricky to operate from.
• 1:22:38
  It's esoteric.
• 1:22:39
  It's, it's not brilliantly clear, even though he was clearly a genius.
• 1:22:43
  So I, from my mind, have really benefited from reading the books that
• 1:22:49
  you published from his students where they published their letters to and from
• 1:22:55
  Nuno, where he was advising them step by step on the training of their horses.
• 1:23:00
  People like, you know, Michelle or Kay and those people.
• 1:23:02
  And you've got three or four books in these short volumes, which are
• 1:23:06
  these correspondences with Nuno.
• 1:23:08
  And I've learned a ton from those, a ton.
• 1:23:11
  Like I'd say I use the exercises.
• 1:23:13
  I, I, I don't think a day goes by where I don't use those exercises and it not a
• 1:23:18
  day goes by where I don't use lag as well.
• 1:23:20
  So for me.
• 1:23:22
  That would be my sort of go-to canon.
• 1:23:25
  And I've been a bit vague on those last books 'cause it's
• 1:23:27
  about four or five of them.
• 1:23:28
  You would have the titles.
• 1:23:30
  But I know one was from Michelle Enrique and, but there were a couple of others
• 1:23:34
  from his English speaking students.
• 1:23:37
  But I have found Nuno answers to their questions about how to train their
• 1:23:43
  horses up through the levels to be really, really, really useful to me.
• 1:23:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:23:48
  What do you think, what are your, what's, what's, what are your four or five?
• 1:23:51
  Richard Williams: So those titles that you, that you were mentioning were
• 1:23:55
  30 years with the Nuno Oliveira, with Master Nuno Oliveira by Mic, Michelle
• 1:23:59
  Akay, the Wisdom of Master Nuna Oliveira by Antoine Deko, the Legacy of Master
• 1:24:07
  Nuna Oliveira by Stephanie Millham.
• 1:24:10
  And the fourth one is The Truth in the Teaching of Master Nuna
• 1:24:16
  Oliveira by Eleanor Russell.
• 1:24:18
  And
• 1:24:18
  Rupert Isaacson: oh, and I want to add one more.
• 1:24:20
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 1:24:21
  Rupert Isaacson: I want to add d Dio Braganza.
• 1:24:24
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 1:24:25
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:24:27
  And he's t he's writing 20th and 21st century.
• 1:24:30
  He's coming out of that whole tradition.
• 1:24:32
  He's pulling it all together.
• 1:24:34
  Gimme the name of his book.
• 1:24:36
  Richard Williams: Dressage in the French Tradition.
• 1:24:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:24:39
  That book I feel, I I'm reading it currently actually
• 1:24:44
  really synthesizes the lot.
• 1:24:46
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 1:24:47
  Rupert Isaacson: In a way that is clear.
• 1:24:48
  Richard Williams: Well, what's great.
• 1:24:50
  Well, so, so well we have a lot of the same books and I don't disagree with any
• 1:24:58
  of the books that you, that you said.
• 1:25:01
  Currently we don't.
• 1:25:03
  Have, we don't have our version of Xen, but it's a little bit ironic
• 1:25:09
  since that's the name of our press.
• 1:25:10
  So that's probably on my list to do.
• 1:25:14
  My, my wife is Greek, so, and she speaks Greek, so that's kind of a no-brainer
• 1:25:19
  that we should probably do our version of annotated sapin from the Greek.
• 1:25:25
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:25:26
  Richard Williams: So we'll probably do that, you know, in our spare time.
• 1:25:30
  So I don't disagree with any of these.
• 1:25:32
  And this is kind of a historical list.
• 1:25:35
  Your list is more than five,
• 1:25:40
  but you're allowed to have a list of more than five.
• 1:25:44
  I would say, if I have to limit it to five I think there's value in
• 1:25:52
  bringing people through the centuries.
• 1:25:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 1:25:56
  Richard Williams: And, and not just saying, okay, you gotta
• 1:25:58
  only read 18th century stuff.
• 1:26:02
  I don't think that's good.
• 1:26:03
  So the, what you're doing is you're pushing people from, you know, 2000 plus
• 1:26:10
  years ago, all the way up to, you know, something written in the 20th century.
• 1:26:15
  I would say for me, the, the book that I kind of force everyone to
• 1:26:20
  buy is I and is to get is de laier.
• 1:26:23
  Yeah.
• 1:26:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:26:25
  Richard Williams: I, I just, I
• 1:26:26
  Rupert Isaacson: called the vocabulary.
• 1:26:27
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 1:26:28
  I just kind of, you need to have this, 'cause I'm gonna say on, you know,
• 1:26:34
  chapter 11, go read it, memorize it.
• 1:26:38
  It's gonna be your next lesson in chapter 12.
• 1:26:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:26:42
  And chapter 20, you know, and.
• 1:26:45
  And I often say to people, you do not have to read the whole book.
• 1:26:48
  Just read those chapters first and then go back and read.
• 1:26:51
  So I'm very directed in that because I want them to know what a shoulder end is.
• 1:26:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:26:56
  I want to know what a croup to the wall or VE is, and I need them to know about
• 1:27:03
  how to ride the horse in open country.
• 1:27:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:27:06
  Richard Williams: So, which is what that chapter 20 is about.
• 1:27:09
  Maybe we should do a, a little short, you know, another long-winded
• 1:27:13
  podcast on just chapter 20.
• 1:27:15
  Okay.
• 1:27:16
  I would say I also agree the value of Dom Diago de Braganza, that mine are
• 1:27:23
  not in a particular order because.
• 1:27:27
  He, he, he brings it all together.
• 1:27:29
  He also says, well, what are the limitations of like, how
• 1:27:34
  collected can you get a horse?
• 1:27:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:27:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:27:37
  Or how stretched can you get a horse Is what, what happens when you take
• 1:27:41
  stretching to the ultimate degree?
• 1:27:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:27:44
  And is that a good thing?
• 1:27:46
  And what happens when you collect a horse to the ultimate degree?
• 1:27:50
  Is that a good thing?
• 1:27:51
  And, and have we gone too far or what are the limitations when we have impulsion
• 1:27:57
  taken to the ultimate degree and this, and then he historically, he also, in
• 1:28:05
  not a very large book, he gives you this survey of like, this is how we
• 1:28:11
  got from long stirs to short stirs.
• 1:28:14
  And this is why.
• 1:28:15
  And in my riding, when I am training horses and teach, well, especially
• 1:28:21
  when I'm training horses, I tend to.
• 1:28:26
  With certain horses experiment by pushing the envelope slightly.
• 1:28:31
  Like what happens if we really get a whole bunch of impulsion or what
• 1:28:36
  happens if, let's push the edge and see what the horse will show us.
• 1:28:41
  And then often I say, okay, well now I'm a little bit out of balance or
• 1:28:46
  I'm out of rhythm and now I know the edge that I can, that I can go to.
• 1:28:52
  Right.
• 1:28:53
  That I can,
• 1:28:55
  Rupert Isaacson: I know.
• 1:28:55
  Yeah.
• 1:28:55
  I know the borders.
• 1:28:56
  I know.
• 1:28:57
  Richard Williams: And I've actually gone a slightly too far and now
• 1:29:00
  I'm going to come back from that.
• 1:29:02
  So that, that aspect of that book as well as the historical benefit of that.
• 1:29:10
  I think that the book that was thumped for me when I was growing up was PO's
• 1:29:17
  complete training of horse Rider.
• 1:29:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:29:20
  Richard Williams: And that is, it's kind of a textbook.
• 1:29:23
  He was the director of the Spanish Writing School for 26 years.
• 1:29:27
  It's a 20th century thing.
• 1:29:29
  It's slightly Germanic.
• 1:29:32
  But it has a lot of good definitions in it.
• 1:29:36
  Like he defines what a trod is.
• 1:29:37
  He defines, you know, what a shoulder in it's, it's, it's more
• 1:29:44
  a manual on like how to Yeah.
• 1:29:46
  So, and not with a ton of feeling.
• 1:29:50
  Okay.
• 1:29:51
  So, so I think that's a really good book.
• 1:29:54
  For people who are really visual learners, believe it or not, I
• 1:30:00
  I actually recommend Sally Swift
• 1:30:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:30:04
  Richard Williams: Centered writing because.
• 1:30:08
  It appeals to people who are kind of touchy feely and want to create visual
• 1:30:13
  images so people learn in different ways.
• 1:30:17
  It might not be the book for me, per se mm-hmm.
• 1:30:22
  But it does, it creates pictures for people.
• 1:30:27
  And for that reason alone, she's doing this graphic imagery.
• 1:30:32
  And that's often the key, that's the key that opens the door to
• 1:30:36
  understanding for some people.
• 1:30:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:30:39
  Richard Williams: And then, and then I think I actually like,
• 1:30:44
  like for to understand Boche.
• 1:30:48
  And so the complete training of horse and rider would be the
• 1:30:52
  understanding of the German system.
• 1:30:54
  But for example, the carpentry does a good job of, in an
• 1:31:01
  unbiased way of analyzing Boer.
• 1:31:05
  So if you want to know about Boer, his book called Boer in his school.
• 1:31:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:31:10
  He writes a, a big essay about like who the heck was Boer and,
• 1:31:15
  and who were his detractors.
• 1:31:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:31:18
  Richard Williams: And even talks about, he talks about Louis Seger, who is like,
• 1:31:23
  you know, vehemently against Boer, but also he talks about, I think there's
• 1:31:30
  an appendix in there about Louis Rule who was one of Boucher's students.
• 1:31:36
  And, and so I, that's a very, very, I don't disagree with any of your lists.
• 1:31:42
  We probably have like 10 books here.
• 1:31:45
  So I think I.
• 1:31:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 1:31:50
  Richard Williams: Than anything around these.
• 1:31:52
  So for like, for Dier to, to read Al or to read Eisenberg, it's very interesting
• 1:31:59
  to see the similarities at ex, you know, within a six year time period mm-hmm.
• 1:32:04
  About what is written around.
• 1:32:06
  So, of course, Stein Brecht is important, but for somebody who's a visual learner,
• 1:32:12
  they're not going to fi, Stein Brecht didn't make any diagrams in there.
• 1:32:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:16
  Richard Williams: So it is, so there are books that kind of explain Stein
• 1:32:20
  Brecht, for example, Garret Mann's, you know, bend and Positioning.
• 1:32:24
  That book kind of explains a section.
• 1:32:27
  So, there are a lot of these treatises that explain other books
• 1:32:34
  and that they can be of a big help.
• 1:32:38
  It doesn't really make a lot of sense to well, for example.
• 1:32:45
  Boer, you can actually skip reading Boer because he wasn't a great writer.
• 1:32:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:51
  Richard Williams: And he's very, very confusing.
• 1:32:53
  So reading the treatises that explain Boer is probably more valuable than trying to
• 1:32:59
  read Boer and getting lost in the weeds.
• 1:33:02
  Steinbeck you can learn, but you need to read, you know, you can read that, you
• 1:33:07
  know, one or two or three pages a day.
• 1:33:11
  Yeah.
• 1:33:11
  So you, you've got about a hundred days, you know, of that, of that rate.
• 1:33:16
  Maybe five pages a day, so maybe it's less.
• 1:33:19
  So I think those books, and there's always new books we are doing we talked about
• 1:33:27
  earlier, you know, a while back we talked about how people lived, ate, breathed
• 1:33:33
  horses there around horses all day.
• 1:33:35
  We have a we have a book coming out this month called, the Enlightened, enlightened
• 1:33:42
  horsemanship, 18th century the Enlightened Horsemanship of 18th Century Britain.
• 1:33:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:33:49
  So it talked, and they're talking about the long 18th century, so they're
• 1:33:53
  already talking about like late 16th, hundreds into the early 18 hundreds.
• 1:33:58
  So they're kind of doing a 150 year span.
• 1:34:02
  But Allison Moeller does a really good job of showing us
• 1:34:05
  how horses were for carriages.
• 1:34:08
  They were for racing, they were for farming, and then they were also for the
• 1:34:13
  menage and how horses were, had completely saturated into life on the British Isles.
• 1:34:23
  There, there's no living without them and mm-hmm.
• 1:34:27
  And so that's a, these hi historical context, books like Thomasines.
• 1:34:34
  And this I think is really important to, to know what our history was because
• 1:34:42
  there's, for example, she does a whole chapter on stable design and, and barns.
• 1:34:49
  And she Right.
• 1:34:50
  The
• 1:34:50
  Rupert Isaacson: loose box comes out of the 18th century.
• 1:34:52
  Richard Williams: Absolutely.
• 1:34:53
  Right.
• 1:34:53
  But she has these like fascinat, the, our our turnout, you know,
• 1:34:59
  where you have a turnout shelter.
• 1:35:01
  All of our turnout shelters right now
• 1:35:03
  Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
• 1:35:04
  Richard Williams: Are rectangular or square.
• 1:35:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 1:35:07
  Richard Williams: They have turnout shelters that are round,
• 1:35:09
  they're like a cylinder and they're dotted all over England.
• 1:35:13
  Well, she found these things and went basically on an archeological, you
• 1:35:19
  know, expedition across Britain and she's done incredible research on it.
• 1:35:23
  It's like, well, why don't we make round turnout?
• 1:35:28
  Um mm-hmm.
• 1:35:29
  Shelters for horses.
• 1:35:30
  It would be better for the weather.
• 1:35:32
  They wouldn't get cast as easily.
• 1:35:34
  No one
• 1:35:34
  Rupert Isaacson: can corner anyone.
• 1:35:35
  Yeah.
• 1:35:36
  Yeah.
• 1:35:36
  It's
• 1:35:36
  Richard Williams: true.
• 1:35:37
  Exactly.
• 1:35:38
  So, you know, there's an endless list.
• 1:35:42
  A long
• 1:35:42
  Rupert Isaacson: okay,
• 1:35:43
  Richard Williams: longwinded answer.
• 1:35:45
  Rupert Isaacson: But what I think it comes down to for people who
• 1:35:47
  are, who are listening or watching is go check out Xenophon Press.
• 1:35:52
  Go through the centuries.
• 1:35:54
  Don't worry that Xenophon Press don't actually publish Xenophon yet.
• 1:35:58
  'cause they will.
• 1:35:59
  And anyway, you can find Xenophon himself.
• 1:36:01
  But those others we talked about, Tamini.
• 1:36:07
  We'll, and we'll list all these afterwards.
• 1:36:10
  You know, Stein Breen Boer, the people that analyze Stein Breen, Boer
• 1:36:14
  Nuno, and the people that analyze Nuno, and then dio de braganza.
• 1:36:21
  If you're into horses and you are into what horses can bring out of the human
• 1:36:26
  soul, as well as how this system of kind of yoga can really benefit a horse and
• 1:36:35
  how the two can come together and create a sum that's greater than the parts.
• 1:36:40
  It's, it's, it's what you do, my friend.
• 1:36:42
  It's s on press.
• 1:36:43
  So listen, thank you so much for coming on and doing this.
• 1:36:47
  I think we'll do it again.
• 1:36:49
  And for those who really want to kind of nerd out, nerd out, nerd out Richard
• 1:36:53
  and I nerd out massively on YouTube about aspects of classical writing.
• 1:36:59
  And you might wanna check out some of our videos there.
• 1:37:01
  We've got more coming up.
• 1:37:03
  And we also both are gonna start teaching together because I'm a bit of an in
• 1:37:07
  hand on the ground specialist, and Mr.
• 1:37:11
  Williams is a bit of a in the saddle specialist, and we can kind of do
• 1:37:15
  our little and large show together.
• 1:37:17
  And we are gonna be doing that actually to raise money for two nonprofits.
• 1:37:23
  The Horse Boy Foundation, which of course, deals with autism and
• 1:37:27
  other neuropsychiatric conditions of and healing with horses.
• 1:37:32
  And Xenophon will have its own educational foundation as well too, so that we
• 1:37:38
  can keep this library of Alexandra and Alexandria alive and not have it burned
• 1:37:42
  down like the other classical libraries.
• 1:37:45
  So watch this space basically.
• 1:37:47
  If they want to contact you, give us, give us the links, give us the plugs, Richard.
• 1:37:52
  Richard Williams: It's very simple.
• 1:37:53
  It's zin press@atzinpress.com
• 1:37:58
  and I'm happy to, I answer all emails.
• 1:38:01
  It's zin press@gmail.com
• 1:38:05
  and happy to answer any questions we do.
• 1:38:09
  We also have views, books, we outer print books.
• 1:38:12
  I have a book search service, so if you're looking for a book, I can try to
• 1:38:18
  find it or I may, we may have copies.
• 1:38:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Perfect.
• 1:38:24
  So it's also if you wanna get into the antiquary inside too.
• 1:38:28
  Richard Williams: Yeah, we and, and we have williams dressage.com,
• 1:38:32
  which is our, our riding site.
• 1:38:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:38:36
  And I do suggest rich, again, those of you who are looking to experience
• 1:38:40
  this knowledge made practical.
• 1:38:43
  Richard has come and hung out here with me and my horses.
• 1:38:46
  And I've seen him ride.
• 1:38:48
  I've seen him train.
• 1:38:48
  It's very, very good.
• 1:38:50
  Go check him out.
• 1:38:50
  And his wife Francis.
• 1:38:52
  If you're looking in the USA for somebody cool to set you on the right track
• 1:38:57
  they'll, they'll help you with that.
• 1:38:59
  Richard Williams: And you're coming to us right in June,
• 1:39:02
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah's, right?
• 1:39:02
  I am.
• 1:39:03
  So we need to talk about that.
• 1:39:05
  Yeah.
• 1:39:05
  Now of course these things are evergreen, so someone could be,
• 1:39:07
  we're in early January, 2026 here, but you know, hopefully someone's
• 1:39:11
  watching this 10 years from now.
• 1:39:13
  If they are, then we may be in your hood sooner.
• 1:39:16
  Just looking a little bit grayer.
• 1:39:17
  So, yeah, we'll be, we'll be there and working together,
• 1:39:21
  so watch out for us lads.
• 1:39:25
  Alright.
• 1:39:27
  Richard Williams: Thank you
• 1:39:27
  Rupert Isaacson: sir.
• 1:39:28
  My pleasure.
• 1:39:28
  Thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:39:30
  Richard Williams: Yeah.
• 1:39:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Until the next one.
• 1:39:32
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• 1:39:36
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• 1:39:40
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• 1:39:44
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• 1:39:50
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• 1:39:50
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• 1:39:54
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• 1:40:36
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• 1:40:41
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• 1:40:46
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