Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / What My Horse's Tongue Taught Me About Healing | Nahshon Cook | LFRF 59

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What My Horse's Tongue Taught Me About Healing | Nahshon Cook | LFRF 59 · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

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Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
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Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
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I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of The
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Horse Boy and The Long Ride Home.
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0:34
So
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Nahshon Cook: now let's jump
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Rupert Isaacson: in.
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All right, rockers and fellow horse nerds, look who I've got.
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I've got Nashon Cook here.
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If you don't know who he is, then you ought to know who he is.
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If you do know who he is, I probably don't need to introduce him.
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But let's assume you don't know who he is, 'cause some of you won't.
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Nashon is a horseman, and he is a classical dressage dude operating out of
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Colorado and, you know, other parts of the USA, who's, who has sort of risen to fame
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over the last decade or so for, I think, being able to communicate aspects of the
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classical tradition in a way that perhaps hasn't been really looked at or valued
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until now, and sort of, I think, would say is helping to bring that whole tradition
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forward into its next generation.
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Because what does the word classical mean anyway?
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It means, I, I got it from grandma, right?
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It means handed down the generations.
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And, uh, now as I look at the groom, I realize, oh yeah, it's kind ofâ¦
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We gotta, we gotta, we gotta add this shit on.
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And so I'm very glad that people like Nashon are rising to the occasion.
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Um, he's obviously a, a celeb in now, but he didn't start off that way.
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He didn't start off trying to become a celeb.
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He's become a celeb because he's good at what he does.
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So it's really great to have you, Nashon.
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Thank you for having me.
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Can you tell us, you know, who, who you are, what do you do, why do you do it?
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Nahshon Cook: My name is obviously Nashawn.
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I, I'm, I'm a horseman.
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I, I, I've always loved horses, though the kind of road to being able to work
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with them wasn't super clear, so I learned how to ride on donated horses when I was
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a kiddo, started riding when I was 13.
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Um-
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Rupert Isaacson: And this was where?
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Which part of the country?
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Nahshon Cook: In Colorado, in Denver.
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At the- Yeah.
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It's a, it's a place called the Urban Farm at Stapleton, and it was
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for inner city kids, and it was a youth diversion program, and that's
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how I got introduced in, inâ¦
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That's how I got introduced to riding and horsemanship, and I think y- I gotâ¦
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And, and ultimately dressage by way of mainly a, a lady named Cynthia
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Spalding, who used to live in Colorado but now is in Branson, Missouri.
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And then a little later while I was there, by Jean-Francois Fabier, who
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used to ride for the Cadre Noir.
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I think that's how you pronounce it in, in France.
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He presented horses in hand in the airs above the ground.
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So that, that went on till I was maybe Was 16 or 17.
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And then ever since then, it's kind of been a, you know, read the books,
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see how the books make you feel.
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Try to, if it feels good, try to get that feeling on your horse, and that's
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kind of how I've, I've, I've, I've learned since then, for the most part.
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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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Can I just, can I justâ¦
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It's always good to know who people's mentors are.
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Can you just tell us a little bit about Cynthia Stapleton, right?
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Nahshon Cook: Cynthia Spalding.
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Rupert Isaacson: Spalding.
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Sorry, yeah.
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Mm-hmm.
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I was just a bit behind you in my notes.
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Spalding.
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Nahshon Cook: That's okay.
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Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
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Nahshon Cook: And
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Rupert Isaacson: our second guy, the French dude?
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Nahshon Cook: Iâ¦
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His name was Jean-Francois Fabier.
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Rupert Isaacson: Fabier, but not Dominique
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Nahshon Cook: Fabier.
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Not Barbier, no.
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Fabier.
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Okay.
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F-A-B-I-E-R, I believe.
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Yeah.
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Rupert Isaacson: Sorry.
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How, how do I spell that?
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B-
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Nahshon Cook: F-A-B-I-E-R.
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I think that's- A-B-
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how you spell it.
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I, uh, Fabier.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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Fabier.
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All right.
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Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
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Rupert Isaacson: So you, you, you just kind of rather glibly
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went whoop right over those- That's- But let's talk aboutâ¦
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Let's justâ¦
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Tell us the story.
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How do you go from an inner city kid who's fascinated with horses,
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you find your way to this farm, this inner city farm which has horses.
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Right.
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Who is running it and why?
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How'd you find your way in there?
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And then how'd you find- Yeah â¦ your way from there to these two people?
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Nahshon Cook: So, so kind ofâ¦
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So I started riding there when I was 13, and my father was doing
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some videography work for one of the founder's sisters who was running
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for office here in, in, in Denver.
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And she told my dad about it and, and they invited me out.
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And soâ¦
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And, and they did it just because they wanted inner city kids to have
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access to farm animals and horses, and so there were like horses and
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goats and chickens, and we all did 4H.
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You know, we had to do 4H and do the county fair and have our 4H projects and
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all that stuff, so just so we could learn.
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And, and I, you knowâ¦
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And, you know, beautifully enough, like there was another person who
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went through, another guy who went through who's, who's now the farrier,
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who's now the farrier for my horses.
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Mm-hmm.
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So it's been super, super great.
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And I got introduced to Cynthia Spalding and Dominique, or and
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Jean-Francois Fabier through them.
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They used to come and do clinics for the kids when they wouldâ¦
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With theâ¦
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Cynthia would come in specifically for the kids at the farm, and then Dom- and
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then Jean-Francois would come in and like do a day after he had gone around and
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taught at a different place in Colorado.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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So I'm just looking Cynthia Spalding up right now.
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It's always good to have, you knowâ¦
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It's always great when people turn you on to other people, right?
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This is, this is- Oh â¦ how, how we learn.
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Tell, tell us a little bit about who sh- who she is and what she taught you.
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Nahshon Cook: Well, I remember once she said that she was- she, she specialized
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in interspecies communication.
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Interesting.
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She's a very-- She was, she was, she was trained, she was started as a dressage
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rider by some military man in Ecuador, I believe, and then she studied with Gunner
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Oelstergaard, who, who was from Germany.
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And, and, and she got into Trakehners and was here in Colorado for a while
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and showcased their stallions, the, where she was at, at the barn she was
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at, and she would go down to Florida and, and, and, and, and show them.
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And then, and then I think she had an accident, and, um, her, her, her kind of
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showing career with the high-level horses was over because it had ruined her back.
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And then she moved to, she moved to Branson, Missouri.
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And I mean, I met her, I think I met her when I was, like, 14.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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Nahshon Cook: And so it's been a, it's been a really long time.
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But
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Rupert Isaacson: she- What did she teach you?
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What did she show you?
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Nahshon Cook: Oh- What would you say?
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â¦ she just, she-- I think, I think that, I think what she really helped me with
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was just not being afraid to find answers
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You know?
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Not to be afraid to go after it and find answers.
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And, and I think that she saw me-- she saw a glimmer of ability in there,
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and, and I w- I really appreciate that she didn't, like, try to just
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train me to make herself look good.
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Mm.
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You know?
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And so I appreciate the time that she gave and, and, and, and,
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and, and the space that she gave.
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And I still talk to her occasionally, and, and, you know,
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I think that that's-- that was it.
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It wasn't-- I didn't, I didn't learn-- I didn't study with her a lot.
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I c- but I-- but that's who introduced me really to ideas of dressage, and
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she would tell me what books to read, and I would read them, and I could come
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back t- when she would have a lesson, or when she would be offering lessons,
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and I could come and talk to her about the text and, and all of these things.
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And like, and I, and I feel like that was super wonderful because it
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wasn't a tradition that I was being initiated into or expected to carry on.
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It was always from the beginning, you know, what felt good and, you know, how
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did this rider explain this thing and, and how do you think they use the seat, and do
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you see how they're holding their wrist?
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Like, your wrist are turned in.
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Your fingers are t- your fingers are turned in.
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Straighten your wrist because that's t- that, that, that gives you the
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connection from the elbow to the bit and, you know, don't cheat with your wrist.
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You know what I mean?
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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Don't, don't lock the horse there.
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And then, and then also that You know, I remember my first lesson with her was
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on a, a, a off the track thoroughbred named Sasha, and she just allowed me
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to be in love with this, this Mm-hmm
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this little, this little weird, this little weird dark bay mare.
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And, and, and she, she, she, I think above all else, taught me that dressage
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can be for any horse because she, she, she respected my love for this mare
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and, and, and, and helped me try to help her feel good in her body and mind.
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I think if anything that was it, that like dressage is for horses.
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Rupert Isaacson: Right.
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Okay.
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So, so she was the one who sort of could put into your mind, "Look, you can
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use this thing not just as a training thing, not just as a prove yourself as
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a horseman thing, but you can actually use it to create wellbeing in a horse."
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Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
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I mean, and I think that she did it superâ¦
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Sheâ¦
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Like, those weren't her words.
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She, she would talk to me about it, and she would ask me to do something and, and
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fee- and then, and then I would tell her what I would feel, and she was like- Mm
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â¦ "Well, this is what you should feel.
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How can we get the horse here in relaxation so where they're here?"
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And so it was really, it was really, it was really just a really good exercise
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into the meaning of the question you're asking the horse to answer
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piece by piece by piece by piece.
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This is where the leg is supposed to go.
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This is where your chest is supposed to go.
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This is the feeling you should start to feel in your body from them.
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How do, how doâ¦
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Can you feel the hind legs in your hands?
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Can you feel those hind legs in your seat bones?
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Can you feel the shoulders in your thighs?
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Like, are your toes relaxed?
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You know, like the, all of these things.
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Mm.
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Yeah, so it was, it was, it wasâ¦
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I think that, you know, it was a really good start to run on and to run with.
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You know what I mean?
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Rupert Isaacson: I do.
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I do.
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No, that, that's put very nicely.
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And then, and then, okay, so Jean-Francois Favier, I've been busy Googling
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him as you, as you've been talking.
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So ex-head rider at the Cadre Noir in, in France.
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You ran into him because he was giving clinics at the farm where you were riding.
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H- what, what did you learn with him?
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Whatâ¦
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How did that open up your world?
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Nahshon Cook: So I rode with him, I rode with him on a little
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paint horse named Cayenne.
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And Cayenne just went, went, went, went, went, went, went, went, went.
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And I think that what I learned from Cindy was how to help a horse get the back up
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by lowering their head and neck, and what I learned from Jean Francois is how to
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get the horses back up by lifting their
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Rupert Isaacson: head.
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Nahshon Cook: Right.
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Rupert Isaacson: And- He wore the Baucher ease then
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â¦ Nahshon Cook: yeah, yeah.
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For sure.
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And like, and like, and like it was, I mean, and like at the time, at
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the time I didn't really understand what was happening between the two.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
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Nahshon Cook: But I think that just having those feelings in my body that
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sometimes, you know, to, and, and on different types of horses, sometimes
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they have to lift their back to know how to hold their neck, and sometimes
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they have to, uh, you, you have to, you have to teach them how to hold
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their neck so they can lift their back.
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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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Nahshon Cook: And so, like, it's been, itâ¦
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And, and, and I was talking to Thomas Ritter a few years ago, and,
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and we were talking about just the importance of knowing your breed.
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You know, how, like, some Iberian horses do really well warming up
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and piaffe, and the stretchy chewy is the advanced work, you know?
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As opposed to, like, a Thoroughbred who may need to warm up in a gallop around
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the farm before the dressage lesson.
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Yeah.
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Or the warmblood who might need to be a little bit lower so their backs open up.
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Yeah.
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Because, like, they're all, you know, knowing what they need, and not having
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them need to fit, having, allowing them to fit in a system where they're able to
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and trying, instead of trying to force them to where you think they should be.
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Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
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No, I couldn't agree more.
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And it's, it's, it's such an interesting tyranny within the dressage world,
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the insistence that everything must go like a particular type of warmblood.
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And that even- Yeah â¦ warmbloods at the end of the day are being
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made to try and go like Lusitanos.
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Nahshon Cook: Right.
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Rupert Isaacson: And you, you sort of look at the thing and say, "But isn't
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that trying a little bit too hard to go in, in the, against nature?"
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But it's, it is interesting how dressage lends itself to extremism in that way.
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And I suppose- Like many
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Nahshon Cook: religions.
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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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Sorry?
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You hadn't noticed, right?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So- Um â¦ you, you, this is, but this is a really interesting and unusual
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education for a boy from- Yeah, it's, it's wild â¦ from Denver, right?
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Were there others going through this with you, or were you the only one from
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that program who kind of ran with this?
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Nahshon Cook: I think that I was one of the only ones as a trainer whose
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abilities allowed them to, because I think that these folks gave me
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their time, shared their time with me because they, they saw that I, that
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I could, that I could feel horses.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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Nahshon Cook: And so, you know, it was, it was, you know, there, there, there,
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there have been some who have, who I, I think that their, the, the, the
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ability hadn't support- hasn't supported a career as trainers for most of the
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people that I knew I grew up with.
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Yeah.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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Are some of the people who you were there with, have they
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gone on to lives with horses?
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Are you sort of the on- I don't even mean professionally, but
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are y- are you the only one who's really kind of followed it through?
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Or are, are, is there a little club of you?
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Nahshon Cook: I, you know, I, I have this horrible habit of not staying in
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touch with many people because I'm very much, I, I really like being by myself.
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Mm-hmm.
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And people are hard, and I think growing up socially, I just didn't fit in,
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which is kind of how I got into horses.
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And even within horses, there were social strata- Yeah â¦ which
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I wasn't able to, to ascend.
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And so I didn't really, I don't really know.
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Mm-hmm.
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I don't really know- Yeah â¦ for the most part.
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Rupert Isaacson: Well, I guess if, if, if you had mates from there who hang
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out with you, you'd notice, right?
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'Cause they'd be around, but if they're not, they're not.
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Yeah.
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But it, it, it's interesting to me how peopleâ¦
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I'm always interested in people's origins and how they end up where
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they are and, and who mentors them.
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Sure.
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I think it's, it's, it's for me, the most important thing to
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always ask somebody who are your mentors, really in any walk of life.
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You know, in, in my autism life, for example, you know, I'm completely
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mentored really by Temple Grandin because who else could show me what to do?
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It would need to be someone with autist- with autism, you know?
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So otherwise, it's just a set of opinions.
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But with the dressage route, one has to be relatively lucky, and it
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sounds that you were a little bit right place, right time that you
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could run into these two particular individuals, and that's why I wanted
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to kind of put some attention there.
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Because I think when people are listening to this, particularly
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people who are either at the start of their journey with all this or are
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teachers or setting up programs, you know, it's always good to know how
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did a program create a, a trainer?
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How did it, how did, what opportunities were put your way?
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Like, I mean, im- imagine if, for example, the whole thing had been based
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around reining, or the whole thing had been based around show jumping.
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You might have gone a very different-
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Nahshon Cook: Well, we had choices â¦ you know?
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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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Nahshon Cook: We did.
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Yeah.
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And, and there were tracks, and so, like, there were people who, there were
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people who you would, you would choose.
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Like, if you wanted to do, they would say Western or English, and
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so that was like you did Western, you could do Western pleasure.
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You could do the gymkhana stuff.
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English, you could do the dressage.
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You could jump.
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And so they really allowed us that freeâ¦
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I learned how to rope cows.
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Rupert Isaacson: Great.
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Great.
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So you got the- You know, I mean, there were certain
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areas â¦ you got the full, you
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Nahshon Cook: got the full spectrum.
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I, yeah Yeah.
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And then, and the thing is, is I chose dressage because, like, when I
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looked at the horses long term, even though, you know, some of the examples
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weren't super great, th- they were the horses that lasted the longest,
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and that's what I was interested in.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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Okay.
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And the name ofâ¦
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Just give us the name once again of the place.
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Nahshon Cook: It's called The Urban Farm at Stapleton.
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Rupert Isaacson: The Ur- and it's still there?
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Nahshon Cook: Mm-hmm.
17:59
Yeah.
17:59
Rupert Isaacson: The Urban Farm at Stapleton.
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And-
18:05
Nahshon Cook: It's right
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Rupert Isaacson: by- Clearly there's quite a lot of- â¦ in Rivertown, New York
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â¦ of good horse knowledge there, right?
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Nahshon Cook: Huh?
18:10
Rupert Isaacson: Clearly there's a, a, a wealth of good
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horse knowledge in that place.
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Nahshon Cook: Well, there was when I was there.
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Okay.
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I don't know so much now.
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All
18:19
Rupert Isaacson: right.
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Nahshon Cook: Kind of the demograph- the demographic focus has sh- has
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shifted and, and so I, I, I, I, I kind of lost touch with them when I
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moved out of the country for a while.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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Nahshon Cook: And, and then I came, I came back and trained one of
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their horses who turned out toâ¦
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who I, who I ended up acquiring and whoâ¦
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And, and was my first horse that I taught to do the labat.
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Mm-hmm.
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He was the first horse that I had gotten to the Grand Prix.
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And then after that I, I kind of lost touch with them and then,
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and then a lot of stuff shifted.
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It's been over
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Rupert Isaacson: 10 years at this point.
18:53
I'm just looking them up.
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I'm just looking them up right now.
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Thanks so much for turning me onto them, though, because I'm always looking- Yeah
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â¦ for these kinds of, of programs, you know, just- Yeah â¦ therapeutic life as well.
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Particularly city-based ones- Mm-hmm â¦ because as you know, it's
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just really hard for kids in the city to get access to this kind of thing.
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Um- I
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Nahshon Cook: do know, yes.
19:11
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
19:13
All right, so you, you mentioned that you went out of the country.
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Where did you go and why?
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Nahshon Cook: So I was supposed to do my graduate studies, and I didn't want to,
19:23
and so I had, I had like four or five years planned out for my graduate work.
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Rupert Isaacson: Which was gonna be in?
19:31
Nahshon Cook: It was a Masters of Divinity w-with a focus on, I gu- uh, theâ¦
19:36
It was like a peace and justice program at the Iliff School of Theology on
19:40
the University of Denver campus.
19:42
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
19:43
Nahshon Cook: And I-I-I had taken a-a-a, a gap year because, like, when I had, when
19:52
I had-- I, when I opened my acceptance letter, I just got this really weird
19:56
and uncomfortable feeling in my body, and so I decided to wait a, a year.
20:04
And then I started going there, and it just didn't work.
20:07
And so I-I-I, I lasted about six weeks, and then I decided, and then I decided
20:14
I was gonna-- My mom said I should go travel, and so I went to Southeast Asia.
20:19
I-I've-- I-I moved to, I moved to Cambodia, and then, and then I moved to--
20:25
I ended up in Thailand, where I had begun training, after a weird series of events,
20:32
show jumping and dressage horses there.
20:35
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
20:36
Uh- Why'd you go to Cambodia, out of interest?
20:38
Nahshon Cook: Because I was, I was doing a language-- I was doing
20:41
a, a teacher training, an English teacher trai- an ESL training.
20:45
Mm-hmm.
20:45
And the program started in Cambodia, and so-
20:49
Rupert Isaacson: It's nomadic.
20:50
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
20:51
And so Iâ¦
20:52
And, and to be quite honest with you, I didn't even know Cambodia
20:55
existed before I went there.
20:57
And, and, and yeah, I justâ¦
20:59
I, I, I flew in and, and did all my, my-- m- got my certification to teach,
21:04
and then they were like, "You can go.
21:06
You can stay here.
21:07
We can help you get a job in Vietnam, or you could go to Thailand."
21:12
And so I went to Thailand, and then I started working in a language center.
21:17
And one of the students, it was for adults.
21:21
It was adults, and so I usually taught in the evening because
21:23
they would work during the day.
21:25
And one of the, my, my, the, the gentleman who ran the center told one
21:32
of the students there who, who had said that she had this r- this facility
21:37
with her dad that I was a trainer, and I had been a trainer in the States.
21:42
And she came to my conversation hour class and left me her number and address
21:48
after saying that she and her dad had this facility, and it was on theâ¦
21:52
It was in Nonthaburi, in, it's, it's a su- it's a su- it's a suburb
21:55
i-i-in, i- of just north of Bangkok.
21:59
And, and sheâ¦
22:01
And, and, and would you know that, like, I-I-I gave the address to
22:05
the taxi driver, and it was a five-minute taxi ride from my flat
22:10
Rupert Isaacson: Good Lord
22:10
Nahshon Cook: It was literally right across the street
22:13
Rupert Isaacson: Good Lord
22:13
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
22:14
And so I started working there trainingâ¦
22:17
I, I, I, I st- I went and rode a few of their horses the first day, and then
22:22
they asked me to come back the second day, and her dad had called all of his
22:25
friends who were all in horses, and they had me ride some of the stallions
22:32
after, I guess, they had given their opinions on what I could do, and then
22:36
they offered me a job training their horses starting the day What kind of
22:39
Rupert Isaacson: stallions were these?
22:40
What, what sort of-
22:41
Nahshon Cook: Oh, mostly, mostly, in, you know, Thai horses and there
22:46
were, like, some Thoroughbred crosses, and then there were Thoroughbreds
22:49
that were retired from racing.
22:51
And then in the evening, I didn't know it, but they had this wholeâ¦
22:54
It was like a whole riding club, and they had all these kids from around,
22:59
from around Bangkok come and ride.
23:01
And so there had been a big flood, and it had closed the language
23:06
center, and thankfully I hadâ¦
23:08
I was able to train the horses, and I was able to still make some money.
23:12
And then I had decided that I was going toâ¦
23:16
I asked, I asked them if I could just w- work there full time, and they, like, uh,
23:21
they took over my visa and my work permit, and then I was able to go and travel
23:26
around to horse shows coaching the kids
23:29
Rupert Isaacson: Right
23:29
Nahshon Cook: So yeah.
23:31
So that was super fun.
23:33
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's, it's got a thriving, a thriving
23:35
equestrian scene, Thailand.
23:37
I, I do some work out there sometimes, and it's, you know, it's always interesting to
23:40
me how quickly and sort of well they get into things and how that scene has grown.
23:49
How long were you out there for, and what brought you back to the US?
23:53
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
23:54
So I was thereâ¦
23:56
I think I was there for about three or four years.
24:00
And, and then I, and then I decided that it was time to
24:08
move on 'cause Thailand wasn't home.
24:11
Yeah I didn't feel it in my heart.
24:13
And so I went and lived in China for a little bit, and then I came back home
24:19
because one of the main reasons was my, my stepdad, he was like, "Well,
24:25
you know, fig- you know, play around un- until you're 30," and he was a cop.
24:30
He was a police officer.
24:31
He says, "And if, if by the time you're 30 you don't know what you wanna do, then you
24:35
should come home and be a police officer."
24:37
And I knew I didn't wanna be a police officer, but I also knew that I didn't
24:40
wanna be like this, this wandering horse trainer either with no real base,
24:46
no real home, and no horses that I could fall in love with enough to see
24:52
them through from beginning to end.
24:55
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
24:55
Nahshon Cook: Because I think that that's the part that a lot of people, um
25:03
Well, that I've observed, I should say.
25:05
I can't say a lot of people, but that I've observed, like, there are a lot of
25:09
horses who are seen for what they can do, but not sure who they are, and, and who--
25:14
when you figure out who they are, what they can do, like you realize that they've
25:19
been, they've been keeping certain things protected and safe for people who take
25:24
the time to love them instead of- Yeah
25:26
just train them.
25:28
Rupert Isaacson: As some people do, yeah.
25:29
Nahshon Cook: Yeah, yeah.
25:30
Yeah, not so far away.
25:32
And so yeah, I came back home, and then I-- then people had figured out that
25:38
I was home, and I had gotten a call from one of the then directors at the
25:41
farm, at the urban farm, saying they needed help with this horse, Nova.
25:46
Mm-hmm.
25:46
And, and, and, and I went with him, and I went and worked with him, and he
25:53
had been diagnosed with kissing spine in, in his lumbar spine and, you know,
25:57
that's always a stifle issue, which is always tension in the pole, which
26:01
is always, uh, the TMJ not relaxed.
26:05
And so-- but he was wild, and I-- you know, he would just buck everybody
26:09
off, and he had been through so many trainers here and, like, there was
26:12
one, she was like, "I hate that horse because he doesn't follow the rules."
26:16
And I was like, "This is my kind of horse."
26:20
And so, yeah, I, I started training him and, and then a few people there
26:25
asked to become students of mine.
26:28
And, and then I moved him to another barn because I was working as a counselor
26:34
at the children's hospital here in, in Denver as a, as a, as a, as a counselor
26:39
on their inpatient autism unit, actually.
26:42
Rupert Isaacson: Hold
26:42
Nahshon Cook: on.
26:42
And I moved him to a, I moved him to a- Put on the
26:44
Rupert Isaacson: brakes.
26:45
Wa, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.
26:46
Okay how and why.
26:49
That doesn't happen randomly.
26:51
And if you've been going from a, you know, wanting to do Divinity,
26:55
which we also want to go back to
26:57
Nahshon Cook: And I moved him to a, I moved him
26:59
Rupert Isaacson: to a- Put on the brakes.
27:00
Wa, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.
27:02
Okay.
27:03
how and why.
27:04
That doesn't happen randomly.
27:06
And if you've been going from a, you know, wanting to do Divinity,
27:11
which we also want to go back to
27:13
Nahshon Cook: My undergraduate work was in counseling with-- And so, yeah.
27:18
And so, and so then I was-- And it was kind of a, and so it was kind of a,
27:23
I trained horses until my application had been accepted, and I hadâ¦
27:28
I mean, the interview process for the hospital was long.
27:31
I think mine was, like, two months.
27:34
And so while I was doing that, I was training horses while I was waiting.
27:39
And then, and then I went-- Once I got that job, I moved barns, and I was
27:47
working overnights at the hospital, three 12s on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
27:51
And then du- throughout the day, I was building a, a training
27:55
practice because I had moved my horse and, and all these people
27:59
were asking me to train some horses.
28:03
And so Monday, Monday, Monday through Friday morning, I would train
28:10
horses, and I think at that time I had, like, 16 horses on my line.
28:15
And then Friday night through Sunday night, I would work at the hospital
28:24
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
28:25
One quick question before we go to this- Sure â¦ parallel life in,
28:30
in Denver between the hospital and the barn.
28:32
When you were in China, did you do horses there?
28:35
Nahshon Cook: No, I taught English while I was there.
28:37
Yeah.
28:37
And I was not there for a long time.
28:39
I was in, I was in, I was in a little, a, well, it's not that I don't know
28:43
that there's any city in China that's small, but it's a smaller city, Wuxi.
28:47
It's about two hours north of Shanghai.
28:49
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
28:51
Just, yeah, it's 'cause, yeah, the, the, the, the horse scene in China
28:54
is- Interesting to know about.
28:57
But okay, so you, you- you're back and you're finding the success
29:03
pretty much right away with all these people wanting to be-
29:07
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
29:08
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: trained with you.
29:08
Now why is that?
29:09
Because the, the reason I ask why is that, is that Denver's got a
29:14
very, very high horse concentration.
29:17
I used to live in Denver for a bit.
29:18
In fact, I lived right across the campus, right across the road from the DU campus.
29:22
Um-
29:23
Nahshon Cook: Oh, okay.
29:23
Yeah
29:23
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: I know, I know, I know that, that whole strip really well.
29:26
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
29:26
Rupert Isaacson: I lived there for two years, and there's a
29:28
lot of horse trainers around.
29:30
Nahshon Cook: A lot, yes.
29:31
Rupert Isaacson: And quite a lot of big money and quite a lot of very
29:37
sort of orthodox sport dressage-y stuff, a la California, a la East
29:43
Coast, a la, you know, Chicago.
29:45
And also obviously big Western scene and big jumping scene and
29:50
blah, blah, blah, blah, like huge.
29:52
And I know that you are, at least it says in your various bios online, based
29:57
in Parker, and I know that Parker, Colorado, is, you know, one of these
30:00
suburbs that has massive horse activity.
30:03
Yeah.
30:03
I know that 'cause I also used to train horses a bit in Parker.
30:06
Why, given that there was this wealth of trainers out there, many of whom are
30:11
quite good, and you've just shown back up on the scene from time abroad and
30:16
so on, what do you think was going on?
30:18
Because you, you presumably, you can say, "Well, I had a great
30:21
feel," and like you sh- yes, yes, I, I, I have no doubt that you did.
30:24
But nonetheless, it takes people sometimes time to recognize, particularly
30:29
when someone is young, that, and you'd been out of the scene for a
30:33
while, and you probably back then didn't know as much as you know now.
30:37
So-
30:38
Nahshon Cook: Oh, no.
30:39
Absolutely not
30:40
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: so, so what do you think, why, why do you think this became
30:43
so successful so fast, looking back?
30:45
Nahshon Cook: My horses' eyes were sparkly.
30:47
They were happy.
30:49
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
30:50
Nahshon Cook: You know, I, I, I had sworn that I was never training
30:53
horses for people ever again.
30:54
I was, I was I was gonna go to graduate school to, when I came back,
30:59
I was gonna go to graduate school for, for, for to become a therapist.
31:04
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
31:06
Nahshon Cook: And it just- Why- And, and,
31:08
Rupert Isaacson: and-
31:08
had you sworn off training horses for other people?
31:10
Nahshon Cook: Huh?
31:11
Rupert Isaacson: Why had you sworn off training horses for other people?
31:13
Why did you not?
31:14
Nahshon Cook: Because a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of
31:18
people didn't feel safe with me.
31:22
Rupert Isaacson: Go
31:22
Nahshon Cook: on.
31:22
You know?
31:23
Elaborate.
31:24
The, a, a lot of people, oh.
31:28
You know,
31:31
I- you've been around enough to see horses in bad situations.
31:38
And, and horses whose pedigree and stall space shouldn't, you know,
31:46
shouldn't lead them to be in the physical state that they're in.
31:52
Obviously, I'm talking about a poorest physical state.
31:54
And, you know, like I looked at, I looked at, I looked at, I looked at
32:00
how so many trainers came into this work out of love for the horse and
32:06
were reduced to the need for money.
32:08
Mm.
32:09
And, and how so many clients controlled a lot of trainers that
32:16
way and ran horses into the ground.
32:20
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
32:22
Nahshon Cook: And if the person, you know, and if, and, and, and if the, and
32:27
if, and, and, and, you know, and could just take the horse away whenever they
32:33
wanted to and just find somebody else.
32:36
You know, they use their horses as bait.
32:38
They use these nice horses as bait to get the person that they want, and,
32:43
and I've had people do that to me, just try to trap me because I should
32:47
be in love with the horse because of what the horse can do for me.
32:50
And I've never, I've never allowed myself to fall into that situation.
32:55
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
32:56
Nahshon Cook: I never wanted to be-- I never wanted to feel like I had to get
33:01
down on my knees and beg to keep a job that I needed because I loved horses
33:10
Rupert Isaacson: Knowing what you know now, um, what would
33:13
your advice be to young people going into the equine industry?
33:13
'Cause this is a, this is a really good point.
33:16
Yeah.
33:17
I would say, I would say- How do you not fall into that trap?
33:18
I've got some ideas about how you could fall into that trap.
33:18
Make y- make, make money someplace else.
33:18
Say that again.
33:18
I would say, I would say if you can, have another job that can provide you the
33:25
Nahshon Cook: money so you can start from
33:26
Rupert Isaacson: the beginning
33:34
Nahshon Cook: and share and, and show-
33:38
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm
33:39
â¦ Nahshon Cook: and, and, and, and, and work f- with and for people that you want
33:44
to, or like for me, just get your own horse so nobody can ever take them away
33:54
Rupert Isaacson: What my advice often is to the young folk is don't
34:01
just offer what everyone else offers
34:04
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
34:05
Rupert Isaacson: And, and if
34:05
Nahshon Cook: you get that- I think, I think in, I think in that way, I
34:09
think that that's where it's been very strange, strange for me, very charmed.
34:14
I've never, I've never offered training to anybody.
34:18
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
34:19
Nahshon Cook: Everybody has always asked me.
34:21
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, but what's interesting to me, so piecing together the
34:24
journalist in me, and it's why I always peel back the onion layers, and I want to-
34:27
Nahshon Cook: Sure
34:27
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: you know, is if, if I was, if I was like, you know, 25 and
34:31
I was listening to this podcast, or if I was a parent and I had a kid who
34:35
was wanting to go into this, and I was like, "Ooh, this is interesting that
34:38
these two dudes are talking about this stuff," the story that you've told is
34:43
that you actually got, this is quite crucial, a very unusual skill set-
34:49
Nahshon Cook: Mm-hmm
34:50
Rupert Isaacson: luckily.
34:51
Because, and that was perhaps the gift of coming up through that
34:55
urban farm, because you got the
34:56
Nahshon Cook: sort of- The total gift.
34:58
Rupert Isaacson: You got the, the whole kind of 4H cowboy, also pony club thing,
35:03
which one, you know, needs that kind of broad base, and then you were lucky.
35:06
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
35:07
Rupert Isaacson: You know, right place, right time to have, you
35:11
know, Cynthia and Jean-FranÃ§ois kind of look at you and go, "Hmm."
35:15
And that both of- Yep â¦ those guys were coming from two very different,
35:18
very separate dressage traditions.
35:21
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
35:22
Rupert Isaacson: And then, but then also you followed it, and then
35:25
you also went and got educated.
35:26
You know, o- often when I'm dealing with younger people and they say,
35:29
"Oh, I want to buy a horse," I'm like, I will say, "Don't buy a horse yet.
35:33
Go and ride and train with everybody else's horses.
35:35
Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn on 100 different
35:38
horses, and the horses are gonna come to you in due course, and then you'll end up-
35:43
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
35:43
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: with more horses than you can handle, and then you'll-
35:46
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
35:46
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: encounter that stress.
35:47
But d- don't get into that too quickly.
35:51
Go and learn from a variety of people, and get an unusual skill set.
35:56
And I think thatâ¦
35:58
So what I tend to do is I tend to try and show people the sort of French-Portuguese
36:01
style because it's, like I said, I said, if you can learn all this stuff on the
36:05
ground, you can fix pretty much everybody.
36:08
Nahshon Cook: Anything almost, yeah.
36:10
Rupert Isaacson: And then suddenly you t- you, you have a very different
36:13
position to all the other people that are just getting on and riding.
36:17
But this requires you to not just ride, you know.
36:21
And, and particularly when people are young, they, they
36:22
often want to ride very much.
36:24
And it's like, well, you can ride, but also learn this.
36:26
If you learn this, it's going to help position you.
36:29
And it seems to be that you kind of acquired those skills so that when
36:33
you got back, I w- I would, I would be willing to wager that when you got back
36:37
from your travels and showed up in these barns, you could show up with a, a rather
36:42
unusual skill set, which people who were
36:48
A, who are discerning could probably spot and go, "You know what?
36:53
That.
36:54
I'm gonna go with that
36:54
Nahshon Cook: horse."
36:54
Yeah.
36:55
Yeah.
36:56
And I think that, and I think that, you know, I think that, and I think
37:00
that, you know, the thing is, is that
37:04
I'd, I'd been teaching-- Like, I started riding when I was 13.
37:08
I was teaching adult group classes when I was 14 years old.
37:12
And I had, I had, I had my first FEI client rider.
37:19
I was, I was doing lessons.
37:21
I remember the first time they showed up.
37:24
They were having trouble with the three tempis and, and for the Pre St.
37:30
George test.
37:32
And, and I remember clear as day, I, I don't remember the, the title
37:37
of the book, but it's, it was by, I think it was by Udo Berger, and
37:41
he was like, "You know, challenges in the tempis usually come because
37:45
the hind legs aren't active enough.
37:46
You put the horse on a working pirouette and get those hind legs active."
37:51
And, and I remember I told her that.
37:52
She's like, "I did not come here to work on the pirouette."
37:55
I was like, "But you paid me for my help."
37:57
And s- and then right after that, perfect three tempis down the wall.
38:02
Took me 20 minutes.
38:04
Hmm.
38:05
And I remember, I remember that that's when, that's when also I got the feeling
38:10
that people weren't safe because then she had tried to hire me to go and coach
38:15
her at shows, but she, she didn't want me-- She didn't want a whole bunch of
38:21
people to know that, one, that I was from Colorado because she was afraid of being
38:29
pushed out, I guess.
38:31
And so she said, she says, "You have to speak with an accent
38:34
so that I can tell them that I imported you from South Africa."
38:39
Rupert Isaacson: Really?
38:41
On what logic?
38:43
Nahshon Cook: Oh.
38:45
And, like, that's when-
38:47
Rupert Isaacson: But what-- On what logic?
38:48
What-- Like, why, why couldn't she say Colorado?
38:50
Why, why was South Africa better?
38:52
Nahshon Cook: Well, I told you in the beginning that, you know,
38:55
people for one reason or another, some people need me to be exotic
39:02
Rupert Isaacson: Can you do a South African accent?
39:05
Nahshon Cook: I don't, I didn't needâ¦
39:06
No, I, I did not.
39:07
I j- and, and my thing is-
39:08
Rupert Isaacson: A lot of my family are South African, man, so, you
39:11
know, I'm, I'll be quite curious to hear your South African accent.
39:14
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
39:14
You know, I mean, yeah, right.
39:16
And I just, I just, I mean, it was just, I mean, I think that more than anything-
39:21
Rupert Isaacson: It's insane though.
39:22
I mean, that, that, that-
39:23
Nahshon Cook: It's, and in- and incredibly insulting.
39:25
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
39:25
So-
39:26
Nahshon Cook: And, and, and this is, and this is where, for me, like
39:29
I was saying, like a lot of, a lot of people just didn't feel safe.
39:34
I mean, and I was still a kid.
39:35
I was 15 years old.
39:38
You know what I mean?
39:38
Um-
39:39
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I could see her not wanting to admit that
39:40
she had a 15-year-old trainer.
39:42
I mean, that, that I could understand, you know?
39:45
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
39:46
Rupert Isaacson: But-
39:46
Nahshon Cook: You know, I mean, and I think there's some kids who, who know
39:49
things, and they don't know how or why they know things, but they just do.
39:53
And I was, I mean, and when it came to horses, that's, that'sâ¦
39:57
And even now, like- Do you think you're sort
39:58
Rupert Isaacson: of learning from the field to some degree?
40:00
Like, were you-
40:00
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
40:01
I mean, and then there's sometimes I can hear them, like clear as day, or I can
40:05
feel, I can feel them in my body where there's hurt, and I can like, I can, I
40:10
can take that ca- place in my body and like, and, and like regulate my nervous
40:15
system by kind of feeling, you know, w- you know, re- conjuring up like when I
40:20
felt safest in my body and then warming it up, and it can release a spot in a horse.
40:25
So like there's all of these things that I've taught myself how to do.
40:30
Rupert Isaacson: As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm
40:33
an autism dad, and we have a whole career before this podcast in helping
40:40
people with neurodivergence, either who are professionals in the field.
40:45
Are you a therapist?
40:46
Are you a caregiver?
40:48
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40:49
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40:53
When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004,
40:57
I really didn't know what to do.
40:59
So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult
41:05
autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.
41:08
Temple Grandin.
41:09
And she told me what to do, and it's been working so amazingly for the last 20
41:14
years that not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped countless,
41:20
countless thousands of others reach the same goal, working in schools, working
41:25
at home, working in therapy settings.
41:29
If you would like to learn this cutting edge neuroscience-backed
41:33
approach, it's called Movement Method.
41:36
You can learn it online.
41:37
You can learn it very, very simply.
41:39
It's almost laughably simple.
41:43
The important thing is to begin.
41:46
Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.
41:49
Grandin and see what results can follow.
41:54
Go to this website, newtrailslearning.com.
42:00
Sign up as a gold member.
42:02
Take the online Movement Method course.
42:05
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42:07
Let us know how it goes for you.
42:09
We really wanna know.
42:10
We really want to help people like me, people like you out there
42:15
live their best life, to live
42:17
Nahshon Cook: free, ride free.
42:18
See what happens.
42:19
Rupert Isaacson: Where do you think that comes from?
42:21
Where do you think your ability to download that kind of
42:23
shamanic horse stuff comes from?
42:25
Nahshon Cook: Yeah, I don't know.
42:27
I, I, I, I, I- What's
42:28
Rupert Isaacson: your heritage?
42:28
What's your, what's your ancestry?
42:31
Where do your people come from?
42:33
Nahshon Cook: So, well, I- Clearly
42:35
Rupert Isaacson: not South African.
42:36
Nahshon Cook: No, I'm not South African.
42:39
We're, we'reâ¦
42:39
I mean, I mean, outside of slavery, we're all from here.
42:43
Rupert Isaacson: But let's go, let's go back as far as you can go.
42:47
On your mom's side and your dad's side, do you know your ancestors more
42:51
Nahshon Cook: or less?
42:52
Mm-mm.
42:52
There's a lot that's not recorded.
42:54
Rupert Isaacson: Have you got any Native American in there as well?
42:56
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
42:57
My great-grandma was half Seminole.
43:01
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
43:02
Great horse people, the Seminoles.
43:04
Nahshon Cook: And they were originally from Oklahoma, and
43:06
then they moved here to Colorado.
43:08
Rupert Isaacson: Got it What I strongly suspect, I had a really interesting
43:13
conversation the other day with a guy called Lewis Hook, who is, he and his
43:16
sister founded the Compton Cowboys.
43:18
Nahshon Cook: Oh, yeah.
43:19
Yeah, I've, I've, I've heard of them, yeah.
43:21
Rupert Isaacson: And he's a great dude because he's, he's, he's
43:23
interesting because he was an MIT finance guy who moved to Compton.
43:28
He w- he grew up there, and then he moved back.
43:31
Loved horses.
43:31
His, his sister loved horses.
43:33
Knowing that it would be troublesome to move back there, and did it
43:39
to sort of start Compton Cowboys.
43:40
A really interesting story.
43:42
And he is gonna be soon publishing a book on West African horse traditions.
43:48
Nahshon Cook: Oh, sure.
43:49
Rupert Isaacson: Which of course is one of theâ¦
43:51
So you know, the, the whole slave trade was predicated on horses.
43:56
It- people always think it's only ships.
43:58
The ships were the final part.
44:00
But- Right â¦ the, the, the campaigning that went on in those
44:04
wars within West Africa where prison- you know, all the warring kingdoms
44:08
who could then take each other's people prisoner and then sell them-
44:11
Nahshon Cook: People, right
44:12
Rupert Isaacson: to either Arabs or white people who were going to
44:15
then, you know, f- and it would be going on for thousands of years.
44:18
Before that they'd been-
44:19
Nahshon Cook: Right
44:19
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: selling them to the Egyptians, they'd been selling them to the
44:22
Romans, they'd been selling them- Right,
44:23
Nahshon Cook: right
44:23
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: wherever they could sell them, and then this
44:24
was just the latest iteration.
44:26
And the, the, the biggest, most effective cavalry of the era were in Mali.
44:31
And also, and all across the Sahel.
44:34
And even my ancestor George Spotswood Sparks, who was in the late 19th
44:39
century campaigning in the Sudan, encountered highly effective medieval
44:44
cavalry wearing barding on the horses, and chain mail, and so on.
44:48
In fact, I have a surcoat on the wall pulled off a dead knight
44:53
from the Battle of Omdurman.
44:55
And-
44:55
Nahshon Cook: Wow
44:56
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: we used to have a broadsword sort of with all
44:57
the Islamic inscriptions as well.
44:59
And these guys were master horsemen.
45:01
And- Yeah â¦ it's very interesting to me when people look at the Black
45:04
horse traditions in America, you know, Native Americans getting it
45:08
to some degree from the Spanish, and they're making it their own.
45:11
And then, but what people often forget is that many of the West
45:14
Africans that came over had a very, very strong horse tradition.
45:19
And if one goes back even today, you know, Senegal has a pretty thriving thing still.
45:25
Parts of Nigeria, blah, blah, blah, blah.
45:26
But it's, it's kind of written out of the books, and Lewis Hook is-
45:30
Nahshon Cook: Right
45:31
Rupert Isaacson: going to do this.
45:32
So when y- you know, I hear you talking about this stuff I'm like,
45:35
"Is he sort of downloading a little bit, you know, from an ancestral-"
45:38
Nahshon Cook: I
45:39
Rupert Isaacson: mean,
45:39
Nahshon Cook: it,
45:39
Rupert Isaacson: it
45:39
Nahshon Cook: could very
45:39
Rupert Isaacson: well- Which
45:40
Nahshon Cook: I think we all are, right?
45:40
It very well could be.
45:41
I think, I think, you know, w- how it works for me is, like, when I get a horse
45:48
with a dysfunction, I, I, I, you know, I look at that as That part of the horse
45:56
that is-- I look at whatever is hurting the horse, and this is really how I see
46:01
it in my mind, as, as a part of the horse that needs love, asking for attention as
46:08
manifests in this-- as manifesting, you know, manifesting itself as dysfunction.
46:14
And so kinda like the horse with DSLD, like, like I, I-- we, we put a bit
46:21
in his mouth, and for years, I mean, two years he had been diagnosed, and
46:27
when he had di- been diagnosed, all of the soft tissue in his hind legs,
46:34
uh, w- the suspensory ligament rather, was gone, and it was all scar tissue.
46:40
And I met him, I think, two or three years after he had been diagnosed.
46:45
The first time I met him, and he also had PSSM2, which kinda made
46:50
his muscles freeze, and they-- and that was more dietary, so they
46:54
had gotten that under control.
46:56
But the first time I met him, I, I, I, I, I put a bit in his mouth because
47:03
I had read this book by Norman Dodge.
47:05
I-- well, two things.
47:06
I had done-- I had listened to a lecture by Daniel Dauphin on how the horse's
47:11
tongue can engage all of the fascial lines in their bodies when they pick it up, and,
47:18
and, and, like, that's a old, like Vaquero horseman here in the States teaching the
47:25
young horses how to hold the bit without, you know, I mean, as a lesson- Mm-hmm
47:30
and as a, as a certain s- uh, a separate part of training, just holding the
47:34
bit before anything is done with it.
47:36
Mm-hmm.
47:36
And how it could engage the whole thoracic body, the whole, the whole thoracic,
47:42
the, you know, the whole fascial body.
47:44
Mm-hmm.
47:44
And, and, and then, and then I read this book by Norman Doidge called
47:49
The Br- Br- Brain That Heals Itself, and he was talking about a d- uh, a
47:55
clinic in, I think it was in Minnesota, where there are people who come in
48:00
with, like, cerebral palsy and all of these things, and, like, they come in
48:04
on canes, and they put this thing on their tongue, and they go through these
48:08
different movements, and these people come in on canes and are walking out.
48:12
And I was like, "Well, anything is possible."
48:15
And so I put this bit on this horse, and the first time I met
48:19
him, his fetlocks were to the floor.
48:21
And as soon as he rolled it and then picked it up, his fetlocks lifted up And
48:28
then I did it enough and, and, and, and as he was doing it, as he was doing it, I
48:34
was, I was having him breathe, and I just told him, I put my fingers-- I cupped my
48:39
fingers on either side of his vertebra-
48:43
Rupert Isaacson: Which-
48:43
Nahshon Cook: all the way from, from his, from his lumbar spine all the way up to
48:48
the thoracic spine with, at the wither.
48:51
And I just told him, I said, "Breathe into my hands."
48:55
And, and he-- and I would press, and he-- and that would bring his attention
49:00
to where I wanted him to breathe, and he would lift my finger up.
49:04
And, and as soon as we took the bit out, his pasterns dropped again.
49:08
And, and like I knew I was onto something.
49:11
And so then we just kept doing it, and, and, and, and it was super wild
49:17
because, like, he had these lumps.
49:19
He had like a lump here at the base of his neck, and the veterinarians
49:24
didn't know what it was, and they had suggested, like, surgically removing it.
49:28
And I don't know what it was either, but, like, there was one day where it justâ¦
49:34
He had edema.
49:36
It had drained, and he had a, a edema on his chest, and, like, it was gone.
49:42
You know what I mean?
49:43
And so, like, all of these things and, and, like, going in and really
49:46
talking to them and listening to their body and saying, "Hey,
49:50
like, you're in need of love, and, like, you don't need to hurt them.
49:53
Like, help me, help me help you."
49:56
And, and, and they do.
49:58
They do.
49:59
Yeah.
49:59
And he, like, used to colic chronically.
50:02
After he had had, after he had, after he had had colic surgery, he, like, colicked,
50:07
like, it was, like, once a month.
50:09
And there was one time, dude, I went in and I wasâ¦
50:12
Uh, 'cause I have an apartment upstairs in the barn.
50:15
Mm-hmm.
50:16
Mm-hmm.
50:16
And I got a call that he was colicing, and, like, I touched him and I could
50:21
feel all of these air bubbles in my gut.
50:25
And, like, and, and, and, and heâ¦
50:29
And, like, Iâ¦
50:29
At that time, I had these s- stones that I would carry, and w- and, and, like,
50:34
I was in the middle of, like, working with him and, and as we were working
50:40
through this colic, there was just, like, this little thing on his shoulder that
50:44
started moving around, and, like, every time I tried to touch it, it would run.
50:51
And, and, and for me, I was like, "This is what was causing the colic."
50:55
And I don't know, in my mind it justâ¦
50:57
It was like, "This is what was doing it."
50:59
Well, you know, like, I had my stones in my backpack upstairs and Iâ¦
51:04
And, like, I just heard this voice say, "Go get your stones."
51:07
And I have this stone called Arlite 23, and then I have a Tibetan black quartz,
51:11
and I put it on his, I put it on his shoulder on that thing and, and the,
51:18
and the little lump stopped running and went away, and my stones were hot.
51:23
And, and he started passing gas, and he never colicked again.
51:29
He never colicked again
51:32
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
51:32
I've got a couple of questions here 'cause we went through quite quickly
51:35
Nahshon Cook: A lot, yeah.
51:36
My mind justâ¦
51:37
Sorry, I just-
51:38
Rupert Isaacson: This is great.
51:38
No, it's great
51:39
â¦ Nahshon Cook: goes
51:39
Rupert Isaacson: Listen, because not everyone knows the acronyms.
51:42
So you said the horse, let's, let's go back to the horse with
51:45
DSLD, which is a degenerative disease of the suspensory ligament.
51:50
Mm-hmm.
51:51
Um, it's, it's something which can strike various breeds, but it's often there in
51:57
the Peruvian Pasos for whatever reason.
51:59
Nahshon Cook: Mm-hmm.
52:00
Rupert Isaacson: And I'm just educating myself here quickly.
52:03
Um-
52:04
Nahshon Cook: Sure, sure
52:04
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: that it says an abnormal accumulation of
52:07
a protein called proteoglycan
52:13
builds up in the ligament causing the suspensory ligaments to harden,
52:18
thicken, and lose their elasticity.
52:20
And interestingly-
52:21
Nahshon Cook: Mm-hmm
52:21
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: I have something not dissimilar in my hand.
52:23
Look.
52:23
Do you see my li- little finger there?
52:25
It, it won't go further than that.
52:27
And-
52:27
Nahshon Cook: Oh, wow
52:28
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: do, doâ¦
52:29
If you look at the, the- Fascia there around the tendon Mm-hmm That's called
52:35
Dupuytren's syndrome, and they say that it's a Viking ancestry thing
52:43
Nahshon Cook: Ah.
52:43
Rupert Isaacson: It's named after Dupuytren, who was actually
52:46
Napoleon Bonaparte's doctor onâ¦
52:48
who, who first looked at it.
52:49
I've got it to less degree on this one.
52:52
Richard Williams, who publishes Xenophon Press, has the same thing.
52:54
Nahshon Cook: Xenophon Press, yeah.
52:55
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
52:56
He was like, "Do you have that?"
52:57
"Yeah, I've got that."
52:58
It doesn't affect you when you play guitar, and interestingly, it doesn't
53:00
affect you when you ride or work in hand.
53:02
It's, it's, it's only when you tryâ¦
53:03
But I can't do pushups, for example, anymore.
53:05
And so I'm, I'm quite familiar with these sorts of things, and it's, it, the DSLD
53:10
is regarded as a, an incurable thing.
53:14
Nahshon Cook: It most certainly is, yeah.
53:15
Rupert Isaacson: So when you, when you found that perhaps there was a link
53:20
between the fascial releases in the tongue and the introduction of the bit,
53:27
did you find that then this horse could actually support his fetlocks and-
53:33
Nahshon Cook: Yeah, there was video of it
53:34
okay as well?
53:34
He was, he was rideable again Can you say stuff?
53:36
Rupert Isaacson: He was rideable?
53:37
Nahshon Cook: He, he was, he was rideable again.
53:39
Rupert Isaacson: Fantastic.
53:40
And, and how long did- Yeah
53:40
â¦ Nahshon Cook: did it take to get it going?
53:40
And, and, like, we did, we did a wholeâ¦
53:43
We, it took, it took about aâ¦
53:45
The whole, all in all, I worked with him for about two years.
53:48
And yeah, but, like, he was likeâ¦
53:50
I mean, like, it was wild.
53:52
Like, he could, he, he- What movements did he like?
53:54
And it was so, it was so funny because I was telling people as I was
53:58
clinicking around about him, and, and some of them didn't believe me, and
54:03
so I invited them to come see him.
54:05
Mm-hmm.
54:05
And, and heâ¦
54:07
I mean, he, he could do all of the stuff.
54:10
He could do his piaffe, he could do passage, he could do transitions
54:14
from piaffe to canter, he could do quarter pirouettes, and this
54:18
is where, like, like, there wasâ¦
54:21
It was like this whole amalgamation of, of things because, like, in my mind, like,
54:27
the, like, like, the mental body from him, like, kinda looking at it, like the th-
54:34
the mental body was the fascial system, and the emotional body was the muscular
54:41
system, and the, and the, and the- And his physical body was the skeletal system.
54:48
And so by kind of working with all of those subgroups, clarifications
54:56
in my mind, I was able to re-pattern all of his gaits.
55:01
I was able to re-pattern all of his gaits to where he was rideable, he would â¦ And
55:06
a, he could go on trail rides around the farm, up and down the hills.
55:10
It was, it was, it was incredible.
55:12
And it was the first â¦ And, and, and, and I had done, I had done a
55:16
whole lot of research, and there wasn't a lot done because a lot of
55:20
people said that it was impossible.
55:22
And I was like, "But this horse doesn't wanna give up."
55:25
And so I said, "Fuck it.
55:26
Let's see what he does."
55:27
And, and, and he got back to, he got back to where he could, he could
55:31
get up and, and all kind of things.
55:34
And I think his was mechanical though.
55:35
I think his was caused by the, by the PSSM 2 which is like the body's, it, the, it,
55:42
you know, its inability to absorb, I think carb- certain carbs, and so it freezes the
55:47
muscles and on top of just bad training.
55:51
Rupert Isaacson: It is interesting how sometimes these horses are the ones that
55:56
Well, they're always the ones that teach one.
55:58
I remember we had-- we still got him actually.
56:01
We had a Mustang which got a really, really, really bad EPM, which for
56:08
the people who are listening not in the Americas is no one quite--
56:12
they don't quite know why they get it in, in the tropical Americas.
56:15
We were in Texas, but some people say it's from possum poo, but some
56:19
people say it's from bird poo.
56:21
But whatever it is, it's a parasite that attacks a protozoa that
56:25
begins to attack the spinal column.
56:27
And he was so far gone that he was literally dragging his back.
56:32
Mm-hmm.
56:34
We had him in the best vet hospital and blah, blah, blah, because he
56:36
was so good, and blah, blah, blah.
56:38
And they're like, "We can't do anything."
56:39
And I don't know why, but we had the idea of asking this Chinese
56:46
herbalist that we knew who was very good with people and very well
56:49
known in the city we were living.
56:51
But he said, "You can never tell anyone I did this because I'm not
56:54
licensed to work with animals," so I'm not gonna say who he was.
56:58
Anyway, though, he said, "Describe," he said, "I don't know from horses,
57:01
but describe what's going on."
57:02
So we did, and we said, "It's this protozoa, and
57:04
it's blah, blah, blah, blah."
57:05
And he just went upstairs, and he put some herbs together.
57:08
He said, "Try this."
57:10
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
57:11
Rupert Isaacson: The horse is still around, and the horse-- there were certain
57:14
things he couldn't do anymore, like he, he couldn't do the lavada anymore.
57:17
He couldn't jump anymore.
57:18
A boo-hoo, you know.
57:19
He went on to, to live another, what, almost 20 years by now.
57:23
And-
57:24
Nahshon Cook: Wow.
57:25
Rupert Isaacson: He's, you know, hasn't quite retired yet.
57:28
Was one of our, you know, really foundation horse boy horses.
57:33
But, y- you know, we had tried the drugs.
57:38
We had tried everything, and then we, on a whim did it.
57:45
Now, I've got a funkier story to tell with this, and then I want to go back
57:48
to something else that you said earlier.
57:50
So obviously I d- I've, I've worked a lot in Areas of the world where
57:56
there's strong shamanic traditions.
57:58
And-
57:58
Nahshon Cook: Sure
57:59
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: so that's been a huge part of my adult life.
58:02
And I probably saw my first shamanic ceremony when I was about seven on my
58:06
granddad's farm in Zimbabwe, which were two ngangas, witch, they were called
58:10
witch doctors, doing a healing ceremony.
58:13
And there was, in the sort of normal institutionalized racism at the time, this
58:18
kind of eye-rolling, "Oh, that's just what the, just what the Blacks do," you know.
58:22
And but you're a kid, so you've got an open mind, and I was looking at
58:25
this going, "Yeah, but people seem to be getting sick and getting better.
58:28
And-" Yeah
58:29
you know, you, Grandad, are not, you- there's no clinic on this
58:33
farm, so this is all they've got.
58:35
And they look in pretty good shape to me.
58:37
You know, in fact, they look in better shape than you," you know.
58:40
And so there's gotta be something in it, you know.
58:42
And then of course, later on, I, I get involved.
58:45
But interestingly, we had this horse in Maidenhead in England.
58:50
I was riding for somebody who was an eventer.
58:52
I was, I was â¦ This is pre-dressage day, so I was event riding.
58:56
And this was one of those wonder horses that is just a beautiful soul.
59:03
He-
59:04
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
59:05
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: he would do anything and could do anything,
59:07
so he'd jump anything, you know.
59:08
Just-
59:08
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
59:09
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: go into the ring just like, "Leave it to me."
59:12
You know, and he-- So if you went in to compete, you could always be sure
59:18
you were gonna come out successful, but not through anything that you did.
59:22
Just, just-
59:22
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
59:23
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: just, just leave it to him.
59:24
But you could also put, you know, a complete beginner on his back,
59:27
and he would just take them round the farm, you know, a complete- Mm
59:31
and just a lovely dude to hang out with in every way.
59:34
And- Yeah â¦ you know, the, the, the, the, the sort of horse that you would,
59:39
you know, send your troubled adolescent to for counseling sort of thing.
59:43
And- Sure Anyway, he got s- this weird kidney condition, and he just started
59:51
peeing and peeing and peeing and peeing and peeing, and the weight just
59:54
dropped off him from looking really great to virtually skeletal in a very
59:58
short, alarmingly short period of time.
1:00:00
Vets not knowing what to do, throwing up their hands, and then one of
1:00:03
them said, "Oh, okay, look, I-- we can't do anything at this stage."
1:00:08
This is from a vet.
1:00:09
"I suggest you contact a faith healer."
1:00:13
And this- Ah â¦ took all my words.
1:00:15
This is a vet outside London, a horse vet.
1:00:17
A horse, you know-
1:00:17
Nahshon Cook: Wow â¦ like
1:00:18
Rupert Isaacson: horsey area, to quite, quiteâ¦
1:00:20
And so we were like, "Okay, put us in touch."
1:00:22
He's like, "Well, I don't know any, but at this stage you have nothing to lose."
1:00:26
So we went running around trying to find nothing, nothing, nothing.
1:00:30
And the horse died.
1:00:32
And not only did the horse die, but you know how when you take a, a re-
1:00:36
a horse that's ready to go, a horse, when an animal is ready to go and a
1:00:39
human is r- they're like ready to go.
1:00:41
This horse was not ready to go despite-
1:00:43
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:00:43
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: the massive collapse of his, of his, you know,
1:00:47
what was going on internally.
1:00:48
And when I led him down, I had to do it.
1:00:51
I, I led him down to the knackers and I held him, and he did not want it.
1:00:55
He did not-
1:00:56
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:00:57
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: want it.
1:00:57
And I'm like, "Fuck, man, this is wrong.
1:00:59
This is wrong."
1:00:59
Like, I don't know what to do.
1:01:00
I'm only in my early 20s.
1:01:01
I don't know any way of shot him Two weeks later, I'm in a party, in
1:01:08
a sort of cocktail party in London, 'cause I'm also a journalist, right?
1:01:13
And I'm talking to this female film producer, and she says-- I said,
1:01:18
"What, what are you working on?
1:01:18
What you been doing?"
1:01:19
She said, "Oh, we just did this series on animal faith healers."
1:01:23
Nahshon Cook: Mm.
1:01:24
Rupert Isaacson: And I'm like, "Where were you two weeks ago?"
1:01:27
Nahshon Cook: Two weeks ago.
1:01:28
Rupert Isaacson: And I said, "All right, listen, did you meet anybody
1:01:31
that you thought was straight up?"
1:01:33
And she said, "Honestly, Rupert, only one."
1:01:35
The rest she said, "I thought were charlatans," but she said this one
1:01:38
was this funny old bloke who lived in a trailer north, north of London,
1:01:42
little bloke about five foot three, little bit-- always very smartly
1:01:45
dressed, called Charles Siddle.
1:01:47
And she said him, she followed him over a year and saw him cure one of the
1:01:51
queen's broodmares from lymphoma and various other sort of far gone cases.
1:01:57
And the reason was because there was a vet in that area, a smart horsey, moneyed
1:02:01
horsey vet, who was referring people to- Mm â¦ when it was a bullet job.
1:02:07
Said, "Well, you might as well call Charles."
1:02:09
So I contacted him, and I, I also followed him for a year, and I saw
1:02:13
him, a, a horse that broke, shattered its scapula, a horse that had burnt
1:02:17
its lungs out, and a horse thatâ¦
1:02:20
I can't remember what the other one was.
1:02:21
This is going back about thirty years.
1:02:23
And in each case, the horse made a full recovery.
1:02:25
And I said to him-- And he didn't-- All he did was he'd go and spend a bit of
1:02:28
time with the horse, and then he'd come out and say something like, "Change
1:02:31
his water tomorrow at three o'clock.
1:02:33
Change his rugs at five.
1:02:36
I'll be back next week.
1:02:36
We'll do the same thing," and then it would be fine.
1:02:40
And I'd be like, he wasn't even laying on hands.
1:02:42
He wasn't-- There was no obvious healing thing.
1:02:45
Nahshon Cook: Sure.
1:02:46
Rupert Isaacson: And so I said, "What, what you doing?"
1:02:49
And he said, "Well, Rupert, if I tell you, you'll just think I'm crazy."
1:02:52
And I said, "Well, yeah, but anyway."
1:02:54
So he said finally, "All right.
1:02:56
I am the hands of a dead friend of mine who was a vet who died 18 years
1:03:05
before he appeared to me in a stable-
1:03:07
Nahshon Cook: Mm
1:03:08
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: in his wheelchair and said, "You're going to be my hands."
1:03:12
And he said, "I'm also-"
1:03:12
Nahshon Cook: Wow.
1:03:14
Rupert Isaacson: And I said, "Well, hold on, hold on, hold on.
1:03:16
Yes, it s- it sounds crazy, but I did ask.
1:03:18
But what are these people doing hanging around?
1:03:20
Like, surely after you go, you go."
1:03:21
He said, he said, "No, no, Ru.
1:03:23
If you, if you've got work that you think you wanna do, you-"
1:03:25
Nahshon Cook: That you have to finish, yes.
1:03:27
" Rupert Isaacson: You can hang around for a bit.
1:03:28
Not forever-
1:03:29
Nahshon Cook: Yes
1:03:29
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: but, you know, eventually you're gonna-"
1:03:30
Nahshon Cook: Just until your work is done.
1:03:32
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:03:32
But he said, "So this is what I do."
1:03:34
And I said, "Well, that does sound bananas."
1:03:35
And he said, "I, well, I warned you, and you did ask."
1:03:38
But I never saw him fail, and it's really interesting to meâ¦
1:03:43
This is long before I started hanging out with bushmen shamans
1:03:45
and things like this, but it wasâ¦
1:03:48
This was just in the suburbs of London.
1:03:50
And he had-
1:03:51
Nahshon Cook: We're everywhere.
1:03:52
Rupert Isaacson: Everywhere, yeah.
1:03:53
We're, yeah, it- â¦ organisms, you know?
1:03:56
And he had been a marine in the war, which is interesting, in the second World War.
1:04:01
He's a tiny, tiny little dude, but he said, "Rupert, I killed a lot of people.
1:04:05
We were sent on these missions, and, you know, you'd have to knife people
1:04:08
in the dark and things like this."
1:04:09
And he said, "This is sort of my way of giving back."
1:04:12
He also did- Mm â¦ and he really opened my eyes to this.
1:04:16
So, you know, I, I am fully open to the whole range of everything from
1:04:28
straight up allopathic all the way to can't explain it, but thank God we had
1:04:35
a good result there because th- this horse or this person is still with us.
1:04:39
I want to go back to something you said about kissing spine about half
1:04:44
an hour ago, though, 'cause you went over it, and I couldn't stop you in
1:04:46
that moment, but I just kinda went ooh.
1:04:48
Nahshon Cook: Sure, sure.
1:04:49
Rupert Isaacson: Just because there's an interesting, there's a really
1:04:51
interesting thing that you said which ties in with some experience I've had.
1:04:54
You said kissing spine is always tension in the pole and the TMJ.
1:05:04
This is really- Yeah â¦ interesting to me for, for various reasons
1:05:07
that I'm gonna go into in a minute.
1:05:08
Elaborate, please.
1:05:13
Nahshon Cook: They can't, you know, horses can't lift their front
1:05:16
ends up if there is tension in first the poll and then the TMJ.
1:05:22
And then, and then if they can't lift up their, they can't lift up their front
1:05:26
legs and they're inverted, then their hind legs have no place to go, and we have
1:05:30
the processes folding in on each other.
1:05:33
Kind of in my way of thinking, just the way that my mind works Hollowed out
1:05:38
Rupert Isaacson: horses here.
1:05:40
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:05:41
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:05:42
Just for the visual.
1:05:43
Nahshon Cook: And, and, and hollowed out doesn't necessarily mean, you know,
1:05:47
hollowed out doesn't always mean this.
1:05:49
It means horses on the forehand who can't bring their hind legs
1:05:52
under to lift their front end up.
1:05:54
Their backs can't engage.
1:05:55
So you'll see it a lot in, like, hunter horses here, like h-
1:06:00
yeah, English equitation horses.
1:06:02
Yeah.
1:06:02
You'll also see it a lot in dressage horses who are pulled in and up.
1:06:07
Mm.
1:06:07
But either way, the chest is disengaged.
1:06:12
The, the thoracic sling is disengaged, and because of that, you know, w-
1:06:17
they, the, the spine, the spinous processes clamp on top of each other.
1:06:24
And so like for me, in the lumbar spine, d- like depending on where the, the
1:06:30
kissing spine is, it's usually correlated with a particular hind leg joint.
1:06:36
So if we have it in the lumbar spine- That's
1:06:38
Rupert Isaacson: right, because you also said stifle.
1:06:38
That's right.
1:06:39
That was the thing I was thinking of
1:06:40
â¦ Nahshon Cook: yeah, so if we s- if we have it in the lumbar
1:06:41
spine, it's usually in the stifle.
1:06:44
If we have it in the lumbar spine or if we have it in the thoracic
1:06:48
spine, it's usually the hip joint.
1:06:50
If we have it in the cervical spine, it's usually the hocks.
1:06:56
But either way, it's the, it's the, it, it, wherever, wherever in the horse's
1:07:02
spine that it has been my experience that that kissing spine is happening,
1:07:07
it's, it's a hind leg joint dysfunction, and usually caused by incorrect hand,
1:07:13
in- incorrect hand, which is ca- hand, incorrect hand usage, which is a weak seat
1:07:21
that is not allowing the horse to relax in the TMJ and thus brace in the jaw.
1:07:26
I have changed, I've changed horses' pastern angles by
1:07:30
correctly using a noseband.
1:07:33
I have completely changed pastern
1:07:36
Rupert Isaacson: angles.
1:07:36
Talk about correctly using a noseband.
1:07:36
What do you mean by correctly using a noseband?
1:07:38
Nahshon Cook: Oh, so the purpose of the noseband for me is to help
1:07:40
the horse's mouth feel safe, right?
1:07:42
And so like we have, like, and you have some people-
1:07:45
Rupert Isaacson: In what way, Daisy?
1:07:46
Be
1:07:46
Nahshon Cook: specific.
1:07:46
Okay, I'm trying to.
1:07:48
So, so like, you know, like there's, like there's this huge push against nosebands,
1:07:53
and, you know, you see horses chattering, and some people say that's release.
1:07:58
Sometimes it is.
1:07:59
Sometimes it's emotionalism and nervousness.
1:08:02
And so I have one really talkative horse who- Sometimes
1:08:05
Rupert Isaacson: it's just personality type too.
1:08:06
Yeah.
1:08:06
Some horses-
1:08:07
Nahshon Cook: Most certainly, yeah.
1:08:08
But either way, either way, and, and, and, you know, for horses that you don't
1:08:14
start, you know, you don't know, you don't know, you don't know why that happens.
1:08:19
You know what I mean?
1:08:20
No, but it's- Like is this a personality type that has been born
1:08:23
out of a, is it a personality type that's been born out of a experience?
1:08:27
Or is this who they are in the world?
1:08:30
You know what I mean?
1:08:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:08:31
Nahshon Cook: So, and so like, you know, so m- so I have, when I ride with
1:08:39
nosebands, I tend to ride with them quite snugly to make sure that the horse
1:08:46
understands what a relaxed TMJ feels like when, and, and that they don't have to
1:08:52
feel, fear the hand, and this is after a l- long course in teaching them how to
1:08:58
hold the bit, and what the hand means, and what the seat means, and they trust
1:09:02
me, and they feel safe inside of my hands.
1:09:05
And you can, you can, you can, by restricting the movement appropriately
1:09:10
with an appropriately adjusted nose band, you can re- you can,
1:09:14
you can teach the horse how to relax the TMJ, which consequently
1:09:19
teaches them how to relax the poll.
1:09:21
All of the thoracic sling muscles relax, and the, the rectus abdominis
1:09:28
engages, and the pectoral muscles engage, and all of the shoulders engage,
1:09:33
and all of these things, and all of a sudden the hind leg joints can work.
1:09:38
Rupert Isaacson: Do you-
1:09:38
Nahshon Cook: And you're able to, you're able to do so much.
1:09:40
I have a horse that I'm working with, and, like, we're, like, he, he, he was, like,
1:09:45
short limb, like two inches shorter on his right front leg because of thoracic
1:09:50
sling atrophy based on poll tension.
1:09:54
And, like, his leg is growing because he's using his poll correctly now
1:09:58
because the muscle is developing
1:10:02
Rupert Isaacson: If someone was to, if you were to say to somebody, "Here is a
1:10:07
quick one, two, three on how to use your noseband correctly," what would you say?
1:10:14
Nahshon Cook: I would say first make sure they know how to hold a bit
1:10:18
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm
1:10:19
Nahshon Cook: Um, so that their, so that their fascial lines don't get
1:10:23
disengaged because the sternocephalic muscle is, is not lifted.
1:10:28
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:10:28
Nahshon Cook: And then I would say make sure that it's the
1:10:32
appropriate bit for the horse.
1:10:34
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:10:38
Nahshon Cook: And then two, make sure that your hands are trustworthy.
1:10:42
Rupert Isaacson: But let's- And then- But the noseband,
1:10:44
yeah, specifically the noseband
1:10:45
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:10:46
And then from that, and then from that, I, I, how I do it,
1:10:50
I do it very progressively.
1:10:51
So I start with the, with it quite loose, and then I have it to where I can, I, I, I
1:10:58
end up to where I can just put my fingers through and touch the tips of my fingers.
1:11:03
And so the only thing they can't do, to where they still can do a
1:11:06
jaw release and the, and the tongue release, but they can't gape.
1:11:12
And by teaching them to do that, you unlock the poll, and then you unlock
1:11:17
the poll, and you unlock the hind leg joints, and then you open the back.
1:11:22
Rupert Isaacson: Do you getâ¦
1:11:23
You know, as you said, you pointed out earlier, there's a, there's
1:11:26
the, one of the many current fashions in, in horsemanship
1:11:28
at the moment is noseband bad.
1:11:30
And I don't believe that because when I'm working in hand, particularly I
1:11:35
teach people a lot of in-hand work, I've noticed that if you don't use a noseband,
1:11:39
the hook, the bit tends to slide around, and just for that reason alone, it
1:11:43
can be more comfortable for the horse.
1:11:45
But I've, like you, noticed many other good things.
1:11:49
My friend, I think you may know her, Suki Baxter, she's also been one of Warwick's-
1:11:54
Nahshon Cook: Oh, true, yeah.
1:11:55
We all present together in Texas.
1:11:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:11:56
She's fantastic, and she talks about how the noseband can equalize the
1:12:01
pressure of the bridle on the horse's head in a way that's very good.
1:12:05
So it, it's, it's interesting, and then there's also just the flat out,
1:12:08
I would often joke, if you have spent much time out hunting, I grew up
1:12:11
doing a lot of hunting, you're gonna fall out the front door quite often.
1:12:15
And as you fall out the front door, you often will come up with the bridle in
1:12:18
your hand and watch your horse disappear- â¦ over a line of hedges in front of
1:12:23
you and begin a very long walk across the plowed fields, rather embarrassed
1:12:26
about how much better your horse jumps those hedges without you, you know, on
1:12:29
them, and hoping that someone willâ¦
1:12:31
So, you know, the, the noseband can help you not get up with
1:12:34
the bridle in your hand.
1:12:35
But it's very, it's refreshing to hear somebody talking about
1:12:39
the noseband in this way.
1:12:40
And I think in a, in a, in a subsequent conversation, I think it
1:12:43
would be quite useful to go into this on YouTube because people I think
1:12:46
are quite confused on this topic.
1:12:47
You know, it's become confused because there-
1:12:50
Nahshon Cook: Yeah â¦ seems
1:12:50
Rupert Isaacson: to have been a reaction.
1:12:51
One of the reasons I think there was this reaction was that dressage
1:12:54
judges sadly said we cannot see a horse's hou- mouth move at all,
1:13:00
which of course is wrong because of course they need to move their mouth.
1:13:03
And so people just started cranking really tight.
1:13:05
And so that meant people said, "Okay, well, then are noseband's bad?"
1:13:09
And baby out with the bathwater.
1:13:11
There's so many things like this in horse training where one could, one could-
1:13:15
Nahshon Cook: Yeah â¦ I mean- I, I, I, I, I, you know, I think that, you know, I
1:13:25
I, my, all, all of my horses are trained.
1:13:27
They know how to go without them.
1:13:29
They are also trained to go with them.
1:13:32
Like, I believed, I believe in having, having educated horses,
1:13:37
well-educated horses Style
1:13:39
Rupert Isaacson: is part of it
1:13:40
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:13:40
Yeah.
1:13:40
You know what I mean?
1:13:41
I do.
1:13:42
And so, and so, and I feel like that's my obligation to them.
1:13:47
I â¦ And, and given that I, I can get the results in the horses that
1:13:52
I have that nobody else can do, I don't care what anybody else says.
1:13:55
Yeah.
1:13:56
You know what I mean?
1:13:58
I mean, I- No, it's- It's like, it's like if â¦ I, and I mean, and
1:14:00
really how I look at it, it's like everybody else walked away from
1:14:04
these horses with answers that they had, but they weren't sufficient.
1:14:09
We f- we're finding answers w- and more importantly, the horses
1:14:13
are relaxing into the answers.
1:14:15
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:14:17
Nahshon Cook: Most of the time, the horses are offering how they,
1:14:20
how they're offering the answer.
1:14:22
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:14:23
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:14:24
And so it's like, it's like, it's like when we don't need to be at war
1:14:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:14:33
â¦ Nahshon Cook: are you afraid of peace?
1:14:34
Like some people just wanna fight.
1:14:35
It's kind of like the double bridle.
1:14:37
The double bridle I have, I have, I have popped spines and ribs
1:14:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:14:45
Nahshon Cook: Well, that's- You know what I mean?
1:14:47
That's where I wanted to go next.
1:14:48
Rupert Isaacson: As you may know, if you've been following my work,
1:14:50
we are also horsey folk here, and we have been training horses for
1:14:56
many, many years in the manner of the old classical dressage masters.
1:15:01
This is something which is often very confusing for people.
1:15:05
We shine a light on that murky, difficult stuff and make it crystal clear.
1:15:10
If you'd like to learn to train your horse in the manner of the
1:15:14
old masters and really have fun and joy for you and your equine, go
1:15:18
to our website heliosharmony.com,
1:15:22
sign up as a premium member, and begin to take the Helios Harmony course,
1:15:26
which will take you from zero to the piaffe, where the horse is dancing
1:15:30
on the spot in hand, on the ground.
1:15:33
And then from there, you can
1:15:35
Nahshon Cook: develop out to anywhere you want to.
1:15:38
Heliosharmony.com
1:15:40
to unlock the secrets of the old masters.
1:15:44
Rupert Isaacson: So I, like you, have come to the conclusion, I think like
1:15:48
many people before us, that the key to the back is in the front, that if
1:15:54
the jaw is not relaxed, say goodbye to access to the back, say goodbye to
1:16:01
access to the, to the hindquarters.
1:16:03
And yes, frequently all sorts of stresses, physical and mental.
1:16:09
So I probably, like you, do a lot of jaw flexions.
1:16:13
And one of the things which I encourage people to do when they
1:16:17
come to me is learn them, because I've never known them not be useful.
1:16:22
And even at the very least, you are having a very interesting conversation with your
1:16:27
horse, and you're beginning to go down a road when you're, when one is playing with
1:16:32
jaw flexions of, can we begin to explore things that might make you feel better?
1:16:40
And-
1:16:41
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:16:41
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: horses, horses, I think, respond to this so well.
1:16:44
So when you're talking about kissing spine being stifle or hip or hock
1:16:50
caused by stiff pulse, st- stiff TMJ, you know and I know that those
1:16:57
flexions can really help with this.
1:16:59
Nahshon Cook: Oh, for sure.
1:17:00
Rupert Isaacson: Why do you think- Yeah â¦ why do you think
1:17:02
this is not taught so much?
1:17:06
Nahshon Cook: Well, I think that, I think it just depends
1:17:09
on where in the world you are.
1:17:11
I- in New Zealand, they have a really strong tradition of Bouchetism
1:17:15
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm
1:17:16
Nahshon Cook: And I don't, I don't, I don't know.
1:17:18
I don't know why it's not taught.
1:17:20
I think that, I think because it's hard Mm I think it be- I think because it
1:17:26
really requires intelligence enough to allow the force to be more than fun Mm It
1:17:32
makes us be responsible for loving them and educating them for their sake Mm-hmm.
1:17:37
Mm In the ways that work best for them, even though sometimes we don't
1:17:42
understand it I think that, I think that, I think that there's a lot of inherited
1:17:48
prejudice against Baucher's ideas
1:17:51
Rupert Isaacson: For some
1:17:52
Nahshon Cook: quite good reasons And, but I also think it's really- Because
1:17:54
he was a bit of an extremist in some ways â¦ it's, it's, it's easy to buck
1:17:56
a horse up using Baucher, but it's easy to fuck a horse up using anything.
1:18:00
You know what I mean?
1:18:01
Rupert Isaacson: I had, I had a, a Baucherist seriously injure
1:18:04
a horse of mine who came in.
1:18:06
He, he was French, and he came in and he said, "This is how it must be done."
1:18:12
Nahshon Cook: You can do a lot of damage.
1:18:14
Rupert Isaacson: And the horse was damaged.
1:18:17
And-
1:18:17
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:18:19
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: it was interesting because the horse was presenting noâ¦
1:18:23
And he, he-- Well, even Baucher himself, well, you know all this,
1:18:26
said, "This is not for every horse."
1:18:29
And many of his immediate 19th century students reported seeing
1:18:38
mass failure and confusion of people trying to use the stuff.
1:18:43
And- Yeah â¦ one of my problems with Baucherism is that it lends
1:18:47
itself to extremism and cultism so that you, you end up with people
1:18:53
saying, "This is the only way.
1:18:56
If you are not part of this, then you are gonna be excommunicated
1:18:59
from this high church, and we are against, we, the Baucherists, are
1:19:04
against many, many other things."
1:19:07
Then you-
1:19:07
Nahshon Cook: Yeah â¦ have
1:19:08
Rupert Isaacson: very rational people like Luis ValenÃ§a and of course before
1:19:13
him Oliveira saying, "Well, lookâ¦"
1:19:16
L- ValenÃ§a has a really great story about this actually, because Oliveira had been
1:19:20
quite a-- He'd gone from the sort of indigenous Portuguese tradition, become
1:19:25
a, a very extreme Baucherist, you probably know this, and then later abandoned
1:19:28
that and said, "But you do need some Baucherism, including the jaw flexions
1:19:32
and so on, just not everything maybe."
1:19:35
And what ValenÃ§a always says is when he was a late teen and he had this horse
1:19:42
that he'd produced completely Baucherist, and then Oliveira came and watched him
1:19:48
work and he said, "You know, ce que tu fais lÃ , c'est, c'est, c'est pas
1:19:52
mal, mais le dressage c'est pas Ã§a."
1:19:54
You know, what you're doing there it's, it's not, it's not
1:19:56
bad, but dressage isn't that.
1:19:58
Only 'cause he had gone through that thing himself ofâ¦
1:20:02
And, and there's something very, very, very over-intellectualized about even
1:20:07
who Baucher was and what he stood for because he was coming out of that fr-
1:20:11
post French Revolution reaction against the School of Versailles, against
1:20:15
everything that the old regime stood for, against, you know, they'd shut
1:20:18
down the School of Versailles in 1830.
1:20:21
By then, even though he'd actually grown up In Versailles, so he
1:20:24
must have seen all those guys
1:20:26
Nahshon Cook: train Yeah.
1:20:27
I mean, it was like his uncle was, it's his uncle or his dad, right?
1:20:30
Yeah.
1:20:30
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah So he was around it, and he clearly knew a lot about
1:20:33
it, and he was also clearly brilliant.
1:20:34
Nahshon Cook: Right
1:20:35
Rupert Isaacson: But you do see an awful lot, even in those old pictures,
1:20:38
of horses with necks like this and
1:20:41
Nahshon Cook: here.
1:20:41
Yeah
1:20:42
Rupert Isaacson: You know?
1:20:42
So- And- â¦ it wasn't always good.
1:20:47
But I use a lot of stuff from Baucher, but it, it's, it's a difficult, this is
1:20:51
a difficult one, I think, to get across.
1:20:53
It's like, it's d- discernment, not judgment.
1:20:56
It's like, are there aspects within there that will work well for your horse?
1:21:00
If so, try them and use them.
1:21:01
If not, do something else.
1:21:03
Nahshon Cook: And, and that will work well for you.
1:21:06
You know what I mean?
1:21:07
I think those hands- I mean, because the thing is, the, I think the thing
1:21:09
is, is that I, I, I think that, I think that, you know, the red flags are up
1:21:17
because people can see the bad, but, like, I, and I think that it's easier
1:21:22
to see the bad with someone who's like that than, than to see the good.
1:21:27
I, I, I, and I can say for myself that I've never, and within my scope
1:21:33
of understanding- Mm â¦ I've never used Baucher to train anything.
1:21:37
I've always used Baucher to heal.
1:21:40
You know what I mean?
1:21:41
So, like the horse with BSLD- Yeah â¦ like that straight up
1:21:44
flexion, raising his neck, that's how he learned to raise his forehand.
1:21:48
Yeah And, and, and, you know, by teaching him to do that, we were like, "Ah, this
1:21:54
is how your hind legs can heal," because it's putting your, it's putting your,
1:21:57
it's putting your legs in a position to where your, your spine is supported
1:22:02
by your thoracic sling, and your legs aren't compensating all the time.
1:22:06
And the beautiful thing is, is like, okay, well, now we have this and we have, we
1:22:10
have the ability to lift him up, and we can do gentle paw flexions to unlock the
1:22:15
stifles and unlock the hips and- We do general jaw flexions to unlock the TMJ
1:22:21
and unlock the poll, and since he wasn't able to do the mobilizations in place,
1:22:26
we can just do a half pass across the, uh, the arena, or we can do a traversal
1:22:31
across the arena because the mobilizations in place weren't possible for him.
1:22:35
Like, and it'sâ¦
1:22:36
I mean, and for me, it's important.
1:22:38
Like, what is the tongue doing?
1:22:41
If, if the tongue- Sure.
1:22:42
Uh â¦ is going up when you're doing the flexion, you're
1:22:44
causing tension in the poll.
1:22:46
If it's releasing-
1:22:47
Rupert Isaacson: Say, say that one more time.
1:22:48
Say it slower
1:22:49
â¦ Nahshon Cook: if the tongue is going up when you're doing a flexion, if it's
1:22:52
retracting back towards the throat, you'll notice that all of the muscles- Yeah
1:22:57
tense up, and the poll locks up.
1:22:59
And so that means to me that the hyoid is, is not functioning correctly,
1:23:04
and all the fascia is disengaged.
1:23:07
If the tongue is going forward, then the brachiocephalic muscles soften,
1:23:12
the brachiocephalic muscles soften.
1:23:13
That means the horse can actually flex at the poll and, and soft and relax in
1:23:18
the TMJ, which then makes it possible for them to lift their shoulders up and move.
1:23:24
When then we have the hind legs, you know what I mean?
1:23:27
I do hear it.
1:23:27
And so, like, there's this, like, there's this, there's this beautiful- Well, you-
1:23:31
â¦ this beautiful waterfall effect that happens, and for me, it's all based around
1:23:37
what the horse is doing with the tongue.
1:23:40
Interesting.
1:23:40
You can tell how the horse's tongue is- Yes
1:23:43
functioning based off of the horse's poll.
1:23:47
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
1:23:49
And one can often see as a barometer the under neck.
1:23:54
If it's working well, just gets really soft.
1:23:57
Nahshon Cook: Yes, and, and the horse's chest lifts.
1:24:00
Rupert Isaacson: What is so interesting though is I've seen this work
1:24:04
Which, I mean, go figure, right?
1:24:06
Like physiotherapy for humans.
1:24:08
I've seen this work for horses in a lifted position.
1:24:11
I've seen this working for horses with a horizontal position.
1:24:14
I've seen this working for horses with a lower position, depending on the horse.
1:24:18
So one of the, one of the difficulties that I find can happen with the
1:24:22
Baucher releases is that they'll say, "Because this can work with a certain
1:24:25
number of horses lifting, therefore we're gonna lift every horse up here."
1:24:30
Um-
1:24:30
Nahshon Cook: And you know what I say to them?
1:24:32
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:24:32
Nahshon Cook: I say, "Fuck you," because my horses Yeah â¦ you know what I mean?
1:24:36
Yeah.
1:24:36
Like, if this is what re- is required for me to be in the club, fuck the club.
1:24:41
I don't care.
1:24:42
The horses are my-
1:24:44
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly
1:24:44
â¦ Nahshon Cook: priority.
1:24:45
Rupert Isaacson: But surely, yes, one- one should learn the lot, and
1:24:48
then see which thing is going to work, and hopefully the horse will
1:24:56
show us if he feels safe enough.
1:24:59
Well, this,
1:24:59
Nahshon Cook: this is what the horses have shown me.
1:25:01
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
1:25:01
Nahshon Cook: That, that if we can, if we can do up, if we can come up
1:25:06
to this position, and we can kind of, we can kind of, we can, we can
1:25:12
unlock here, we can get the hips.
1:25:15
If we come a little bit lower, say between, between totally up and, say a,
1:25:22
a, a general working frame, like we can work on the stifles with the flexion.
1:25:27
If we can go a little bit lower, we can work on the hocks.
1:25:31
You know what I mean?
1:25:32
Mm.
1:25:32
Like, the purpose of all of the flexion and the head position is the
1:25:36
hind leg joints, which for me is each section of the horse's dorsal spine.
1:25:43
Rupert Isaacson: So- And the- â¦ this was, this was a really niceâ¦
1:25:46
I'd like you just to go over this again, 'cause some people may have missed this.
1:25:51
Because it was very, very rational what you just said.
1:25:54
Just slowly, for those who missed it, who were th- thinking about their
1:26:00
shopping list when you said that, 'cause I think this is really good information.
1:26:04
The h- the higher head position with the, with the releases, the
1:26:09
working frame position with the releases, and the lower frame-
1:26:12
Nahshon Cook: Yeah, just like the order of the horse's hind leg joints
1:26:16
Rupert Isaacson: ones.
1:26:16
So the higher one- Right.
1:26:17
Nahshon Cook: So just like the horse's hind leg joints.
1:26:19
You know, if we look at, if we look at-
1:26:23
Rupert Isaacson: I, I just want you to repeat what you said, 'cause it was really
1:26:25
Nahshon Cook: useful.
1:26:26
Okay.
1:26:26
So higher up for me, the highest we can go unlocks the hips.
1:26:30
Middle position unlocks the stifle.
1:26:32
Rupert Isaacson: Unlocks the
1:26:33
Nahshon Cook: stifle.
1:26:33
Lower position unlocks the hocks.
1:26:36
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
1:26:37
Nahshon Cook: Cervical, cervical, lumbar, thoracic.
1:26:40
The three- I think- â¦ areas ofâ¦
1:26:42
Yeah, kissing spine
1:26:43
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: I think, I think we're gonna create a YouTube short just of
1:26:47
that, because I think that that is, that's the kind of information that- this type
1:26:55
of podcast is here to try to tease out.
1:26:59
It's very, very difficult for people to sift through and discern all of the
1:27:06
ideologies and all of the things that work in this context, and then all the
1:27:10
things that work in this context, and all the things that work in this context.
1:27:13
But the people in that context are at war with the people in that context, who are
1:27:16
at war with the people in that context.
1:27:17
And then very occasionally, someone can come along and say, "You know what?
1:27:20
You all, y'all are right in your contexts.
1:27:25
Let's broaden our context here."
1:27:28
Nahshon Cook: I'm saying that when the work is in service of
1:27:32
horses, it must follow horses.
1:27:36
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:27:38
Nahshon Cook: It must be where horses are, and the horses
1:27:41
don't have to come to the work.
1:27:44
That, that, that is my lens.
1:27:46
My horses, all of the horses in my life.
1:27:49
I have, I have a horse who came to me with a, uh, after recovering from
1:27:55
a pelvic fracture, who had a lumbar bump and a, a, a hunter's bump.
1:28:00
Bouchet's flexions in different areas at different heights healed her.
1:28:06
Her back is straight.
1:28:08
The baby that we have who had the, who had the, who had the, who had s- who
1:28:14
had, who was diagnosed and was going to be put down for the herniated disc.
1:28:20
We did that, we did that straight flexion where we're opening the
1:28:24
throat and opening the poll, and I had her up with the snaffle, and I was
1:28:31
unlocking her poll, and her jaw with the curb just opening it up, and it
1:28:41
was like the whole fucking room shook.
1:28:44
Like, it was, it was wiggling like this, and like it was this energetic shock
1:28:49
that went through her spine, and she, like, jumped, and her hind feet came off
1:28:55
of the ground, and her eyes were still closed, and she was totally relaxed.
1:28:59
She landed, the bump in her back was gone.
1:29:03
It was gone.
1:29:05
This is so much more powerful than tribalism in camps.
1:29:12
You know what I mean?
1:29:12
It's so more p- it's so much more powerful- Mm, mm, mm â¦ than people
1:29:16
feeling like they have to trot backwards or canter on three legs.
1:29:19
This will unlock energy.
1:29:23
This will open hearts.
1:29:25
This will open their bodies, and more importantly, horses trust you when
1:29:29
they leave your work feeling better.
1:29:32
Rupert Isaacson: Mm, mm.
1:29:34
Nahshon Cook: Like, that's connection.
1:29:35
Does your horse feel good after you've done what you've done with them?
1:29:41
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:29:41
Nahshon Cook: It's super simple
1:29:45
Super simple.
1:29:46
Simplicity, compassion, patience.
1:29:57
He, he has helped me teach horses how to walk again
1:30:06
Rupert Isaacson: In addition to Bosche and the flexions in Bosche, because it,
1:30:09
I'm, I'm, I'm sold, I use them daily.
1:30:12
You know, again, I have this background with rehabbing donation horses.
1:30:17
Nahshon Cook: Sure.
1:30:18
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:30:19
So they all come in with the stories they come in with, and we've got
1:30:23
to get them to a point where they can give wellbeing to your kid.
1:30:29
So how are they gonna do that if they don't have wellbeing?
1:30:32
And so I'm with you.
1:30:37
In addition to these, to the jaw and the pole flexions, what else
1:30:42
do you use as a kind of a go-to?
1:30:45
Nahshon Cook: Sure.
1:30:46
So to help regulate the nervous system, I use treats.
1:30:50
I use treats for states of being instead of for tasks fulfilled.
1:30:57
So if the horse does something and, and it's correct, I stop and I wait
1:31:03
until they take a deep breath or they lick and chew, and I reward them
1:31:08
for being, for, for down-regulating and bringing themselves back.
1:31:12
Super, super effective.
1:31:14
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:31:14
Nahshon Cook: Super effective.
1:31:16
Another thing that I do is just general pole work.
1:31:20
Super effective.
1:31:21
And there are all kinds of grids that you can do to, to affect different
1:31:27
parts of the body and, you know, uh, to, to, to, to, to, to trigger
1:31:33
certain joints and lifts and, you know, whatever you wanna do.
1:31:37
I also, you know what really helps though, in just helping horses feel
1:31:42
safe, is those little cat wire brushes, those little slicker brushes, the
1:31:47
wire, or they have them for dogs too.
1:31:49
But you go to like Amazon or Chewy's, and they're just those little, they're
1:31:53
just the little, or the Furminator where, you know, you get theâ¦
1:31:57
Those work wonders on just helping horses feel good.
1:32:02
Rupert Isaacson: Mm, mm, mm.
1:32:04
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:32:05
I do.
1:32:05
And I think that that's, and I think that above all else, like when I was
1:32:09
14, my, my, and it's still my vision, it's still my North Star, I just wanna
1:32:15
help horses be happy in our world.
1:32:18
That's it.
1:32:19
Like, all of my work is from that.
1:32:22
You know, if they're happy doing Grand Prix, how can Grand Prix help them?
1:32:26
If they're happy doing the Livad, how can the Livad help them?
1:32:29
Do they even wanna be ridden?
1:32:30
If they don't, what else can we do?
1:32:32
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:32:33
I agree.
1:32:35
I so agree.
1:32:35
You know, we, we've had some horses which were clearly not gonna be ridden and,
1:32:40
but had wonderful careers as instructors-
1:32:43
Nahshon Cook: Yes
1:32:44
Rupert Isaacson: and-
1:32:44
Nahshon Cook: Yes
1:32:45
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: teaching everybody how to do the airs, and digging it, and
1:32:49
enjoying their air celebrity status.
1:32:52
You know what I mean?
1:32:53
Yes.
1:32:54
'Cause they didn't have to carry a rider.
1:32:55
No, I, I hear you.
1:32:57
And I like that you talk about treats.
1:32:59
I've never understood, I mean, I understood not getting mugged.
1:33:03
I understand not teaching horses how to, you know, walk all over
1:33:07
you for treats or whatever.
1:33:07
Yes, of course.
1:33:09
But as David Litchman, you know David Litchman, the liberty trainer?
1:33:14
Very-
1:33:14
Nahshon Cook: No
1:33:14
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: nice guy.
1:33:15
I did a, there's a podcast with him.
1:33:17
He says, "Come bearing gifts."
1:33:19
And I always respond to that.
1:33:20
Yes.
1:33:20
You know?
1:33:20
Nahshon Cook: Yes.
1:33:21
Rupert Isaacson: If someone comes to your house with a bottle of
1:33:22
wine and a box of chocolates, you kind of appreciate it, right?
1:33:24
You know, even if you don't drink wine or eat chocolates, you
1:33:27
kind of appreciate the gesture.
1:33:30
Nahshon Cook: Well, and going back to nature
1:33:32
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:33:33
â¦ Nahshon Cook: food means safety to horses.
1:33:35
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:33:36
Yeah.
1:33:37
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:33:37
So, like, my horses and the horses in Wisconsin, they walk in the arena, they
1:33:43
get a banana just for coming in the arena.
1:33:47
They get half a banana.
1:33:50
During the work sessions, when they've done a good thing or they're
1:33:53
resting and we're standing still and they just take a deep breath or they
1:33:56
lick and chew, they get a treat.
1:33:58
We end the lesson with a banana.
1:34:00
That's how the arena becomes safe.
1:34:03
That's how you put them in a, in a, in a, in a state where they're open and
1:34:08
relaxed enough to be healthy and learn It all starts, it all starts, you know,
1:34:16
you, you know, the body teaches the nervous system from movement, and the
1:34:20
nervous sys- system teaches the br- the mind how to think about the movement.
1:34:24
You know what I mean?
1:34:25
And so, like, we have this circle, and we have all of these tools.
1:34:29
And if we want to be great, and I want to be a great horseman, I wanna
1:34:34
be a great horseman for horses, then we have to do what helps them-
1:34:40
Mm â¦ regardless of who it comes from.
1:34:43
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:34:43
Nahshon Cook: I'm not, I'm not-- I don't, I don't pledge my allegiance to
1:34:47
any school of thought or any person.
1:34:49
I- my, my love is for horses and for the people who love them enough
1:34:54
to change if need, if needed.
1:34:57
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:34:57
Nahshon Cook: Or not.
1:34:58
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:35:00
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:35:01
I do.
1:35:01
And, like, because I, because, like, I get these end-of-the-road horses.
1:35:05
I get these end-of-the-road horses when osteopaths have been flown in,
1:35:09
and vets, and, you know, tried to move scar tissue by sh- sticking their arm
1:35:14
up their ass up to their shoulder, moving s- their kidneys and shit.
1:35:18
You know what I mean?
1:35:19
And, and, or, or just looking at them and walking away and saying
1:35:22
that there's nothing that we can do.
1:35:24
But the horse is like, "Nobody fucking asked me what feels good."
1:35:29
And you know what?
1:35:30
I have learned that by asking them, like, "How can I help you?"
1:35:34
They get better just from that.
1:35:37
How can I help?
1:35:39
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:35:39
Nahshon Cook: Tell me what I need to do to help you feel better in your body.
1:35:43
Rupert Isaacson: Linda Tellington-Jones, I'm sure you, you know of her.
1:35:47
I once asked her, "Linda, what would you say to someone is just the most important
1:35:53
thing when you first approach a horse?"
1:35:57
And she said, "Rupert, it's just gratitude.
1:35:59
Just say thank you to them-"
1:36:00
Nahshon Cook: Thank you for beingâ¦
1:36:01
That's right
1:36:02
"â¦ Rupert Isaacson: for being here.
1:36:02
And when you put your hand on that horse, just try to put
1:36:06
your gratitude in that hand."
1:36:07
Nahshon Cook: That's right.
1:36:08
Rupert Isaacson: Rupert, it's actually not that common.
1:36:09
Nahshon Cook: That's right.
1:36:10
Rupert Isaacson: You know?
1:36:10
Nahshon Cook: That's right.
1:36:11
Riding-
1:36:12
Rupert Isaacson: But we're not taught to do
1:36:12
Nahshon Cook: that â¦ riding and being
1:36:13
Rupert Isaacson: with them is
1:36:13
Nahshon Cook: thankfulness.
1:36:14
Rupert Isaacson: Right?
1:36:14
Sometimes we need to give them permission to do that kind of thing,
1:36:16
particularly people who've been brought up in the military schools, you know.
1:36:19
And because the Pony Club and all that is, is an extension of the military
1:36:23
school, you know, and sport riding is an extension of the military.
1:36:27
Nahshon Cook: And, and, and, and, and I can say this, I
1:36:30
understand, I understand tradition
1:36:35
But there are some things that belong in museums to be appreciated.
1:36:43
You know what I mean?
1:36:44
And like I hear that, and I hear that, and I hear that.
1:36:46
But like for me, like it becomes a question, kinda like, you know, it's
1:36:53
kinda like, kinda like with church.
1:36:55
You know?
1:36:56
Like do you love church or do you love Jesus?
1:36:58
'Cause they're two oftentimes very different things in who
1:37:04
and how you deal with people.
1:37:08
You know what I mean?
1:37:09
Rupert Isaacson: I do, and I've, I'm, I'm gonna crack a joke because
1:37:12
my neighbor in Spain is called Jesus, and he is the nicest bloke
1:37:18
around horses I have met in an age.
1:37:22
And he
1:37:26
Saved our butts when we were, like, out of pasture and just showed up like Jesus,
1:37:31
and kind of went, "Have my pasture."
1:37:33
And- Yeah â¦ so I have a personal relationship with Jesus, with horses,
1:37:39
and I absolutely, absolutely, I- I sort of regard him as my personal savior
1:37:43
'cause he has really saved my butt.
1:37:45
And I, but I- I- I hear you, I'm not being flippant.
1:37:48
No, w- 100%, it's, it's, it's spirituality over religion.
1:37:51
Religion is dogma.
1:37:52
It's, you know, anything that's dogma, you know.
1:37:54
Yeah.
1:37:55
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:37:55
I, 100%.
1:37:56
And,
1:37:56
Nahshon Cook: and, and, and what I'm saying, like, as long as it's in service
1:38:00
to the wellbeing of people, okay.
1:38:04
Oh, but, but, like, when it starts destroying people, it's something else.
1:38:09
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
1:38:10
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:38:11
Oh, absolutely.
1:38:11
And like, I, and like, I'm not, I'm not choosing sides.
1:38:14
Like, like, I don't need to be from this side or that side.
1:38:17
Like, I rest in the middle-
1:38:19
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:38:20
â¦ Nahshon Cook: because that's where balancing happens.
1:38:22
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed, and I think any, any, y- you know, fortunately there have
1:38:25
been, there has been a, a, a tradition of people saying this, as well as the
1:38:31
people being extremists, you know, that there have been the rationalists
1:38:36
out there saying, "You know what?
1:38:37
Everyone's right in their context."
1:38:39
So gather the tools.
1:38:41
Gather the tools, and open your heart, and-
1:38:48
Nahshon Cook: And more importantly, see with your heart so that you can look
1:38:54
and there's possibility of what can be done- Mm â¦ instead of just seeing
1:38:58
with your mind- Absolutely â¦ and all you see w- is what is wrong.
1:39:03
Rupert Isaacson: No, it's, it's such a, it's such, there'sâ¦
1:39:04
Well, yes, because it's, it's wrong in what context, you know?
1:39:07
Nahshon Cook: Right.
1:39:07
And so,
1:39:08
Rupert Isaacson: yeah, you know, if so, someone will say, "Well,
1:39:10
you know, this horse has no future 'cause he can't be ridden."
1:39:12
It's like, how is that no future?
1:39:15
You know?
1:39:15
Nahshon Cook: Um, and also, like, how do you know?
1:39:18
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:39:19
Nahshon Cook: What could be, what, like, do the, how do you know?
1:39:22
Have you asked the question differently?
1:39:24
More importantly, do they feel safe inside of your question?
1:39:28
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:39:29
And, and giving them the latitude to be ridden or not be ridden is-
1:39:36
Right â¦ a bad starting point, right?
1:39:38
Because if you're going to, if you're going to give me some lati-
1:39:41
you know, latitude, I would like a range of choices if possible.
1:39:46
Nahshon Cook: Well-
1:39:46
Rupert Isaacson: You know, I'm, I'm, I'm sure any organism would.
1:39:50
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:39:50
And I think that, I mean, I think that this is where the listening
1:39:53
part is, is really important.
1:39:57
Like- And, you know, I think that it's not, it's not some esoteric thing
1:40:04
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:40:04
Nahshon Cook: that like, you know, it's just, it's just that like you're,
1:40:07
you're giving them your attention and you're asking for them to speak to
1:40:11
you in a way that you can understand.
1:40:13
And like I've, I've learned that when I'm really clear with horses,
1:40:18
really clear, like, "Please, I don't understand what you want.
1:40:22
Make it clear for me," they do.
1:40:26
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, they do.
1:40:26
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:40:27
Like, I think that this, this gulf between, that we make between ourselves
1:40:32
and, you know, and I'm not, and we, and we find all these, this data,
1:40:36
it's just like, you know, just like fucking come to your heart f- first-
1:40:44
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:40:44
Nahshon Cook: can you feel safe inside of your own body?
1:40:47
Rupert Isaacson: Right, which, which, which we can't always be in
1:40:49
all the time, so I, I, I, I agree.
1:40:52
It's like you, you, you know, we go through a range of emotions
1:40:55
i- in any given day, right?
1:40:57
And we go through safety and not safety in any given day, you know, multiple
1:41:01
times, and we go through all of this.
1:41:05
So it's-
1:41:07
Nahshon Cook: And it's being aware of it that I'm saying
1:41:09
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: in- indeed.
1:41:09
And, and so let's say I'm in one of my Rupert funks.
1:41:14
The question is how long do I wanna stay there?
1:41:16
Now, when I can't, when I haven't identified that I'm in there,
1:41:20
then I have no control over that.
1:41:22
But as soon as I become aware of it, then I actually do have a bit of a choice of-
1:41:28
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:41:28
Rupert Isaacson: do I wanna be here all day, or do I wanna now start
1:41:31
looking for ways away from this?
1:41:34
One of, you talked about Jesus.
1:41:35
One of the things I really like about the New Testament is there's that famous
1:41:40
line in there which I feel is often misunderstood, which is, you know, if
1:41:41
you get slapped, turn the other cheek, and people interpret that as be a pussy,
1:41:41
and I don't interpret it that way at all.
1:41:41
I
1:41:52
think the better interpretation, this is Neville Goddard, it, those people
1:41:56
who know who Neville Goddard was, that if you don't, look him up on YouTube.
1:41:59
He explained it beautifully.
1:42:00
It's more about attention.
1:42:02
It's like if your attention's over there and it feels like a smack in the
1:42:04
face, turn your attention over there to where the attention is good and move-
1:42:10
Nahshon Cook: Where life is guiding you, right.
1:42:13
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
1:42:13
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:42:14
And I think that, and I think that for me-
1:42:16
Rupert Isaacson: Move away from it
1:42:16
â¦ Nahshon Cook: yeah, and I think that for me, like that's kinda how it is.
1:42:19
Like, like I can feel it in my body.
1:42:22
I can feel it in my body.
1:42:23
I can feel when I read, I, you know, like I said, like when I read the works of
1:42:30
some of these people, like I'm very, more importantly than the words is like how
1:42:34
are the words making me feel in my body?
1:42:37
Like, and, and like if it's a good feeling, like I, I will, I can,
1:42:41
I can conjure that feeling up- Mm â¦ when I'm with my horses,
1:42:44
and then the way becomes clear.
1:42:46
I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's really, it, for me- It's really like being aware
1:42:53
of the world and, and knowing where I am, but experiencing it feelingly.
1:42:58
You know what I mean?
1:42:58
Like, and that's just how, that's justâ¦
1:43:00
And it was like when you were talking about the, the guys in Zimbabwe
1:43:05
on your grandpa's farm, like my body just started getting hot.
1:43:08
Like, that's just, that's just, I mean, I just, I feel the world energetically.
1:43:12
Like, that's just how I work.
1:43:14
Yeah.
1:43:14
You know what I mean?
1:43:15
And like, that's how I teach out of.
1:43:17
Like when I teach, I can say, "Hey, this is where I'm feeling you're
1:43:20
holding tension in your body, and can you bring some attention to that?
1:43:24
And let's warm it up and give a safe feeling," and it releases in, in the
1:43:27
person, and then the horse starts to lick and chew, and then it's just like-
1:43:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:43:31
â¦ Nahshon Cook: it's, it's wild.
1:43:33
Rupert Isaacson: Do you have a go-to for when people c- you know, when people
1:43:37
come in for a, quote unquote, "lesson," naturally people are in a state of
1:43:41
fear, and this is not their fault.
1:43:44
D- what are your go-tos for bringing people out of that state of fear
1:43:50
so that they can bring their horse to where they need to be?
1:43:55
Nahshon Cook: When I'm teaching, I depend a lot on, I depend a lot on what
1:43:59
the horse is saying about their person.
1:44:03
But, you know, just generally I ask people like I ask horses, "How can I help?
1:44:09
What do you want my help with?"
1:44:11
And every morning when I teach, I wake up and I say a prayer that I, that I
1:44:15
am able to offer the support to the people that are here work- to work
1:44:19
with me in whatever way that I can.
1:44:21
Rupert Isaacson: You just answered my question.
1:44:23
So that prayer, that prayer to be in service is the key, I think,
1:44:28
and the difficulty with a culture that is intellectualized is we're
1:44:35
not allowed to make those prayers.
1:44:36
I remember when I was firstâ¦
1:44:38
You know, I, I do a lot of public speaking.
1:44:40
I wasn't always very good at it, and I used to be very nervous, and
1:44:44
a friend of mine said to me once, "Rupert, they're not, they're not
1:44:47
interested in your nervousness.
1:44:49
They're, that's about you.
1:44:50
They're interested in the story, and you being nervous puts yourself, your
1:44:55
ego weirdly in front of the story.
1:44:57
So just tell the story."
1:44:59
And I was like, "Yeah, that sounds great, but how?"
1:45:01
And then I thought, "Well, maybe if I just say a prayer."
1:45:04
So-
1:45:05
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:45:05
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: so I just said, "Please, God, Lord, the universe-"
1:45:11
Let me just be a servant to the story.
1:45:13
Let the story just come through me.
1:45:15
And I found it worked every time, and then when I forgot to do it,
1:45:18
well then I didn't do it so well.
1:45:20
Interestingly, one of my go-tos is I do what's, I call the rampage
1:45:26
of appreciation, which I nicked off the Abraham Hicks people.
1:45:30
But I think it works for, a, a thing of gratitude, like often before we
1:45:33
begin a session together, because I also want it to feel like we're
1:45:39
working together rather than I'm some fount of knowledge, which I'm not.
1:45:45
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:45:46
Rupert Isaacson: It's can we find something as we're wa- doing the
1:45:50
warm-up in the arena, just walking around, give me one thing that you're
1:45:53
grateful for right now, you know?
1:45:55
Nahshon Cook: Yes.
1:45:56
Rupert Isaacson: It doesn't have to be to do with the horse.
1:45:57
It doesn't have to be anything.
1:45:59
It's just anything whatâ¦
1:46:00
It can even be just the way the light's coming through the window, you know?
1:46:02
Just, and then we talk, and, and then so someoneâ¦
1:46:05
And I'll say, "I'll go first.
1:46:06
I'll make it safe for you."
1:46:07
Say, "I'm, I'm grateful for the fact that you're here, that you trust me.
1:46:10
I'm, I'm grateful that there's a horse in my life right now," you know?
1:46:13
And then we go, and then usually we go through about five of these
1:46:16
things, and which is gives us a bit of walking around-y, stretchy, gives
1:46:23
us time to kind of get into each other's energy, gives us time, and
1:46:27
gives us time to go through that, you know, nervous system shift together.
1:46:30
'Cause I'm also afraid as the, as the teacher.
1:46:32
I think this is often also, you talk about people not being safe.
1:46:34
Nahshon Cook: And I let people know that.
1:46:36
Rupert Isaacson: I'm terrified of my students.
1:46:36
Nahshon Cook: I, I let people know that, too.
1:46:39
Yeah.
1:46:39
I, I let people know.
1:46:40
I let people know.
1:46:41
And like with these, like the last gathering that we had, like I just
1:46:45
had a hard time looking up at people, and so I was like, like I, I'm, I'm
1:46:49
really having a hard time looking into you all's eyes, and so I'm gonna just
1:46:52
look down and I'm gonna talk to you, and when I'm ready, I'll lift my eyes.
1:46:55
But like, I'm, I'm, like I'm afraid right now, and I'm working through it,
1:47:00
and I'm working with it, and this is f- I mean, I'm just, I'm, I, I, I, I,
1:47:05
I just have decided I'm not hiding.
1:47:07
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:47:08
It's a, it, and I think what's nice about that is it makes it
1:47:11
then safe for the other people.
1:47:12
Nahshon Cook: That's exactly right.
1:47:13
Rupert Isaacson: In that way.
1:47:14
Nahshon Cook: That's exactly right.
1:47:15
Like, how do you learn how to be safe?
1:47:17
Well, he's saying that he, we're, like us being here is kind of scary to him.
1:47:21
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:47:22
Nahshon Cook: Okay.
1:47:22
Well, okay, now, and he's talking through it, so like we can all, okay.
1:47:26
And, and, and then like it's, it's, it's, it's, I, I lead by following.
1:47:30
Yeah.
1:47:31
You know what I mean?
1:47:31
Rupert Isaacson: Then we, then we can root for each other.
1:47:33
Nahshon Cook: That's exactly right.
1:47:34
Yeah.
1:47:35
We're here for each other.
1:47:36
Yes.
1:47:36
Now
1:47:37
Rupert Isaacson: tell me, you just said at this last gathering, so that wasâ¦
1:47:39
There's two things I wanna get to as we, we're sort of
1:47:42
approaching the two-hour mark here.
1:47:44
One is tell us about-
1:47:44
Nahshon Cook: That's wild
1:47:46
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: I know.
1:47:46
It's a good conversation.
1:47:47
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:47:50
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us a little bit about this work in Wisconsin that
1:47:53
you're doing and these gatherings
1:47:54
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:47:55
Rupert Isaacson: But like I know that you write and you were talking
1:47:57
about words, and I'd be grateful if you would leave us with a poem.
1:48:02
You could, or you could start now with whatever you want to, but I
1:48:04
think it would be nice to hear that.
1:48:06
And then I'd also like to hear about the work in Wisconsin, and then-
1:48:11
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:48:12
So-
1:48:13
Rupert Isaacson: The next conversation
1:48:14
â¦ Nahshon Cook: the work in Wisconsin, so I w- because I'm not clinicking
1:48:20
publicly anymore, I felt like I, I, I felt like I still had to
1:48:30
I felt like I wanted to offer something to people because people kept asking
1:48:34
me if I was gonna teach, and I hadâ¦
1:48:39
Last year, I, I, I canceled my whole season because the
1:48:45
horse Shoto with DSLD, he
1:48:50
Came to me in a dream, and he was like, "Listen."
1:48:54
Like, 'cause I, what I would do is that I would fly to their farm
1:48:57
after every clinic that I did no matter where I was in the world
1:49:02
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, up in this place in Wisconsin that you're working
1:49:03
Nahshon Cook: In Wisconsin, yeah.
1:49:05
And he was doing good, but one day he- I woke up and he was
1:49:10
just like, he was waiting for me.
1:49:12
Yeah.
1:49:12
And he was just like, "I need you to cancel your, your season.
1:49:16
We're gonna work with this DSLB, and I'm gonna show you
1:49:19
how to do it, and X, Y, and Z."
1:49:21
And, and so I talked to his people, and they were like, "Yeah, no problem.
1:49:27
That's fine with us."
1:49:28
And then I had to cancel all of my clinics.
1:49:30
I was scheduled to like 2020â¦
1:49:34
What, 2026?
1:49:34
2027?
1:49:36
Bet that's what's up.
1:49:37
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:49:38
Nahshon Cook: And so I had to go around and, and cancel all of them.
1:49:41
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:49:42
Nahshon Cook: And, you know, he, he, he, his pasterns lifted, and
1:49:46
he was rideable and, and happy.
1:49:48
And, and then I really enjoyed, and the horses really enjoyed the
1:49:54
work that we were doing together.
1:49:56
They were changing for me, which they hadn't done for anybody else.
1:49:59
And, and so I decided that maybe it would be valuable for some people to
1:50:03
come in and see the work that I've been doing with horses that I've been
1:50:07
working with for a long, a long time, and horses from the very beginning
1:50:11
all the way up to the high school.
1:50:13
Rupert Isaacson: Super.
1:50:14
If people want to come and watch you work doing this, how do they do this?
1:50:20
Nahshon Cook: So I, I th- I have a Facebook pa- I still don't have a
1:50:23
website . But if they, if they come, if they come, if they just send
1:50:27
me a message on Facebook, I can, I can get the information to them.
1:50:32
Okay.
1:50:32
They just leave me a message there in a, in a, in a direct
1:50:35
message, that would be great.
1:50:36
Rupert Isaacson: And-
1:50:37
Nahshon Cook: And
1:50:37
Rupert Isaacson: this is close to the Illinois border.
1:50:38
This is Chicago area.
1:50:40
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:50:41
Rupert Isaacson: Right, so easy to get to for people.
1:50:43
I'm gonna go.
1:50:45
I'm gonna come.
1:50:45
So yeah, definitely.
1:50:46
Nahshon Cook: I would love for you to come.
1:50:48
Rupert Isaacson: Just occurred to me that I hadn't actually asked
1:50:50
permission, so thank you for saying.
1:50:51
Nahshon Cook: No, but I invited you.
1:50:53
I inv- that's how this happened.
1:50:54
I was like, "Hey," and you know, I mean, and just, and just on, and
1:50:57
just around the idea of safety.
1:51:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:51:00
Nahshon Cook: I remember when you and I were in Texas.
1:51:03
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:51:03
Nahshon Cook: And we were doing Warwick's thing, and, and you had
1:51:09
invited me to have a conversation.
1:51:12
And would you know that just now, just now when I reached out, like I
1:51:18
felt safe enough to have a conversat- like it's taken me over four years
1:51:22
to get myself to the point to where I felt like, and I d- and I don't
1:51:26
know if it was irrational or not.
1:51:29
But to get to the point to where I felt like I would be safe enough in myself
1:51:36
to be able to have a conversation that felt good To have with you
1:51:41
Mm-hmm And, and, and, and, and, and, and that's really beautifully kind
1:51:46
of reflective of the work that I do.
1:51:48
Like, how long can you stay with a question?
1:51:51
Yeah.
1:51:52
You know what I mean?
1:51:53
Mm-hmm.
1:51:53
And horses go through all of these iterations of, like, "I've
1:51:57
come to this point of safety, but I'm not sure that that safety
1:52:00
is safe, and so I'm gonna wait."
1:52:02
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:52:03
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:52:04
And, like, are they okay with me not being ridden?
1:52:06
Because if they're okay, then there's a possibility that being
1:52:09
ridden is safe with this person.
1:52:11
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:52:12
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:52:13
And, like, that's- So much.
1:52:15
Rupert Isaacson: It's, it's, you know, and it's interesting to me, because I
1:52:18
will always invite, but I don't take it in any way personally if the invitation
1:52:25
is not taken up, because autism completely changed my worldview on this.
1:52:29
And I realized that the whole point is one opens a door, and
1:52:36
then you just keep it open.
1:52:38
And when the time is right, when the safety is there, when for whatever reason,
1:52:43
rational or irrational, as you say, it seems to be right for that child now
1:52:48
after hanging out together for a year, two years, 10 minutes, you don'tâ¦
1:52:55
You never know.
1:52:56
You just have to be available, and then when the contact comes, it's meaningful.
1:53:03
Nahshon Cook: Well, and I'm just, and I'm just saying that
1:53:06
I'm, I'm grateful that you
1:53:14
Stayed available and that it, I fe- and that like it was so warmly
1:53:18
received by both you and your wife when I, when I reached out.
1:53:22
Because for so- and I don't know what it was, but for some reason
1:53:26
it just took my, my system a long time to be able to, to do that.
1:53:31
And so, and, and, and, and with certain things, and mostly
1:53:35
with people, I'm like that.
1:53:37
With horses, I'm, I'm, I'm soâ¦
1:53:41
There's just a freedom that I have when I'm with them that allows me
1:53:45
to hear them and feel them that I don't always have with people.
1:53:51
And it's not comparative.
1:53:52
I mean, it's not, it's neither here nor there.
1:53:54
It's just how I am in the world.
1:53:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:53:57
Nahshon Cook: You know what I mean?
1:53:57
And I'm justâ¦
1:53:58
And so just, I say all that just to say thank you for, for staying available.
1:54:03
Rupert Isaacson: It's the same with that, I mean, the, the gratitude goes both ways.
1:54:05
And one of the great joys for me of doing this thing of conversations
1:54:12
is I feel that these conversations put healing out into the world.
1:54:16
So they n- they need to happen when they need to happen.
1:54:20
Healing has a time because there's ancestral forces at work.
1:54:23
There's other things at work than us.
1:54:23
And- Yeah â¦ when the time is right, they give us a push.
1:54:24
They go, "All right, now go."
1:54:24
And I've learned, like you, to listen for that push.
1:54:24
I had a very interesting similar thing once.
1:54:25
I
1:54:38
got anâ¦
1:54:40
In the foundation, we have a foundation that helps people to get services with
1:54:43
autism, and that we had a, a wonderful donor call up, and I don't know why it
1:54:49
took me six months to return the call.
1:54:51
I was terrified.
1:54:52
I was paralyzed.
1:54:53
I couldn't do it.
1:54:54
And every, every part of me was like, "Rupert, this is, this
1:54:57
is, this is irresponsible."
1:55:00
I was like, "Yeah, I know, but I can't."
1:55:02
And then the, a day came that I could.
1:55:04
And I- Yeah â¦ I don't know why, but it was the right day, and it wasâ¦
1:55:08
Now, so I hear you.
1:55:11
I would love to hear a poem
1:55:15
Nahshon Cook: I am trying to still find one.
1:55:22
Oh, I'm just gonna be brave and this, this one landed.
1:55:29
This morning while cleaning stalls, I thought about how the work with my
1:55:33
horses is teaching me to see emotion as the nakedness beneath all the layers I
1:55:39
wear like clothes, and to see feel as all of those layers having been taken
1:55:45
off and looking in the mirror at the nakedness staring back at me with much
1:55:50
more kindness and compassion and mercy.
1:55:54
Emotion happens when I'm hiding.
1:55:56
Feel happens when I'm not hiding.
1:55:59
I think the next step being found-- I think the, I think that the
1:56:03
next step being found by trusting life is what it means to live.
1:56:07
I think that the ground being found by trusting the fall
1:56:11
is what it means to heal.
1:56:13
When life breaks my ego or love breaks my heart, I suffer, I learn, and I grow into
1:56:20
more of myself by turning pain into light
1:56:30
Rupert Isaacson: Beautiful.
1:56:31
Words, words to live by.
1:56:34
Words to conjure.
1:56:36
I liked that there was a word that sprung out at me from that,
1:56:40
which you don't hear very often.
1:56:42
You hear the word compassion often.
1:56:43
You hear the wordâ¦
1:56:45
You hear lots of words.
1:56:46
You don't often hear the word mercy.
1:56:49
Nahshon Cook: Oh
1:56:52
Mercy is so good.
1:56:54
So.
1:56:59
Rupert Isaacson: And I, the, the, the time we're living in is not so merciful.
1:57:03
I like that you used that word.
1:57:05
Thank you.
1:57:07
Nahshon Cook: Thank you.
1:57:09
Thank you so much.
1:57:10
This has been, oh, so beautiful for me.
1:57:15
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:57:17
Yeah.
1:57:18
Likewise.
1:57:21
Well, I-
1:57:21
Nahshon Cook: Yeah
1:57:21
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: do it again.
1:57:22
There, there, there's, there's, there's more that I think we need to go into,
1:57:26
and I think that there's really useful stuff, too, that if we do the next
1:57:30
conversations, not as, like, podcast like this, but in a perfect world, what
1:57:35
I'd like to do is pick your brain over a couple of hours over real specifics that
1:57:40
you found really helpful to heal with horses that we could then break up into
1:57:44
a series of, like, shorts or, or shorter things, because this stuff is really
1:57:49
useful for people, and they just don't get
1:57:51
P- It's very â¦ What is it â¦ Actually what social media's supposed to do.
1:57:54
Social media's supposed to share that kind of information so that-
1:57:58
Nahshon Cook: And, and more importantly, I don't give access to myself a lot.
1:58:02
So in a perfect world, Rupert-
1:58:04
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:58:05
â¦ Nahshon Cook: you can come to Wisconsin, and we can record while you're there.
1:58:11
Rupert Isaacson: Love it.
1:58:13
Love it.
1:58:13
Nahshon Cook: I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be there in November.
1:58:14
And, and, and we can choose a weekend when nobody else is coming.
1:58:18
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:58:18
Nahshon Cook: And we can spend those two days, and we can all be there.
1:58:22
Mm.
1:58:22
And, and we can, you can maybe watch the schooling sessions-
1:58:26
Yeah â¦ during the day, and we can, we can- Yeah â¦ talk about it-
1:58:29
Rupert Isaacson: You're
1:58:29
Nahshon Cook: actually-
1:58:29
when it's over â¦ much,
1:58:30
Rupert Isaacson: much, it's a much better way to do it, because then
1:58:31
also we can talk about it in context.
1:58:34
Nahshon Cook: Yeah.
1:58:34
Let's do it.
1:58:35
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, rather than abstract.
1:58:36
Let's do that.
1:58:36
Let's do that.
1:58:38
I know I'm back in that area in the fall.
1:58:41
I know-
1:58:41
Nahshon Cook: Okay, yeah.
1:58:42
Just give me, just give me your, just give me your dates, and I'll
1:58:44
give you my times that I'll be there, and we'll, and we'll make it happen.
1:58:48
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:58:49
Okay.
1:58:50
Nahshon Cook: It'll be great.
1:58:51
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
1:58:51
Let's do it.
1:58:53
Nahshon Cook: All right,
1:58:53
Rupert Isaacson: man.
1:58:53
Honored, my friend.
1:58:53
Nahshon Cook: Well, thank you so much.
1:58:56
Rupert Isaacson: No, thank you.
1:58:56
I mean, really.
1:58:57
It, it â¦ And thank you for that invitation.
1:59:00
It's, it â¦ I don't take it for granted.
1:59:02
I, I know that it's a scary thing to let people into your world, you know?
1:59:06
Nahshon Cook: And I don't offer it lightly.
1:59:08
Rupert Isaacson: I get it.
1:59:09
Nahshon Cook: I'm learning, I'm learning to be, I'm learning to be
1:59:12
courageous, and this is where, you know?
1:59:14
That's beautiful.
1:59:15
Following the horse and finding heaven in every step, and this is how I see it.
1:59:18
My horses, all of them, have taken a chance on me-
1:59:23
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:59:23
â¦ Nahshon Cook: to, to, to, to, to, to, to let me not be like the people who
1:59:28
hurt them, either intentionally or not.
1:59:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:59:32
Nahshon Cook: It's huge.
1:59:32
The outcome was still the same.
1:59:34
You know what I mean?
1:59:35
It does.
1:59:35
And, and, and we're talking about mercy, you know what I mean?
1:59:38
And they're like, "Okay, maybe this guy.
1:59:41
Maybe."
1:59:42
You know what I mean?
1:59:43
And I'm like, "Okay, if they can do that, I can be brave and let people in, too."
1:59:47
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:59:47
Nahshon Cook: They let me in.
1:59:49
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
1:59:50
It's an interesting thing.
1:59:52
Some- a challenge I sometimes throw out when I'm doing trainings,
1:59:55
particularly with autism, is to say to people, "Well, look, you're asking
2:00:00
this person, this child or this adult, to make a big change here."
2:00:03
Yes.
2:00:03
Or with horses, you're asking a horse to make a big change, whether it's
2:00:07
to go into a horse trailer, whether it's to learn a thing, whether it's
2:00:12
Nahshon Cook: to- It's let you touch on
2:00:13
Rupert Isaacson: to accept you.
2:00:14
Yeah.
2:00:14
So what changes are you making?
2:00:16
You know?
2:00:16
Nahshon Cook: Right.
2:00:16
Rupert Isaacson: Because if you haven't, if you're not expanding your
2:00:19
comfort zone into the uncomfortable, then what tools have you got to offer
2:00:25
that leadership to someone who is more vulnerable than you in this?
2:00:31
And it's, we of course all desperately want to stay in our comfort zones.
2:00:36
I do.
2:00:37
You know, it's not usually allowed to me to do that, but I, and I do
2:00:42
r- recognize that as one of life's great blessings, that I'm often
2:00:45
pushed out of my comfort zone.
2:00:46
It's sort of been the story of my, my thing.
2:00:49
But at the same time, you know, it hurts and I'm scared, and sometimes people come
2:00:55
in who are not got one's best interests.
2:00:59
So I, you know, and, and then there's a lesson to be learned
2:01:02
there, which is how, how do you, uh, your leadership survive that?
2:01:03
I pray
2:01:03
Nahshon Cook: those people don't show up.
2:01:05
I, I pray, I pray that the folks that are there will be there because
2:01:10
they're supposed to be there.
2:01:12
Yeah.
2:01:12
And that the folks that aren't supposed to be there don't come.
2:01:15
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:01:16
Yeah.
2:01:17
Nahshon Cook: And nine times out of 10, that prayer's answered.
2:01:22
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
2:01:23
Well then, then roll with- Huh?
2:01:27
Then roll on Wisconsin, I'll be there.
2:01:29
Nahshon Cook: All right, cool.
2:01:30
Yeah, we'll get dates together and I look forward, I look forward to, I
2:01:34
look forward to sharing the work and-
2:01:36
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
2:01:37
â¦ Nahshon Cook: and talking with you about it.
2:01:39
Thank you so much for accepting our invitation.
2:01:41
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, thank you.
2:01:42
Thank you.
2:01:43
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
2:01:48
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2:02:02
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2:02:05
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2:02:52
In the meantime, remember, live free.
2:02:57
Ride free.