#65 Un-Natural Horsemanship with Chiara Poscente and Zak Maytum

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:00:02-00:00:08]
On this episode, we're talking with Chiara Poscente and Zak Maytum, founders of Unnatural Horsemanship.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:00:10-00:00:20]
Okay, let's come into our bodies. Let's come into our breath. Let's actually really feel what's going on here and take note of the feel that we're offering to the horse.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:00:22-00:02:05]
Welcome to the Equestrian Connection podcast from WeHorse. My name is Danielle Crowell, and I'm your host. Chiara Pachente is a mindful horsemanship coach, horse and rider biomechanics trainer, and balance through movement method rider pillars apprentice instructor. Zak Maytum is a mindful horsemanship coach, equine behavior specialist, and innovative traditional western saddle maker. Together, they have founded Unnatural Horsemanship. Unnatural horsemanship is not a method, doctrine or school. It's an idea. Both horse and human can be equally valued and worthy parts of a balanced partnership. The highest goal is to find a good feeling for ourselves and for our horses. Beyond that, it can be fun to see how far we can carry it together. A natural horsemanship strives to honor the minds, hearts, and bodies of both ourselves and our equine companions to the best of our ability, and the wish is to help ourselves and others find a way of existing with and without horses that negates a need for a set of orchestrated steps to achieve a predetermined outcome. When the, quote, how we do everything leads to a good feeling, the, quote, what we do just seems to show up. So today we're discussing how unnatural horsemanship came to be, as well as biomechanics, behavior and mindful horsemanship. Let's get started. Chiara and Zak, welcome to the WeHorse podcast. I'm so excited to chat with you both. And I just want to dive in on all the things related to unnatural horsemanship. So welcome and let's get started. Can you tell us a bit about Unnatural Horsemanship and how it came to be?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:02:06-00:04:40]
So Chiara and I have been working with horses and people sort of separately for several years now, but separately together and separately. And it was time for us to form a business where we were in a different way doing things separately but together, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. And she had had her own brand for some time that she had been operating under and doing marketing and stuff like that. And I was basically just – I never even had a business card. I mean, I only got work through word of mouth and if somebody had my phone number. So I wanted to step into a little bit more official capacity and – it didn't feel right for me to just sort of step in the side door of Chiara's thing that she had built and had been working on for all this time. And I think she can talk more about this, but she was ready to go in a little bit different direction in terms of the feel and offerings of her business. So the timing was just right for us to form something cohesive and, and come up with a direction that felt best for us to go forward. So unnatural horsemanship was sort of, formed out of a desire to have just a business that we could name as a thing that was new and that was ours together. And it was a little bit of a challenge to figure out what we wanted to call it and what we wanted to present in terms of the marketing. And it was something that we worked on for a little while this spring. And the name, what we really didn't want, I think, was It felt like a lot of other people in the space of horsemanship that we were trying to occupy, which is sort of a, I don't know, maybe a more holistic space or an alternative, progressive, whatever buzzword people want to use to describe slightly non-traditional horsemanship practices. that we didn't want to try to have our name oversell what we were trying to do. So it felt more natural to me, at least, to have a name that was even a little bit tongue-in-cheek. The whole point, and like you've read our marketing literature, which is sparse on purpose, that... it felt more natural to have somebody read the name and then ask us, what do you mean, rather than come to us with an expectation of what we had already presented just based on what we had to put out for marketing.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:04:42-00:05:03]
Yeah, you guys say that your name's deliberately provocative, and immediately that was my thing. I'm like, so provocative when I saw the name of it. Kira, what's your experience with it all? How did Unnatural Horsemanship come to be from your perspective and your side of the story?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:05:04-00:07:22]
Yeah. So I started Insight Equine, and that was back in about 2016. And at that point, Zach wasn't really training or teaching yet, so it was kind of just – this thing that I was doing on my own. And then sort of like he said, he kind of got umbrellaed under into it, but not really like it really was. It felt kind of like my thing. And it felt like, like something that I was doing that he was sort of sometimes included in and sometimes not. And, and there was a real lack of cohesion there for the two of us in terms of being business partners. And then, um, you know, I spent most of my time with insight was spent exactly doing that was gathering insights. And I just devoted all of my time and energy that I had available to me and some that I did not to continuing education and to learning about the kind of horse woman I wanted to be the kind of teacher I wanted to be, you know, kind of all, all different components and aspects of horsemanship and, that I could kind of delve into and figure out and include in my business. And it really was just like gathering insights, gathering insights, gathering insights. And then it was not quite a year ago. I kind of went like, like, okay, I'm good with the insights. Like I've got them now. I, now I want the integration and what's that going to look like. And speaking with Zach, he really wanted to be a much bigger part of it. And, um, That's kind of how it came about was like, okay, well, you know, this sort of natural thing was like, okay, well, we call it integrated equine, like, right. And then it was like, no, no, like, let's play around with this and really get a feel for what it is that we do and what we offer and what sets us apart. And that's just kind of, it's sort of unfolded organically, I think, more than anything else, that it was just like, all right, you know, the time for the insights has passed, and now let's actually really dive into what we together have actually built from all this continuing education that we've done.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:07:22-00:07:23]
Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:07:23-00:07:26]
You can say a little bit more, actually, about the name, too.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:07:26-00:07:30]
Or are we certainly talking back to the name? Right. Sorry, I went off on like a...

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:07:32-00:07:34]
I love it all. Bring it all together.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:07:34-00:12:22]
I think it might be relevant, too, that where this came from, too, is recognizing, I think back in the spring, and the name kind of came out of a conversation we were having when we were at Celeste Lazarus' place in Oregon. We were playing with some of her horses and the round pen there and talking about a little bit differences in what Chiara and I were doing in our work now versus what we had been applying for some time before that and how it has changed. And I discussed the feeling that I had always gotten from what most disciplines that would – I would say most people would call natural horsemanship, the horsemanship doctrines that have been fit into that nomenclature. The feeling I always got was that – all I could ever be, not I, all a human could ever be to a horse was pressure. And therefore, the nicest thing we could ever do was take pressure off. And for instance, this was a horse of mine who really taught me about this, that traditionally, if I had a horse who didn't really want to be caught or didn't want to be touched or something like that, if I was working with them loose in a round pen or in a field or whatever, Whenever they would make a little bit of effort in the direction that I wanted them to go in terms of being more open to being approached, I would always back away, give space. And I had this horse who I still have who would – when I worked with him in that fashion, he started to get very angry when I backed away. He would strike the ground, and he would bare his teeth, and he would just look very agitated. He would never come at me. It wasn't like he was – telling me that he was really upset or really angry, but he was just so – it wasn't working for him at all. And I was kind of at a sticking point there. And I changed my approach with him where when he would make that little bit of effort to reach for me a little bit, instead of giving ground, I went towards him. And the difference in the feeling was – I think what he was kind of trying to express to me was that every time he took the risk and got a little bit where he could feel like he could extend himself towards me, that's when I was moving away and maybe rejecting his effort. And when I started to accept that he thought maybe there was something that I had to offer and that bringing that to him was actually going to feel better than me just taking myself away. It was very interesting to then look at that in the broader lens of the, quote, natural horsemanship world that the way it really had been presented to me or the way I received it was that it was my duty to act as much like a horse as possible so as not to, you know, bring them human elements that they might not like and that all I could ever be was pressure and the nicest thing that I could ever do to a horse was give them space and leave them alone. And these interactions with a few of these horses who are a little bit more, I don't know, irregular cases in terms of the work that I've done, helped me to find a much better feeling where I felt like I really did have something of value to offer to a horse and that it felt better to them to be with me than away from me. And that's where, especially in that case, you know, we were talking about this, that when we were playing with those horses in the round pen, that I am standing now in open rejection of the idea that horses would prefer to be without me. I really think that human beings and our nervous system and the differences that we do have give us something that we can offer to a horse and bring to a horse that they can never find in nature. That in nature, I do believe that they can only ever support each other in a life of continued hypervigilance. And that our, I don't want to say knowledge of the future, but concept of the future is is something that we can bring to them and allow them to find a feeling in their lives with humans that is so obviously more peaceful and profoundly better to them that when they can get a piece of it, it seems really valuable and they often want more. And that it's funny, I mean, we say that in the literature, right, that this relationship between a horse and a human is profoundly unnatural, right? And it is if we look at humans and horses in their natural environment thousands of years ago. We consider that nature is whatever it becomes and that even the built up human world is just part of our nature. Then maybe it's more natural than we think.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:12:24-00:12:24]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:12:25-00:12:28]
What you said was so profound.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:12:29-00:13:23]
The idea of. We often think taking the pressure away from the horses is the kind of thing to do. And I think when you said that, I was like, because I think to my horses and how sometimes they're like, well, what do you want from me then? Like, what are we doing? Like, it's almost like it creates a sense of like... rather than being clear, it's murky. It's like, you're confusing me then. Like, do you want me to, are we going to do something? Are you walking? We're like, what, what are we doing here? And so, yeah, I think that that just brought up so much for me when you said that, um, that it does, it kind of spins, spins everything on its head that we're, we're kind of taught or what we think. And yeah, I'm like, I'm just like sitting with that for a sec.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:13:26-00:14:53]
And this has been one of the most fun things for me has been to take these concepts to my students. Because very similarly, you know, working with humans, if we have, you know, sort of a breakthrough for somebody in their relationship to their body or in the way they think about their horse or themselves, And if I then, as the sort of facilitator, step away and just like abandon them in the middle of that very, very vulnerable moment, that would feel horrible to a human. Right. Like what most people want in that situation is a freaking hug and they want contact badly. Right. And I'm not saying horses and humans are the same. We are not. This is not anthropomorphizing. But it was thinking about that idea of when we offer contact to the horse and they accept that contact, well, then why wouldn't we take it a step further into the connection? Why would we go, oh, contact achieved. Sorry. OK, now you're on your own. It's like, OK, no, we have made contact and now we're going to connect through that. And I have found it for both horses and humans to really be such a big step towards co-regulation in those moments where we're unsure or where we are just being very authentically vulnerable.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:14:55-00:15:59]
Absolutely. One of the things I want to get into as well, both of you have a vast background, um, and you, you each individually bring unique things to, you know, your offerings. Um, you know,Chiaraa, you have a biomechanics and postural, um, background for both horse and human. Zach, you have very much, um, I mean, the, the saddle making, um, very much a behavioral aspect that you bring to things. So I definitely want to go into that, um, You have a line on your website that I absolutely love. And it says, we use our human ability to study everything we can and try to make sure we believe our horses when they tell us the truth about our theories. Again, I was like, oh, can you explain each of you explain a little bit further about like what you meant when you thought of that? And when you wrote that.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:15:60-00:19:36]
So we are, and I'm saying we very universal kind of generalized, we that we are really conditioned to believe the human. And, and I know this, like my background is very, very kind of competition centric and upper level and, you know, training, training, advanced events. And I'm not, I'm not at all saying that that's not a good thing or that it can't be a good thing. It's just that there wasn't much emphasis actually placed on the horse. And we were, you know, I don't want to say that I was lied to as a child, because I don't, I really don't think that there are any professionals out there that are purposefully spewing crap just to get what they want. Like, I think that is extremely rare. But I think that we don't, we don't actually know. And so it's, You know, we hear all these what I think I could even say are lies, even if they're not intentional. But things like, oh, you know, the horse, well, she always sticks her tongue out like that when she's thinking. Or, oh, when her ears are pinned like that, that's her thinking face. Right. And all these little behaviors that we really kind of culturally don't know about are then talked about through this lens of, well, just don't worry about it. like continue on continue on with the training and not fully understanding exactly what the horse is trying to tell us and so it was a huge moment for me in my horsemanship journey When I kind of realized, like, hey, wait a sec, why am I putting so much value on what the dressage judge says, on what my coach says, on what even the veterinarian says, on what, you know, the body workers, all these people are telling me what my horse is thinking and feeling, and I'm not actually taking it to the horse and asking them. And so a big part of all of this was really diving into equine behavior, equine expression, You know, learning about, I mean, they have, I think, one more facial expression than we do. So these are, you know, these are extremely expressive animals. And, you know, with people like Dr. Sue Dyson, who are kind of the forefront leading, saying, well, okay, these are actually pain behaviors. And when I started to dig into that, it was like, okay, now it's very easy for me, you know, if I'm given an exercise or a tool or anything from a human and I take it to the horse, what does the horse have to say about it? Because they don't lie. They don't have that, right? They are very upfront about how they think and feel about what we're doing. And it's something that I would really like to see normalized in our culture is that, hey, did you ask your horse? Hmm. And so that was kind of I mean, it was just so big for me to really realize that and to learn how to trust myself. And then to be able to bring that trust to my students and saying, like, you know, this is what I have found through experience. And if it resonates with you and if it sits with you, that's wonderful. But in the end, take it to your horse, take your horse, let them tell you what they think about it. And if they don't like it, then we need to adjust, not the horse. We do. We're the humans. That is our job is to adjust what we're doing or how we're doing it so that it is more comfortable for them. So that it is more clear, like we were just saying. And yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with that.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:19:38-00:20:10]
I just, I wholeheartedly agree. I had an experience where, over the winter where – well, previous to that. The winter was like when it came to a head. But previous to that, one of my horses, he was telling me one thing, and I had professionals telling me another thing. And I, for the longest time, was like, oh, well, rather than listen to my own intuition or rather than listening to that, I'll just listen to what this professional has to say because they must be right. And my horse was like –

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:20:11-00:20:19]
actually, like, it was so very clear that he was saying something completely different.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:20:20-00:21:09]
And it all came to a big head over the winter. And I had this incredible lesson that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, where I realized that they like you had said, they don't lie. Like to listen to our horse and to hear what they have to say, they're not lying. There's no idea of, oh, well, let me use this to my advantage, you know, or whatever sort of way that we kind of humanize things. Yeah. And hearing you say that, I just I completely agree that the idea of listening to our horses and asking them and seeing what they have to say about something and adjusting what we're doing based on their responses. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:21:10-00:22:06]
Well, I think it's so important. I mean, these days with the Internet, which is a wonderful, wonderful tool. But I think about how hard it must be to be an adult amateur right now to be a first time horse owner, because the information available is there are so many conflicts. Yeah. I mean, everyone will everyone, every professional. We all look at things through our own lens. And that doesn't necessarily mean that any of us are right or any of us are wrong. It's just that we are viewing the situation through the lens of our own experiences and our own specialties and what we can bring. And it's, It can be, I think, really confusing for people when you have your trainer saying one thing, your veterinarian saying another thing, and your farrier saying another thing, and then this person on the Internet that everybody loves is saying something completely different, and then this person on the Internet that everybody loves is saying something completely different.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:22:06-00:22:08]
And all the comments in the Facebook groups.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:22:08-00:24:28]
Oh, yeah, don't even look at those. Yeah, just don't go there. But exactly, I think it must be, as a professional, it is overwhelming. The amount of information and the amount of opinions, it is completely overwhelming. And I have a ton of experience. And so I think of, well, if I didn't have almost a lifetime of experience of working with horses, how would I possibly sift through all of this information and all of these opinions coming at me? Everybody telling me their story about my horse and their story about me is And it's like, okay, well, can we backpedal this a little bit and say, maybe nobody's right and maybe nobody's wrong. And that doesn't actually matter. It's just, can we actually come to this from a place where we are empowered to trust our own intuition? Because, you know, I love my clients' horses. I love them. And I know them very, very, very well. Very well. Like I know... You know, if one of them, if their poop is a little off, I know immediately. If they blink funny, I know immediately. Like these are horses that I spend a ton of time with, that I study, that I connect to. And it doesn't matter how much I connect and study and observe. I do not know them like their owners do or their guardians prefer that verbiage, which I kind of do. And just thinking about that and that, you know, having the ability to really empower people, say like, listen to your intuition. Please. Because nobody knows your horse like you do. Nobody. I don't care what they tell you. And I've had to learn that myself, you know, even with my own horses and having, you know, different opinions and different things coming in that really caused me to doubt myself and doubt the relationship that I have, especially with my kind of heart horse. And it was really big for me to take a step back and be like, I'm not going to I'm not going to put all of my eggs in the human basket anymore. And it's not to say that I don't listen and that I'm not interested in other opinions and other viewpoints because, you know, we need those. It does take a village. But at the end of the day, what is my mind saying? What is my heart saying? What is my body saying? And what does my horse think of all of this?

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:24:30-00:24:41]
From like the depth of my belly, the base of my spine, I'm like, yes, yes. Like sassy snaps over here. Agreed.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:24:45-00:25:10]
But I think that's a huge piece for me is just really, really wanting to empower, empower amateur owners. So like, look, I understand that you read this article or you saw this video on YouTube or whatever, but like really in your bones, what does that feel like to you? Does it feel good? If it feels good, move towards it. If it doesn't feel good, don't go that way. Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:25:13-00:34:16]
So I would say this is a good, like my take on this, I think will provide a good example of what we're doing and why the way that we structured our business, that we are practitioners who love the same ideas and principles, but approach them from very, very different perspectives and directions. Because I would say my approach has been not necessarily the opposite, but a very different way of arriving at a similar conclusion. And it's relevant now. I mean, I really can see and understand how I got where I am. Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and it made a lot of sense, as it usually does for most folks in my position. But when I think back to when I got into horses, and I'm a late-in-life horse person, I got into horses quite accidentally through my wonderful wifeChiarara. Yeah. And now I'm here. But when I first started, I was, you know, I took some writing lessons and I was trying to learn about it. I mean, the way that I've learned about many things where I just kind of cast around the Internet and books and whatever, looking for the good information. And firstly, I was initially very staggered by how little continuity and consistency there was about the information. And even to this day, I'd say if we have a client who comes to us and says, oh, this is great. Where do I find more information? We're like, well, geez, do not go on the Internet. And even if they say, OK, well, is there a book? No, not really. Right. But then that's sort of endemic to the whole thing that really the only way to get around this is, I think, as Bill Dorrance said, put yourself on the end of a rope and put a horse on the other. But when I first got around just horse stuff in general, as I am wont to do, I was immediately just confronted with a profound range of inconsistencies. I think Leonardo da Vinci said simplicity is the highest form of sophistication. And that nothing, I just had this feeling about kind of conventional riding rhetoric that nothing that complicated could ever be true. And as I started to dig into it and search around for kind of horsemanship principles and directives and methods and whatever that felt more simple and that felt more Perspective, I guess, is maybe the right word at the time. I ended up sort of around the traditional natural horsemanship paradigm, and really only because at least when I got around some of these great horsemen who had been practicing this stuff for decades and decades... at least it felt like I could see how they got from one place to the next, that there was an order. We're going to start with the most simple question that we can ask the horse, and when we can understand each other on that basis, then we gradually add complexity in a linear fashion to avoid disconnects along the way so that there's never any place where we have to wonder about Why are we not with each other if we can always go back down the ladder to where we were last in agreement and then figure out where we lost it? And that has really led me to, you know, when we say behavior study, whatever, it's really about trying to understand how the horses speak to us in space and the way they move and the way that they behave. uh, exude pressure and the way that their bodies act when they're in different emotional states and just trying to continue to form a broader base for, I said, being able to believe them when they tell the truth that for me, especially I've done quite a bit of cold starting and taken on a lot of very violent and difficult horses, uh, So it became very important for me at that time to be able to understand and believe them when they said they were feeling okay and to believe them when they told me they still weren't so that I didn't put myself in danger of physical harm or I didn't put them in danger of further traumatization. And it's the study for me of continuing to ask questions and get answers and ask questions and get answers and And like I said in that passage – or in the literature, my human ability to study everything we can – For me, it's down to my ability to be hyper-analytical and to notice everything and then spend hours and hours ruminating on it and recognizing what little piece and what little subtlety or maybe not so subtlety I failed to notice at the time because I might have been fixated on something else at that moment. For instance, as my time has gone on, I do quite a bit of groundwork with horses. And at this point I don't watch them at all anymore. Pretty much. I would say when I'm doing groundwork, my eyes are unfocused and I'm getting a lot more information from sound. And that's just something that took enough hours of watching and realizing that I couldn't watch the whole horse at once and get the actual picture that I needed. And that the sound that their feet made when they were coming to the ground and the sound, you know, how much crunch they put into the sand when their foot went to leave was had a lot more to offer me, but I needed to spend the time to come to that place. And now it's about always having a theory about what might be the case or what situation or, or idea might apply to a given day and a given moment in a different course in a different place. But that I try to carry the idea that like a lot of the things that I hold very closely are sort of like gravity. that gravity is in itself a theory. And there are many little outline pieces of the theory of gravity that we have had to put to the side and accept that we don't understand and maybe are never going to be able to just because of the capacity of our ability to experience reality. And yet I'm fairly, I believe strongly that if I drop something, it will hit the ground every time. I don't need to be able to express that in an equation to believe in the truth of it, if that makes sense. So for me, when I talk to these horses, I almost like, because I didn't approach this initially from a feel-based thing, and maybe I actually did, and that just the way that my brain dovetails into the rest of my being is different than some folks that I had to gain an understanding of the nuts and bolts a little bit before I could start to have it resonate with a more intuitive place. But the same thing like Chiara says, she wants to empower people to trust the feelings in their bodies and the feelings in their whole being. I really believe that every human being can look at a horse and tell you whether or not they feel good or not. I mean, it's just not that complicated if we allow ourselves to not be led astray. But in the same vein, I wish to empower people to have some alternative means of communication and diagnostics if they aren't able to trust themselves in that or the signals aren't clear enough for them at that time. Because just like for myself today, I will circumvent lots and lots of, you know, groundwork and writing and whatever diagnostic steps that I would have forced myself to go through before because I wasn't ready to trust my feelings yet, but that I wish to provide someone with some means of approaching something that they can't quite understand. And maybe they can ask the horse some questions about that pertain to movement and how they respond to that give and take of energy and pressure and touch and released and draw that might allow them to form a theoretical basis that they can take enough confidence in to put themselves in a little bit of vulnerability. And that we talk about this, that for a horse or a human to be vulnerable at all. And to have that, have a feeling where they're going to be able to go forward and enjoy going a little bit beyond the surface. There has to be a little bit of foundation built on mutual confidence. And I wish, you know, I think this is where we've approached this differently, but have arrived at the same place. And we'd love to make this available to our clients and students and colleagues that, um, on one given day of one person might need more from one of us than the other. But the fact that we took two different routes and kind of arrived at the same conclusion is somewhat fascinating.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:34:18-00:37:24]
There's so much in there that I'm like grabbing, like I'm like seeing the words as you're saying them and I'm like grabbing them to be like, okay, I want to discuss this and I want to discuss this and I want to discuss this. And I, The main thing is the concept of simplicity in all this. And in contrast to that, looking at the equestrian industry, regardless of the discipline, and seeing how complicated it is and how everybody has differing opinions about And I'm not saying that everybody has to think the same way, but it's just that it's like you mentioned, it's so overly complicated. And I've been noticing this, I'm going to use the word epidemic because I honestly feel that it is, is this epidemic of lack of confidence within the horse industry for owners. Yes. And I think of myself, and maybe the reason why I'm so aware of it is because it was literally me a few years ago. And I think of that version of myself that had my horses at a boarding barn and was so inundated with unsolicited advice, with different people, other owners or other people, professionals giving me differing opinions, differing advice and me thinking, well, I don't know. What do you think? Well, I don't know. What would you do? And it was like, ah, and so I moved my horses home in 2022 and it was the most, um, It was just the best thing I could have done for myself as a human, not only in a relationship with my horses, but also me, horses aside, as like a human, because it really taught me to answer my own questions because I didn't have anybody else around me to ask. Right. And my husband, who is not a horse person, when I boarded, like he didn't go to the barn. Maybe he knew what my horses looked like, you know, like he just wasn't a horse person at all. when I brought them home, he didn't know the stories that me or other humans had made up about them. He didn't know their past. He didn't experience them, you know, in that facility or in that state. He only got to know them as these family members that live in our backyard. And it's so interesting that him not being a horse person and being this blank slate, I'll say something to him and he'll be like, Well, like he'll just give me this answer that I'm like, oh, that's so clear. It's so obvious. Of course. Like, because he doesn't have this. Well, this person said this and that person said this and that textbook said this. And I read this on this article. And, you know, there's all these differing things that go through maybe my mind. It's just like this. Simplicity, like you said, Zach. Yeah. And I take so much from that.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:37:26-00:37:27]
That's so beautiful.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:37:27-00:37:29]
It's funny.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:37:29-00:40:18]
Like for years, I, I took a lot of horses and actually it's funny. My personal horses are still like this, but that I took a lot of horses from the public who were, you know, if I couldn't get something done with them, they were going to kill them. That kind of thing. Horses that were extraordinarily explosive and dangerous and angry and terrified. And then I realized now that that was the only way I could find at the time where I Someone would just leave me alone and let me study because they knew like nobody would come and tell me what to do because their solution was kill it. You know, they're like, oh, no, this can't be done. So we're willing to let you try anything you can think of. Yeah. And I wish, you know, I'm glad that it didn't take me too long. I'm not that old that I figured out that now, yeah, I can just have my horses at home and hopefully I can just decide to feel that way no matter what, that I could have a really gentle horse and still go, I really want to figure out what's true for me today and not worry too much about whatever else anybody has going on. Yeah. But that's the hard part for, like you said, I mean, this crisis of confidence that you And right now, I feel like Kiana discussed this a lot, what we're seeing is everyone is very keen now, which is interesting to some degree, that they want science to tell them what to do instead of rhetoric or tradition or whatever. But that at the end of the day, I think, at least I believe very strongly that the most profound steps that we get to take with our horses, we always have to take alone. But Chiara and I love to be on the periphery for somebody so that we can be a little bit of their confidence and that they know that if something's going to go looking like it's about to go really wrong, we might speak up or that if they get a little stuck, we can help them get unstuck. But that the places where we really learn about ourselves and usually only learn good news is when we take a little bit of a risk and we ask a question and are okay with the answer, especially in our business now. Tara started out in her career teaching people who took weekly or biweekly riding lessons back to back to back to back to back. And we're moving more and more and more towards longer format, seeing people more infrequently, but for more dense, meaningful time where they've gone away and they've found some questions that They've either found the answer to and they want a new question or they haven't found the answer and they want us to help them devise a different way to ask it. But we really love working with people now who take those take those ideas home and spin them in their own way and come back with something interesting that we get to discuss. But I at least am not particularly interested in telling somebody what to do anymore.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:40:20-00:40:55]
Yeah. And that's so much of the industry that so many of us grew up in. You're just told what to do. So then when you're cast off on your own, you're like, well, what should I do? You then start to look for other people's answers because that's all that you know. Okay. You, as I mentioned earlier, you both bring so many unique things to the table. But one of the things that both of you have on your bios is mindful horsemanship coach. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:40:57-00:40:58]
And so what is it?

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:40:58-00:41:05]
I would love to know what is mindful horsemanship, like what's your definition of it and how do you coach it?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:41:06-00:43:05]
My guess is just right up front, we probably, Zach and I each have slightly different definitions and slightly different ways of coaching it. For me, mindful horsemanship is about consistency and compassion. Because what I really notice kind of just going out into the world and, you know, a lot of my work takes me to many different barns, many different disciplines, many different types of horse and riding and people. And one thing that I see across the board is a lack of tact. I don't really know how else to put that. But I see people handling their horses in a way that is not tactful. You know, stuffing ears into brow bands and, you know, somebody unfurls a girth and it swings and the buckles smack the horse, like in that really sensitive skin behind their knee. That people are, you know, having a conversation with a person or they're texting on their phone and the next thing they know their horse is dragging them to grass and they're all mad about it. Like, you know, these are the kind of things that I really see. And so one of our little mottos has kind of become how we do the small things is how we do all things. Because the way that my horse responds to me asking them to put a halter on is exactly the same as how they respond when I ask for a half pass. It is exactly the same. There isn't a difference there. And we kind of notice, you know, that people are not, they are not in the present moment. Until they're mounted and they've done their five minutes of walking around, right? In that time, the person, they go and get their horse and they bring their horse out and they groom and they tack and they warm up. It's like they're not even talking to the horse. It's like they're doing things to the horse. Do you kind of follow what I mean?

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:43:06-00:43:30]
Absolutely. I used to study under a yoga teacher that had the exact same concept. And she was like, how is it that somebody can be so focused and so present and so intentional on their movement on the mat, but then they just swing themselves out of bed in the morning and crunch down to pick something up? It's the same sort of concept where it's like... How you do one thing is how you do all things.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:43:31-00:47:24]
Yeah, and so I think about, you know, the things that we, like, one thing that I think universally we could all agree on is that we like our horses to be soft in the bridle. I mean, you can use whatever verbiage you want, but I would say that overall, no matter what discipline, no matter what costume you're wearing, everybody wants their horse soft in the bridle. But then people don't handle their lead ropes with softness. And people don't, you know, let the gate hit the horse in the butt on the way through. So that's one of the big things that I like to do with people is actually walk them through their regular routine. You know, a lot of the times when I first meet a student and for our first session together, I'm like, I don't even want you, like, with your horse out. Like, let's go get your horse together. And a lot of people think this is a waste of time, and that's fine, but... But I'm like, I really want to see how you approach your horse, because if you're approaching them like you're a predator, you know, walking straight at their head and, you know, smelling of cheeseburgers and the horse kind of flinches and shifts their weight away, it's like, OK, we need to notice that because that means something. And. You know, do you when you put the halter on, do you swing the tail of the halter up and over their head so it smacks them in the eye on the other side? You know, or do you like have a nice cuddle? And, you know, one of the things working with Celeste that's been so much fun is playing with this idea that like everything is nerve release. Literally everything. The way you put on your halter, the way you ask a horse to pick up a foot, everything we do with them can be done in a way that feels really good to them mentally and physically, that can actually improve them physically and actually activate the muscles that we want for the ridden horse. Or we can do things in this like kind of careless way where the horse through all these little interactions will develop all these little braces and all these little kind of self-preservation, just little things that they do to protect themselves from sort of careless handling. And it's like, look, if we can go through every step and have it be conversational, you know, okay, horse, how do you feel about this? Is this okay? Does this feel good? Does it feel good when I ask you to walk forward with me? If not, I really don't care about jumping the course. I really don't care about schooling the changes. Like that doesn't matter anymore. If the horse, when I pick up on the lead rope, they brace against me. I'm like, we have nothing else to talk about. That's it. So I think the mindful horsemanship coaching is really just helping people to Come into their body is a big one because our culture is not super. And I mean, our Western culture is not super great about that, that we kind of all tend to go through life hovering above the ground like air hockey pucks. And it's like, OK, let's come into our bodies. Let's come into our breath. Let's actually really feel what's going on here and and take note of the feel that we're offering to the horse. And it's not like that I want to see people offer a particular feel. It's that I just want people to be kind of aware and aware of where their body is in time and space, aware of where the horse's body is in time and space, how we can organize things just to make our movement easier and efficient and pleasant. And so, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with that. It's just really... Helping people to find that sort of mind, heart, body connection and then bring it to the horse and bring it in the present moment without worrying about 10 steps down the line or, you know, something that happened 10 steps before. It's like, no, no, what's happening right now. Yeah. Today.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:47:26-00:47:29]
I love that. So do you have a different definition?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:47:29-00:47:39]
I'll only say I think I have a different interpretation of the same concepts as you would expect to find with us. So Carrie, you said consistency and compassion?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:47:40-00:47:40]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:47:40-00:52:40]
Yeah. So from the way that I interpreted that when I heard you say that, I don't think I've said that, is the way I think about mindful horsemanship practices and coaching is if my theoretical basis on coaching this thing and this profound feeling of security that we have to extend to the horses that they cannot normally achieve, that is going to come from us being able to fairly truthfully express that we are taking on the load of the herd in terms of being aware of danger. And that if we need to tell them that it's time to run away, we will. That we're now the one who has said to them, for the first time in your life, you can truly relax because I promise I'm looking out and I will tell you if something needs to change. The number one way we can guarantee that they will never find that place is by being consistent in showing that we are not really paying attention. And if all the time my horse is always asking me little tiny questions about whether or not I'm noticing how they're feeling, where they have moved, their pace, their attention, where they're looking, where their ears are. I mean, all these little things that they're constantly using to communicate with other horses, but that we are certainly capable of noticing if we start to get a little bit used to it. If I tell them that I am really paying attention to the distance between us at all times and the pace that we're moving together on the lead rope or mounted or whether or not they are truly settled or if their feet are still but they have completely left their body because they're so uncomfortable where we are, if I tell them accurately that I am noticing all those things and that I care about all those things and any time that they're showing discomfort that I might have a solution they hadn't considered before, That's where I see our ability to start to craft that really exquisite result. And furthermore, in terms of how I conduct myself, that I want them to know that I am in strong enough control of my own inputs that I am only ever going to talk loudly if I have something really important to say and that I'm not going to be careless with my words, with my tone, with my volume. And that's a really easy place to go if someone is just not present and not mindful of themselves, of their space, of their shared space with the horse, of that horse and that human's shared space with other entities. I mean, I talk a lot about the feeling of if I ride a horse in a given space – or it doesn't matter. It could be on a lead rope – I can try to visualize what that space would look like if it were three-dimensional in terms of how it actually affects the horse's movement. So, for instance, that would mean like a perfectly flat arena for most horses is probably actually slightly downhill towards the gate, right? Yeah. That that feeling. And then maybe there's a far corner that if you could see it through the horse's eyes in terms of how they're actually going to move in that space, there's a steep hill up to that scary corner. And it's going to take a lot of effort and pressure to ask them to climb that hill. And that what I'm working towards all the time is to be perceptive of how the environment really feels to them and then seeing if it's possible to change it so that either it better suits me if I, for instance, don't want to spend all my time by the gate and I do want to enter that scary corner if I wanted to, or to help them feel better. Maybe they're in a place where... It's like there's nowhere in the world that feels good, and they're just going to slide all over until they run out of energy. If I could try to change that landscape so that there was one comfortable spot and then see if we could expand it until the whole place is actually perfectly flat and there's nowhere in the world they'd rather be, that's – That's mindfulness to me. And the way we can start to do that stuff innately takes time and it takes practice. And sometimes it takes the help of another human being to point out to us that even though we began our groundwork over here, when we look up from our horse, suddenly we recognize that we've traveled a couple hundred feet down the ring and we hadn't noticed. Well, why didn't we notice? But it's really about that. If we want things to happen consistently under difficult circumstances, gosh, if they're not happening consistently under ideal circumstances, there's probably no chance. And if we haven't demonstrated ourselves to be fairly supremely trustworthy and knowledgeable and wise and just, it is unlikely that we will bring additional feeling of calm and safety to a potentially dangerous scenario that happens. How quickly do horses decide that we have to go when they're in trouble?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:52:42-00:53:09]
And this really ties back to talking about the unnatural piece and the conditioning that we have that has taken away our ability to have confidence in ourselves. Like we're thinking, you know, I love hearing Zach talk about the scary corner. How many of us have been told when a horse is reacting to external stimuli in an undesirable way, don't let them get away with that. Go fool them in that corner. And it's like, would you do that to a child?

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:53:09-00:53:10]
Right.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:53:10-00:53:12]
Right? Many people super would.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:53:13-00:53:57]
Many people super would. But, you know, we're really hoping to evolve past that kind of thinking, you know. But it's true that, well, okay, if the horse has told you that something is bothering them, why rub their face in it? Why not just go, oh, wow, I hear you. I hear that you're scared of this. I'm going to be the good guy, and I'm going to take you away from this scary thing, and I'm going to find where we can both – find a good feeling together. And then, you know, maybe we'll work up enough of a rapport that they trust me when I say, you know, you don't really have to worry about the scary corner. And I have, having played with both for many, many, many years in my life, I will say that not forcing the horse to do something that they find is scary, actually training progresses much faster.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:53:58-00:53:60]
That's a compassion angle.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:53:60-00:54:21]
That is a compassion angle. It's just put yourself in the horse's shoes for 10 seconds and... And play with it and not worry about what anybody else is going to say because you're, quote, unquote, letting your horse get away with whatever undesirable behavior, right? Like, they're not trying to get out of work. They're just trying to communicate that something's troubling for them.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:54:21-00:55:16]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I have this, like, little practice that I do with my horses. I call it a practice because... I just look at so many things in life. It's like, you don't just do them once and then you're like, well, now it's done. Like, it's just, it's like what you said. It's like the little things that you do every single day. It's like, it's just something that you're consistently practicing, tweaking, you know, continuously being consistent, things like that. So anyways, yeah. So if my horses are looking at something, so we live, we're surrounded by the woods. And so we have this one far corner of our property that there's a little brook. And so sometimes animals come out of the woods and go to the brooks. So sometimes we have like herds of deer. One time we had a bear, like things like that. So the horses are always like, what's going to come out of the woods?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:55:16-00:55:21]
Like if like the trees kind of blow, they're like, is something coming?

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:55:22-00:56:45]
So sometimes they'll look down towards that far corner. And I used to be like, oh, it's nothing. So I would just ignore it and be like, there's nothing down there. Nothing's happening. We're just, we're ignoring it. We're, you know, moving on. And that wasn't helpful. No. For them, they're like, no, but like... but maybe there is one time something came out of the woods. And so you're dismissing this. And so therefore I need to protect myself because you're being dismissive. And it just gives that sort of an energy. And so, so now I'll look with them. So they'll be looking and I'll look to look like a little herd. And then I go, and then they go, Oh, okay. You know, it's almost like if we all look together and, And then I say, oh, no, there's nothing. Then there's nothing. But I have to acknowledge that they were looking at it. Yes. And, you know, and that what they are feeling matters. So we can look together and notice that there's safety. But I can't be dismissive of it. So hopefully that makes sense. But I just, it's, yeah, it's just, it's, it's, it's been such a beautiful, and like I said, it's a practice because we do it all the time. And it's been so helpful to, to acknowledge their feelings, you know, for lack of a better term.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:56:47-00:56:50]
Oh, absolutely. And that's what you were doing is being mindful. That's,

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:56:51-00:58:24]
And we think about learning everything we can about the horse, too. I was just explaining to somebody the other day, we were riding out in the woods in Wyoming, and the horse that I was on is like, we were coming down to a low spot where there's a little creek at the bottom, and then it goes back up. And this horse, he's a Mustang, and he got really wary and snorty around the creek. And this person was saying, well, he's crossed water before. This shouldn't be that big of a deal to him. But that brook where those animals come to have a drink, that's where predators kill those animals traditionally. That's the most vulnerable place for them. That's why they do it in a hurry and they do it at dusk. And for your horses, it's not necessarily even just about the animals coming out of the brush and, you know, a deer startles them because it made a sound. It's that anything that moves near a waterhole has a high chance of being a predator. Yeah. And recognizing that for your horse, that it is that big of a deal to them no matter why. It doesn't really matter why that's scary for them, but it makes perfect sense no matter what. The fact that you didn't say to them on a certain day, you're being ridiculous, I can't tolerate this. If that's the way we treat them the first time we have that interaction, they will just file it away under, oh, this is what happens when I think I might be in big danger. that no one cares so that this person doesn't care and that at best they won't support me. And at worst they'll make me stay in the scary place or they will physically chastise me. Not a great foundation for a, for a beautiful relationship.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:58:25-00:58:31]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's like this matters to you. And so therefore it matters.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:58:32-00:58:34]
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:58:35-00:59:06]
I want to chat a little bit in a completely different direction. We're looking at the tack. So we've been speaking specifically about the horse. And now I want to talk about the gear that we use with them. So Kiera, you offer evaluation and education in saddle, bridle and bit fitting. When we look at the gear and the fit of the gear, how do you think that this affects other aspects of the horse, whether it's mentally, emotionally, physically, et cetera?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:59:08-00:59:26]
Well, I mean, we just got kind of two different ways we could go with this. One, when we're looking at gear, what is the intended use of that gear? Mm-hmm. And that's kind of like a whole other tangent that I don't want to get into too, too much because that's like quite the rabbit hole.

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:59:26-00:59:28]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:59:29-01:02:29]
But it's really just, you know, I will use anything that can be used without creating pain or intimidation or restriction. Mm hmm. So that's kind of my general feeling about gear is that I'm like, can this be used in a way that doesn't hurt the horse? Then it's probably OK. Just in terms of sifting through, like, well, what do you use and what do you don't use? And that's pretty, pretty straightforward in terms of fit. This is really complicated and I might have some unpopular opinions about it. Um, first off, I believe when it comes to, you know, I got into saddle fitting, I wanted to actually pursue being a career saddle fitter kind of part time. And I couldn't bring myself to do it. I kind of tried for a couple years, and then I had to let go of it because I When people called me out for a saddle fit, that's all they wanted. They just wanted me to look at their saddle. And I'm like, well, your horse is completely dysregulated. Their nervous system is shot. Their musculature is upside down. Like, I don't even want to get close enough to this horse to put a saddle on it. Or, you know, and not everybody was like that, of course. But I was running into that often enough that I was like, you know what? I'm not interested in fitting saddles anymore. What I want to do is share the information. about how, you know, how saddles work, how bits work, how bridles work and how we can fit them in a way that is at least physically comfortable. Unfortunately, what I've run up against is that if the horse is not developed, and I mean like with a top line, no saddle is going to fit them. Not really. And, and it will, further create damage and i've seen this kind of over and over again where the saddle actually will fit textbook but because the horse travels in dysfunction the saddle can't interface correctly or properly and even a beautifully fitted saddle will still cause damage So how the heck do you have that conversation with people, right? It's like, okay. And so this really does tie into the mindfulness and the like, okay, I understand that you want a well-fitting saddle, but, you know, until your horse is regulated and has some top line and understands how to move in a functional way, we really don't need to talk about saddle fit, right? And so that can be a really difficult conversation to have with people. I'm still working on how to do that. But it is really important... In that, of course, like if we're not riding in equipment that fits the horse, well, we are causing damage, period. If we are riding, you know, if a saddle does not fit the rider, it is going to take the rider out of balance and the horse is going to suffer for that.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:02:30-01:02:41]
Which is such a key thing that so many people, I think they're so focused on how does it fit my horse? above how does it fit them.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:02:42-01:02:42]
Yes.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:02:42-01:02:44]
And that is such an important point to make.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:02:45-01:04:19]
Yeah. And we are, I mean, I used to be one of those people that would say like, I don't care how it fits me. I don't care. I don't care. It just needs to fit my horse. It just needs to be comfortable for my horse. I will make do. Unfortunately, like, as you know, that's a very noble place to come from in some ways, but it, it just doesn't work that way that if I am fighting from, if I'm in a saddle that is too big or too small or the flap leg or whatever it is, the twist is, and I'm fighting to keep my position and to keep my balance, well, then the horse is going to have to compensate for that. So the saddle needs to fit the horse and the human. And honestly, both horse and human need to be developed to a point where there is some core strength and there is some athleticism, and then the saddle will interface between the two properly. But otherwise, you know, so it is tough because, of course, equitation comes into this and whatnot. But I also, you know, I know if you have a beautifully developed horse and, you know, a beautifully developed rider and you put them in a saddle that doesn't fit one or the other or both. Well, then you're going to come up with some pretty serious problems, you know, stumbling, tripping, bucking, in some cases rearing, refusing to go forward, inability to recover after jumps. Like there's all sorts of stuff that can come up when the saddle doesn't fit properly. But I tell you, when the horse is developed, man, fitting a saddle to them is easy.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:04:19-01:04:21]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:04:22-01:04:28]
So I don't have super... super popular opinions on this kind of thing.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:04:28-01:04:54]
But it's all important to be discussed. And I like the unpopular opinions because often when it's an unpopular opinion, then you're kind of like, maybe, how do I say this? Sometimes when we say the things that are hard to be said, it's getting us closer to the truth than the things that are easier to hear and

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:04:55-01:05:04]
Yeah. Well, if we examine who stands to benefit from these opinions being unpopular, that may inform us as to whether or not they deserve further interrogation.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:05:05-01:05:05]
Yeah. Right.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:05:06-01:05:17]
And it's things like, you know, bareback people. There's all these controversial things like, oh, saddles are bad for horses. Oh, bareback is bad for horses. I'm like, ask the horse. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:05:18-01:05:18]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:05:19-01:06:40]
Yeah. And that is a philosophy that I bring to when I am doing education on saddle fit that I'm like, I might put a saddle on a horse statically and go, wow, I love this fit. And then, you know, ask the rider to go for a ride in it. And the horse is like, yeah, I don't like this. Mm hmm. And my thoughts on whether or not it fits and why it fits no longer fricking matter. Like it, that's just game over. And it's happened the other way as well, where I put a saddle on a horse and a static fit and gone like, Oh, I don't know. Like this doesn't look great, but let's see. And the horse is like, this is amazing. I'm so comfortable. Okay. It's your back. Yeah. Cool. You know, some horses love being ridden bareback. Some of them are like, could I please have some support? So I don't think it's so much a right or wrong as it is just a, we need to bring it back to the horse. and see what their bodies say and, you know, be okay with recognizing development. Like, you know, for people who have young horses that I'm like, and especially a young horse with an English saddle. I'm like, you might go through three or four saddles in the next three or four years. Yeah. And just accept that. Yeah. There is no magic poof. This is the best saddle for you and for your horse. And it's going to fit you both forever. Well, no.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:06:41-01:06:50]
Yeah. I love when a conversation goes full circle and we bring it back to the original thing of listen to the horse. Ask the horse.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:06:50-01:06:53]
Yeah. What do they say? What does their back look like?

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:06:53-01:06:54]
Yeah. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:06:55-01:07:16]
Zach, you make your own saddles. And I have to say, one of my goals in life is to own a Zach Maydom saddle because they're so beautiful. Like every single one, I'm like, oh, I love it. How did saddle making come to be? How did you get started with that? What is your focus with your own saddles?

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:07:17-01:10:20]
So like my journey in horsemanship and many other things in my life, saddle making happened very quickly and sort of out of necessity that I had this horse that was a big, robust thoroughbred with a very long shoulder and a very short back. And I had a nice Western saddle at the time that I used for most of my work, but it did not fit him. and finding something that did was proving very difficult. And even when I started looking into if I was going to come up with the money to buy a proper custom saddle, based on the education that Chiara had received about saddle fitting, once again, I was eager to question the norms. Because when someone, the explanations that people were giving me about why saddles had to be a certain way just seemed unsatisfactory to me. They just didn't really seem to correlate to And as we find with many spaces that are based on tradition and not necessarily on fact or experience. So, for instance, many, many Western saddles, I don't want to say all, but I would say I would feel very comfortable saying 95% of all Western saddles made or sold in the last 50 years are far too long. I totally agree. Right. We do not wish, for numerous reasons, we do not wish to have pronounced pressure beyond the 16th vertebrae or the last rib and a, excuse me, 18th vertebrae or the last rib, which on most horses is going to require a very short bar profile. So, for instance, most Western saddle tree makers would make a bar that is like 23 or 24 inches long. That's really long. And if you put it in the correct position behind the scapula in the front rather than where many, many people with their western saddles, which is up on top of the horse's shoulders, that long 24-inch bar is going to be way back on their lumbar and is probably going to bite into their hip as it comes forward. Mm-hmm. So when I started asking custom saddle makers who I was looking at spending, you know, five, $6,000 and waiting two years and blah, blah, blah for that, if they were willing to make a tree the way I really wanted it as short as possible, you know, maybe only just a stub of the tree sticking out behind the canthal to be able to fasten the skirts too. And as short as possible bar in the front and it met, you know, lots of additional flair, all the, I had all these ideas about what would make it work that they just kind of dismissed me about, uh, Oh, well, I don't understand because you see for roping, you've got to have 200 square inches of contact and all this malarkey. So in typical fashion for me, I sold my saddle and I bought tools and leather and a book. And at that time, I had done exactly one leather project. I made a pair of chaps that were Okay.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:10:20-01:10:26]
Which I feel it would be kind of a standard. Like it wouldn't be like crazy difficult to do.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:10:26-01:18:43]
I mean, kind of big, kind of expensive. A lot of people would start with maybe like a wallet or a knife sheath or something like that, that took less resources, but I was okay to spend, you know, a hundred bucks on my first leather project. And with like a starter kit from Amazon, like a very basic tool, some of which I still use, which are totally fine. And the house we were living in at the time was built in the like 1910, I think. And it had a root cellar that was six feet by ten feet. And the stairs that went down to it, like, did a 90-degree turn or made out of cinder blocks. Like, it was – Chiara didn't want to go down there. Like, it was really – like, the furnace was in there. The beams, like, for the floor of the house were at, like, maybe six inches above my head. It was very dark and very dingy. I couldn't walk all the way around the saddle. Like I had a bench and a work stand and I had to like move the saddle to the side to walk around it. But I built my first saddle in there and I used this book, The Stolman Encyclopedia of Saddle Making. And Al and Ann Stolman were great saddle makers and great – leather crafters and wrote many many books for uh the company craft tool which is now owned by tandy leather and they were this book is incredible because it has i mean it's really thick it's probably the one i have is hardbacked and it's probably has like 600 pages and each page has 10 or 12 black and white photos on it and i got patterns from this book too that you like uh scale up they're like tiny but they're on a grid and i scaled them up into bigger scale and made my own patterns and followed the steps in the book and ended up with a serviceable saddle. I, and I wrote in it for a long time and it worked okay. And then I built a second one that was a little better. And then the, I built a couple more that were a little better and was selling them as I went. When I built a new one, I just sell the old one for whatever it costs me to build it pretty much. And, but they were good enough that I could do that. I mean, they really didn't look like my first try really. Yeah. And shortly thereafter, a very, very good saddle maker put out a video set that he was not a great teacher, but I got to basically watch him do a bunch of steps. And I'm very strong visual learner. So I was able to see the tons of the stuff that I got from that book was super antiquated and was causing it to take way too long. I mean, just lots of things where they process the same piece of leather, like five times when you could do it twice. And, This fellow saved me a ton of time in terms of figuring out where I was going with that. But even still, the book and this video only showed you how to build one kind of saddle. So anytime I wanted to build something different, I had to figure it out. And that's something that's always been more or less easy for me is to extrapolate from a known set of knowledge and go from there. But it wasn't too long before my saddle started to look pretty store-bought. And all along since then, I've been riding in exclusively my own stuff. And that informs my builds a lot because when I would ride in one of my own saddles, it would usually be a while before I had the time or the money to build another one. And I just have to live with whatever I did that wasn't that good. And so I became pretty aware pretty quickly of what I wanted to change on the next one. Yeah. And started putting into my customer saddles, of course, that I wasn't going to make them walk around with the same rock in their shoe that I had. And as we go on now, where I'm really at is I like to build these saddles that have a traditional look. Because what I saw when I started getting into the saddle making deal, but I wanted to offer what I got into it for, which was these saddles that had a little bit more anatomical knowledge and progressive fit characteristics and ideas. And the only Western saddles that I saw that were pushing that type of marketing were They looked so outlandish that I just knew that they were not going to be that popular, that they were seeing like these saddles were so it was so important to them to signal to the marketplace and to the public that they were different than a traditional saddle, that they had to be these crazy shapes and have these, you know, wild colors and and features that. really helped them to stand out so that hopefully people would ask a question about them, I guess, and notice why they were different. But I also knew that my customers were going to be people who didn't want to give up the saddles that they were emotionally attached to, the ones that looked like the ones from their childhood or their hero or the place in the country where they grew up, where the saddle that you rode was this style. But like I've said for a while that To me, like, the most revolutionary electric car would be, like, the electric Honda Civic. Like, the one that causes you to give up nothing, that it's exactly the same as what you were doing before, but it's also a little better. So if my settles, they don't have to give up the tradition. And none of their friends are going to look at that and be like, what's that crazy thing you got there? They're going to be like, oh, what a nice looking... you know, saddle of this variety. And if it's interesting to that person, they can tell their friend, Oh yeah. And it also has this new technology and these progressive ideas about fit both to horse and rider that are beneficial. You know, that's extra, but I want them to just be able to walk down the street and enjoy their saddle and not have anybody pick it out. With that in mind, it's both the fits of the horses, of course, super important, And who I order saddle trees from has evolved based on that. A lot of the times I'll get a saddle tree from a saddle tree maker that's sort of half finished, and then I will shape on the wood by hand and get it where I want it or where it seems to be better for that horse, and then I'll cover it with fiberglass myself. And then in the seat profile, through Chiara's education and then experience and interpretation further, where I build the – Especially the balance center of the seat is very different for a female anatomy rider versus a male anatomy rider to... It's much more about, there's a lot of literature about the shape of the pelvis and the points of contact on the pelvis. And I think those are often more applicable to the fit in an English saddle and that the wider, just overall wider profile and rounder profile of the shape of a Western saddle means that a lot more of what we get from the interface with the seat is from our femurs and the muscles on our upper thigh. And as a result, I think on Western saddles, it's a lot less about the I'm not trying to get my saddles to be as narrow as possible so that they fit like English saddles. I find that I'm getting a lot more out of where I leave it wide and how that interfaces with the femurs and especially just the way that, you know, the way my legs come out of my pelvis is a very different direction orientation the way that Chiara's do. And the stirrup slot position and the balance position in the seat profile affect that profoundly. And that for someone to feel comfortable safe, even just at rest in a saddle, they probably have to feel like they're not going to fall over. And this is something that we can empathize with with our horses. I mean, the balance is so sacred for horses. And if we get on them and we're immediately effectively having to help ourselves to their balance to regain ours, it is unlikely that we're going to find very much harmony and movement or shared feeling of safety. And if we can build a saddle that puts a human in interface with the horse that causes them to be as close to balanced as possible in as many scenarios as possible, both are going to have the greatest chance of being able to be together. And that's what I'm really interested in providing at this point, that a saddle can really transform how someone interfaces with their horse. And I especially feel about Western saddles that because they're so much more rigid in their construction than most English saddles, that what communicates more sensation, a pillow or a brick, and that actually a firmer connection through more solid materials might provide us with more sensation rather than less. Even though an English saddle sort of feels like you're closer some of the time, it doesn't necessarily matter if the closeness has an insulator in between. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:18:45-01:19:53]
I love this so much. And I love especially what you said about maintaining the traditional look that people seek and desire with the technology that is going to be in benefit for horse and human. Because I think to different types of gear, whether it's like, I'm just going to throw random things out here, whether it's like a bitless bridle or a treeless saddle or what are some different, anyway, so like stuff like that, where it's like, it's different, you know, whatever. So many people shy away from stuff because you're like, oh, but it looks so different. It's not going to match with my old stuff or it's not going to match the people that I ride with or the discipline or something like that. And so keeping it Like my bitless bridal is like a stunning bridal. And I love it because it still looks like it like matches everything.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:19:54-01:20:05]
what I'm doing in the ring, if that makes sense, but it's also, I don't wish to take that away from you if there's no reason.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:20:05-01:20:18]
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, I love that. I think it's, I think it's awesome. I think it's the, the way of, of everything. It's like keep people within their comfort zone and help things grow.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:20:21-01:20:33]
Yeah, I think that's exactly what we're after. And it's funny because when you started this kind of next section of our conversation, you said that you wanted to go in a completely different direction. I love that you think that this is a completely different direction.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:20:33-01:20:58]
Right. Yeah, you're exactly right where it's like, well, like, it all works together. It's all cohesive. Yeah. I've been asking this question to all of the guests because I think it's so important to have this discussion. For each of you, whoever wants to go first, what is your hope for the future of the equestrian industry?

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:21:01-01:21:40]
I would love to live in a world where horses and humans enjoy their time together. And I don't really care what that looks like, if it's riding, if it's not riding, if it's competition, if it's not competition. Like, across the board, I would just love for... for humans and horses to be having a good time together. Just having fun. Just feeling joyful. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. You're probably going to have a lot more to say. I don't know. I would say, honestly... That's my Disney princess dream.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:21:40-01:22:60]
But honestly, I think I might have a lot less to say, which is that I don't have any hope for the future of the equestrian industry because it's not... It does what it says on the box, that the equestrian industry is not designed for this. No industry is. As we go forward with all these things, the enemy or the trend in force that causes most violence to be propagated against horses is the industry. It is misconceptions that are propagated to everyone. continue to prop up power structures that are backed by either tangible prestige that is based on profit or whatever. I mean, it doesn't matter. Even tradition is – it's only – it's a dead man's tracks in the dust. It's not – So for me, I actually don't really care about the equine industry. I want to be able to build enough saddles for people that I can continue to have horses in my backyard, and I wish to help people such as I can, but that I actually have no interest in putting any pressure on the industry to change because it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do, and expecting it to do something different is, for me, a waste of energy.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:23:02-01:23:03]
Woof, woof.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:23:08-01:23:13]
I'm like sitting with that for a sec. Sorry for my radio silence here. I'm just like... No, you're good.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:23:14-01:23:14]
Me too.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:23:15-01:23:15]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:23:16-01:23:40]
I mean, I've been in industries. I spent the first part of my horse and ship career attempting to... initiate the correct steps to be a part of the industry so that I might gain some of the tangible rewards. And it has brought me precious little, financially or otherwise. And as a result, for me, I do not believe that it functions.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:23:42-01:24:16]
I think part of the reason why I'm sitting with this so much is because you like eloquently explained or described how I've been feeling where I'm just like, I'm just kind of done with the industry a little bit. Like I just, I've just been in this happy little bubble with my horses. And it is so much more beautiful than the, The striving to fit into a broken system that I I felt before.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:24:16-01:24:29]
Well, like we say about many other systems in the world that do not always produce joy, the system is not broken. The system is functioning exactly as it was designed to be destroyed.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:24:31-01:24:40]
And I think what we're talking about right now and Danielle hearing, hearing you share that, like, this is what a natural horsemanship means to us. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:24:42-01:25:25]
That you get to decide what's working for you and your horses on any given day. And that if there's someone like us who might be able to offer something that feels good to you at any point, we would love to be a part of it. But we've been thinking a lot about, like, I have a friend who's a filmmaker and I was speaking to him about this a little while ago. We were talking about what is the difference between art and content in the modern age? Because obviously he would consider himself to be an artist, but he does a lot of work for money for people and produces what ends up being content. And our idea at the time, at least, was that art becomes content at the moment we change something to better suit either the patron or the viewer.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:25:26-01:25:26]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:25:27-01:27:50]
And Chiara and I have been sort of undertaking a challenge, especially since the launch of Unnatural and since we're trying to make a little bit of a, not necessarily a fresh start, but a consolidation of where we're really at these days, that when we write something or something that we're going to put out to the public, we try to run it through the filter of would we feel good about posting this with the comments turned off? Unfortunately, we can't actually do that because the algorithm is so driven by comments and because we do actually need to make some amount of money. We do need people to see it. And if we want people to gain any benefit from something that we really like, we want it to go as far as it can. But if the answer was I wrote this piece and I like it so much that – but the moment when I press send – It feels so good to me to have offered this to anyone who might pick it up now or in time immemorial that I really do not care what anybody says about it today or tomorrow, who reacts or how much traction it gains. That to me is a good idea of whether or not I wrote something that's actually from me and for me. And I'm choosing to feel good about presenting it to others because that seems like the thing to do. But it's not something that – and I notice it while I'm writing where I go, did I – am I changing this in the hopes that it will gain more viewership because it will infuriate the right people or please the right people or whatever? That I really – I want to live in a world where I like my own thoughts enough to that I want to share them. And that's back to that piece of unworthiness. Like Chiara was talking about the saddle deal too, that people go, oh, I don't care if I'm uncomfortable as long as my horse is. But recognizing for us in a broader context that that very statement is making it impossible for the horse to be comfortable. If we believe that it's very difficult for us to enjoy our time with our horses if they're not enjoying it, I do believe that that door swings both ways. And that if I am destroying my ability to have a good time with my horse because I'm putting pressure on myself based on outside forces or anything like that, I cannot truly say that I am being selfless and that I really want my horse to have the best time possible because I probably need to be enjoying it too.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:27:52-01:28:03]
Yeah. Yeah. There's a quote by an author that says better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:28:04-01:28:07]
Oh, that's a good one. That is good.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:28:07-01:28:08]
That's spicy.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:28:08-01:28:24]
Yeah. And when you were saying that, Zach, I was like, oh, my gosh, that's exactly that quote. But the beautiful thing about that quote is that it doesn't just apply to writing. And I mean, when you were saying about content and stuff like that, like, yes. And also it applies to so many other areas of life.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:28:26-01:28:41]
like doing this podcast, I think is fairly effortless for us because we like you and we're interested in talking to you about these things. And I have no idea who might listen to it, but that, you know, I knew that I was going to thoroughly enjoy talking about this stuff with you. So it didn't really matter.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:28:42-01:28:44]
Oh, well, thank you. We can just end right now.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:28:44-01:28:48]
Filled my cup.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:28:48-01:29:15]
Thank you. Um, okay. Ending on that high note. Thank you. Um, we have four rapid fire questions that we ask every podcast guest. So let's go one at a time. Um, Kira, we'll start with you and then Zach, um, or we can switch it, but that's working fine for me. Okay, perfect. So the first one, and it's just, it's the first thing that comes to mind. The first one, do you have a motto or a favorite thing?

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:29:18-01:29:20]
Any harm, none do as you will.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:29:21-01:29:22]
Hmm.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:29:23-01:29:24]
What does that mean to you?

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:29:26-01:29:39]
That means that as long as there is no harm being caused to myself in this context, to myself, to my horse or to those around us, then if it feels good, do it.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:29:45-01:30:56]
I'd say I don't have something that I can call to that is my most favorite thing piece I think my guiding my guiding principle through most of my work continues to be it's in the feet and I first heard that from Buck Branaman but and I think he got it from Ray Hunt it doesn't really matter it has been something that has continued to allow me to come back to recognizing the way I think see it now anyway that the horse is a whole but that very much how they how they paint their canvases through their movement in space, and that the way that their feet move and leave the ground and return to the ground and everything speaks so completely about what's going on in every part of them that any time I have led myself astray in trying to explain away the way that their feet hit the ground or don't, I have always been on a fool's errand. And if I stay true to that and let them tell me the truth through that expression, so far it has never been incorrect.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:30:58-01:31:09]
I love that. It brings to mind the saying, be where your feet are, which ties in like the whole mindful horsemanship and everything like that that we discussed. Sure. Love it.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:31:09-01:31:10]
Thanks for having me on the show.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:31:12-01:31:26]
Second question, who has been the most influential person in your equestrian journey? Zach. He's like, oh, crap, now I've got to say Kara.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:31:26-01:32:26]
But it was my first thought. Like, I can certainly say if I perform an analysis of, you know, what elements I have taken the most from, like, in terms of my overarching thoughts, Absolutely. I mean, likChiaraara is the reason that I'm here completely. And then even my explorations and directions that sometimes were tangent to hers and sometimes not have always been relative to her. So the way that she and I have discussed new information or new concepts or snags and difficulties, I mean, we talk to our horse friends and, like, we're – we really – never get tired of this, that we spend so, you know, almost all of our time together because we're at home and we have horses at home and we, we go and see clients and we do work here, but we're, we spend every evening pretty much talking about what we found with our horses and with our students that day and what was interesting and what was hard and what wasn't. And

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:32:27-01:32:28]
What we learned about ourselves.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:32:28-01:33:32]
Yeah. So we cannot stress enough that we do, I think at least know that we are incredibly fortunate in this. Yeah. And that we, and we talk often about how we both cannot think of what it would have been like to, to go through this with a partner who wasn't doing it too. Yeah. And either not just, Oh, what if, because we see certainly trainers and stuff who like they, maybe there's the, uh, The gal is an eventing trainer and her husband rides and he drags the arena. But it's not it. That she's going through things that he's just not touching in terms of what it means to be alone with a horse and find out about yourself. And they never have these conversations. And maybe one day they will and maybe they won't. And I see... often a longing in those people that they want so badly to talk to another human being about what they've experienced in this profoundly singular path. And the opportunities that we have for that are just unbelievable.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:33:33-01:34:19]
Hmm. I also know that you guys both, um, each of you have very important hard horses, um, that have Zach, I know that you mentioned yours or actually, I don't know if you were referring to your hard horse, but you had mentioned, um, the horse that kind of helped you with the, the idea of pressure and stuff like that. And Kara, you wrote a beautiful post the other day on social media, um, with your hard horse and, you know, the different things in life. And I know that you mentioned Zach in it as well. So I think it's so beautiful that, you know, that each of you have each other, like you had said, Zach, to kind of be that sounding board for one another in this thing that, you know, horses are our biggest personal growth, in my opinion.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:34:19-01:34:22]
Yeah. Yeah, agreed.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:34:22-01:34:52]
I did a Facebook marketplace sale the other day and it was selling a pair of boots that I had. And I met this girl in a parking lot. She was buying them from me and we just had a really quick discussion about our horses and stuff. And she kind of was saying something and it was so in alignment with the way that I feel. And then we went about our ways and, you know, made the sale and that. And I keep thinking I should like find her in my Facebook marketplace archives and be like, do you want to get a coffee sometime?

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:34:53-01:34:54]
Totally.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:34:54-01:35:13]
It's just those things that it is. It's so nice to have those people that are so in alignment with, with you and with what you're going through, or it doesn't even have to be, you're going through similar things, but you know, you can, you can have a safe place of discussion.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:35:14-01:35:16]
Yeah. Huge.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:35:18-01:35:33]
Anyways, I'm taking time of your rapid fire-ness. Okay, next question. If you could give people, or sorry, give a question to people in general, I guess, one piece of advice, what would it be?

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:35:37-01:35:53]
Oof. You know, I could probably think of a much more articulate way of phrasing it, but something along the lines of, like, listen to all your parts, believe what they're telling you, and then take them to your horse. Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:35:53-01:35:53]
Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:35:58-01:36:23]
Yeah, I'm not sure I can do one piece of advice. I know. If someone were to say, oh, hey, I just got a horse. Give me one piece. Or I've been a horse person my whole life. What's one piece of advice? I honestly don't know. I don't think I have one.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:36:24-01:36:25]
That's okay. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:36:28-01:36:46]
I think, yeah, I feel uncomfortable offering something that general because there's so many people approaching equestrian pursuits for so many different reasons. And until I knew a little bit more about them, I probably wouldn't be able to offer anything that I would feel confident would have value.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:36:47-01:37:05]
I think you're selling yourself a little short here too, Zach. In the last 60, 70, 80 minutes or whatever that we've been speaking, the amount of wisdom that you have given our listeners is absolutely encapsulated in this answer. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:37:08-01:37:09]
Oh, there you go.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:37:09-01:37:11]
You're like, I don't have one thing.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:37:11-01:37:13]
You're like, I have all of the things.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:37:13-01:37:18]
Right. Well, I'd say probably I don't have a piece of advice until I ask a bunch of questions. Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:37:18-01:37:27]
Which in and of itself is like right there is wisdom. Yeah. Okay, last one.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:37:27-01:37:38]
Please complete this one. Oh, you know what? Actually, I've got it. Okay. And I'm taking this from somebody else, of course, but free advice is usually worth about what you pay for it.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:37:40-01:37:43]
There we go.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:37:44-01:37:52]
Perfect. Okay, last question. Please complete this sentence. For me, horses are...

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:37:56-01:38:11]
Man, I could really go in 20 different directions there, but just right knee-jerk reaction, for me, horses are my friends. They're my buddies. Let's see. I know I really could have gone deep with that one, but I was like, well.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:38:14-01:38:26]
I'd say horses are the beings in my life with which I have reliably found peace. safety and relationship.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:38:28-01:38:29]
Wow.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:38:31-01:38:32]
That's beautiful. Yeah, that is.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:38:32-01:38:34]
I love it.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:38:35-01:39:00]
I've enjoyed speaking with both of you so much. I enjoy both of you so much as humans. I appreciate you both. Um, and this has been back at you. Oh, thank you. This has been such a blast for me. Um, let's, um, not so humbly promote ourselves or promote you guys. Um, I don't know why I'm promoting myself, but let's promote you guys. Where can people find you? How can they learn more about you and what you offer and all of the things?

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:39:01-01:40:00]
I'd say unnatural horsemanship.com, but either with or without the hyphen, we got both at unnatural horsemanship on Facebook and Instagram. And really, like we said, you know, if you go to those places, we don't, talk too much about what we do. I mean, if you just listen to this whole podcast, you know quite a bit more about it, but that we left it deliberately kind of vague because we hope that if people saw it and felt something that felt interesting, that they would be interested in talking more and seeing if there was something that we had to offer them. And for instance, on our website, you can book a a consultation with us that is free of charge. I think it's, was it 15 minutes or something? 20 minutes. Yeah. In any case, we invite anybody who thinks that we might have something to offer them and their journey with horses or without. Please, you know, engage us in conversation. Obviously we're not too shy about talking about this stuff.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:40:02-01:40:16]
Awesome. We're going to put everything in the show notes as well so that people can easily find the links and find you guys. So thank you again so much for coming on here. Like I said, this has been so enjoyable for me. And yeah, thank you.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:40:16-01:40:21]
Thank you. We adore you. It was very honoring for you to invite us.

[SPEAKER 3]
[01:40:23-01:40:57]
Thank you. Thank you. Until next time, be kind to yourself, your horses and others.

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