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