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Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them. How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success, and most importantly, find joy.
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: Thanks for joining us.
Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New
York Times bestselling author of
The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
Before I jump in with today's guest, I
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 here,
please give it a thumbs up,
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It really, really helps
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To find out about our certification
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please go to rupertisaacson.com.
So now let's jump in.
Welcome back to Live Free, Ride Free.
I've got Patrick King, who I'm
meeting for the first time.
And I love this because I've heard of him.
You know, I'm sure lots of you have
heard of him, and those of you who
are online, you see his stuff around.
But since we started putting out a bunch
of YouTube videos, it's, it's very nice.
Really nice horse people have sort
of reached out and commented, and
then we're like, "Oh, well, why
don't we have a conversation then?"
And so here we are doing that.
And what's lovely about this is that
it allows a kind of organic exchange of
what knowledge we've sort of accrued over
the years and where we'd like it to go.
And many of these conversations,
Patrick was actually saying this
just now often happen between horse
people not in a public forum, and
so therefore the contents of those
conversations often don't get
disseminated democratically, let's say.
So that's the point of this.
So now Patrick and I also share a mentor.
We share a mentor in the great Luis
Valença in, in Lisbon, so we're sort of
hatching out of the same egg basically.
But I th- I have a strong suspicion
that the way in which we both found
our way there is rather different,
and so therefore the insights we might
be taking away from it are rather
different and therefore worth sharing.
So Patrick, thanks for coming
on and being a good sport.
Who are you?
Where do you live?
What do you do and why?
Patrick King: All those questions.
Gosh.
Yeah.
Well, first, thank you so much, Rupert.
It's yeah, like you said,
you know, the shared mentor,
shared teacher in Senhora Luis.
It's, I've, I've heard of you since my
first trip visiting with the Valenças,
and so you've been in the back of my
mind on my radar like, "Who is this guy?
I want to learn more
about what he's doing."
And so thank you for the content
that you put out because I've
been enjoying it very much lately.
And and thank you for
the opportunity to chat.
It's a great way to meet
virtually before we do in person
at some point, so thank you.
There
Rupert Isaacson: will be
pints involved, I'm sure.
Then we can save ourselves
from ourselves, yeah.
But yeah, no, y- you're Canadian, right?
Patrick King: I'm not.
No, no, no.
No.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, I thought you were.
Okay.
Nope.
Well, then I stand corrected.
Okay.
Patrick King: You know, that's interesting
though because I think you're like
the third person- A lot of people
tell you that ⦠who has said that.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I, I, I think 25-
Patrick King: Must be because I'm so nice.
The Canadians are all so nice, I hear.
Rupert Isaacson: It's, it must be.
All right.
So you're, you're, you're as
Canadian as you can be while being
an American, which normally means
one comes from Michigan, actually.
It- Tell us, okay, who you are, where
are you from, what do you do, wh-
and why are you doing this stuff?
Patrick King: There we go.
Well, why, could we do anything else?
So yeah, so I I grew up in Western
Pennsylvania, had a short stint
as a young boy as an Army brat
in Germany for a couple years
- Yeah ⦠but that was all pre-horses.
But I come originally from Western
Pennsylvania with experience
with lots of different horses.
Growing up I was in the 4H program
and showed in, you know, some of
the local organizations, everything.
Were
Rupert Isaacson: your parents horsey?
Patrick King: They were horsey, yep.
My stepmother rode five-gaited
saddlebreds, Right ⦠when she was
younger, and she had Arabians whenever
my young brother and I moved over
from Germany to live with our father.
And so that's where the horse bug kind
of started is that was just part of it.
So- So we had Arabs, and Quarter
Horses, and Paints, and Minis, and,
you know, lots of different breeds.
And, and through the, like I say,
through the 4H and things like
that, I got exposure to a lot
of different activities with the
horses which was, was really great.
I live now in Virginia.
I live right up against
the Blue Ridge Mountains.
You, you can't find a bad view
no matter where you look here.
Rupert Isaacson: Where exactly?
Patrick King: Lexington.
Natural Bridge,
Rupert Isaacson: technically.
But my- I, I, my first ever horse job in
the US was in Clarke County, further up.
Shenandoah.
Patrick King: Okay.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And I know just how
astonishingly beautiful that landscape is.
It's, yeah.
Patrick King: Yeah, it really is.
Yeah, it really is.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Patrick King: But yeah, so I along my
journey I landed sort of an apprenticeship
opportunity with a horseman named
Ray Hunt who's pretty popular on the
Western horsemanship side of things.
Rupert Isaacson: I've heard
of Ray Hunt, absolutely.
Patrick King: Yeah, yeah.
So I got the opportunity to
spend extended time with Ray.
Got to live with him for a couple
months and that changed a lot of
things for sure, really helped me to
see more, to see things differently.
I thought I knew what I was doing
up to that point, but realized
that I didn't know anything.
Ray's book was one of those
that you would readâ¦
I did anyway.
I would read it every winter for a number
of years, and every year I would say, "Oh,
this is, this is what he's talking about."
And then the next year I'd read it and
I'd say, "No, dummy, it wasn't that.
This is what he's talking about."
And, and that just kept repeating,
and then when I got to ride with
him, it was, it was, "Oh, no,
this is what he's talking about."
Like, "You don't even
have a clue," you know?
That idea of words meaning more, things
meaning more based on our experience.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Anyway, so- This is often
a problem, isn't it?
You know, that, that- Oh, it is ⦠the
translation through books is tricky.
Yeah.
Patrick King: Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
It, it's, we, we understand
from where we're coming from
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And that sadly, most horse books
are written by horse people who are-
Mm-hmm ⦠terrible communicators.
Let's just admit that.
So they're not- Absolutely
⦠taught how to communicate.
They're not taught any kind of pedagogy.
They're not- Mm-hmm ⦠taught
how to write.
So it's an- Yeah ⦠absolute
cra- and they tend not to
edit their stuff that well.
And by the time they're writing, they
tend to have a bunch of yes-men around
them who just say, "Oh, you're a genius."
So they don't say, "Actually,
what do you mean by that?
No, sorry, you just contradicted
yourself in that context over there."
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And I think
we've had that problem all the
way down the old dead dudes.
Patrick King: Yeah, totally
⦠Rupert Isaacson: whether they were
aristocrats writing for each other,
or whether they, in the more modern
context, were sort of people who wanted
to keep a certain mystique or just- Mm
simply weren't very good at communicating,
but were very good practitioners.
Mm-hmm.
And so I think a lot of us have been
stumbling around, you know, as you
say, trying to piece it together.
And then when- It's very much ⦠you
actually do get in front of one of
those mentors, you're like, "Oh, right."
But what are the odds that
I can get there, you know?
For every one person that gets there-
Exactly ⦠are 10,000 that don't.
Okay, so you- Exactly ⦠you
got to Ray Hunt.
And- Mm-hmm ⦠now you, obviously
you and I share the great
Luis Valenza as, as a mentor.
But-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: tell us what
you do now, and then what was the
transition between Ray Hunt and that?
Patrick King: Yeah, so, so my time with
Ray was obviously, you know, more on
the Western horsemanship side of things.
Started lots and lots of
young horses under saddle.
And eventually in the area I
lived in, that led me to dressage.
I started having more dressage clients
send me their horses, and then I got
the opportunity, as one often does
when you work with young horses owners
who were maybe not quite confident
riding their horses yet, right?
Once they had a basic foundation.
And so I got the opportunity, several
of them would say, "Well, can you go
ride in this clinic with so and so?"
Ah.
In these dressage clinics.
And that really helped
me to get into that.
And for, for a while before I met Ray
and in my youth, I rode hunt seat.
More the follow the rail,
walk, trot, walk, canter, walk,
reverse sort of idea, you know?
Mm-hmm.
And the pleasure shows
and that sort of thing.
But so I was always quite
comfortable in, in breeches, as
most colt starters are not, right?
Most cowboys are not.
But I was alwaysâ¦
I used to joke that I was dressage
by passion, but Western by function.
Because I've always been one of those
that wanted to know why do things work,
how do things work, what if we- What
if we tweak it a little bit this way?
What's the horse's response going to be,
and how does that communication happen?
And so that always sort of drew me to what
I saw as dressage, classical dressage.
But so that's, that's really for me
where the, the interest was always
there, and the door got opened.
And ultimately, that led me
to meeting someone who would
become a mentor, Mark Russell.
Rupert Isaacson: Ah, yes.
The late Mark Russell.
Patrick King: The late
Mark Russell, absolutely.
And we didn't get to spend a
whole lot of time together.
We taught together a couple times.
We-- I met him at a sort of a
symposium that was put together,
a very small, quiet, sort of an
intimate symposium, where it was
where I first met Mark, and it was
just, these things made so much sense.
What he was talking
about made so much sense.
And it really opened my eyes to,
oh, there's even more, right?
You know, again, coming from
our own perspective, we learn
from where we are, right?
And I think
Rupert Isaacson: that's- Just a quick
aside, but for those listeners and, and
viewers who don't know Mark Russell,
Mark Russell was sort of one of the
really early linkers of sort of,
let's say everyday American riding,
both Western and English- Mm-hmm
with the classical greats.
He was one of the first guys to
start going over to Portugal and
then putting it all together.
Mm-hmm.
And then, and then sadly, very sadly,
after he wrote a few books, he got
killed in a, in a, in an accident during
a clinic with a young horse in Texas.
Mm-hmm.
And I'd say America lost, you
know, the possibility for a
really great future mentor there.
But if you have a chance- Yeah ⦠to
check out his books, you should.
Okay, that's just the aside.
Sorry, go, go on.
Patrick King: And, and that's--
the, those, the books are fantastic.
The videos that are out
there are fantastic.
There's some videos on YouTube as well.
I definitely recommend them.
I share them with my
students all the time.
Yeah, they're, they're really great.
But yeah, so Mark, Mark really
got me thinking even deeper.
You know, it was up u- up to that point,
it was, okay, we control the feet.
We get to the mind through the feet.
You know, that was-- that's
a big thing from Ray, get to
the mind through the feet, and
understanding where the feet are.
And Mark helped me realize The feet are
an extension of the spine, and that's
all part of the nervous system, right?
Like, can we dig in there
a little bit deeper?
But one of the things that Mark talked
about in some of our conversations
together is that he wanted to go back to
Portugal, and he said, "You know, Nuno's
not around anymore, but Luis Valença would
be somebody that I would go to visit."
And so that name got kind of, you
know, filed away in the back of my
mind, and that's what eventually led
me to going and, and working with
Señor Luis and the Valença family.
And I've gone back several times
and, and can't wait for the
next opportunity to do that.
But yeah.
And, and on the way, I've found lots
of mentors, lots of teachers lots
of friends across all disciplines.
And Señor Luis organized the opportunity
for me to become a short-term
student at the Royal School in Spain.
So I've gone there and ridden
a few times in short courses.
And it'sâ¦
like I say, I wanna know why.
I wanna know how things work underneath
for both the self-development side
of things and helping to develop
the horse, as well as helping to
share that with others, right?
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: So that's
really always been with that.
So here's, here's my, here's my challenge
question I'm just gonna throw out.
Why bother with all of that?
Like, what's, what's the point?
And I'm playing devil's advocate
because- Mm-hmm ⦠obviously
we share the same passion.
Mm-hmm.
But I think the question is worth posing.
Like, what is the intrinsic value of
diving up one's own bottom to that
degree, and up the horse's bottom too?
You know, hopefully, you know.
Patrick King: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Joke, but,
you know, what's the point of
nerding out to that degree?
How does it make the world a better place?
Why, why, why even, why
even start the endeavor?
Patrick King: To find what's real
Rupert Isaacson: Go on
⦠Patrick King: rather
than what's superficial
And maybe it's, maybe it's from part
of my early experience with horses.
I remember my first time showing a horse.
I was like 12, I think,
or something like that.
And I was just thrown on a, on a, not
literally thrown on a horse, but I was
put on a horse that a young quarter horse.
And I was going in a walk trot class, you
know, 11, 12-year-old Patrick on this,
on this horse that was basically a catch
ride, belonged to our farrier's wife.
And it was a very
Very barbarically trained Western
pleasure horse, as many of them are.
I often refer to it as Western
displeasure, so I hope that doesn't
piss off any of your listeners, but,
Rupert Isaacson: Huge, 87 angry comments.
Cool.
Yeah.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Send your hate mail to
office@pkhorsemanship.com.
But very barbarically trained, very,
you do what I say, kind of a, you
know, really pushed and pulled
and, and that sort of thing.
And the-
Rupert Isaacson: Perhaps
not much pleasure involved.
Yeah.
Patrick King: There's not
much ple- which is why I refer
to it as displeasure, right?
Mm-hmm.
But the horse, I mean, she wasâ¦
I didn't know much.
Looking back, she was a saint to even
tolerate me flopping around up there.
But where I grew up showing horses was
next to a standard bred trotting track.
What I was told by the owner of
this horse was, "You know, if she
gets too fast, jerk on the reins,
squeeze her with your spurs."
Okay?
This was back in the days when,
when the spur stop thing was really,
like, in its in its grand original
excitement that folks were teaching
Rupert Isaacson: horses.
Which is not a thing in the English
world at all, so you- Exactly
might a little bit just want
to explain what a spur stop is.
Yeah.
Patrick King: Yeah.
So the idea of the spur stop is the
harder you squeeze with your spurs,
the slower they go, essentially
through the contraction of the abs
and just really slowing them down.
And if they don't slow down, then you
beat up on them with the bridle, basically
to get them to submit and slow down.
But so it was, you know- Mm-hmm ⦠pick
up on the reins, jerk on the
reins, squeeze her with your spurs.
That'll slow her down.
And she said, "And if that
doesn't work, growl at her."
Well, this horse hadn't seen standardbreds
racing across, around the track, and
so we went into a, a second class, and
we were supposed to be loping along
the rail, and the mare saw that and
got fast, and I went to slow her down.
Here's, here's now a concerned
prey animal getting jabbed
with these gut hooks inside-
Rupert Isaacson: And you tried
to follow instructions, right.
Yeah
⦠Patrick King: exactly, and I'm just, you
know, yeah, 12-year-old me is doing what I
was told to do because I didn't know, you
know, my ass from my elbow at that point.
And so I'm gouging with the spurs,
and I'm jerking with the bridle,
and I'm growling because that's
what I was told to do, right?
And Mother Nature will always win.
I believe it.
In case anybody's wondering,
Mother Nature will always win.
Yeah.
And so the, it, it took, I don't know,
there was five or six people jumped
into the arena to catch young me on this
horse, you know, and that sort of thing.
And, and she was probably barely loping
around, but it was out of control for
what it was supposed to be, right?
But so I, I think that's one of
those things and, and then a short
while after, my father acquired a
horse that was pretty aggressive.
He was part of that industry.
The horse was, was part of that
industry and, and really had a lot of
mental challenges as a result of it.
Which breed was this, sorry?
The Western pleasure horses.
And the horse was intelligent
and maybe I would say
intelligent to his own detriment.
Mm-hmm.
And he realized that his life was
not fair, and he would self-mutilate.
He would rip his flanks
open with his teeth.
He w- I mean, just really
beat himself up pretty bad.
Mm.
And and the answer from everyone locally
in, in the industry there was, you
know, "Just get harder, get firmer."
I remember at one point-
Rupert Isaacson: But if he would do
that, I mean, if he would self-mutilate,
that, what would trigger that?
Patrick King: Oh, I mean, it would
seem like if the wind changed
direction, he thought it was his
Rupert Isaacson: fault.
It wasn't necessarily something
that the rider did or didn't
Patrick King: do?
No, you could see him.
He would do it, he would do
it out in the paddock even.
Okay.
If things were upsetting to him,
he would, he would grab his knee
with his mouth and try to run.
Rupert Isaacson: And he wasn't
a stallion, he was a gelding?
Patrick King: He was a gelding.
Mm-hmm, exactly.
Thank goodness.
Very stallion-like
tendencies in that regard.
A machine if you'd get
him in the show ring.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: Except if you were in hand.
We did the halter, the showmanship
business, and he would, he would bite.
Oh, my goodness- Try to eat
you ⦠would this horse bite.
Yeah, try to eat you and, and the
advice at one point was to put,
it's, it's crazy to even think back
on it, was to put thumbtacks inside
your gloves, and if he went to
bite, punch him with the thumbtacks.
Let me tell you how many times I did that.
One.
And I came out with shreds of leather
and, and bloody backs of my hands.
But again, at that time I
didn't know any different.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Patrick King: Right?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Patrick King: So there was one
moment when he got me cornered.
He was pretty sure I was five minutes
late for dinner, and he got me cornered
in the back of a stall, and the hind
feet, both hind feet grazed the sides
of my ears against the stall wall
I think I was 14 maybe at that point.
And like any macho 14-year-old
boy, curled in a ball and cried.
Rupert Isaacson: Had to prove yourself.
Patrick King: And-
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Patrick King: Yeah.
Right?
Exactly.
Yeah, that's pretty standard.
You know, and, and snuck out of the stall
while he was eating his dinner, you know.
And, and that was really the
moment that it was, "I've gotta
find something that's more real.
If I'm, if I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna
live through this, I can't take the advice
of, of what everybody locally is giving.
I can't take that.
I've gotta seek something more."
Rupert Isaacson: Was that your
dad who gave you that advice
or was that somebody else?
Patrick King: It was everyone.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Patrick King: Basically.
Everyone there.
And
Rupert Isaacson: w- when they observed
that it didn't work was there a plan B?
Patrick King: Harder.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Patrick King: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: H- here's a question.
Again, a lot of people listen
to this from all over the world.
They won't necessarily know
what Western pleasure is.
Mm-hmm.
I, when I picture Western pleasure, I
picture people in an arena in a show
ring with the horse's head very low-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: in fancy Western gear.
Often the gear is quite eye-catching.
And,
Patrick King: Disco ball-ish.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sort of.
Exactly.
So lots of bling and lots of like
breeches with fire on them and things.
And, but the horse, soft,
low, more or less touching the
ground a bit with his nose.
Now, when you see that from the
outside, if you didn't know anything
about it, you'd say, "Well, that
looks, you know, quite relaxed."
How is that-
And it's not my world at all.
Mm.
How is brutality connected with that?
Like, why, when, and how, how might it
work that brutality could get that effect?
I'm actually quite intrigued.
Patrick King: There's a big difference
between submission and relaxation.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: Just like
there's a difference between
education and subjugation
Rupert Isaacson: And again, to play
devil's advocate for the Western pleasure
industry, can we presume that there are
people within there, lots of people in
there who are not being so brutal and
who are, who are doing it very nicely?
Patrick King: Certainly.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Patrick King: Certainly.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah, and I, and I, I know I
painted it like a, a really nasty
Rupert Isaacson: sort of thing.
But is, is it one of thoseâ¦
Is it a bit like, I mean, you know, y- you
mentioned before we hit the record button
that your stepmom, stepmom, wasn't it?
Mm-hmm.
Was a five-gaited saddle seat shower.
Mm-hmm.
And I think many of us who's lived in the
USA for a long time know that that can be
an absolute animal rights can of worms.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
And this was certainly, you
know, in, in times much prior
to that, and then when, when-
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
⦠Patrick King: she was in
my life we had Arabians.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Patrick King: But yeah, it's,
you know, the, the origin-
Rupert Isaacson: It's still a problem
for people who are using pain to make the
horses do the big gaits and all of that.
And like it's- Right ⦠it's a
problem to the degree that I know
some people within the Humane
Society who have been campaigning for
decades trying to get changes and-
Patrick King: Absolutely
⦠Rupert Isaacson: can't
for various reasons.
A lot of money involved.
But yeah, you can sort of see
logically how force could get you
something exaggerated in a movement.
Mm.
But it's hard to see, but I guess
y- you're saying it's a submission.
Does it mean then that there are certain
horses that are put through that process
of submission who don't make it, and
then they don't become Western pleasure
horses, they go on to do something else?
Patrick King: Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Patrick King: Y- y- yes.
Yeah, they would go on to do
something else, and, and oftentimes
it's because they can't get slow
enough or low enough or- Right
whatever in the posture.
The, the
Rupert Isaacson: origin- But
it's a relatively extreme thing.
You, you, when you look at it,
you go, "Sure, not every horse
is gonna do that," you know?
Just physically-
Patrick King: Right
⦠Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Exactly.
And-
I don't, I don't want to get too much
hate mail going on here, but originally
the idea of the Western pleasure classes
w- was more or less along the lines of
if you think of what you're doing when
you're going out checking fence with
a ranch horse all day, you want them
to follow along the fence rail, right?
Loose rein.
Nice and steady kind of a thing.
Exactly.
Steady, relaxed, can we go along?
And over time, much like the
saddle seat ideas, over time
become more stylized, right?
Saddle seat and Western pleasure
at this point are certainly
disciplines built on style and
fashion, not necessarily on function.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Patrick King: Right?
And I, I feel like most of the time
when style and fashion gets involved
the horse unfortunately becomes a tool-
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
⦠Patrick King: to that endeavor
Rupert Isaacson: rather than the point
of- And style and fashion also usually
mean that quite a lot of money's gotten
involved at that point, otherwise it
doesn't become a style and a fashion.
Patrick King: Right.
It,
Rupert Isaacson: it remains people
just riding to church on Sunday.
Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
But then when you start betting on how
they arrive at church on Sunday, then it-
Patrick King: That's it.
That's it.
Right.
Exa- And that's where, you know,
saddle seat was originally.
It was- Yeah ⦠it was to
show your horse off on Sunday.
Yeah.
Going to town, right?
It was how, how fancy can they look?
And, and I, I again, I know I'm
sounding like I'm just talking negative
on both of those disciplines, and I
don't necessarily mean it to be that.
I, I bring it up only, I guess, to
say that the part of the industry
I came from originally, I learned
how to make a thing happen.
I learned how to force a horse.
Rupert Isaacson: And it's worth
talking about these things because
let's say Western pleasure had a, had
a beginning in a pleasurable ride-
Mm-hmm ⦠while out there doing
things that you kind of have to do.
Mm-hmm.
And let's say that the saddle seat had
a beginning in probably the horse riding
the first five miles to town, probably
pretty relaxed and on a loose rein.
Certainly not with stacked up shoes-
Mm-hmm ⦠certainly not with anything
like that- Mm-hmm ⦠because he would
just break down halfway, halfway there.
Patrick King: He, he
wouldn't make it to town.
Yeah, exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: It can only
exist in an arena, right?
That, an artificial environment.
Mm-hmm.
And then perhaps the last 100
yards as he arrived at church,
you'd pick him up and ask him for
the fancy thing, and everyone- Yep
would go, "Whoa," you know, "Farmer
Jones has got his horse going well."
And then, you know- Exactly ⦠Farmer
Smith would go, "Ooh, maybe
I can do better," you know?
And, Yeah ⦠but nonetheless, the
horse had a, you know, a functional
life where, where, It wasn't being
ridden that way all the time.
Mm-hmm.
And then over, and, and, and
anyone who's gonna decry what we're
saying, saying, "Well, the dressage
people do the same," guess what?
You're right.
Patrick King: Yeah.
Yeah.
You're right.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
You're right, you're right.
Absolutely.
Because dressage came out
of something very practical.
Yes.
And it's now being taken, in some
cases, not every case, but in some
niches- But the most visible niches
into something very stylized.
Mm-hmm.
And that hasn't necessarily
been a good thing.
Right ⦠but is dressage
itself a bad thing?
No.
And is-
Patrick King: Right
⦠Rupert Isaacson: imagine if everybody did
yoga competitively suddenly, and everyone
would be- Exactly ⦠because of yoga.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: The very thing that we're
supposed to do to keep us out of hospital
would put us- Yes ⦠in hospital.
Yes.
Absolutely.
So it's that thing, I think, where any,
any idea that becomes, is taken too far-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
Rupert Isaacson: becomes the antithesis
of itself, becomes the opposite
of itself, and I think we've seen
that- Totally ⦠happen in so many
disciplines e- with e- you know,
equestrianism that, Yeah ⦠I don't-
Patrick King: Well, and how
many disciplines right now still
exist because of practicality?
How many horses exist
because of practicality?
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
Indeed, indeed.
Patrick King: They don't, you know?
It's, I'm not saying the num- the
number's not zero, but it's low, right?
Rupert Isaacson: Interestingly, yeah.
It's low.
I mean, again, this, so this
is how I got into dressage.
So I wasn't interested
really particularly.
I mean, I, I was interested in
the s- in the way that, you know,
we're curious as, as horse people.
Mm-hmm.
But my background was very much
hunting, jumping, eventing-
Patrick King: Mm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: and having fun.
And then, you may know this I had
an autistic child who didn't speak.
Uh-huh.
And by hook and by crook, I found myself
with him in the saddle in front of me.
And I found that when the horse was
in soft collection, and I didn't
know much about soft collection then.
Oddly enough, I knew about how to collect
a horse from jumping, and I knew about how
to collect a horse from hunting hounds.
Because if you are the assistant to the
huntsman, if you're the, what's called
the whipper in, you are the one- Uh-huh
⦠who's trying to make sure the pack stays
together, and if young hounds run off to
do something they shouldn't do, you're
the one who has to go get them back.
So you're often leaning back a little
bit in the saddle, riding one-handed
because you have your hunting whip.
It's a little bit like a, so you, you
crack it to call the hounds to you.
So you have to have that hand
free, so you're riding kind of
one-handed, and sometimes you lean
back a little bit to sort of look,
oh, where, where's so-and-so?
And you, this thoroughbred off the track
that you got given to do starts to collect
up because they, they start to follow
your weight aid and learns the job.
And so, so that's really all I knew.
And so I would do that, and I would notice
that when the horse went into that sort
of a canter with my child in front of me,
he would speak, and he would speak a lot.
Mm.
And then I was like, "Oh, interesting.
All right.
Well, I'm going to keep doing this then."
Yeah.
And so I did, and because this then became
really what I did, I, I literally lived in
the saddle with him for about three years,
and eventually rode across this big chunk
of Mongolia with him, and so on and so on.
Oh, yeah,
Patrick King: I've heard
you reference that.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And had crazy adventures
with shamans and things.
All right.
But then we real- I thought,
"Well, why does this work?"
Because by then we were doing it
with lots of other kids, and it
was just working every single time.
Wow ⦠why, right?
So something's going on in the brain
of the kid, something's going on
in the nervous system of the kid.
Who understands about
brains and nervous systems?
Neuroscientists.
So I went to some different
neuroscientists in different
universities, and I said, "Can you
explain why this thing is working?"
And interestingly, I got pretty
much the same answer from
everybody, which was, "Oh, yeah.
If you look at the video, Rupert,
of, of what's going on there, you'll
notice that the child's hips are
rocking in a gentle rhythm while
the horse is in this kind of rhythm.
And it's not just in the canter, it's
also in some of the trot work and so on.
Mm-hmm.
And this makes them produce
a hormone, and it's the same
hormone you produce and itâ¦
'Cause it feels good, right?
It feels good to ride a horse like that.
Why?
Why does it feel good?
It makes you produce
this feel-good hormone.
The hormone's called oxytocin.
And we've got- Okay ⦠four
main happy hormones.
So we've got, you know, dopamine,
which is a little bit like,
"Ha-ha, I got it," or I'm inten-
in anticipation of, of something.
Mm-hmm.
Then we have serotonin, you know, which
is mostly produced in the gut and makes
us cheerful and functional, social.
And then we've got endorphins,
which is the ah, after a workout or-
Mm-hmm ⦠chocolate or something.
And then we've got oxytocin,
which is the queen.
And the reason, and, because that's
about euphoria, that's the feeling.
Patrick King: Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And usually with the
feeling comes insights.
And nature, as you said,
you can't fight nature.
Nature's always clever.
Nature always has a reason for things.
So it wants us to have this
hormone a lot because- It's
not just a feel-good hormone.
It's not just a nervous
system calming hormone.
It makes you communicate, and it's
tied up with- Mm-hmm ⦠reproduction.
So if a, if a male and a female Homo
sapien sapiens rock their hips in
rhythm together in certain situations,
they're quite likely to produce a baby.
If they do out there in Africa,
primordial you know, human life, you
fire a protein ball- Yeah ⦠down
onto the ground, and every predator in
a half-hour radius goes, "Oh, lunch.
Thank you."
Mm.
And then the next 20 years is trying
to meet all the challenges of bringing
this thing up, which is not quite as
much fun as the making of the, the
20 minutes it took to make the thing.
20 minutes to 20 years.
And then, ⦠if one of the parents
leaves, 'cause it's just too difficult,
the chances of survival for the offspring
go down to zero- Mm ⦠more or less.
So you need a constant bond,
bonding mechanism that makes
the, the two people strategize,
constantly want to communicate.
When we strategize, because we're
the speaking ape, which is one
thing we've got is the larynx-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
Rupert Isaacson: um, we tend to
become top predator, but only as
long as we keep communicating.
So they said, "Well, that's
what's going on, Rupert."
And then in addition, you're doing
all sorts of exploring up there and
playing games up there and doing like
things like that, which causes the
brain to respond to what's called
novel movement and produce a protein.
Patrick King: Oh.
Rupert Isaacson: And that protein is amino
acid, a protein is amino acid, calledâ¦
It's got a four-letter acronym, BDNF,
brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
The brain- Mm ⦠producing
more of itself.
And you get it in martial arts, you
get it in anything you do in dance.
Y- When you cross, particularly
when you cross the midline a lot.
Sport.
But you also get a lot of it with this.
And then you're balancing vestibular
systems, so it gets like a double effect
which causes some other cells in the
cerebellum to fire, which are called
Purkinje cells, named after a Czech
dude called PurkynÄ who discovered them,
which among a bazillion other things,
and all the neuroscientists listening
to me, "Well, you're oversimplifying."
It's like, yes, I am.
Yes, I am.
Patrick King: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Because that's
how you get information across it.
Yeah.
Exactly.
These Purkinje cells, among many
things govern social skills.
So if you've, take someone who's got
I-don't-wanna-communicate-ism- Auto,
the self, auto-ism Mm-hmm And you
fill them with communication hormone,
nervous system calm you down-y hormone,
and social skills brain cells in
the billions, you will see change.
And when, when this was explained,
we're like, "Oh, okay, well then we can
re- we can replicate this," but then
we need a way to show the horses that
are mostly donation therapy horses-
Patrick King: Mm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: who come from whatever
background, and usually come with all
kinds of aches and pains, and sometimes-
Sure ⦠stories in their mind, too.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: We've got to be able
to bring them in an efficient way to
be able to do this, and that led me to
say, "Well, okay, this is collection.
What is collection?
Collection is dressage."
Really, that's the dressing of the horse.
Mm.
So then I did probably what you did,
what everyone else did, which is you
try and get dressage lessons from
people, which don't work, because,
for reasons we could go into.
And then I realized, "Ah, the
key's all in the in-hand work.
The key is in the work
on the ground," great.
And that's how I found my way to the
master of that, who's Luis Valenza, and-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: he and his family taught
me, and then we could go home and we could
replicate it with the therapy horses.
And then we sort of looked up and
our therapy horses were piaffing, and
passaging, and tempi changing around.
And we're like, "Well, that
wasn't our original intent."
But it's a very nice byproduct.
And- Right ⦠it, and for a
horseman, it's a great nerd-out.
But we also realized that you, you,
you r- could use this whole system to
rehab the horses that were coming in.
So then when I started looking at
the sport dressage and seeing how the
same thing was being used to break
horses, specifically if they were
being trained only from the saddle
and always being made to work to the
maximum range of their movement and
sort of wear out their cartilage- Mm-hmm
before they get old and break down,
particularly the big warmbloods.
Like big dogs, you know, big
people, they often, the spine often
breaks down a bit quicker than-
Right ⦠with terriers or, you know.
Mm-hmm ⦠then you could see, oh gosh,
there is a problem, because this very
thing that we have found can open up a
child's world and rehab a horse in pain
and reverse age it can sadly, also, if
taken to an extreme, do all the things
that you were talking about before.
Mm-hmm.
So, you know, we, we came
in through this back door.
And w- w- when you were saying, "Do
we use horses anymore practically?"
You could argue that in the
therapy world, you absolutely do.
Patrick King: Yeah, for sure.
Rupert Isaacson: One of the few niches
outside of- Mm-hmm ⦠cowboying
where the working horse still
is, like, really a working horse.
Yeah.
But where y- you're dead right, for most
of the time what we're using horses for
is simply a personal human endeavor.
Patrick King: Right.
Want versus need for-
Indeed ⦠for the majority of it.
Mm-hmm.
Indeed.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So with that in
mind, there are you tr- you know,
helping people who are in the want
versus need world with horses.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Trying to make it
not what you just described from-
Patrick King: Right.
Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Patrick King: Yeah Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, one of the
things that Mark Russell that I heard
him say several times is, you know,
"Dressage should be for the horse,
the horse should not be for dressage."
Mm.
Right?
It's like can we, can we use the dressage,
the dressing of the horse, can we use
that to help the horse improve, you know?
Mm.
Better balance feels better.
Better posture feels better.
Better movement feels better.
Sometimes we have to unlock compensatory
patterns, and past stories, and
associations, and things like that to
find that, but it should feel good.
It should feel better for the horse.
It should be, in itself, it should be
the reward or the release, you know?
If, if we present it in that
way, and if we're doing it with,
with the horse in mind, right?
And hey, ribbons are nice.
Ribbons are great, right?
But if you get that ribbon
at the expense of the horse-
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
⦠Patrick King: that's,
that's not my dressage.
To quote Anna Blake in a podcast
interview I did with her, she
said, "That's not my dressage."
And I c- I love that,
that thought, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: It's w- it's worth
thinking about this because, you
know, I, you go out and clinic a
lot, I go out and clinic a lot.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And it used to be,
I'd say up until about two years
ago people would regard one a little
bit with suspicion if you didn't
have, particularly in America,
if you didn't have a show record.
Patrick King: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: And I haven't shown
a horse since I was in my 30s and,
you know- Mm-hmm ⦠and it wasn't in
dressage, it was at wall and jumping.
And I think I've rode in one dressage
show once, you know, and it wasn't
very g- I didn't do very well.
So now it seems to have shifted.
It's really interesting.
Uh-huh.
I'd say in the last two years
it's almost gotten to the point
where people now regard you with
suspicion if you are very much-
in the show world.
Patrick King: Right
Rupert Isaacson: Unless you're,
like, really in the belly of the
beast in Wellington or something.
Exactly ⦠and even there I feel
there's a kind of growing awareness
that, hold on, this is pointless.
Like, this is actually grandly pointless.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Unless we're doing
it for the practice of an art.
But if we're doing it for the practice
of an art, which is inherently
joyful, it, not every moment maybe,
but if you're writing a book, if
you're painting a picture, it's,
it's inherently a joyful thing.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Making music.
We can agree that writing's an art.
If that's what we're doing,
then art defies competition.
You can have an art competition, sure.
Patrick King: Sure.
Of course.
Rupert Isaacson: You can win
a prize for literature orâ¦
But I- Mm-hmm ⦠you know, I, you and I
can read that book and go, "Well, actually
I thought that other book was better."
And when they said, "Well, Patrick, what
do you mean by that book was better?"
You say, "Well, it just spoke to me more."
Patrick King: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
I just had an emotional reaction.
I'm not saying this other book is
bad, it just didn't- Mm-hmm ⦠light
my fire in the way that that
book that won no prize did.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Yet with FEI we've tried
to standardize what a book should be,
and that's kind of weird given that it's
supposed to be- Yeah ⦠an art, you know?
Yeah.
So you must deal with this all the
time because your, your clients
are coming partly from that world.
How do you help people navigate
this rather ambiguous terrain?
Patrick King: It's interesting because
I hear people talk about that, and
sometimes I think, "Well, I, I don't
even know what they're talking about."
Obviously I know what
they're talking about, butâ¦
So I, I stopped competing, think I
was about 20 when I stopped competing.
And because I was focused on training
and teaching and learning, and, you
know, as much as I love to teach, I am y-
you, you, if you see me teaching, you'd
be sure that that's my happiest place.
This, that's my second happiest place.
My happiest place is learning.
Mm.
I'm, I'm such a nerd.
I, I would, you know, between teaching
and learning, those are my two favorite
things on the planet, for sure.
But so I stopped competing
when I was around 20 years old.
And Julio Mendoza, I don't
know if you know who he is.
He, he repres- Can
Rupert Isaacson: you explain
to the lads listening who, who-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm ⦠that person is?
So Julio is from Ecuador.
He represented Ecuador
in the Paris Olympics.
He's right now over in Aachen at at the
Dressage World Championships competing.
He and I are friends.
I had some lessons on his horses
years ago, and fantastic, and I still
ride with him as often as possible,
which is not very often recently.
But-
He made a comment to me many years ago.
He said, "You know, the people that
need what-- that really need, like
capital N need, what you're sharing
won't hear it until you have your
medals, your dressage medals."
In other words, competitive experience,
just like what you're saying.
And I thought, "My schedule's
so busy, doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter."
Like, you know, whatever.
But that always lived in
the back of my mind, right?
And then I got the opportunity
to spend some time with Charles
de Kunffy, riding with him.
A classical legend, right?
And I had a couple horses in training
that I thought, "Well, I've gotâ¦"
Where I live in Virginia, 10 minutes
down the road, we have one of the nicest
show facilities on the East Coast.
Dressage is there all the time.
And I had these two horses, I
thought, "You know, I could-- I might
think about going and competing.
I think I could do this."
You know?
And I talked to Charles about it, and
I said, "But, you know, my problem with
it at this point is, yeah, I would love
to, to go in there and do that just
as a g- personal development, right?
As another test."
I said, "But, you know, I don't think I
would think twice about it if the horse
needed me to take a little detour and work
on something else as part of the test."
Obviously, you wouldn't be rude
enough to do something like that.
But the, you know, the, the mindset
in the back of my mind was like,
"Well, the test is secondary.
The horse is primary."
And I was almost expecting
Charles to say, "Yeah, you don't,
you don't need to do that."
And he said, "That's how
you know you're ready.
It's time to do it."
And I thought, "Oh, damn.
All right.
Well, now I've got no excuse."
And so I earned the bronze
medal, and I earned the silver
medal over just a couple shows.
And so now I've got the, you know,
some of the, the chops, some of
the experience in the show arena.
And even with that, I look at it like,
well, you know, those, those weren't
the best rides- Mm ⦠that I had.
They felt fine.
They felt good.
I was pleased with the horse.
There were moments where I was not
quite pleased with myself and myâ¦
You know, just as, as you go,
when you look back at a dressage
test, you think, "Oh, I could have
prepared for this a little better.
I could have prepared
for that a little better.
He could have been a little more
focused or soft or, or whatever."
So I've got then the experience in the
show pen, and I've found I do enjoy it.
I do very, very little of it
but I enjoy it, again, for the
self-development side of things.
Mm.
It's the, okay, if I've got the whole
length of the arena to prepare my
horse's body for a canter transition,
is that the same as canter at E?
I can make up all sorts of
stories on, "Oh, the wind was
blowing a little too much.
There's a squirrel on the fence post.
I need a little more feel on this side."
Can I get him ready by
this certain point, right?
But can I do it with the horse in mind?
Can I do it without
sacrificing everything?
Can we be so prepared together- Mm
⦠that we are practically one in the same?
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: And that's how
I view the dressage test.
Rupert Isaacson: No, I w- I,
I'm with you there, and I've
got nothing against the tests.
So- Mm ⦠for example, we actually
use them when we're training at home.
Okay.
Because they can give you some
my wife in particular does.
They can give you just a really nice
roadmap to say, Yes ⦠okay, let's, let's
not have to make it all up as we go along.
Let's, you know.
Mm-hmm.
And/or from time to time, let's check
in and see where are we with this.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: But there's a
difference between doing that under
pressure and not under pressure.
And so something that I learned,
for example, with myself very early,
and this was actually with jumping,
was because I felt pressure in the
show ring, I would tend to ride-
Patrick King: Mm
Rupert Isaacson: more pressured.
And I wouldn't- Mm ⦠really have much
choice in the matter, because you feel
what you feel, and your- Yes ⦠body
will simply, your nervous system
will reflect your emotional state.
So you can't say to somebody, "Relax."
There are people who are inherently-
⦠temperamentally more relaxed in
certain conditions than others.
So it's interesting.
Mm-hmm.
I'm quite cool under fire.
I've had to learn to be, because I hadâ¦
I grew up in Hunt Field, for one
thing, in, in England- Mm ⦠which
is quite, it, it's an extreme way
to ride in c- in certain ways,
in t- Mm ⦠in terms of danger.
But also in t- human rights work and that
sort of thing in Africa, and da, da, da.
That's right.
That kind of thing weirdly, I can be gâ¦
When I go into, when I was finding,
when I was going into the arena, I
was feeling a certain kind of fear.
Mm.
And that fear had no option but
to translate itself to the horse.
So I won ribbons sometimes.
Sometimes I did better than that.
Sometimes I did worse.
But I realized that even when
I won, I didn't enjoy it.
And I'm not so sure- Mm-hmm, yeah ⦠the
horse had a great ride under me.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: However, I can look
at my wife riding when she can go and
show, and the horse and she are having a
wonderful time, because temperamentally
she's coming much more from where you're
coming from, and what you were describing.
Mm-hmm.
And because she's not feeling that,
she's not transmitting that to the horse.
So then you think, "Okay, well,
then what do you do with the
rider who's a bit more like me?"
And you say, "Well, that's
not a pro-" 'cause I'm more
like the autistic kid, right?
Okay, yeah ⦠the, then it's,
then, well, let's just do that
same test, but not under pressure.
Patrick King: Not under pressure, exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Let's change
the environment of that test.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Because the horse-
Patrick King: And that I think is a, is
a big shift in the idea of testing your
training versus training for the test.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Patrick King: And that's what we
see a lot, not, I, I, I feel like
sometimes I talk in generalities, and
this is one disc- one interview where,
you know, talking about different
disciplines and industries and,
but, but what we do see largely in
competitive dressage is training the
tests rather than testing the training.
Mm.
Or maybe we should say the dressage
that we see as the problem That's the
dressage that is training for the test
⦠Rupert Isaacson: that's, that's a v-
you've made a very good point there.
So, we live in Spain and Germany, and,
Okay ⦠so I'm talking to you from
Germany right now, but w- week after
next we'll be back down in Spain.
In the area of Spain that we live in,
Doma Vaquera, which is what people
call working equitation- Mm-hmm ⦠is
done to a very high level, so people
are piaffing and passaging and tempi
changing around while they're doing it.
And it's kind of done mostly at a
village level with people having a
beer on a Saturday night, and they
do it kind of in the town square and
in the bullring, and it's- Mm-hmm
they're hanging out with their
mates, and families are hanging
out together, and it's a sort of
bit of a celebration of culture.
And then up here in Germany you know,
I trained horses and trained people
up here for about eight years, and one
of the things that you notice is that,
and, and I've noticed this in the US
with the dressage folks, is that the,
the, the ride is often antagonistic
between the horse and the rider.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Meaning that
the rider's never satisfied.
The horse-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: is always a
little bit, "Oh, shit, I'm not
quite doing what Mom or Dad want."
Yep.
There's a lot of kind of or a
sort of- Mm-hmm ⦠frustration.
And then when you ask someone,
"Well, how'd you enjoy that ride?"
Just, and th- they say, "Well, I didn't
enjoy it, because it should've been
this, and it could've been that."
And, and then it begs the question, well,
why the fuck are you doing it, you know?
Right.
"Well, I'm doing it because I want
to compete, and da, da, da, da, da."
I said, "Well, yeah."
It's
Patrick King: my happy place,
and you see them up there.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
And it's like, "You
don't look very happy."
You know?
And "Yes, I am."
I'm like, "Well, are you?
I don'tâ¦
Well, okay, fine.
If you say you are, you say you are.
But-"
Patrick King: Right
⦠Rupert Isaacson: your, your, your
pony looks a little bit stressed."
And y- we all know, though, that
this is, again, the problem with
doing a, a test under pressure,
meaning in front of a judge.
Mm-hmm.
The judge wants to see what
the judge wants to see.
Patrick King: Sure.
Rupert Isaacson: The, if you h-
don't ride for that judge, well,
you're not gonna do very well.
If you don't show up on the horse that
the judge wants to see, which is probably
the fancier end of the Warmbloods-
Sure ⦠through a accident of history,
because all the other countries were
too lazy to write rules for the Olympic
Committee back in the 1890s, and the
Germans said, "Well, we like rules."
Patrick King: Yep,
Rupert Isaacson: sign
Patrick King: us up.
Rupert Isaacson: And everyone breathed
a sigh of relief and said, "Oh, good.
Let the Germans do it, then."
Patrick King: Let somebody else take it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Right, right.
So the Germans wrote the rules for the
horse that they knew, and so if you, if-
Yeah ⦠if the Portuguese had written the
rules, we would all be riding Lusitanos.
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But-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: so now you have to
ride the horse they want to see in a way
that looks da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
Mm-hmm.
Rather than saying, "Well, I could go
home," and then you and me, Patrick,
we could hang out by the arena and
say, "Well, look, let's take this test
and see what might be best for theâ¦
What, how does the horse maybe want
to express itself in this test?"
Mm-hmm.
And how does the human want to
express themself in this test?
Exactly.
And then how does this horse-human combo?
So maybe it's not gonna look as forward.
Maybe it's going to-
Right ⦠look slower.
Maybe it's going to look- Mm-hmm ⦠and
a judge might say, "Well, sorry, but
I want to see something different."
But in that non-pressure-ful
situation, it wouldn't matter.
It only matters- Right ⦠under
that pressure, yeah, yeah.
Patrick King: Yep, yep.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And there's, there's a lot of
people, like you say, there's a
lot of people that, that- Maybe
kind of thrive under that pressure.
Mm-hmm.
It's enough of a motivator for them
that then their riding at home has
more, Meaning ⦠more meaning.
It has moreâ¦
There, there's something more
for them to look forward to
is that test, is that show.
Because again, the practicality
is missing in it, right?
So it's just the because I want to, right?
Which is fine.
I think, I think because I
want to is a really fine-
Rupert Isaacson: There's nothing
wrong with it- ⦠pretext
with endeavor, right.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Exactly.
You know, so s- for some riders having the
idea of showing is enough of a motivator,
even if they only show once a year.
I've got plenty of students
that show once a year.
I've got lots of students that don't show.
I don't wanna make it sound
like I'm big competition.
I haven'tâ¦
I've got a yearling colt right now that's
going out to shows just to get out into
the real world and see experience so that
someday when he's gonna be a big fellow,
so that someday I don't have to pack a
parachute for my first horse show, right?
Yeah.
But it, it's if that's what
helps someone feel that they're
working towards something- Mm
then that's fantastic.
My feeling of what I'm working
toward is what we see at,
say, the Portuguese school.
It's what we see at the Valences,
is that quiet connection.
It's the memories that I have of
working with Ray Hunt, where you
thought a thought and the horse
executed what you were thinking.
Can I combine that with the elegance
and the precision of dressage?
That's where I wanna be.
Mm.
I wanna have that lightness, that,
that true dance partnership that
weighs nothing, and that does some
of the, the most collected, most
high-level athletic movements.
Can we have that weigh nothing
in thought and in body?
That's my goal.
So every day, can I get
a little closer to that?
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
And lightn- lightness is a really
interesting subject, right?
Because something- Yes ⦠can
be physically light, but
emotionally not light at all.
Patrick King: Exactly.
And- Yeah ⦠and I think that- Somebody
was asking me recently about the
difference between lightness and softness.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Well, they're related.
Patrick King: And-
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Patrick King: Yeah.
And, and, and I thought it was an
interesting thing, and you hear
people have different opinions on it,
or different definitions, I guess.
And I think, you know, a pillow is soft.
Can be, right?
A pillow can be soft, but
there's not any structure to it.
A feather is light, and it can
carry a bird through the air.
Rupert Isaacson: Nice analogy.
Patrick King: It's light
and it has structure.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: Right?
So that's, when I think about
lightness, lightness has structure
and softness inside it- Softness by
itself doesn't have much structure.
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting, too.
Have you ever read let's,
let's really nerd out here.
Have you ever read Dom Diogo de Bragança?
He was-
Patrick King: Not yet.
He's sitting on my shelf out here,
but I've not yet gotten to that, but
I have hundreds here that I haven't
Rupert Isaacson: gotten to yet.
It's, it's, it's a great read,
and it's one of the, like all
great reads, it's an easy read.
Yeah ⦠and this is shout
out to Xenophon Press time.
Patrick King: Definitely
Rupert Isaacson: Auntie, Auntie Richard
Williams- ⦠who devotes his life
to publishing these books and selling
them at prices that we can afford.
Thank you so much-
Yeah ⦠Richard, for doing this.
It's amazing.
Yes.
He publishes all the dead dudes.
So Diogo de Bragança, for those
who don't know, was a- another
longtime student of, of Oliveira's.
And but not just a student,
a sort of contemporary, and
also a patron to some degree.
Mm.
Because the Bragança
family is a royal family.
It's an offshoot of- Mm-hmm
⦠they're, they're aristocrats.
So highly involved in horse breeding,
highly involved in horse training, and
so forth, and knew all the disciplines,
the bullfighting, the doma vaquera,
not just the doma clássica, not
just what we think of as dressage.
And he wrote this book, which is
probably the one that's sitting on your
shelf, called I think it's Dressage
in the French-Portuguese Style.
And, That's it, yes ⦠it's,
and he synthesizes and sort of
explains- What people like Nuno
tended to not explain terribly-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: straightforwardly.
He's a bit more straightforward.
And he makes a point that lightness
can actually be a problem in certain
types of horses if taken too far.
So he says- Sure ⦠for example, the,
the Lusitano horse, which can sit almost
on its bum, like almost- Mm-hmm ⦠like
sit down like a dog, can learn, if
he's mischievous, to use that against
a rider, to use the very lightness.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Because, you know, this
is something with this type of horse
you have to be a little careful of.
Mm-hmm.
Whereas if you're working with,
say, a warmblood, you probably,
this is probably not even within
the list of potential things that
you might have to watch out for.
Right ⦠it's a bit
specific to, to the breed.
But nonetheless, it w- is,
that one brought me up.
I said, "Oh," and I realized, oh,
I've, I've actually experienced that.
Yeah.
Sometimes my own- Yeah ⦠horses,
I have Lusitanos mostly.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Sometimes when they want
to take the piss, you know, they'llâ¦
And I like my horses
to take the piss a bit.
Patrick King: Almost hiding
in the lightness, right?
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
Indeed.
Mm-hmm.
They can, like, say, "Okay, I'm, I'll sit.
I'll, I'll, I'll go
into, like, perma piaffe.
How about that?
Oh, I'm a good boy.
I, I, no, no, y- y- you can't get
annoyed with me 'cause I'm, you know?"
And-
Patrick King: Right.
Right
Rupert Isaacson: And then you're
up there laughing- And you're
Patrick King: up
Rupert Isaacson: there
Patrick King: saying, "Turn left."
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
You're like, "How about
we just go over there?
How about we, how about we close the
gate we're trying to walk through?"
Right.
"Is it possible if we can do that?"
"No, I'm going to perma
piaffe here and sit down."
Exactly.
And, and, and, and you start
laughing because it's, it, it's
like, well, actually, this is a
very joyful way to have a problem.
Mm-hmm ⦠it's a, it's a, it,
it's a good problem to have.
But nonetheless- Right ⦠he ma-
he made that point, that in fact you
always want this balance between all
of these extremes, and it's somewhere
in that middle point- Mm-hmm ⦠is
where the functionality lies.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: He also made a very good
point which I think often gets lost, which
is that there's three types of dressage.
And people always forget this,
because people like you and I, who
were introduced to it later in our
career, we got introduced to something
in a rectangu- rectangular arena-
Patrick King: Yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: with people doing
lateral movements that then become
collective movements that are, is
sort of balletic and controlled.
But there's also Doma
Vaquera, which is the- Mm-hmm
adaptation of the cow work and the
work with the young bulls that's
taken to an art form, which of course
has plenty of piaffe passage and-
flying, changing things, but also
different types of pirouette, and
the work with the garrocha, and-
Mm-hmm ⦠faster work and slower work.
And now it's been sort of
taken into working equitation.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And then, which
at its apogee has, is, is, is
dressage with, with obstacles.
And- With
Patrick King: a different purpose, yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: indeed.
Mm-hmm ⦠and then you've got
rejoneo, as you probably know.
The rejon- Mm ⦠is the
thing you stick in the bull.
Exactly.
And that's the combat style.
Very fast.
Mm-hmm.
Other specific movements that
are in there that don't exist.
And you get some horses
that really dig that.
Patrick King: Yep
⦠Rupert Isaacson: but
it's a bit of a minority.
So you don't- Nice ⦠want to go into
the bullring on a horse that doesn't dig
it, 'cause you'll be dead very quick.
And then- Right.
Patrick King: Exactly
⦠Rupert Isaacson: then there's Doma
Classica, which is what- Mm-hmm
⦠everybody else thinks of as dressage.
And
y- I, what I like about him
pointing that out is he points
out you have more than one option.
If you want to explore this dressing
of a horse business, and if you think
about, like, where we came in through
the therapy work, and are still there-
Mm ⦠to a large degree, we don't
really care the style in which the
horse collects and becomes light.
Right.
We judge it by, does it
transmit joy to the child?
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Does
communication result?
And is the horse happy?
Rather than did I execute that movement
Patrick King: Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You know what I mean?
Patrick King: Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
And it's, you know, to that e- that
makes me think of, of the time that
I spent with Ray Hunt starting colts.
It's funny that we're talking about
dressage and starting colts at the same
time, but I do that all the time anyway.
Rupert Isaacson: It's the same thing.
It's
Patrick King: all the same.
Itâ¦
They, they are-- Yeah.
There's so much, you know.
Don't worry, we'll talk about
trailer loading in a second.
To me, everything in
life is trailer loading.
But- Actually, it's the same thing here.
I would say ⦠but as, as
early as possible with the
young horses, we left the arena.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: You know?
I remember several times starting
colts with Ray, we would, we would,
you know, you introduce yourself
to the horse, you introduce the
saddle to the horse, you climb on.
This is all within, you know, just a
few short minutes, not because it's a
speed event, but because understanding
was happening, and we didn't need
to spend too much time on it.
Just buildâ¦
You know, when we talk about the novelty
in learning, when you get the horse really
open to learning, there are things that
can progress without rushing, right?
And, and we'd be, you know, swimming
around like fish in the arena because
there was five or six of us at one time,
so it was a little herd of horses with,
with the, as I've heard you refer to it,
with the sky monkeys on their back, right?
I love that expression.
And, and Ray would just shout
out to one of the fellows working
for him, "Hey, open the gate.
They're ready to go for a trail ride."
We've been on these horses
for 20 minutes now, right?
They're ready to go for a trail ride.
It's their first ride, you know?
But what Ray was really big on was
that, that we shouldn't have the
horse do something because I said
so Now coming from the Western
horsemanship side of things,
particularly on the ranches, because
I said so is just not a good reason.
But because we're working the gate,
or because we're tracking the cow, or
because we're going across the pasture,
that makes more sense to the horse.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
There's no-
Patrick King: And so then they can see
the reason, which is why I feel so many
horses in our dressage horses really
appreciate the working equitation.
Rupert Isaacson: No doubt.
Patrick King: That's why I leg yield.
Oh, to work the gate, or oh, rein
back to get out of the bell chute,
or, you know, things like that.
Having a reason that they can see.
Mm.
Which is one of the things that
Ray used to say all the time.
He had a high appreciation for dressage.
He would say that the cow horse
or the barrel horse or the roping
horse, they can see their job.
So it's a, it's easier because
they can see their job.
But the dressage horse or the
reining horse can't see the job.
It's made up in our head.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
Patrick King: it's almost an eye blink.
Yeah.
Can
Rupert Isaacson: weâ¦
Patrick King: Yeah.
Can we translate that to the horse that
they understand the idea that we have
in our head, and that it has as much
meaning to them as the job they can see?
Rupert Isaacson: 100%, you know, and
it, I think horses that have a chance
to get started in the sort of working
equitation way always do better-
Mm-hmm ⦠as dressage horses because
they're not- Absolutely ⦠trying to
figure out this abstract, you know-
Patrick King: Things make sense.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Patrick King: Yeah.
I started riding with a garrocha,
and I start so many young horses
now, and within the first couple
rides, I pick up the garrocha.
Yeah.
They say, "Why do we untrack the haunches?
Why do we rock back and
turn our front end?"
They see that big stick out there
in my hand, and they say, "Oh,
I need to turn underneath that.
I n-," you know, things
just make more sense.
Rupert Isaacson: They do.
Patrick King: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And it, and it's also
more fun, and it's more participative- For
Patrick King: both of us.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm ⦠rather than
do this thing that you don't understand,
Patrick King: And that u-
that word, the participatory-
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
⦠Patrick King: I always want to
feel like the horse is an active
participant in the training.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: If they are
not- What are we doing?
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
Indeed, it comes back to
the why are we even there?
And it's funny- Yeah ⦠you
were talking about starting those
horses in arenas and going out.
You know, when I was a kid, young
adult, we didn't have arenas.
Yeah.
We started all horses in
stable yards and fields.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And everything was done
in fields and- Yeah ⦠and on the roads.
And arenas came into my
life relatively late.
In fact, what would happen is you wouldâ¦
The only time you're in an arena
is when you went to a show.
Oh,
Patrick King: okay.
Sure, yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: you did all your
training in a field, and you might put-
Mm-hmm ⦠maybe some indicators down-
Patrick King: Yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: little ground
poles or something like that.
Little
Patrick King: visual barriers, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It was sort of
an arena, but you know, it wasn't.
But then you go back to look at
training manuals like the German
HDV12, you know, which is- Mm-hmm
the German cavalry manual, which I
have mixed feelings about because
the Nazis were involved and so on.
But nonetheless there's a lot of
very sound horsemanship in there.
And w- it's funny, you open that and
they say, "Oh, no, start all your young
horses in a field with relatively good
footing with about a 10-degree slope."
Mm-hmm.
So that the horse learns very quickly how
to manage his own weight and manage his-
Patrick King: Yep
⦠Rupert Isaacson: thing, and
then only later go into, like,
highly artificial arenas.
Because otherwise- Mm-hmm ⦠the
horse just won't learn anything.
He won't learn how to balance.
He won't learn how to-
Patrick King: Exactly
⦠Rupert Isaacson: so the idea is still
they're, they're training a horse.
They're preparing, preparing more than
training, preparing a horse- Mm-hmm ⦠to
go out into planet Earth and do things.
Mm-hmm.
It's only very, very recently that
we've had this option of saying,
"Well, we're never going to go
onto planet Earth on our horse."
Right.
"We're just gonna stay in
planet arena, planet dressage."
We're gonna,
Patrick King: we're gonna stay
in the Petri dish of sand.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Patrick King: yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah, and it's not where either of
us were evolved to be, not really.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Exactly, and it's why we have so many
challenges with our horses, you know,
the, the lack of forward, the lack of
focus, the lack- Mm ⦠of whatever.
It's because they
haven't experienced life.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: You know?
I've got my, my yearling colt right now,
a little Westfalen, little, little 16.2,
15-month-old Westfalen, that I'veâ¦
I was riding, I've got a Lusitano,
a couple Lusitanos in training
right now, and ponying this colt
out around the arena, around
the farm, that sort of thing.
It's good for the pony
and the ponyer, right?
It's, it- it's the job.
It's the get out there
in the real world, right?
Absolutely.
And there's nothing that can teach a
horse as well as Mother Nature can.
Because it turns out the
horse as a species evolved
for Mother Nature to teach it.
Rupert Isaacson: Really?
Patrick King: I mean, I mean, I don't
know if all your listeners know this-
Rupert Isaacson: Does that
Patrick King: mean-
but it's like
It's like before we got involved,
there was a whole world out there.
Rupert Isaacson: It, you know, this
idea that horses exist for the human
ego, you know, it's, it's bananas.
But it, itâ¦
one can actually s- trace the
history of how it happened.
It's a really interesting history.
So, you know, many of us think that
dressage is a European thing, so often
I'll ask people, "Who," you know,
"What's the first book on dressage?"
or, "What's the first
book on horse training?"
And people will q- often
quite reasonably say Xenophon.
Mm.
Greek, writing in 400 BC.
Super interesting dude, 'cause he's also-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: one of the
fathers of of Stoic philosophy.
He was a student of Socrates, he was
a classmate of Plato, and he's also
a military man, as they all were.
And so he's also taught as the
master of the tactical withdrawal.
'Cause he got- Mm ⦠10,000 Greeks
out of a bad situation in Baghdad
and got, walked them home to Greece.
And that's called The Anabasis,
that book, and it's on YouTube.
It's worth a listen.
And he writes a book on horsemanship
and he says, "Oh, I learned it
from the Persians," 'cause he
went to Persia to do that thing.
Patrick King: Ah.
Rupert Isaacson: And of course
they all did, because Greece
wasn't horse country, not really.
Greece is mostly mountains to the sea.
Sure ⦠so they had to import it.
They imported it by going to, they
went to war with the Persians and
saw this really effective cavalry
that the Persians had, and the
Persians had got it from other people.
The Persians had got it from
steppe tribes up around the- Okay,
yep ⦠Caspian and Black Sea area,
so Western Russia, East Ukraine.
And they, these people had
gone down and raided the-
Patrick King: Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm ⦠cities
of Anatolia and the fertile
crescent of Mesopotamia.
The people down there had gone, "Oh
my God, these bastards are like total
pain in the ass, but they're great
soldiers, and it's possible, it's, it's
ridic- it's not worth the hassle to
go up there and try and conquer them,
'cause it's just like dudes and grass.
There's nothing to conquer.
But they make great soldiers,
so let's hire them because we're
already at war with each other."
So that's where cavalry comes in.
And then it, the first book that we know
of is 1350 BC, written by this bloke
called Kikkuli in cuneiform script on
clay tablet, who was keeping the the
stables for the ro- the, the Hittite king.
Okay ⦠and it's now Hittite area is
sort of where Turkey meets Syria, and
they were always at war with Egypt.
And you know, this is Bronze Age, right?
So it starts- Yeah ⦠early Bronze
Age, about Br- by Xenophon, 400
BC, that's almost 1,000 years.
That's Iron Age.
It comes from the East into the West.
So we all think of it as
like a white person thing.
We think of it as a-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: as a as a European thing.
It's not.
It was a European import.
So back to this idea of status
and the a, the horse as an
extension of the human ego.
S- if you have to import something,
it's by its nature- expensive.
If you bring a Lusitano horse-
Yeah ⦠from Portugal, it's expensive.
If you buy a Quarter Horse-
Mm-hmm ⦠from down the road, it's not.
Patrick King: Exactly.
If
Rupert Isaacson: you have to bring
something in from outside, it's expensive.
Oh, and then you gotta get all
the Portuguese gear, and then you
gotta go over and ride at Luisa's.
Right.
Understand-
Patrick King: Right
⦠Rupert Isaacson: what to do, and then
maybe you gotta go and import a trainer,
meaning that you gotta go to the clinics,
buy these guys, and that's expensive.
Mm-hmm.
By the time you tot up the bill,
you've spent a lot more money
than the person who's just want
a Quarter Horse down the road.
You imported it, and you
imported it for a certain depth.
So, of course, the only people
that aff- aff- afford to import
them were people like Xenophon.
They were aristocrats.
So the idea- Mm ⦠of the mounted man
becomes associated with status then,
and then very quickly in Athens, Sparta,
and then after, Rome, you couldn't
vote, you couldn't be on the Senate
unless you were of the equestrian class,
effectively a knight, meaning that
you c- had enough land that you could
support horses, because they weren't
part of the indigenous local culture.
And- Mm, correct ⦠that's where we end
up with the projection of the ego through
horse, rather than horses just being
part of the culture, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
And it's quite interesting once
one realizes that and realizes
that that's been going on in the
European mind for quite a long time.
Well, no wonder we're all such
a bunch of wankers, you know?
So, so the question is, how
do, how do we de-wankify?
Patrick King: Right.
De-wankify.
So- That's, that's the word of
the day: de-wankify ⦠how do
Rupert Isaacson: we de-wankify?
I could use a stronger word.
There's a word I often use
when I'm clinicking, but I
won't use that word on YouTube.
Right ⦠so given that we're at
this different stage in history now,
Patrick, you know, where I think people
like you and I, wh- what we're trying
to do, now Sean, all these people,
we're trying to democratize what has
been made into an exclusive thing,
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Mm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: and cross-fertilize
back to proper horsemanship, because
those steppe tribes, by the way, were
starting colts out on the steppe.
They didn't have a ring.
Patrick King: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: You know?
Exactly.
Like, they could do flying changes
and pirouettes and all that, 'cause
you gotta do that for battle.
Mm-hmm.
So how are you ⦠What, what are
your strategies for de-wankifying?
How does Patrick King
help de-wankify dressage?
Patrick King: I, coming from
Coming from the different
Schools of thought.
Coming from the, the Ray Hunt
horsemanship side of thought and the
classical dressage side of thought,
I'm always trying to build the bridge.
I have a student that for several years
she refers to me as the integrator.
She says, "It doesn't matter whose book
I'm reading, you can teach me how to
integrate that into what we're doing."
Right?
Or, "Whose clinic I've audited or
what video I've looked at, you can
teach me how to integrate that."
I think for me, it's, it's what's
the goal, of course, and where's
the horse coming from, and then
where's the rider coming from, and
how do we integrate those things?
How do weâ¦
Whatever, whatever the goal is,
whatever the thing is, how can
we help the horse to understand?
How can we help the rider to understand?
And really big for me, and I, and I
use this analogy a lot, if you and I
were working with our horses and then
w- we were, you know, I don't know,
teaching them some sort of an exercise.
Shoulder in.
We're gonna teach them shoulder in.
If we turn them out into the paddock
with their friends, could they explain
to their friends what we just did?
Or would they say, "Oh, I don't know,"
like, "He was pushing me around.
He was pulling on the right rein.
I felt a little off balance," you know,
whatever, "and then he gave me a carrot."
I don't know.
Could the horse actually, and
obviously they can't, but could
they academically explain to their
paddock mates, "Here was the angle.
Here was the position.
Here was the balance."
Rupert Isaacson: I think we'd ni-
need to take some severe psychoactive
co- compounds to look at a horse
and see it doing that to its mates.
Patrick King: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: But I take
Patrick King: your- But does the horse
actually understand the question-
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
⦠Patrick King: that's being asked?
And that comes down to does the horse
understand the language being used?
In my academy, every month we do--
I have a, an online academy, and
every month we do lectures, and it's
a Zoom call very much like this.
And we-- each month we'll
break something down.
It might be diagonalized balance, and
we'll spend so much time talking about
like, "These are what these words mean,
and here's how that's important to us."
Q- does our horse understand that?
If we pick up on a rein, can--
does our horse actually understand
what's coming through that rein?
When we, you know, you hear
people say, "Well, use your seat."
Well, what does that mean to me?
This was a discussion I had
with a student just recently.
You know, use your inside seat bone.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Use my inside seat bone.
If I lean on it, that's one thing.
If I pick it up, that's another thing.
If I carry it forward or backward
or diagonally or upward, those
are all using the seat bone.
And this is where I think going
back to what, what we were talking
about to begin with, where books are
written by people who understand what
they're writing and the perspective
that they're writing them from.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: Right?
The same word can mean
so many different things.
Rupert Isaacson: 100%.
Patrick King: A friend of
mine, Richard Winters, I don't
know if you know who he is.
He's a cowboy- No, I've heard
about him ⦠from California.
He's a great fellow,
reined cow horse trainer.
But he loves to say, "Poor
Blue was so blue, he blew his
nose in my blue handkerchief."
That same word can have a lot
of different meanings, right?
And another thing that he
says that I really love is,
"Everything works sometimes."
Right?
But it's that, to me, the idea of
what- whatever it is our goal is,
can we break it down into bite-sized
pieces that it can be transferred
both to the rider and to the horse?
And then can we put those parts
back together to reach the goal?
And along the lines of that, is
it something that our horse is
actually even capable of doing?
For the most part, the answer is yes.
There are times when the answer might
be no, depending on joint function,
depending on dysfunction, depending on
pain, weakness, injury, things like that.
But for the, for the grand majority, the
students that come to me, what they're
looking for from their horses is things
that the horses are able to accomplish
if they have a translator, right?
Because i- if I have a goal
But I don't know how to
translate that goal to my horse.
I don't know how to
communicate to my horse.
Well, I need a translator, right?
I need somebody to, to integrate.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's one of the
great things about the dead dudes in
that they, they bequeathed us a system,
or several systems- Mm-hmm ⦠that
are complimentary, let's say.
Patrick King: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But because they
wrote about it in such an obscure
way- Right ⦠we have difficulty
understanding, and- Mm-hmm
um, that's come down into the teaching,
which is difficult to understand.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And so we have trouble
transmitting understanding to our ponies.
Yeah ⦠but that's, that's-
Patrick King: Because teaching
itself is not really possible.
Learning is, though.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, that's an
interesting, that's an int- Just
extrapolate on that a little bit.
Patrick King: Right.
Well- Yeah ⦠you know, to say,
"I'm going to teach you something."
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: That almost implies
I'm putting it on you, I'm stuffing
it into you, into your brain
or your fingertips or whatever.
Well, I can't do that.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: But I can set up a
situation and get you thinking.
I can set up novel situations
such that you can learn.
Rupert Isaacson: Got it.
This is one of the reasons why I'm such
a believer in in-hand work because-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Yes
⦠Rupert Isaacson: almost all the distress
that I see and have experienced-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: comes from confusion,
which is its own form of fear because then
you fear the outcome of the confusion.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: And so for us it's
judgment or physical injury- Mm-hmm
um, with horses, judgment from
other people or getting into
some bad situation with a horse.
Yeah.
And for the horse it's all manner of
things because they're fear-based animals.
So-
Patrick King: And they know
they taste good, right?
They do.
From a basic prey animal perspective-
They do ⦠everything that, their primary
fear is that they're gonna be eaten.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, more than that,
you know, it has to be, I've talked about
this in other interviews, it's, it, we
have to accept the fact that we are, for
the most part, are horses' executioners.
We don't like to dwell on it,
but we are generally the ones
who call the vet at the end.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
And if we're really lucky, we
find our old horse stretched
out peacefully in the paddock.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: I've had many old
horses, and I've had, I think, three
or four where I've had that luxury.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
The others, I've had to make a decision.
Now, so the horse is quite right
to regard me with some skepticism.
Sure.
And the fact that, you know,
they're so willing to accept what
they are willing to accept from us
is, is, is miraculous to a degree.
Patrick King: They're
nothing if not adaptable.
Rupert Isaacson: Y- you go to Mongolia
and people are, like, drinking
horses, and they're eating horses-
Mm-hmm ⦠in front of the horses.
Mm-hmm.
And everyone's actually getting
along with it just fine, but-
Yep ⦠that is the reality.
So you're right.
I- i- back to the sort of
de-wankification, what I
really mean by that- Mm-hmm
is the democratization, the making
accessible, the making clear, the
making, Mm-hmm And as you've gone to the
Valenzas one of the, the great takeaways
from there is they create schoolmaster
horses that you can learn on and with.
Absolutely.
So when I realized that, I was like,
"Ooh, I want to learn how he does that."
Mm-hmm.
So ⦠And of course, I, that's kind
of what I had to do for therapy work
anyway, in the way- Right ⦠so
we went and learned that in-hand
system somewhat obsessively and found
that it was so incredibly effective
because it was so incredibly clear.
Mm-hmm.
And it also rehabbed the horses you
went, because they weren't bearing any
weight, and then by the time- Exactly
you were gonna put your fat monkey
ass up there, you know, y- you, the
horse is sort of ready for it, and
also understood- Yes ⦠what, what
monkey is gonna d- want from it.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
And they know how to use their body in
the way that we're talking about, right?
They have that physical
point of reference.
I refer to the in-hand work a lot of
times as, like, calisthenic work for us.
It's the, for instance, learning
to do a pushup before you go to
the gym and do a bench press.
Before you add auxiliary weight-
Yeah, exactly ⦠can you do
that with your body by itself?
And that's very much
what the in-hand work is.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly, and then
breaking that pushup down to 1,000 pieces.
Mm-hmm.
How do you put your
hand flat on the floor?
How do you- Exactly ⦠make
your body into a plank?
How do you- Yep ⦠this?
How do you that?
And then can we put all those
things together into a pushup?
You might have said, "I wanted to do
a bench press," but actually what we
realized we had to learn first just
how to put our hand flat on a surface.
Patrick King: That's it.
Rupert Isaacson: You know?
Patrick King: Yep.
Rupert Isaacson: And particularly if you
don't speak the language that the person
speaks who's trying to, to tell you.
Exactly ⦠so we then took to heart
the need to create schoolmaster
horses, so we did, and we do,
and people can come and learn.
But-
Have you, is, is that
what you do at yours too?
If, if people wanna come to you,
can they work with your ponies?
Patrick King: No.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Why can't they?
Patrick King: No, and a big reason
for that for me is that up until
Rupert Isaacson: a couple years ago- By
work with, I don't necessarily mean ride,
but can they work with them to any degree?
Patrick King: Maybe.
Essentially it's if I have a horse in
training that understands the question
that they're trying to ask, we may do a
little in-hand, but for the most part,
I, I don't normally do that anyway.
Up until a few years
ago, I was on the road.
I spent several years where
I was on the road about 350
days a year teaching clinics.
Rupert Isaacson: That's a lot of days,
Patrick King: yeah.
That's a lot of days.
So like talk about road warrior, and I
had clinics seven days a week, and I would
drive from one clinic to the next, unless
it was, you know, across the country,
and then I would fly, but otherwise,
I lived in the car for several years.
Mm.
So, like this yearling Westphalian
that I mentioned, now he's my first
personal horse in a long stretch.
Ah.
Because I've been so busy teaching
that it didn't make any sense for
me to own any horses, because I
was never gonna be home, right?
But people can come to me and,
and, you know, we can work with
their horses or when I'mâ¦
It's very much like doing a clinic,
but they're just coming to my
home turf essentially for that.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
Yeah.
But do you see that-
Mm-hmm ⦠as something that
you might offer in the future?
Because it one of the things which-
Patrick King: I would love to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and I feel like- Because
it's so effective as a teaching
Rupert Isaacson: tool
it's almost impossible to learn anything
unless the horse- Mm-hmm ⦠unless
you're paired up with a horse, a
pony that can actually show you.
As you may know, if you've been following
my work, we are also horsey folk here.
And we have been training horses for
many, many years in the manner of
the old classical dressage masters.
This is something which is
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Patrick King: Exactly.
And, and again, to quote Ray, you
know, "You're doing something you never
did to get something you never had."
Right?
So it's, it's, it's easy to start
too late or start too soon or do
too much or do too little, right?
And you wouldn't know any different
unless you've got the school master
that can really teach you, like,
yep, that's the button, right?
So again, like when we talk
about, you know, use the seat.
When I think about using my seat,
it's m- like I, I jokingly refer to
it as it's a cellular use of the seat.
Yeah.
It's, it's your core intrinsic muscles.
It's the ideomotor response,
where you think about it and
your body makes the change.
Yeah.
It's not like, you know, you see
somebody, like a big brute, you
know, just barbarically trying
to shove their horse around.
That to me is not the use of a seat.
Absolutely.
That's an abuse of the seat,
but not a use of the seat.
No.
Rupert Isaacson: I couldn't agree more.
I, it took meâ¦
I realized when I was first in, in this
dressing of ponies endeavor that what I
actually had to do was neutralize my seat
Patrick King: Exactly
Rupert Isaacson: I had to bring- It's
Patrick King: so
Rupert Isaacson: easy to do too
much ⦠completely down the middle,
and then, then I could- Mm-hmm
⦠maybe, as you say, learn to use
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: But as long as
I try to use it, I just block
- Mm ⦠the horse with my pelvis.
Patrick King: 100%.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Patrick King: Because you're either adding
weight to the leg they need to move, which
is getting in the way of it, or you're
blocking the side they need to move to, or
you're, you know, so many of those things.
It's, it's that- But
Rupert Isaacson: it's interesting
how that's not explained-
micro thing ⦠isn't it?
You know, so, so, so often we're told
growing up- Oh, yeah ⦠or even now,
say, hippos say, "Use the seat," and
how is someone not going to interpret
that as, do a thing with my pelvis?
Do a thing.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Which is not- Exactly
⦠intrinsically not gonna work, yeah.
Patrick King: Right.
Right.
Yep.
Rupert Isaacson: You were
mentioning that you do these
webinars with your online- Mm-hmm
students, and you talked
about say, diagonalization.
Mm-hmm.
And I thought, "Ooh, I'm
gonna ask him about that."
So- Oh.
⦠t- t- talk to us talk to
us about diagonalization.
How do you explain that, and how,
how, what, why is that a useful
thing for us to even know about?
Patrick King: You know, I'm really
obsessive about balance and preparation
for anything that we do, and so I
think understanding how the horse
naturally balances themselves for
any movement or lack of movement,
I think is, is really important.
And I say lack of movement because let's
say for instance you have trouble with
your horse standing for the farrier,
oftentimes it's because they're not
confident or comfortable holdingâ¦
Horses will stand on a diagonal
balance as a generalization, right?
A lot of times
Rupert Isaacson: they- Just say, exactly.
Not everyone knows what that means.
S- say, what does that-
Patrick King: Yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: actually
Patrick King: mean?
So the, a diagonal balance would be, say,
the inside hind and the outside front.
I break this down, 'cause again,
I'm, I'm such a nerd about I
wanna know the why behind things.
You're
Rupert Isaacson: standing on a St.
Andrew's cross.
Patrick King: There we go.
Yep.
Yep.
So I, I always wanna know the why.
When I was growing up riding hunt
seat, I was told what I'm sure
everybody is told, "Rise and fall
with the shoulder on the wall."
My question was, "Why?"
And the instructorâ¦
I only had a couple lessons growing
up, two or three lessons growing up.
Most of it I had to figure out
myself, which was so great because
that fed the nerd in me, right?
But the, the answer that I was
given was, "Well, so the judge
knows that you know your diagonals."
Well, that's a really dumb answer, right?
That makes zero sense
Rupert Isaacson: to me.
But it's such a telling answer, isn't it?
Because-
Patrick King: It's a, it's
a very telling answer.
Because that's what we tell the kids.
Yeah.
And so it's one of those things that,
yeah, because, because we said so.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: Right?
Because we said so.
Rupert Isaacson: And you can even feel it,
that the balance works better that way.
But yes- Mm-hmm ⦠as a kid, as a,
as a, as a, as a curious, intelligent
child naturally you want to know why.
Patrick King: Of course.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Patrick King: Right?
Rupert Isaacson: And if you-
Patrick King: Because there's two
other feet that you could do that with.
Why, why this one?
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
You
Patrick King: know?
Yeah.
Why push the red button when I haveâ¦
There's a blue button, too.
What happens if I do that, right?
And I remember many years ago, I had a,
a little mare that was so sensitive that
depending on the diagonal you posted
to, she'd tilt her nose just a little.
If you were on a circle and you
changed to the, the wrong diagonal,
slight counter flexion, because the
horse's nose will always draw to the
hind leg that's carrying more weight
And that's an evolutionary thing.
That's the tail swims the fish, right?
So when you watch a horse walking and
you see, like, in a really good free
walk, the nose will swing, and my friend
Gillian Kreinbring refers to the figure
eight of the horse's nose as they go,
but there's the right and the left.
And if you watch, the nose goes toward
the hind leg that's on the ground, right?
The tail is swimming
the fish in that regard.
But so, so the balance, the horse
always balances on a diagonal pair.
Generally speaking, inside
hind and outside front.
We say inside hind and outside front,
assuming we're on a circle, where
the world's a giant ball, so we're
always riding on a circle no matter
how straight we think we're going.
If I were to ask, say, forâ¦
I'll break that down even more.
So inside hind, outside front,
that's the rise and fall with
the shoulder on the wall.
Great.
That makes perfect sense to us
when we're trotting because those
legs move synchronized, right?
When we're cantering, footfall sequencing,
outside hind, diagonal pair, inside front.
They're still balancing on the same legs
in the canter as they were in the trot.
Challenge comes in the walk.
Those legs aren't synchronized.
They move out of sequence.
But they're still a
balancing diagonal pair.
This is what I think makes the walk one of
the hardest gaits to ride and the easiest
gaits to ruin because the balance can
ping-pong rather than stabilize, right?
But one of the things You don't say it.
You've heard your friends say, "My
horse drops their inside shoulder."
Right?
I would say, "My horse is
on the wrong diagonal."
We think about I could be on
the right diagonal or I could
be on the wrong diagonal.
Well, you and I could walk across my
kitchen floor and stumble and fall
because our balance was incorrect.
Why would we assume that the horse
could not have the same challenge?
Rupert Isaacson: I have done
that across my own kitchen
floor numerous times, actually.
Patrick King: Right
⦠Rupert Isaacson: tequila sometimes
has something to do with it, but.
Patrick King: It will.
Yeah, yeah.
No doubt.
Yeah.
But so thinking about that with our
horses, are they on the proper balance-
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
Patrick King: for the movement
that we're going to ask for?
If we ask, let's say, let's
break it down even more.
If we wanna ask a horse to go
from a walk to a trot, pretty
basic, simple transition.
Which hind leg are they using?
Well, the inside hind is the one that
steps underneath them more, so it
carries more weight if we're on a circle.
It's gonna carry more weight, so it
should be that driving leg, and then
that transition is fluid and smooth,
and you'll feel the top line sort
of lengthen, even just a little.
Let's say they start off with the
outside hind leg pushing, the head'll
pop a little, even if it's just
a little, or the back'll tighten
a little because the leg that was
pushing with more weight is counter
to the direction that they're going
So then we see a discrepancy in
that smooth transition or whatever
we wanna talk about because the
wrong leg did the, did the work.
We still got into a trot, and
that one's easy enough because
the legs are diagonalized, right?
So it's, it's almost easy to hide it.
And within one step they can get
their balance back just like you or
I could walking on the cobblestones.
We take a little misstep, and then we
catch our balance and we go on, right?
But can we prepare the horse, again,
as Ray would say, can we prepare
for the position to the transition?
And if we prepare the position, the
transition takes care of itself,
was something he used to say.
And I used to think that I knew what that
meant, and then I started diving into this
balance aspect and really understanding
the mechanics of the joints and the
legs and how the spine is connected
to all of it and all those things.
And then I thought, you were
with him and you could ask these
questions, and you weren't there toâ¦
You know, like Iâ¦
And I hadn't thought of it
at that degree before, right?
So we talk about learning being
the spiral, you know, that we cover
the same layer over and over again
with a different understanding.
But that balance, so talking
about the diagonalization in that
sense, I'm not talking a- about
necessarily going into half steps
or piaffe, but the diagonal balance.
If I want my horse to go into, say,
a, a travers or a half pass, we talk
then about bend and counter bend.
That would be a conversation about
balance and counterbalance because in
the travers or in the haunches in, it's
the outside hind and the inside front
that are gonna be carrying the balance.
The other two are traveling
legs, of course, but they're
not supporting the body as much.
They're not carrying that balance.
So it's where does the balance need to
be for, for what we're asking of a horse.
A, a lot of times you can help a horse
that maybe is a little bit not so skilled
in their flying changes by not thinking
about changing lead, but by thinking
about changing the balancing diagonal,
and then skipping is a lot easier, right?
Skipping being the flying change.
If we can attain the balance, so we
talk frequently, and Charles would talk
about this, Charles de Cunffy, balance
first, posture second, transportation
third If I have the horse in the right
balance, but the posture is not where
it needs to be, say they're inverted or
they're crooked or whatever, then the
transportation is not gonna be sufficient.
So the, the flying change or the half pass
across the arena or something like that.
So we have to find first the balance,
then the posture, and then take that
into whatever the movement might be.
Rupert Isaacson: That's very
nicely put, beautifully put.
Thank you.
Patrick King: Whew.
Rupert Isaacson: And- ⦠it there's
two, three things come to mind there.
So, as I'm sure you know, when you're
riding with Master Valenza, he'll
often say "Position, balance, execute."
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: If one of those
things isn't there, don't execute.
Wait.
Patrick King: Don't execute.
Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Just wait, you know?
Yep.
You thought you were gonna do
your line of flying changes there.
Well, if it, that's not in
place, just don't do them.
Just, just keep going-
Patrick King: Just don't do it.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely
⦠until you've got it together
and then maybe do it.
Patrick King: Absolutely.
Prepare, don't repair.
Rupert Isaacson: Ooh, I like it.
Yeah.
So and then why does
therefore a shoulder in work?
Because if you're putting that inside
hind under that point of gravity to
some degree, it's going to have that
carrying and driving effect that you're
talking about, which is going to have,
you know, and they got Nuno saying
it's the alpha and omega of riding.
You've got, Mm-hmm ⦠you know,
La Guérinière saying it's the first
and the last because what it's
gonna do is, is retrieve balance.
It's gonna prepare balance, but
it will also retrieve balance-
Mm-hmm ⦠if you lose balance.
So you know, you think, well then, why
if I mess something up, why does it
work if I do a little circle, a volt?
Mm-hmm.
Why does it work if I do a
little circle around my leg?
'Cause that's effectively a
couple moments of shoulders in.
Why are corners your friend?
Well, because- It's the
Patrick King: position of shoulder in,
Rupert Isaacson: for
Patrick King: sure.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm ⦠giving you a
little bit of a moment of shoulders in.
Mm-hmm.
If that hind leg comes under,
then the horse can rebalance.
Then why do horses al- also seem
to calm down when that happens?
Because they find their balance.
If they find their balance- Because they
Patrick King: find their balance.
Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: physically,
they're probably gonna find
their balance emotionally.
Patrick King: Bingo.
And it's
Rupert Isaacson: the-
Patrick King: Bingo.
Because the loss of balance,
the nervous system then wants
to protect itself, right?
Indeed.
And particularly when you add the
weight of the rider, now he's not only
fighting gravity- Mm-hmm ⦠but he's
fighting added weight- Yeah ⦠in
spite of or on top of that gravity.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And so of course he's gonna
protect himself, right?
That we'll call tension
or resistance or whatever.
It's, it's the body protecting itself.
And almost always protection of the hind
leg because the hind leg is the horse's
primary means of flight from fear.
Mm.
Flight from death, right?
So we see, you know, head tossing,
we see, you know, all, all sorts
of movements and behaviors.
Almost all of them come down to the
horse protecting the hind legs as
the means of escape if necessary
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
this is not explained.
This is great.
This is the point of doing
this kind of a podcast.
Patrick King: Right.
It's why we do these things.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And again, you
know, you were talking before we
switched on the, the recording.
It's like, you know, you, you were
chatting to friends, you know,
in your hotel rooms as you're
driving around doing trainings.
And of course, with each
training you learn more, right?
Every t- clinic you give, you learn
from your students- Mm-hmm ⦠you learn
from the horses, and then you're, you're
exchanging these types of thoughts with
your mates, and thinking, "Yeah, but
actually why aren't we having these
conversations a bit more publicly?"
It's also- Exactly, yeah ⦠I think,
I think there's a real insight in what
you just said there that clears a, a
big confusion for a lot of people about
these two weird words, driving aids.
So you'll often hear that word, right?
Mm-hmm.
And it comes, unfortunately, in a
bad translation from the German.
And in the German, it, that doesn't
necessarily mean what it means in English,
which is, if you say driving - Mm-hmm
aids in English, it
automatically means kick.
It automatically means push.
It automatically means- Mm-hmm ⦠try
and get more than you've got.
Mm-hmm.
Whereas it, what it actually means, and
I know this because I nailed Christoph
Hess down about it, who used to be the
head of education at the FN in Germany.
Mm-hmm.
I'm like, "Why do you say that?
Because if you say that to English
people, all they're gonna do is kick."
And- Yeah ⦠then they'll go
faster, and then you'll tell
them they're doing it wrong.
But there's no way in th- that semantics
that they're not actually correctly
interpreting what you told them to do.
Right.
So if it's not what you want them to
do, what is it that you want them to do?
And he said, "Well, what I want them
to do is, is put the inside hind leg
under a little bit so it can drive."
So I said, "So what you actually
want them to do is ride in
shoulder for a little bit."
And he said, "Well, yes."
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And I said, "Well, then
Patrick King: tell them that."
Right.
Oh, clarify.
Rupert Isaacson: Tell them that.
Clarify.
Because that treiben thing in, in-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: English comes up
with a bunch of different meanings.
And, Mm-hmm ⦠this is, I think,
often a, a real difficulty for
us as Anglophones in that, that
dressage is not really developed.
There's only been one grand master,
really, in England, and that was the Duke
of Newcastle, and he- Mm-hmm ⦠in the
17th century, and he learned all his stuff
in Antwerp when he was- Yeah ⦠you know,
in in exile after the English Civil War,
where they chopped the king's head off,
and he was looking after the king's son,
and then they came back because the bunch
of gangsters that they put into power
after they cut the king's head off banned
Christmas, and that was no crack, so they-
had to bring him back and then
all the, Just no fun anymore.
Patrick King: I'm leaving
⦠Rupert Isaacson: long faced
bastards, we just sent them off to
Connecticut, and the rest is history.
You know, so after putting
them all in the, in, in the
clink jail on the South Bank.
You know, all the people that got
on the Mayfair, people say, "Oh, my,
my family go back to the Mayfair."
It's like, "That's nothing
to be proud of, mate.
They were all convicts."
They were religious
extremist convicts, yeah.
But anyway yeah, these things,
y- I, I think what you just s-
explained there, I think for a
lot of listeners made it clear.
And so for anyone who was perhaps
driving while listening to this or
saying something to your kids or feeding
the cat, and then you went, "Oh, gosh.
Shit, what did they say again?"
I'm gonna get you now-
Patrick King: Uh-oh
⦠Rupert Isaacson: to synthesize what
you said about the diagonalization and
those driving, carrying m- mechanics.
Can you now synthesize
that down to a paragraph?
No pressure
Patrick King: Sip of coffee first
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Drum roll
Patrick King: So I think in any movement
that we ask from a horse, we need to
understand the roles and responsibilities
of each leg in that movement.
The inside hind and the outside
front, generally speaking, are
the primary balancing diagonal
The outside hind is a stabilizing leg,
and the inside front is a leading leg
The inside hind carries more
weight in a natural bend because
it steps under the mass greater.
So it's more responsible for the
push or the drive as we talk about.
The outside hind has to stabilize.
If we think about any deviations
of position from our horse, he
dropped his inside shoulder.
That means he's on the wrong diagonal.
That inside shoulder in that case
then is carrying more weight.
We see that in problems when someone says,
"My horse bulges the outside shoulder
like they're trying to leave the circle."
Yes, because now that's a
leading leg, not a balancing leg.
Or, "My horse is swinging away
with the outside hind leg."
Happens frequently with folks that will
too much, I'll, I'll say too much, I'm
not gonna say at all, I'm gonna say too
much, disengage the horse's hindquarters.
The outside hind leg swings away
because there's no other place
for it to go, and then therefore
it's not stabilizing the position.
Okay?
Each leg has a responsibility,
and if one doesn't uphold its
responsibility, it sets off the dominoes.
So being a, as Charles would call
us, a custodian to the balance, being
a custodian of our horse's balance,
it's important that in everything
we ask them to do, we know where the
balance needs to be so that we can
compare that to where it currently is
And how do we adjust it?
That's our half halt.
The half halt is a rebalancing.
It's a question of rebalancing.
And so when we talk ab- sorry, this is--
Now I'm going into the second paragraph.
Rupert Isaacson: Please do.
Patrick King: When we talk about
half halt, half halt is rebalancing.
How many kinds of half halts are there?
There's as many different half halts
for where your horse is to where
you want him to be, but I think of
it generally speaking as there's
three dimensions of the half halt
The physical, the mental,
and the emotional.
Mental, is he paying attention?
Is he with me?
Half halt is a redirect to
say, "Hey, come back here."
Right?
"Can you, can you be with me and
engage in this conversation?"
The emotional half halt is the energy's
either too low or too high, right?
Anxious or maybe we'll say dull.
And so the energetic half
halt or the emotional half
halt is can we stabilize that?
And then the physical half halt would
happen on three different planes.
Longitudinal, lateral or diagonal, same,
same thing, and then vertical or sagittal.
Is the weight too much to the
forehand, enough to the back?
Is the weight on the appropriate
balancing diagonal legs?
Is the horse upright in that balance, or
are they leaning to one side or another?
So I guess six dimensions
of the half halt ultimately
Rupert Isaacson: One of the interesting
things that you've put your finger
on there is that when I try to
explain to people what, why do you
dress the horse at all, and let's
talk about this word, to dress.
I mean, the, many people will
be very disappointed, Patrick,
because you're dressed currently.
You're not sitting there in your- I
Patrick King: don't think anybody's
really disappointed by that.
Rupert Isaacson: They're probably
relieved that I am dressed.
The, if we went to a restaurant
and we ordered a salad, we would
be asked what dressing we want.
Mm.
If you cut your epidermis, you
will put a dressing on it to
put it back together again.
If you were a woman sitting at her
dressing table 100 years ago, you
were not putting your clothes on,
because your bum's on the chair, it's
actually a bit difficult to, especially
with a dress, how would you do that?
No, you're doing your
hair and your makeup.
You're putting your ensemble together.
You're putting together.
Mm-hmm.
When I was at school, we
were all compulsory military.
When the sergeant screamed, "Dress the
ranks," it meant make sure you were one
arm's length from the man to your right
and all the lines were straight, and if
it wasn't, you had to check the dressing,
you had to put it together again.
So it's an old, it's an old Germanic
word that means to put together, and
it exists in English, it exists in
Dutch, it exists in all the Scandinavian
languages, it exists in German, and
it exists in Norman French, 'cause
Norman French comes from the Vikings.
Mm.
And so dress- dressé
doesn't mean to train.
It simply means to put together.
So the horse goes from a long
wheelbase, where he's on the
shoulders mooching around or
traveling from A to B or whatever.
That's a perfectly reasonable balance
for that job, and that's moving in
two dimensions, from here to there,
or in a straight line or a curve.
Long-ish, you know, wide-ish curve.
And then if the horse wants to
fight or flirt or play in nature, no
monkey involved, he will do all of
the dressage movements that exist.
What those are, are like when
humans fight, flirt, and play, we
move in three dimensions, not two.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And we lower our
center of gravity and we bring
our center of gravity underneath
us, so we don't want to fall over.
Mm-hmm.
And we want to launch our energy and
then do something else, and then spin and
do something else, and if we try and do
that in a two-dimensional balance, we'll
hurt ourselves, and we also won't beâ¦
We'll wrench a joint, and we w- I-
i- it won't work Mm-hmm ⦠with
a blade and we might fall over.
So we have to take this different
approach, so different, different posture.
So of course- Exactly ⦠what we,
the horse goes, because he's got four
legs, from a long silhouette to a
short silhouette- Mm-hmm ⦠because
the legs come underneath there.
But, and then that brings
the front of the horse up.
But he can't do that, if he does
that intention, then he can't
go from there to anything else.
Like someone who's, wants to
dance, but dances like this.
Mm-hmm.
Or if you want to do martial
arts, if you're like this, well,
then no- Yeah ⦠it won't work.
You have to flow.
But the only way you can flow is through
relaxation, and the only way you can
relax is by being familiar with something.
And the only way you can be familiar
with something is by doing it a lot.
So- Mm-hmm ⦠repetition,
and fami- you know, feeling
safe, effectively, in, in that.
So we know what to, that, if, if that
is what we're dressing a horse to do,
to move in three dimensions, now with
a monkey on its back, for as long as
the monkey wants to do it w- when the
monkey wants to do it then we can u-
understand that, yeah, we're gonna
need some kind of system for that.
You know?
Because- Mm-hmm ⦠th-
we don't speak monkey.
You know?
I- i- sorry, if we do.
We don't speak pony.
Ponies don't speak monkey.
Mm-hmm ⦠so if you went to Japan and
you wanted to learn how to do the best
aikido or the best karate, it, you could
probably learn it from a master who
didn't speak any English if you spent
long enough with them and you emulated
what they did and let them- Mm-hmm
put you in position and so on.
But w- h- that doesn't work with horses.
But we can evolve a kinetic language where
over time, it will take longer, but over
time- Mm-hmm ⦠we can make this work.
And of course, luckily for us, dead
dudes going back, you know, 4,000
years, and dudettes, have been
figuring this shit out, you know?
And all we have to do is
kind of do what they did.
But it's very nice to have you
explain it like that, because you,
you were putting your finger on the
work in three dimensions, basically.
Patrick King: Mm.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Because, you
know, we're often put under
pressure to balance our horses.
It's like, I don't believe that's
possible in, outside of one moment.
And then, of course, there's
a loss of balance, and then-
Patrick King: Exactly
⦠Rupert Isaacson: retrieval.
Patrick King: Which is just as important
as the moment of balance itself.
It's, again, to use the
push-up analogy- Yeah.
Yeah, to use the push-up
analogy, to get to the top,
you start at the bottom, right?
There's just as much value in losing
the balance, for us and for our
horses, because it allows the body to
reorganize in a way to come back to
balance, and that's what movement is.
Exactly.
Balance is dynamic, it's not static.
Exactly.
Right?
So we have to be able to flow
in and out of it in order to be
able to do whatever the thing is.
Yeah.
So you- So I get so picky about that.
When I, if I ask a horse to walk
off, say, from the mounting block
or from a halt, I want to feel that
he steps off with a hind leg first.
If we think of the horse's body
as a bridge, if you pull the front
supports away from the bridge, the
bridge collapses, and now you've
got, as you refer to it, a sky
monkey sitting on top of the bridge
dropping the horse's back even more.
And now the hind feet are left
in the last county, right?
Even if it's just for one stride,
there's a loss of balance and there's
a loss of structural integrity.
Mm.
But if they step off with the hind
foot first, they bascule the bridge,
and that becomes the, the bow under
the saddle, as we talk about, right?
And then the horse is able to carry
themselves forward in balance.
Rupert Isaacson: Nicely put.
So yes, lads, don't be afraid of the
loss of balance, just put your attention
on the retrieval of balance- Exactly
the loss and the retrieval,
and then you can actually go
somewhere and do something.
Exactly.
Because if we're so terrified of losing
balance, then we'll never do anything.
Bingo.
And the whole thing is pointless.
Patrick King: Bingo.
It's- And education comes from
finding it again, and strength
comes from rebuilding it.
Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: And your point about
there being somewhat infinite types
of half halt y- you know, y- if you
read three books on half halts, you'll
get seven different definitions, and
they're all- Mm-hmm ⦠correct because
there's all these different contexts.
Mm-hmm.
Just like if you have to, or I have
to, refine my balance in different
situations, we'll use slightly
different mechanisms for getting
there depending on if we're carrying
a backpack or holding a coffee mug or-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
Rupert Isaacson: on ice, or on a cell.
Or
Patrick King: anything.
Yeah, exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Or getting out-
Patrick King: Flying through the air
⦠Rupert Isaacson: getting out of a car.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: I, I have a friend who
broke her leg getting off the toilet.
Patrick King: Oh, that's unfortunate.
Rupert Isaacson: It was, and I said, when
I saw her, I was like, "Oh, bad fall?"
She's like, "Well, yeah,
but not from a horse."
I'm like-
Patrick King: Oh
Rupert Isaacson: "Oh, you so
didn't have to admit that."
Yeah.
Patrick King: Oh.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: But it just shows
that if, if any of us who, we have to
commit our balance so much, even in a
normal walk, that if we hit a paving
stone that's even a quarter of an inch
higher than the other- Mm-hmm ⦠paving
stone, we go, we face plant because-
Mm-hmm ⦠we have to completely throw
away our balance, and the horse has to
do that and carry us at the same time.
Patrick King: Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: So that
was very nicely put.
If you, if you, if you were to
say to people, you c- you can
plug your online program here.
If you were, if you were to say to
people, and we're gonna plug your
online program at the end anyway if
you were to say to people, "What's
the one, two, three of this endeavor
that they need to be aware of and
that you would help them understand?"
It can be one, two, three, four, five.
I'm done.
One, two, three is just a euphemism.
Patrick King: Yeah, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, what is it?
Patrick King: I would, I would distill it
down to balance, posture, transportation.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Patrick King: Yeah.
Because without the awareness of
those pieces, we can't organize
them, and if we can't organize
them, we can't execute them.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: Right?
And I think horsemanship and
maybe life in general is about
80% preparation and 20% execution.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Patrick King: Yeah
⦠Rupert Isaacson: depending
how many pints we've had.
Yeah
Patrick King: That's it.
That's it.
But we know one way or another.
And then I always give, I
have, I have wristbands.
Most of my students wear these wristbands
that I, I say are the, the keys to
all of this, and it's printed on it,
"Slower, softer, wait, and breathe."
And those are the four
keys to any of this work
Rupert Isaacson: That was useful
You and I both know that many
people when they go in front of
dressage, stress- stressage
Patrick King: Stressage, yeah, exactly
⦠Rupert Isaacson: stressage lessons.
Stressage.
You are told often to kick
your horse a lot because you
need to be, quote, "forward."
And - Right ⦠there's this
interpretation that forward means fast.
Forward means-
Patrick King: Right
⦠Rupert Isaacson: big energy.
And we all know that you can't
drive a car fast until you've
learned to drive it slow.
And then- Exactly ⦠even if
you do drive a car fast, you
shouldn't do it all the time.
Right.
And if you drive a car fast, you also
don't want to have a hand on the handbrake
unless you're making a particular kind
of handbrake turn, and if you do that too
many times you'll burn out the clutch.
Patrick King: Right.
You've got nothing,
Rupert Isaacson: another left, yeah.
And possibly spin your car.
So we know all these things, and
we know that if I learn another
language, I need to learn it slowly,
and we know that if I learn an
instrument, I need to learn it slowly.
How is it possible to add power
before we have understanding?
And how can we have
understanding at speed?
We can't.
That's it.
Or with power or on some huge
warm blood that moves with such,
w- in, in Germany they call it
a ⦠Bewegungswunder, you know.
A, a, a, a, a movement miracle, which
is - Mm ⦠almost impossible for a
non-professional to sit and barely
possible for a professional, which
is why they block all the saddles
now because they've just bred horses
that's almost impossible to sit.
Patrick King: Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: Because
judges want to see it.
So it, and what's r- expressly written
in all the old dead dudes' books is,
"This is to be executed slowly with
some-" Mm ⦠"moments of wazam!"
Sure.
From time to time.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: When we feel, but for the
Patrick King: most part - To
make sure we're not getting
stuck particularly, right?
Because we can, like you
were talking about, the horse
hiding in the piaffe, right?
Yeah.
We can get, then that's
not forward, right?
That's restricted in, in those moments.
Mm.
Forward is about
intentionality in the joints.
It's not about speed, and
speed is the enemy of balance.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Forward just means not backwards
and not standing still.
Patrick King: And even backwards, so
long as the joints are folding properly.
I think one of the best ways to develop
forward in a horse is rein back.
Okay.
My students hear me talk about this
all the time, and anybody who's
listening is probably surprised I
haven't mentioned rein back before now.
Because I like to say, "If you
have 30 minutes to ride and you
don't do 58 rein backs and 47 leg
yields, you just wasted your time."
But the, a- and obviously I'm joking
by, like, one or two, but the rein
back I think of as the ultimate
rebalancing gait, not a movement.
It's a natural gait the horse has.
Mm-hmm.
They just don't utilize it
often, just like with us.
Rein back, walking backwards, is a
really great neural reset, right?
Brings the body into awareness.
Mm-hmm.
I think of it as it's the answer
also to the half halt unheard.
If the horse struggles to rebalance- I'm
gonna come into rein back to say, "By
the way, own your balance," because the
proper rein back, proper is a different
word too, but the proper rein back uses
and develops every muscle the horse
needs to carry us forward in balance.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
And as, as Nuno Oliveira would say,
the horse gives the back in the rein
back, softens the back, arches the back
Patrick King: If we're asking
properly, if we're riding properly,
if we're not just, you know-
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed
⦠Patrick King: monkeying the
horse backwards - Indeed ⦠if
we're not pulling, if we're
not creating, you know, all the
inversions and stress and whatever.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
Yeah.
Let's assume it's happening nicely in a
round thing, and everyone's calm- Mm-hmm
⦠and everyone's happy- Mm-hmm ⦠and
the horse is stepping back in that way.
Then of course, yes, the horse relaxes
the under neck, flexes the back,
gives the back- Mm-hmm ⦠and boom,
we got access to the, to the engine.
Patrick King: Bingo.
Rupert Isaacson: Right?
Yeah, yeah.
Patrick King: Bingo.
Yeah.
And that's the edge.
And
Rupert Isaacson: either
it doesn't feel pure
Patrick King: Having the horse
with the seat, right, or with the
aids versus on the bit, right?
With the aids, with the seat,
having the horse there, you'd feel
I had a lesson with Bettina Drummond
on one of her horses a few years ago.
I was very fortunate with that,
and she had me prepare the horse.
We were going to go into collected
canter from the walk, and she said,
"The moment you feel like you could
rein back, release the canter."
Mm.
Boom.
There it was.
That's the balance, that's the
organization over the haunches, and
then everything is available from there
because it's an ultimate state of balance.
Similar to, I would assume
the, the horse stance.
I've done a little bit of Tai
Chi, but that's the only martial
arts I've, I've dabbled in.
But horse stance in Tai Chi, it's a base
of support where movement comes from
there, centralized over the core, right?
In our horses, they're long body,
not tall body, but it's the same
idea of can we engage that core?
Can we find those stabilizer muscles and
have them in a state of ready so that
we can go anywhere from there and not be
under stress, right, when we get there?
And that's where you're talking
about, you know, not rushing, not
kicking them on, that sort of thing.
And something that you mentioned in there
also about the, the forward and the first
thing riders wanna do is kick the horse.
We talk about it on the
wristband, it says breathe, right?
Rupert Isaacson: I'm not even
sure riders wanna kick the horse.
I think they're told they have to.
Patrick King: I don't think they do.
Yeah, they're told to.
Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
And then they're often put on horses
that have been so blocked that they
feel the only way they can get the
horse to go, but I don't think anyone
actually wants to kick a horse.
Patrick King: I, I, I'm
hopeful of that also.
Yeah, exactly.
But one of the things that, you
know, we're always taught to focus
on our breath, but not too many
say, "Is my horse breathing?"
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Talk about that.
Patrick King: If the horse is not
breathing, why wouldn't they breathe?
Well, they're out of balance,
so they're bracing, right?
Where are they bracing?
They're bracing in their back,
particularly in their lumbar spine.
Under the lumbar spine is
where the diaphragm sits.
If the diaphragm isn't functioning
properly, the hind legs can't move
through properly and power the horse up.
If the diaphragm isn't functioning
properly, the visceral or the
internal organs cannot shift,
and so the weight can't shift
to lighten the forehand, right?
If we think about the space that happens
inside the horse, this is another
rabbit trail that I've gone down, a
lot of body work schools of thought and
learning that I've tried to do in my
eventual quest for world domination.
But the idea of if that horse is
not breathing, then their body is
restricted, and how can we get forward
with a horse that's holding his breath?
Because if he's holding his breath,
he's jammed in the lumbar spine.
That's the transition center.
Movement from the hindquarters has to
go through that railway station, that
Grand Central Station of the lumbar
spine, to come forward through the body.
Rupert Isaacson: This is a beautifully
put and succinctly put, hats off point
Patrick King: So to take that to
something practical, let's say we're
teaching our horse shoulder in.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Patrick King: And the horse is
working on finding the posture.
I don't want to say struggling.
The horse is working
on finding the posture.
When they get to that posture, when they
get to that placement, the first thing I
do is halt, drop the reins, and wait for
a diaphragmatic breath.
Not just a , but a full
diaphragmatic breath, and then
we just walk off from that.
I want that horse to feel, if he asks me
for shoulder-in, I can properly breathe.
Because if he can't properly breathe, then
he can't properly propel himself forward.
The driving, the rebalancing can't happen
properly if he's holding his breath.
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting, too.
So, you- we all know that when
we do something for the first
time and we're hesitant, humans-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm ⦠will
Rupert Isaacson: hold our breath.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Horse is
gonna do the same thing.
Patrick King: Horse is
gonna do the same thing.
And- Because it's the nervous
system protecting itself.
Yeah.
Right.
It's, it's a basic- And I say-
survival thing
⦠Rupert Isaacson: is this
shouldering gonna eat me?
You know.
So- Exactly ⦠when you go into a room
that you don't know or who- or you aren't
sure, or, you're gonna hold your breath.
Exactly.
And horse will do the same thing.
Now you've got a horse and a human
doing the same thing, because I'm
in front of my riding instructor
who's yelling at me, or I'm scared,
or this, or that, or blah blah blah.
And- And
Patrick King: now just
add more leg, more leg.
Inside leg, outside rein.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: No, not like that.
Patrick King: Not like
Rupert Isaacson: that at all.
Patrick King: Half halt.
Rupert Isaacson: Half halt, drive, kick.
So
one of the things I like about, the
many, many things I like about in-hand
work is because it happens slowly.
Mm-hmm.
There's a lot of opportunity
to stop and breathe.
Exactly.
You, you have other moral support.
It's like you're two people going in there
together, going to the room together.
Yeah.
Any time that we try to start something
complex from the saddle, in terms
of before the horse has had a chance
to understand it on the ground-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: I think we're
going to encounter that hesitat-
that, that, that non-breathing.
Mm-hmm.
And in fact, when I was a, a, a kid
and I would ride a lot of cross-country
in events, and point-to-points and
team traits and that sort of thing
if you're on a four-mile course, at
least two people in the competition
would often keel off the horse.
Patrick King: Oh, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
They would forget
Patrick King: to breathe.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Because adrenaline
will also stop you breathing.
Mm-hmm.
Now, horses tend not to do that.
They'll tend- Right ⦠they, they
can cope with adrenaline weirdly
better than we can- Mm-hmm ⦠because
they, they're running machines.
Mm-hmm.
But it's when they're in that, "Ooh."
And if you think about anything
that we introduce in the dressage
thing, it's their first reaction
to everything is gonna be, "Ooh,"
because that's just what they are.
So i- it's very interesting that
you, you bring this process of
breathing up for the horse, and I
like the fact that you say, "Stop."
Look for the diaphragmatic breath,
'cause I had not considered at all
until you said it that the diaphragm
sits under that lumbar vertebra.
Mm.
So if it's contracted, you can't
actually engage that hind- And
Patrick King: goâ¦
And it sits, sits under the lumbar spine.
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
Patrick King: Does a little sliding
board action down to the sternum.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Patrick King: So if they're not,
if they're not able to move their
lumbar spine, they're not able to
lift their thoracic sling So we can't
get an elevation of the forehand
and a lowering of the haunches if
they're not really breathing right.
I mean, unless you are a very masterful
manipulator and can push a horse up
into things and get them to do things
in spite, and there are plenty of
riders that are capable of doing that.
I'm not talented enough to do that,
and I wouldn't want to if I was.
Mm-hmm.
But, you know, can it happen?
Yes, it can.
Absolutely.
Can we go throughâ¦
I've seen plenty of students and
riders go through a four-minute
dressage test and not breathe.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Patrick King: Right?
But it's not optimal.
Rupert Isaacson: No.
Patrick King: Right?
It's not optimal.
Rupert Isaacson: No, and back to why
are we doing this in the first place.
If you feel that you can't breathe,
that's inherently unjoyful, you know?
So- Funny,
Patrick King: that.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: I think what we should
do here, Patrick, this is, this is great.
We can go, we're go- we're bouncing
from rabbit hole to rabbit hole.
Right.
But all of these rabbit holes are very
useful because they keep bringing us
back to how to activate with ease.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm,
Rupert Isaacson: yes.
How to balan- retrieve balance
with ease, how to deal with
anxiety and replace that with ease.
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: So here's my
proposition, because we're, we're
entering the, we- we're about two
hours now, and I could just keep going.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But I have to go and meet
Schweinhaxe with my mother-in-law.
Okay.
And we are not late for this because
we- And so what my proposition is that
we continue this conversation, but what
we'll do is we'll, with your permission
we'll have another conversation where
we'll talk for about the same amount of
time, and then we'll break the subjects up
into, like, 20-minute segments afterwards.
So maybe you have a little think about
what are the things that you would
really like to extrapolate on that
you often don't maybe get as much
of- Mm-hmm ⦠a chance to, or that
you'd like to let people know about,
and I'll think of some questions too.
Patrick King: That'd
Rupert Isaacson: be great.
And then I think, why don't we reconvene
and do that, and then we'll release
tho- this, this is more like the story
of how you got where you are, and what
do you do and why do you do it, and-
Patrick King: Mm
Rupert Isaacson: blah, blah,
blah, and what have you learned.
Now I think we can deepen and
broaden the conversation which is
something I love to do with people.
So- Yeah ⦠are you down for that?
Can, can we- I
Patrick King: am.
Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
Patrick King: Yeah.
You don't have to twist
my arm on that one.
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
Patrick King: You said two hours,
and I looked at the clock like,
"Wait, this is, we've just been on
here about 15 minutes, haven't we?"
You
Rupert Isaacson: know, when, when
people talk about the stuff that
they love and enjoy, it's amazing.
Yeah.
And everyone says, you know, "Oh, I
won't be able to talk when we do these.
Oh, I've got nothing to say."
It's like, I think
Patrick King: you probably do.
That's it, right?
Rupert Isaacson: That's it.
Patrick King: That's- It's
so funny though, isn't it?
Because theâ¦
I'm sure looking back over the,
the two hours that we've talked,
you know, "Tell me about yourself.
Who are you and what do you do?"
And, like, that's the slow, dry part.
Mm-hmm.
And then let's talk about
something really interesting.
Let'sâ¦
You know?
That's, that's when things take off, for
Rupert Isaacson: sure.
But you can'tâ¦
I find that you can't get to the
interesting stuff until you know the
h- story of why someone even got-
Patrick King: Yeah
Rupert Isaacson: there.
Patrick King: Yeah.
Absolutely
⦠Rupert Isaacson: th- there's always
the, the human story that precedes
the technician, if you like, or the-
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
⦠Rupert Isaacson: informs how
the art is then practiced.
Patrick King: Exactly.
And it- Well, it brings the,
it brings the meaning and the,
the core driving behind it.
Rupert Isaacson: It does.
Patrick King: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It does.
So- yeah ⦠and for the listeners
and the viewers, don't worry,
you're gonna get more Patrick.
So, you know- ⦠relax, you know.
And if you've got, if you've got questions
that you want him to answer or us to
talk about just put 'em in the comments.
We will- That'd be great.
Yeah ⦠we read them all.
And we willâ¦
We haven't yet gotten so big that
we can't read our comments, and
we sort of live for that day.
Then we will answer them.
And I'll, I'll let-
Absolutely ⦠Patrick know.
Patrick will probably
read 'em anyway, you know.
And all right.
Patrick King: Yeah.
That'll be great.
That'll be great.
I look forward to it.
Rupert Isaacson: Likewise.
Me too.
Patrick King: And I'm looking forward
to digging more into Rupert and
what you're doing on my podcast, so.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, anytime.
I can bore for England, so, you know.
Hind leg of a donkey, no problem.
I can bore the balls off a buffalo.
Yeah, yeah.
So how do people contact you, find
out about you, sign up for your thing
learn with you, go to your clinics?
All the things.
Patrick King: All the things.
All the things.
So I'm, I'm, I guess I'm all
over the place on social media.
So looking up Patrick King
Horsemanship and Dressage on Facebook.
There's an older page that I
unfortunately lost access to that's
just Patrick King Horsemanship.
But Patrick King Horsemanship and
Dressage on Facebook, on Instagram.
My websites you can find
me at pkhorsemanship.com
or my online academy at
academyforclassicalhorsemanship.com.
And yeah, send me an email,
send me a message through,
through any of the, the ways.
If you have questions about anything,
if you wanna learn more about anything
feel free, reach out directly.
I can be tricky to get ahold of because I
manage it all myself, but yeah, reach out.
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
Okay.
So those are the plugs, lads.
You heard it.
So reach out to him.
Go learn what you can
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