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