LAUNCH TODAY: Equine Assisted World a Podcast with Rupert Isaacson

Podcast

Hey excellent people!

We really hope you saw our message on our brand new Live Free Ride Free Podcast yesterday, if you missed it you can find out more here.

🤸Now to massively excited part 2: Equine Assisted World. 🤸

Some fifteen years ago, when the whole Horse Boy Adventure began,we found ourselves entering a strange world. Stranger than the journeys into Mongolia to see shamans, stranger than the deep dive into healing in the Kalahari,the Australian rain forests, and Navajo Reservations.

Stranger than the immersion into classical dressage that we made in order to create collected horses, that could impart oxytocin to riders with neuro-psychological conditions.

This stranger than strange world was – weirdly – the world of equine therapy and therapeutic riding.

Why so strange? 🤔

When we appeared on the scene with Horse Boy Method, we were not prepared (perhaps naively) for the s**t-storm of opposition, rivalry, and negativity, with which the established equine therapeutic world greeted us. All we wanted to do was share something, that we had stumbled into that worked, and which neuro-scientists having explained to us why it works, share it with anyone who felt they could benefit form it.

Little by little, however, we began to identify people within that world who were beacons of light and positivity who managed some how to bypass this bizarre factionalism and get amazing results with a whole variety of populations and methodologies. At the same time in the intervening years, the equine assisted world has changed and developed out of all recognition. This is a good thing – from just a few long established players growling at each other – the equine assisted world has branched out and grown reflecting the innovations in technology, and thought, that have run through every level of society this past decade and a half.

It can however be a little confusing now, when somebody wants to enter the equine assisted world, whether as a prospective professional or as a client seeking services, to discern how the many different methods now available work, and which might be the best fit for them. How to find the best practices in a world that is developing with such eye watering rapidity?

During this same time period, our how approaches – Horse Boy MethodMovement Method and ATHENA – have now become part of the mainstream in many areas, which is great because now so many families can access these services.

Now we want to give back.

The Equine Assisted World Podcast identifies the people at the leading edge. Some have been active for decades, others are new on the scene. What they share in common, whether their program is mounted or unmounted, hands on or hands off, limited only to horses or including horses as a wider array of options, is a combination of solid results with inspired leaps forward in how to bring horses and humans together in the context of healing.

We interview these people and get their personal stories as well as finding out how their programs work. And there is a bonus for you the listener. In addition to each interview podcast, we then invite you excellent people to submit your questions directly to those sharing their methodologies,and we will create subsequent episodes in which your questions are answered directly by the people themselves.

All of us in the equine assisted world are here for the same reason – to ameliorate suffering through the medium of horses, while at the same time looking out for the horses welfare with as much care as that we give to the humans.

We can all learn from each other and in doing so exchange information that allows the equine assisted world to develop ever more effective approaches and consign the old factionalism (which holds things back)to the past.

Join us as we journey into the future of our strange and wonderful equine assisted world.

Episode 1: Joell Dunlap -Square Peg Foundation

🏅 In this first Episode I speak with my dear friend Joell Dunlap who runs Square Peg Foundation one of the most successful and pioneering equine assisted programs in North America. Starting with a simple idea: how could the quirky kids find a place in the world of riding as a sport when the world of dressage and hunter jumper barns can be so judgemental and unforgiving. She fell into creating programs for people with autism, ADHD,depression, eating disorders, and so on first with jumping, dressage and polo and then organically into therapeutic world, but without losing sight of helping them learn and excel as equestrians.

The well-being of the equine partner is paramount at Square Peg and Joell is know for doing the impossible, taking off the track Thoroughbreds and putting them through the Old Masters system of training dressage from the ground within hand work, long reining and lunging.

The clients themselves become the horse trainers and end up often finding employment through this program which is now a registered health provision for San Mateo County, CA – aka Silicon Valley.

It sounds like a slick path to success but Joell started as a teenage single mother of a child with learning challenges, working at the race tracks galloping two-year-olds in order to make ends meet. No silver spoon here. Her story provided her with the insights and compassion needed to work with challenged and at risk youth, including teenage sex-workers from San Francisco’s notorious Tenderloin neighborhood, as well as putting together successful educational programs for kids, that no school would take.

Her partnerships with renowned classical dressage trainers, such as the Valenca family from Portugal, Christian Bachinger of the Spanish Riding School and Dominique Barbier have brought her a recognition internationally that she has used to help establish programs as far afield as Europe and Asia.

Join us for a fascinating discovery of how Square Peg Foundation makes all this work. And remember to subscribe and share.

Find Joell at:

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