Speaker 3 (00:42)
Welcome. Today we're joined by internationally respected horseman, clinician and author Warwick Schiller, a name that's become synonymous with relationship based training and a fresh, thoughtful approach to horsemanship. Growing up in a farm in rural Australia, Warwick was riding horses by the age of seven. Since then, his journeys taken him from a professional reigning arenas where he became an NRHA reserve world champion and represented Australia at the 2010 and 2018 World Equestrian Games.
building a global online community on trust, connection, and mental well-being of the horse. With over 33 million views on YouTube and a thriving online video library and best-selling book, Warwick continues to inspire riders around the world to slow down, listen more deeply, and train in a way that feels good for both horse and human. So welcome Warwick, it's great to have you here today.
Speaker 2 (01:33)
Thanks guys, it's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:34)
you've been a part of the fair for seven years now and we're in our seventh year. I, first of all, I cannot thank you enough for taking that jump when I first decided to do this. And it was a big leap for me because it was going from basically in-person training of horses and riders to doing an online thing and learning web design and all of that and marketing. And, and you were so willing.
to hop on board. You gave me so much encouragement. You're one of my first interviews for the fair and you encouraged me to, stay the course and have a tough skin and don't worry about what others have to say to just, you know, stick with your mission. And I sure appreciated that because when you first enter the online space, it can be a little nerve wracking, let's say.
Speaker 2 (02:27)
Yeah, it can be a little rough out there.
Speaker 3 (02:29)
it sure can.
Speaker 1 (02:30)
So what sparked your passion for horses and sort of the path that you're on now with horses at this point in your,
Speaker 2 (02:37)
Well, that's like 50 years worth of stuff. You know, I think, you know, I grew up on a farm and we, you know, I started riding when I was probably about seven, like Paula said. And I think, you know, initially it's something we did as a family. Um, I do think that as a, you know, as a teenager, when you're in those weird years right there, think horses were the, I don't know, horses were probably the one place I could be me. didn't have to pretend to be, you know, whatever.
other than what I was sort of thing. There was that and you know, I think I've, you know, I've always enjoyed doing stuff with horses and I think, you know, I think part of it, the bit I just said about, sorry, the bit I said about horses, I I mean at home alone, me and my horse, that could be me. But then like, as far as like horse shows and stuff like that, it was, it was probably the one place I was one of the cool kids. Whereas I wasn't a cool kid at school sort of thing. So that, I think there's a, you know, there's a bit of that there too. And I, that's something I've been really aware of the last, you know.
be seven or eight years now is I think it's really important to understand why you do the things you do, whether you're a CEO or whatever you do, what was it that drove you to do it in the first place? Because in doing that, you might unravel some things you didn't even know were there. so I've, you know, obviously I was, I was good with horses and I liked the horses or whatever, but I think there was some, I think there was some other stuff underneath that, that, that kind of, you know, led my, my passion for horses. And I, you know, I think as you do,
that inner work stuff, understand why you do the things you do. You can keep doing the things you do. just let go of some of the reasons why you got there in the first place, I think.
Speaker 3 (04:09)
it's like having a backpack with some additional baggage that you chose to carry on from, you know, when you were young. And although you don't need any of those things in the backpack anymore, we all carry our own own backpacks and it's helpful to know what's in the backpack. But like you said, letting go and then allowing yourself to be in the
place that you're in in your journey and accept it for what it is and what its new meaning is to you right here and right now.
Speaker 2 (04:40)
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned a backpack. I was actually in Santa Fe, New Mexico last weekend for a men's retreat. that was basically the whole thing about the retreat was we carry these stuff around in our backpack and we want to, you don't need it anymore. You needed it at some point in time and you don't need it anymore. And it's about unloading that stuff. And, know, I think some people start that much earlier, like in their thirties or whatever. was, I was 50 before I even knew I was carrying a backpack. you know, it's a slow start.
Speaker 1 (05:04)
It's like horses, they make us aware of so much. even like you think like meditation or something like that to become familiar with horses make us do that. It's one of the first times, at least for me, what I love about horses is it puts me in the moment right now. Not what I need to do later today or what I should have done yesterday. It's right now in the moment. And I think for so many people, that's why horses feel good to them.
to bring them back to that. And so much of the time as we go more and deeper into this horsemanship journey, we start realizing how much comes from within oneself. And so for me, the big lesson with horses is just that, that it's, really need to learn myself. Was there a point in your life where you really understood it's you and it's got to come from you? if so, what triggered that sort of that aha moment?
Speaker 2 (05:56)
I'd say the start of the whole thing was about eight years ago. My wife bought a, I was still involved in the raining back then and maybe it's nine years ago now. My wife bought a new raining horse and he had some, he had some little things about him, just tiny little things that I wanted to change and I couldn't change them. And you know, at this point in time I had probably, I don't know, 23, 24 million views on YouTube and I'm traveling around the world doing clinics and every horse leaves better than they arrived. And I think I know what I'm doing.
This horse had me puzzled because I couldn't train him to be different. know, so training, behavior modification, vaping, couldn't change, I couldn't train him to be different. And he kind of made me take a step back and like, well, what else is there? And then I started, he kind of got me interested in what I, no, I take offense at this, but what I used to call crazy cat lady land, like horse people who don't train their horses, but they have this relationship with them. And I used to think,
bunch of weirdos, you know, and he kind of got me thinking, what else is there? And I started looking at different things and yeah, he was kind of the, the start of heading me heading down the path I'm on now. I realized he didn't need more training. He needed to be listened to and he was, you know, he was a very highly functional shut down horse. So he was very obedient and kind of in his head, very obedient. Like most people think this is the best trained horse I've ever had. He's perfect. Does what I say when I say it, how I say it and doesn't do anything else.
He was a little bit robotic. I couldn't train him to be different but once I started working on that relationship stuff, was a different story.
Speaker 3 (07:27)
at a similar moment when I was younger and I had a horse that I thought I had going quite well and I was in a situation at a clinic where I kind of wanted, you know, as a teenager to show that I was, you know, doing well with my horse, even though I had some questions about him, you know, because there was some ear pinning and tail ringing and that sort of thing. but he did a lot of stuff, you know, jumped and bridle-est, you know, did all the tricks and laid down and whatnot. so...
The gal in Lee Smith is her name. She pointed out to me in that clinic, she grabbed ahold of the lead rope and she got him to really brighten up and really look and focus on where she was directing his mind. that's, it was the same sort of thing where it was like, boy, this needs to come from a totally different space than like you were mentioning, you know, training, modifying behavior, you know, different conditionings, operant and whatnot.
And, and it was, it was a night and day difference that I saw how his expression was with her. And it really opened my eyes up I'm still not, as good as I'd like to be at it, but, but it comes more from the heart then. And like you said, some people that are really, you know, like a cat lady and they love on their cats and those cats love them. It's a feel following a feel thing. and I love how you brought that in.
And it's those difficult horses, right, that point out to us where we might need to make some adjustments and changes in our approach and ourselves.
Speaker 2 (08:56)
Yeah, and the big thing with this horse is what I learnt from him was he was reflection of me. I'd spent most of my life kind of shut down. it was, you know, I kind of...
I've done a lot of work since then, but it's kind like my first introduction to where I was at was from a horse, so it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (09:12)
And realizing it's the whole, we're learning the whole horse, right? So there is the mind and there is the life or the energy or the spirit of the horse. And then there's the body of the horse. And then there's learning ourself, oneself, putting the two together. That's the part that I don't know how to explain that to people. And I guess that's just something.
people just sort of have to find. But it's interesting because I don't know, it takes these, these horses, these special horses or these harder horses that, that really make us stop for once and think. And then you look back and you go, that was the best thing that ever happened to me was that, that horse coming into my, to my life.
Speaker 2 (09:51)
You know, with him, she kept showing him, you know, back then it's just the little things that I couldn't change. just left them and he was, he was quite good without changing those. But when, you know, what I figured out was I, what I'd been trying to do up to that point time, I was always interested in learning things, but I was always interested in learning things in one box and that was behavior modification. And I was on the outskirts of the behavior modification box. You know I mean? I was not, you know, I was always on the very empathetic end of it anyway.
And I was, but I was still inside that box. hadn't gone outside that box yet. So he really, um, he really kind of got me thinking about things differently. And then luckily I was doing a lot of clinics and I got to experiment with lot of horses and I had, you know, had some amazing things happen at clinics that really helped me with that too. But the thing about it, you know, like I said, some people kind of have these, I don't know, midlife crises or whatever they are in their thirties. was, I kind of viewed the world the same way until I was 50 and so I'm 58 now.
For me, it's not that long ago that I remember looking at the world completely differently. Some people, they evolve over a long period of time. They kind of don't even realize they've evolved. And so it can be quite easy to be judgmental of others. But I remember when it wasn't that long ago, if I looked at me doing what I'm doing now, I'd go, that guy's an idiot. And so I do get a bit of that in the social space. it's almost like lately, every time I put a video up, there's a few trainers out there that
without referencing the video, they would like to like poo poo and say that doesn't work and whatever. And it doesn't bother me because like I said, eight years ago, I would have seen that video and went, he's an idiot. You know what I mean? So it's, it's, lucky I, it was a sharp progression sort of thing. So I don't actually forget the way I used to view the world. And when I viewed the world that way, I was right. Like I said, I was doing clinics around the world and it seemed to be working and, and if it's working, there's no need to change it.
Speaker 3 (11:45)
And that's where, you know, being open-minded and trying to see not through your perceptual filter that has been built, you know, through the backpack that you've been carrying along all this time, right? And so you're viewing life and viewing the world through this backpack. And I'm sure there's some people that are going to listen to this, that they've got their backpack with their horse. So they've got this, relationship where.
The horse always responds this way and they always respond this way and they're always kind of viewing, their horse is viewing them and they're viewing their horse through the lens that they've always seen each other because that's the way they interact all the time. And there can be a change though and there can be a way of showing up differently ourselves and or maybe observing our horses from a different perspective. Again, it's coming through us though.
that now we can start to rewrite that story that we've had together with our horse. What would be some things you would tell our viewers that might be helpful for them if they're finding themselves in that kind of friction place or a place where their journey with their horse isn't quite matching the picture that they had maybe originally hoped for.
Speaker 2 (13:02)
Great question, Paula. You know, I've had a number of perspective changes in the last eight years, but probably the thing that's really helped me the most, I have a podcast and three of my guests on the podcast had a perspective.
And I'll tell you what their perspective is. The first one was a gun named Rupert Isaacson. I don't know if you ever saw the movie The Horse Boy or read the book The Horse Boy. It's about this guy has this highly autistic son. took him to Mongolia to the horse shamans there to help him. But Rupert used to be also a documentary filmmaker. did a lot of documentary films with the Khoisan Bushmen of the Kalahari. So some of the last remaining hunter gatherers. And he said when a documentary filmmaker goes to a tribe like that, you know, the chief comes out and you talk to the chief and blah, blah, blah.
blah, blah, blah. But he said, he's only the chief because we think he's the chief because we come from hierarchical type societies. have kings and queens and popes and prime ministers and presidents and dictators and all that sort of stuff. Whereas, Hunter Gather Society, the best person for the job does the job for the good of the whole. Everything everybody does is not for the self, it's for the good of everybody. And obviously in this case, the guy that came out and talked to them, he can speak English or he can speak French, although he's had interactions with non-
What's the, I can't remember the language they speak. It's the one that does all the clicks and stuff. And so there was that perspective. And then I had a couple of people on the podcast who were talking about the same thing with horses that, you know, I used to believe that the, of the whole hierarchy thing, there's a, you know, if you had 10 horses, there's a number one and they tell everybody what to do. And there's a number two and tells everybody else what to do except the number one. There's a number three and it's like there's winners and losers.
Whereas these other two, probably three of them actually, three different guests on the podcast, making me aware of the fact that, like, so there's a lead mare, she's, you know, or there's different jobs in a herd. Okay. And some horses are better at smelling water. Some horses are better at finding, some horses have better daytime eyesight, some horses have better nighttime eyesight. So everybody kind of has a role to play. And, you know, the lead mare makes a lot of decisions and the rest of the herd,
are always testing the lead mare, but they're not testing her because they want her job. They're testing her to make sure she's still the best one for the job, for the good of the whole. And it's just a totally different perspective. It's very indigenous view perspective to where it's more about care for the whole. One of my podcast guests said it's a care for versus power over dynamic. And so that's the thing is these days, like the whole relationship stuff with horses,
I'm not doing it for me. Some people I think follow the relationship stuff because like, yeah, I want to feel the warm and fuzzies. For me, it's all about those horses feeling safe because a horse that feels safe around you and with the things you do are so much easier to train. And so even if you have to have a boundary, that boundary is out of a care for dynamic versus a power over dynamic. And so the way you do it, the energy you do it with, the internal energy that you have, everything is different when you have
the perspective that you're doing it to help them not to control them. And that's probably the, for me, the biggest thing. I, you know, I've kind of learned this stuff in hindsight, looking back at some of the changes I've made, like, yeah, that's why that works so well, you know? So it's, it's really interesting, especially that like say the testing part, you know, some people go, my horse is really testy. They're not, I don't think they're testing to be testy. They want to know who are you? Like, how do you respond in this situation? Cause I, kind of set them in to go, Paul, of that.
You know, there's this lens that you view your horse and they view you. I think all horses view us with the same lens. The only lens differentiation is the one we view their actions with because it seems like as soon as you make the change, they make the change. You know, it's like, they were willing to view you through that lens anyway, but that's probably the biggest thing is why are you doing the thing you're doing? Cause like any technique.
with a different energy is a different technique and that energy a lot of time comes from your perspective. So why are you doing this particular action? Is it about domination and control or is it about helping them feel better? And I feel like you could use the same technique to do both of those things but the energy with which you do it will come out of you differently.
Speaker 1 (17:19)
just defines a really good leader for people as well, because it's, it's, is it based on, you know, dominance and force or respect, or is it based on, wow, this person is really going to help us out. It's really an asset to this team, to this.
Speaker 3 (17:35)
just like you could have a person walk into a room and it can shift the whole room depending on their energy, especially if they've got a real intense energy. Our horses, they pick up on that intention piece that you're talking about, just like we would pick up on somebody with a whole lot of energy coming into a room. It's that glaringly obvious to them. And that's where, you know, it's so important that our energy when we're coming in with
you know, this new intention. And I think this is great. I think this is a big help for, for those that are, that are listening, but it needs to be the whole human is invested in that intention rather than saying, well, I'm not working on, you know, control and making my horse do X, Y, or Z. And then pretending like our intention is good and for the best of the horse, but now we're really incongruent.
And now the energy we bring into the situation is very confusing and scattered for a horse because they're not used to something acting in one way that's feeling in another.
Speaker 2 (18:44)
You've got it. Yeah, that's hit the nail on the head right there. They don't like incongruent behavior. It's just a weird energy. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's a huge part of right there. Paula is being congruent. And what the hard part is, is there's one of the most spiritually ancient Hindu practices is called Karma Yoga. And Karma Yoga is basically focusing on a task with no thought as to the outcome of that task.
And so what's hard with people is if they can do something with their horse, knowing that if they do this right, they will get a certain result. And they tend to tend to come with the energy thinking about the result rather than the doing thing, you know. And so it's very hard if you know, one of the things I suggest people do early on in the piece, you know, if they've got a horse that's not interested in them or it's hard to catch or whatever, you just go out in the pasture, take a chair, whatever, go and sit out there, read a book, scroll through Facebook, meditate, whatever you want to do.
And if you do that often enough, at some point Tom, those horses will kind of become curious, probably come up to you. And so it was at Equine Affair a few years ago, lady came up to the booth, she goes, hey, I've been doing that. And I said, you've got to do it with no expectation. And the lady said, I've been doing that thing you said, I've been going out in the pasture with my chair with no expectation. Anyway, I've been doing it for two weeks and she still hasn't come up to me. What am I doing wrong? And I said, do you realize you just told me that you are going out there with no expectation, but then the expectation you say you don't have hasn't been met and you're wondering why?
So you actually are going out there with an expectation. I'm not saying it's easy because once you know that this thing, if I said, what I want you to do is go out and sit in the pasture with your horse. Nothing's going to happen. He's going to ignore you, but this is a, I don't know, this is a sitting in silence exercise or whatever. If they did that, the horse would come up and hang with them because they wouldn't have the agenda of like, is he coming yet? Is he coming yet? You know, and that's the hard thing is,
your expectations have an energy, so your thoughts have an energy and your expectation has energy and it's that, I think it's that internal energy that's the, that's probably talked about the least, but it's probably the most important part of the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (20:46)
And if you can maybe set your expectation, because humans do tend to be driven towards a goal or towards a result. So maybe you reset the expectation towards, I'm gonna be out here and I'm going to learn as much about my horse and who they show up as in their herd. And we've got a program, this is where we start with people.
Go sit out there and is your horse the one that looks and tells the rest of the herd, there's turkeys off in the field, way over there. Did you see that? And you can watch them. will, you know, did you see like over there? You know, and they point and they use their body language so clearly. And then you've got the one that's, you know, they're always staying back and they're always a little cautious and they're using everybody else in the herd.
to help them understand how should I process what is going on in my surroundings. And you're going to show up so differently for your horse. If you have the horse that's bashful and nervous and unsure and always looking for a little, you know, a little support or a little hand holding versus the one that's like turkeys, let's go, you know, let's go check them out. And they're, they're often interested. And so that just helps you maybe sit and be present.
in a way that you're still feeling, you know, for those people that just, they feel like they have to be doing something or they've got that busy monkey mind going all the time. Something like that can be helpful because it gives a person a direction maybe.
Speaker 2 (22:22)
And the thing you just talked about then is really the big thing is horses rely on the awareness of other members of the herd to keep them safe. And the other members of the herd will communicate things through posture and energy. And that's, think that's their main method of communication to posture energy. know, if there's four of them out there grazing, their posture's relaxed and their energy's relaxed. And if one of them sees those turkeys up the hill and his head pops up and his energy gets tense, the other three go, what did you see? What is it?
And then if that first horse kind of goes, I don't know, it's only turkeys and they kind of relax, the others will relax back down. And so they read each other's posture and energy is part of their big part of their communication. And so that's where I think a lot of people have their horses lose a lot of trust in them is the fact that the people aren't aware of their posture and energy. You know, they're almost basically communicating that I'm not aware of my posture and energy or I'm not aware. And so you tend to have horses that they don't
They don't trust you. And I don't mean they don't trust you as in they don't trust you. They don't trust you like you're going to hurt them. It's not that kind of trust. It's that they don't trust your judgment to inform them of the environment. know, something I talk about at clinics, I'll say, if you ever got a horse, you've had an established herd of horses and you add a new horse, a lot of times, you know, there's a bit of run around and then they're good. But sometimes that new horse, others run them off and run them off and run them off for weeks. And I said, usually those horses that get run off like that.
probably through human interaction, they've probably forgotten how to act properly like a horse. And what the herd is doing is, you're always anxious or you're always whatever, like get away from us because we cannot rely on your posture and energy to give us a good reading of the environment. And so get over, we don't want you around us because you're incongruent with your body language.
You what I mean? Like you're always tense and there's nothing to be tense about and we can't get any rest if you're always tense, you know, that sort of thing. And so I really feel like a lot of times people have trouble with their horses because they have incongruent body language around their horses for the environment. Like, you know, people that will walk along holding their horse under the chin with their arm straight out the side with that tension in their body. They're basically saying, we're all going to die, things wrong. And if you've got a
horse that tends to be anxious, that'll probably make him really anxious. But if you've got a horse that's, you know, not the anxious type, it's probably not going to make them anxious, but they're going to ignore everything you do because it doesn't make any sense. You know what I mean? So those, you know, those are the ones people go, I can't get my horse to do, you know, he doesn't respond to my asks. It's because they don't believe your energy because it's, it's, it's not environmentally appropriate.
Speaker 1 (25:05)
It's
not beneficial. And, know, think about when you're riding a horse, you're up higher, right? So your eyes were up higher. So we're the eyes. We want to be the brains and the awareness and we want them to be aware as well. But we want them to, we want them to be the feet, but we want to be obese because we're higher than them. We should see things before our horse sees things if we're really aware. And then all of a sudden we shape the situation up.
to our, to how we would like the horse to respond. So we're ahead of the game. And so all of a sudden we're three steps ahead and someone's got to run the show and not in a dominant way. Horses are just, someone's got to be, to step up. Like you said earlier, someone's got to have a job. And so it's either going to be us or the horse. And so if all of sudden I'm noticing what's in my horse's environment and I'm showing my horse, look, there's a deer, there's a car coming. Let's go turn. Let's look at it. Let's go follow it.
All of a sudden that horse goes, you're pretty good. You're pretty good leadership material. feel good. And the thing is, is they feel good about you. And that's the thing is it's like an emotional memory. How do they feel when they're with you? That's really what we need. And so for that, we need to be really aware, right?
Speaker 2 (26:16)
Yeah, that whole awareness piece, you know, there's an old Ray Hunt saying that says they know when you know and they know when you don't. And I used to think many years ago, I used to think that meant they know when you know what you're doing and they know when you don't know what you're doing, which I think is true. But then, I don't know, a number of years ago, I was reading an article by someone who was around Ray Hunt a lot. And he said, when you're around your horse, you need to be aware of what the eyes are doing, what the ears are doing, what their muzzle's doing, what their nostrils are doing, what's their breathing doing, what's their back doing, what's their tail doing, is it up, is it...
loose as it clamped? What are their feet doing? they standing square? Are they standing a bit off? And you need to know all those things because they know when you know and they know when you don't. They basically know when you are present. And if you're not present, you are not a helpful member of the herd. And so that's when they, you you see people leading the horse, they're trying to pull away from them or whatever. They're like, basically the horse is trying to go, I can't, I can't trust your judgment. I'm
out of here. It's not that I don't like you. I don't like the way you're showing up. And that's something I try to tell people is if you can, it's not that the horse doesn't like you, but the way you're showing up, it's not beneficial for their survival sort of thing. I if you really think about that's all they're ever worried about is safety and you come at it from that angle, I think that helps a lot.
Speaker 3 (27:27)
If you're in a conversation with somebody and they're distracted and they're checking their phone or they're kind of looking over your shoulder at what's going on behind you and doing these things, you realize you're not in communication with that person, with the entirety of that person. And the horses are, they know when you don't know. And you don't know when you're either in here or you're thinking about the past, present, present would be great, future. Maybe ask yourself how...
soon, can I show up and be present with my horse and just be an observer? Because if you're in conversation with somebody and you notice they're observing you and they're taking into all of your little nuances and, and your tone and all of that, you're going to warm up and soften into that conversation really easily. But if they're distracted and they're looking over their shoulder, they're checking their phone, you kind of
you're going to kind of just go to yourself and not warm up to them and you're going to just take care of you and your surroundings because there's not that communication going on between two individuals.
Speaker 2 (28:32)
Yeah,
most certainly. that's probably, I mean, everything I'm doing these days, I'm really trying to, I've found if you can communicate your awareness of their awareness, that's kind of a game changer. And it almost gets to the point to where you're communicating your awareness of their awareness, of your awareness, of their awareness. And then when you get further along, it's like you're communicating your awareness of their awareness, of your awareness, of their awareness, of your awareness, of their awareness, awareness. Really? mean, that might sound really weird, but it's, you you think about the old saying, you know, reward the slightest try.
When you reward the slightest try, not only are you rewarding the try, you're communicating your awareness of that try. And so feel like the more you can communicate how aware you are, the more comfortable they feel around you.
Speaker 3 (29:11)
Your description
reminded me of like when you're in a dressing room and you've got those mirrors on both sides and you-
Speaker 2 (29:17)
And
they just go forever. It's bit like that. Turtles all the way down.
Speaker 1 (29:23)
Something that I think about quite a bit is when I used to work with horses in the past, and there's a lot that I would certainly change. And there's a lot that I look back on that I feel bad or guilty that I did it that way. And we all probably have had something with horses that we've done, and maybe we saw somebody else present it that way, and I tried to present it that way, and it didn't work that way. But it did bring me to who I am today.
So my past and what I did, it did bring me to who I am today. And so then when I, now when I think back, think, maybe, maybe there's a reason I did it that way. Or maybe I learned a lot that doing it like that, even though I wouldn't repeat that. And so as I look back, I start to think, well, maybe, maybe it was okay that that it works like so.
Is there anything in the past, like when you worked with horses that you would, that you really wish you knew like a younger Warwick that you really wish you knew? Or would you sort of have kept your past the way it is because that's brought you to who you are today?
Speaker 2 (30:24)
I think two things can be true at the same time, Jack. you know, I wouldn't have the understanding of what I understand from the perspective I have now if I hadn't done all that stupid stuff in the past anyway. So I do think it's what led me to have the point of view I have now. But then on the other hand, you look at it like, yeah, I wish I done those things. the thing about horses is I feel like they ...
They will show up how you show up. they, kind of like, they don't hold a grudge about that. Like you used to do it that way. Now you do it this way. Okay. We're good. They tend to not hold grudges about things. I've got some horses that we own here who've, who have been through the transition. ⁓ and then we've got some we've raised that didn't have any of the other stuff in the first place. They're a completely different horse, but the ones that have been through the transition, they're like, yeah, well, this is how you operate now. You know, it's funny. One of my horses I've had.
Adam Sinclair is a yearling, he's 13 now I think, but he's very orally fixated. he used to always, when you go to put the halter on him, he would get the noseband in his mouth and want to chew it. And I just, Bundy, give me that, thank you. And then I go to put it him and want to chew it. And I put it on. And you know, this went on for six years sort of thing. And then here a few years ago, I'm like, I think he's just asking questions. And so I went to put the halter on him, he got the noseband in his mouth and I just let him chew it. And I just stood there until he was done.
He chewed it for maybe two minutes, which seems like three hours when you're standing there with your horse chewing the noseband of the whole thing. Then he spat it out. And when I went to put it on him after that, he didn't try to get in his mouth that day. Came out the next day, went to put the whole thing on, he gets noseband in his mouth, I let him chew it till he's done. He spits it out. put it on. I do that four days in a row. And then for the next two years, he never once tried to get in his mouth, but he tried to get in his mouth every time for six years. And it's almost like they're going, if I do this, how do you respond?
that will tell me a lot about you. Are you the obedient guy or are the patient guy? And I'm cool with whichever guy you're going to be. I just want to know who I'm dealing with. Yeah, after letting him do it for four days in a row, he didn't try it again for another two years. He's like, and when I say try it, he's not trying to be bad. He's just trying things out. You know, at clinics a lot of times I will, you know, because you're, most of the time you're working with women also. Is anybody here when you were younger ever play hard to get?
And a lot of them raised their hand and I said, you know, I believe when a woman, when a girl plays hard to get, it's not that she doesn't want to get got. It's kind of like, what is your level of interest in me? If you play hard to get, and then two days later, he's hot and heavy with your friend from down the street, you know, well, it wasn't me he was interested in. He was interested in someone that he thought was an easy catch. So I dodged a bullet there. that I said, that's, I think that's one reason you'll play hard to get. But then if you, once you get past the, what's your level of interest in me?
The next question would be, how are you going to express that interest? Do you call me every Thursday night and say, you want to go out for dinner tomorrow night? Or do I find you creeping around outside my house at three o'clock in the morning? And so that playing hard to get, if that's what you want to call it, is really about safety. It's like, who am I dealing with? And I really feel like horses do that with us. just, they want to know who they're dealing with and they can, you know, they can work with that. They would just like to know. So I really think, you know, I've had horses at
clinics, like I've had one horse that my horse hates to be brushed for the last five years and the whole time I've had my horse, this horse tries to bite me when I go to brush it. And without any correction at all, within about half an hour, I could brush that horse and she just stood there with her eyes bright and her ears working really well. And all it was, was when the person would go to brush her, she would kind of swing around and open her mouth a little bit. I think to see what the response would be, and the response was either, don't do that or,
shrinking back sort of thing. And all I did, I'd go to brush her and her head would come around like, hey, darling, how's it going? You having a good time? And then her head would go straight and I'd go to brush her and her head would swing around, she'd pin her ears. And instead of me buying into that, I'd go, hey, darling, how's it going? And half an hour later, she was not worried about being brushed at all. And I never once said, no, I really feel that horses, I think they're quite happy to do whatever it is we want them to do, as long as they have a say in it, as long as they have the option to say, no, I did a video the other day about.
about the Leslie Desmond quote, I heard it from Leslie Desmond first, which was, yes has no value if no is not an option. I made a video on YouTube about the value of a no and I think allowing them to say no is what gets the good yeses. I also think that's when you've got to have quite a horsemanship background behind you too to know, you know, so you can stay safe and still allow no's to, you know, I think a lot of this stuff is a bit like the
I think it's a Sir Richard Branson quote, but he says, order to break the rules, first you need to learn all the rules. I feel like, you know, Jack, you said, well, I've done things different in the past. I feel like the horsemanship journey, a lot of us have been on up to this point, allowed us to learn the rules and then this stuff's kind of like breaking.
Speaker 1 (35:14)
That's a really great way to look at that. And even for some people to just spend time with their horse for the first time, and that might work for some people. Then there's some people and some horses that there might need to be some exercises or some established first, because maybe that's too much for that horse and that person. But I think that's really, I think that's their question that I've asked clinicians and horse people from all over the world this question.
And it's something like this is it would go like this is if I had to or ask you, guess Warwick, would you, when you work with your own horse, so working with a horse for yourself that you're, you've got time and you can have fear. Is there a difference in how you'd work with that horse versus a horse that you're say, maybe when you used to train for people, I'm sure at one point you trained horses for people, right? So did you work with horses a little bit differently?
back than when you were training, knowing that it would go to another person that would present it differently than you might present it.
Speaker 2 (36:14)
Yeah, most certainly. was no longer training horses for the public when my wife bought that one horse I was talking about. Yeah, I certainly did things differently. You know, these days, I don't know if I could train horses for the public because you, you know, in order to make the horses work for everybody, you'd have to probably, you know, take a little bit away from the horse. You know, I think Martin Black says something along the lines of, you know, sometimes you can get the person to raise to the level of the horse and sometimes you have to bring the horse down to the level of the person. And I think
If can have a horse, at least in the early stages. mean, you know, once you get far enough along, think anybody could, anybody could catch them and ride them and whatever. I think it just really depends on how you, how you want to build that foundation with you want to build it out of. I think I used to build relationship through skills. would teach them skills and that's what built the relationship. I would tell them, you know, I'd communicate how consistent I was, how fair I was, how boundary day was all that sort of thing. These days I've.
It's almost like I want to do relationship first only because, and not because I want to get all the warm and fuzzies, but only because I feel like it's easy. It works better. You you probably know this, probably thought this same way, Jack, that over the years I've had to develop a lot of techniques to solve problems that horses have. I don't need most of those techniques anymore, least with my horses, because I realized that a lot of the
A lot of the problems horses and every horse would have has to do with our first interactions with them. you kind of, you know, I used to be big on moving their feet. You know, I used to be big on using the feet to get to the mind. These days I'm probably more about get to the mind to get to the feet, especially in the beginning stuff to where you just want the horse to stand around. You know, I used to be very good at getting the horse to stand still because I'd move them here and move them there and yield the front and yield the hind and move the front and then now there's a place of rest.
know, horses don't need to do that with each other. They just stand around all day sort of thing anyway. So yeah, it's just a different way of getting the, I think it's a different way of getting the same thing.
Speaker 3 (38:14)
So I know you do a lot of reading and with your podcast, you're, you know, you're getting all sorts of people in that, that have, I'm sure shined many different perspectives on horses, way they operate ourselves, how we ourselves operate. What have been in the last few years, the either people or books or
⁓ influences on your horsemanship journey that have changed it the most.
Speaker 2 (38:42)
I would say that the three or four people I talked about before that I've had on the podcast that gave me that different perspective. But one of them, episode 115 of my podcast was a lady from Sweden named Emilie K's daughter. And she runs a sanctuary in Sweden where she teaches or she has a school that she calls interspecies empathic communication. And she grew up in Sweden and had a pretty dysfunctional sort of a childhood. And she used to take
And in Sweden with the pony, if the pony's not doing what you want, you hit him with the stick sort of thing. And one day she was 10 years old or 12 years old something, or having a hitting the pony with the stick thing. And suddenly her whole, the whole time space continuum kind of collapsed and she had a, she had a, you know, some people would call it a mental breakdown, but she basically inhabited, this might sound weird, but she basically inhabited the consciousness of the horse. She could feel emotionally what the horse is feeling. She could feel physically what the horse is feeling. She could feel things from the horse's point of view.
And so she's one of the things she's as an animal communicator, but she gets messages from the collective consciousness of horses. And that's the thing they've told her the most is we don't have a hierarchy. We do things for the good of the whole. And I feel like coming at things from that perspective is pretty much a game changer that you're doing things to help. It's not about controlling this animal or teaching them to do things or whatever. If you start out doing things from a, I'm here to help perspective,
Things are so easy.
Speaker 1 (40:09)
And the community wants to be there. They're not forced to be there.
Speaker 2 (40:14)
And Jack, you said something before about leadership and with people or whatever. Another one of my podcast guests is lady named Kelly Wendorf and she is like a CEO whisperer. She's from Santa Fe, New Mexico and she does like an equine assisted learning model there and she does a lot of work with high achievers, CEOs, that sort of thing. And that's the thing she tries to get them to understand is how the herd of horses works. And it's not a
It's not from a power over dynamic. That's a hurt. Those are her terms power over versus care for and she tries to bring that herd, that herd perspective into the business world and it's apparently it's having quite a ripple effect.
Speaker 3 (40:53)
It reminds me of, was listening to, I don't know if you've heard of Dean Graziosi, I think that's how you say his last name, but he works with Tony Robbins a lot. But he was talking about in 2020 when he had to help Tony completely convert and do things online. Tony does all these live workshops and that sort of thing. And so he brought Dean in to help.
his team accomplished getting this amazing setup and thing together for him to be able to do his workshop online. And Dean came in there and he was getting all these things done and checking all the boxes and things were going really quick. And Tony pulled him aside and he said, you know, hey, look, you're doing a great job. You're getting all this stuff done, but you're really, you're not doing it the right way.
He said, you've got to, and he didn't say it in these words. I'm sure it was, you know, super empowering. It's totally, but he said, you've got to, you've got to come in and you have to understand they were working as a team together collectively for a while. Now you're coming in and you're saying, you know, and doing and getting all of these things done really quick, but they're feeling like they don't have ownership and they're not part of your community. You're just kind of dictating to them where.
Let's, let's build some community, give them some tasks to do, ask them their opinion, get some input from them. You know, I know you're a superstar at getting all of this stuff done, but what we need is we need this cohesive unit where everybody understands where everybody else is at. And you're working together now together for the greatest good. Horses appreciate that. People appreciate that. Teams appreciate that. It really, it's.
It's so cross species, all the stuff that we talk about in horsemanship, interacting with our horses and those sorts of things, it really, applies to life. It's lifemanship. not, you know, it's not just horsemanship.
Speaker 2 (42:51)
It's basically how the world works. Nature is very collaborative. If you're out in nature and there's something poisonous, usually the antigoat to that poisonous thing grows nearby. It's kind of like I've read it to where it was Darwin's strongest survive sort of thing. Species wise, yes, the strongest in your species survives the best, but the species that survive are the most collaborative. So it's not
It's not the survival of the fittest. It's the survival of the most collaborative. Cause you can't go to, you can't do it alone.
Speaker 3 (43:21)
Love that. They've even found that with trees now, you know, where they communicate and work together and the whole, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:27)
Yeah, that whole mycelium, woodward web thing. Right. See, that's the thing. Once you start down that rabbit hole, you can't come back out of that rabbit hole, as far as being aware of how collaborative species are with each other, how collaborative plants are with each other. Yeah, it's a whole different perspective.
Speaker 3 (43:47)
and humans, mean, we really are that way ourselves. I think we're through the school system and the systems that we've been brought up in, in recent history, it has maybe been the best survive and, you know, those that get the better grades get better opportunities and those sorts of things. But really, when I think you get down to the base of who we are, it's the collaboration of the whole entire unit.
Speaker 2 (44:11)
Yeah, the ones that get the best grades get better opportunities if you think that getting stuck in an office 10 hours a day is an opportunity.
Yeah, it's almost like they've been, you know, they've been creating these little robots to go and do all the stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:24)
before we finish up here today, I'd like to touch on your presentations that are in the FAIR. And on day one, we've got the three steps to acclimatizing, which it's different than desensitizing. So can you tell us a little bit about that particular presentation?
Speaker 2 (44:42)
Yeah, well, it can't, you know, it's, it's about, used to do a lot of desensitizing with horses and what I realized those horses end up doing is they have a level, they end up with a bit of a level of shutdown to them. ⁓ that's going to come back and haunt you in some other places. But what I found, and I'd learned this actually from a trauma therapist from Canada that was a guest on the podcast, but it's, it's a three step process to
A climatizing versus desensitizing. And the first step is you stop at the first sign of a no or the first sign of concern. You know, this is basically the horse I was talking about before that had the, my horse can't be brushed thing. You know, these were the steps I used with that horse, but the three steps are first step is stop at the first sign of concern. So in doing that, you're saying, I noticed your concern. I noticed that bothers you. And so you, you're getting some skin in the game already there. You're building some trust. Like you noticed that I was worried.
Okay, so there's no agenda to that bit. You're not, that part is pure communication of your awareness of their concern. Step two is, I don't know if you've ever heard of CAT-H, but it came from the dog training world, but CAT-H is constructional approach therapy for horses or constructional approach training for horses. But what you do is, let's say you were trying to get your horse used to a flag and you had the flag behind you, when you pulled it out from behind you, if they saw it and snorted, you put it away. Okay, that's step one. Step.
Two is you bring it out and as they notice that you stop and hold it wherever it is and you wait for them, they'll look at it like, what are you going to do with it? What are you going do with it? What are you going do with it? you're not going to do anything with it. And they'll start to relax. Then you take it away when they relax. So that's when it starts, you're starting to shape behavior. But the, and I've done that quite a bit for years, but the game changer is the first bit is to stop at the first sign of a no and take that thing away. And that's when you're communicating right then that you are aware of them.
and don't have an agenda and that makes a huge difference. And then the third part is basically like you would for desensitizing. So there's two steps before the step that most people will use.
Speaker 3 (46:41)
I think that's great. And that gives the horse so much ownership of the experience that they are in with you.
Speaker 2 (46:48)
Yeah, it gives them ownership of the experience, but it also communicates a lot to them about you and your lack of expectations and the fact that you're here to help, not here to control or, you know, you're not shaping behavior from this.
Speaker 3 (47:00)
And then the other presentation that you have is the art of avoiding the brace while steering.
Speaker 2 (47:07)
Once again, that's a bit of a three-step program too, but you know, the first thing I usually do when I'm teaching a young horse to steer, well, I'd say the first thing most people try to do is, you know, the horse is going to, wanting to go to the left and they're trying to get to go to the right. Whereas for me, that's the last thing I will do. The first thing I'll do is if they're going left, I will ask them to go just a little bit more left. So they're already bent left, they're already going left. And can you give me a little bit more left than you let go? So that takes, you don't, you're not trying to change their mind initially while you're teaching them the skill.
Second step would be if they were walking along and they're going straight, so they're not thinking left or right, I will decide to go left or right. And then the third step would be if they're going to the left and they're bent to the left, I'm going to pick up and see if I can actually change their direction and change their shape. By that point in time, they follow a feel really well. But I think a lot of times in teaching a young horse to steer, people will be trying to get the horse where he's not wanting to go. And so you end up with a bit of a brace in your steering and then you've got to be good enough to get that.
brace out of the steering at some point and some other point in time. I would rather, I don't think I have the, you know, the best feel or timing or whatever in the world. So I've kind of set my process up to where you don't have to have the perfect feeling timing, but you can still get the response of people who do have that perfect feeling timing. read a Martin Black quote recently that was about something about timing. And he says it was something to do with the fact that
I don't feel like you have to have perfect timing. you can get your horse on board, they feel that bit in for you whatever. I forget exactly what it was, but I kind of, resonated with that because I'm not the perfect timing guy. I'm probably more about the making the right decision guy, know, breaking things down to where it's easy for the horse to learn. It's easy for the person to get them to do things and there's less chance of creating a brace.
Speaker 3 (48:54)
I think that's so important. you know, when a horse has made up their mind, let's say, to go right, especially if they don't have a lot of education in there, why would we go in there? You know, they've made their mind up, they've committed their body. So now, and let's not mention, or let's also mention that if you're on a horse that hasn't been steering real well, it's probably kind of dealing with some balance issues with you up there. It's having a lot going on in its head.
And so to flood it with more pressure where it's going to have to counterbalance that because, know, just like if I were to push on Jack right now, he's going to have to balance against me. So why would I go in there and try to tell my horse to go the other way versus.
Speaker 2 (49:39)
Why would you? Probably the reason most people do is because we have this dominance over thing really somewhere deep down there inside where you can't let the horse get away with it. And I'm not saying people make that conscious decision, but it's kind of put in there from the start. And I wanted to mention too that that second video that's on the Donline Horse Fair, it's actually got footage from the saddle. So I was wearing a GoPro and so you guys can see the shape of the horse and.
I thought it would be a good idea to do it from the saddle so people can get an idea what it looks like from up there.
Speaker 1 (50:11)
definitely.
Speaker 3 (50:12)
So before we finish up here today, Warwick, is there anything else you'd like to touch on or maybe let us or let our audience know where they can find you and.
Speaker 2 (50:21)
Yeah. Okay. So I have a website, warwickshellar.com. I have a large video library on there. I've been videoing horses for probably 12 years now. So there's a lot of stuff on there. I have a Facebook page, a Facebook group, Warwick Sheller Tuned Horsemanship. And I think that's about it.
Speaker 1 (50:36)
If you could leave kind of the audience with one, one tip or sort of maybe something they could do to improve themselves, maybe off the horse, what would that one tip be?
Speaker 2 (50:44)
I love to quote Wayne Dyer when he says, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. probably that just have some thought about that perspective I was talking about before that, you know, first thing horses are worried about is being safe. So when you come in there and you start trying to tell them what to do, rather than communicate your awareness of their awareness sort of thing, you just start off on a totally different track, you know, sort of thing. But yeah, not necessarily a tip, but you know,
They're a direct reflection of us as far as, you know, when you change the way you view the things that they do, they definitely change how they view you.
Speaker 3 (51:19)
Well, thank you so much for being here today and for being a part of the fair war with
Speaker 2 (51:23)
you're welcome. Great chat with you guys.
