Interview with Gareth Mare' - Heartfelt Horsemanship

Interview with Gareth Mare - Heartfelt Horsemanship
I'm excited to announce an interview with Gareth Mare' from Heartfelt Horsemanship in South Africa.

I've been a follower of Gareth and his work for a while now and asked him quite a while ago if he would like to be a guest on my podcast but due to commitments and life, it didn't happen until now.

I'm was really looking forward, to finally having the chance to get to know more about Gareth's life, his work and his future ventures and he didn't disappoint.

He even played one of his own written songs at the end (although he did have to take his headset off so he could play his guitar, so the sound quality is not as it should be)
I've added his Youtube music channel for those of you who would like to hear more of his music.

So sit back, relax and I hope you join us both for an intersting conversation about life, horses and so much more.

Gareth Mare'.
Gareth Mare' is the co-founder of Heartfelt Horsemanship
an internationally renowned Horsemanship program based on connection and communication.

Gareth has applied this connection based approach in the show ring winning National championships in Western Trail, Western Horsemanship, Showmanship at halter and Cowboy Dressage.

In 2018 he was featured in the international award winning documentary "Listening to the horse" alongside the worlds best Horse men and women.
This connection based approach has been recognised by those from the more conventional world and Gareth has started horses under saddle for some of South Africa's biggest Warmblood, Arab and Appaloosa studs.

While Gareth mainly works with horses his formal education is in wildlife ethology, and he has had the opportunity to apply connection based behaviour training to a number of animals over the years, including zebra, antelope and giraffe.

https://www.youtube.com/@HeartfeltHorsemanship
https://www.facebook.com/HeartfeltPerformanceHorsemanship
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF5nr8q681H_JHciQxQry3w
https://www.youtube.com/@theelectrichatstands3453/playlists
Patreon Paid Membership:
https://www.patreon.com/heartfelthorsemanship

Video version (alongside applicable podcasts) can be viewed on facebook and YouTube.
https://www.facebook.com/equinevoices.co.uk
https://www.youtube.com/@equinevoicesuk
https://www.instagram.com/equinevoices.uk

Contact Ronnie.
mailto:equinevoicesronnie@gmail.com

Transcript

Ronnie: 0:13

Hello and welcome to Equine Voices my name is Ronnie and I'm your host for today's interview with the lovely Gareth Mare' I shall shortly bring Gareth in and then he can introduce himself and explain a little about his work, how we got into horses and about his past, his present, and then we'll go into some future projects that's maybe coming up. I'm really excited to chat to Gareth because we just had a quick chat before we went live and I spoke to Gareth about doing a podcast right about the same time as Warwick. It's been a long time coming, but I'm so pleased and a lot's happened since he's been on Warwick's podcast So if anybody hasn't heard Warwick Schiller's podcast with Gareth Mare' you should look that up because it's a really good podcast So I'll bring him in and we can find out a lot more about Gareth and his work with horses. Hi Gareth!

Gareth: 1:05

Hi there, how are you doing?

Ronnie: 1:07

I'm fine, thank you. So would you like to give a brief introduction and then we'll go into what's happening now and the move and everything. And you can talk a little more about some other... areas that you're working in. I've written them down so I don't forget. Okay. So off you go Gareth.

Gareth: 1:27

Hi there. My name is Gareth. I am co founder of Hartfeld Horsemanship, a horsemanship program based in South Africa our focus is on connection based horsemanship. Still have our roots in natural horsemanship, but with a leaning towards the evidence based approach and the higher level of connection in terms of origins, I am, well, I started out not being qualified in the equestrian or equine fields. My studies were wildlife, nature conservation, and included ethology, which is study of animal behavior. So my interest in horses has kind of been colored by the ethology background.

Ronnie: 2:22

Thank you, Gareth can you explain a little more about wildlife ethology? What, what, what is that for people that don't know?

Gareth: 2:31

So ethology is a study of animal behavior in natural settings. In other words, not domesticated animals. While there are fields of ethology that do study domestic animals the ethology that I studied was more species oriented. appropriate interactions, what they would do outside of human interference.

Ronnie: 2:54

And do you find that's been a big help with horses? Has that given you another perspective when you around the horses?

Gareth: 3:03

Definitely. I didn't come from a background of riding schools, you know, weekly lessons. So my, interactions with horses was working horses on farms or, you know, just at guest lodges, whatever. So I always looked at it from an ethology point of view of what wild equids would do. And I do feel it gave me a very clear different perspective than An equestrian field that has very much been governed by tradition and that tradition was not necessarily thinking of what comes naturally to a horse. It's what suits our aesthetic and our desire for conformity. So I do sometimes look at people that came from generations of writing and I, yeah, I get a little jealous, but I do think it's a blessing in disguise that I got to look at it from a different point of view.

Ronnie: 4:15

You're a very humble guy and There's a gentleness, and I can feel that now and there's a warmth when you talk and when you post something, when you post observations, or when you post something on your Facebook page, there's a true feeling of wanting people to see, what you see and what you feel when you're observing. Now, please forgive me if this is wrong and if you want to contradict me, go ahead. Okay, this is my observation of you, Gareth. And that's what I like about you. There's, there's no, it's not ego based, this is who I am, you wear your heart on your sleeve and sometimes there's a vulnerability with that and as I'm saying this, I'm being reminded that when I was thinking about this interview earlier in my car, these are the words that came through. So it's interesting that it's coming again, especially male to show that side of them sometimes is yes. It's hard to do. And I think this is why you get a lot from them because they recognize an authentic being and it doesn't mean to say that you get everything right and you're perfect and I'm talking generally about everybody here, but they recognize that and they have an opening. So if they want to try and explain how they're feeling or they're not right, or they feel that they've got a voice and they can say that. As I'm doing things, I sometimes link in and somebody's just say, okay, let me just go back cause it literally came. Okay, I'm going to have to convert to that because... Okay, sorry, for anybody that doesn't know me I get information, whoever I'm talking to and things come through and it just linked in about saying that it doesn't mean to say that everything is rose tinted and you don't get an animal pushing you, but they push you to see how you're going to react does that make sense?

Gareth: 6:21

Yeah. I, I think, you know, horses don't understand dishonesty or honesty, they don't have a concept of that. But there is definitely more trust with vulnerability and that's included when you make mistakes, you know? When you slip up with a horse and you do something that's counterintuitive to them you can either react out of ego and, yeah, turn to dominance or show your error. I think I'm, one of my big journeys at the moment is taking that information and applying it to people because We can help horses all we like. But if we don't get it through to the people as well, we're wasting our time. We can't make the change only helping a few horses at a time. If we change the mindset of people and that's where the vulnerability thing comes in on for me. Social media is a great platform for it because yeah men are not raised to be very vulnerable. And even if, like, even if it's on a, your family encouraged vulnerability, the minute you're in a school setting, it's, I know, cowboys don't cry, that whole thing comes into it. So it does give you a platform to be a little braver with your vulnerability. But I think that is what we're needing. I was talking to someone today about this sudden awakening within the equine industry. And what is the catalyst for that awakening? Because we've had great horsemen and woman for centuries that have come through being fantastic and everyone wanted to stay To meet them and everyone wanted them to train their horses, whatever. And those horse people would necessarily very ego based, but society was so even someone like Tom Dorrance, who was the most humble man, people set up on this pedestal and okay, that's Tom Dorrance. We can't do that. The change that I think is the, this awakening catalyst is. You talk about Warwick Schiller or Lockheed Phillips, Stephen Peters. Now you have this community of people that think, no, no, that's not me. It's us. And when you have confidence, so you're learning from someone like Warwick Schiller and you have a confidence issue come up, then you go see Jane Park or it's. No one is saying, Oh, it's about me. It's everyone's saying, this is about a change in the industry.

Ronnie: 9:21

Absolutely that was very, very good. Very, very good answer. It's like an onion, it's layers, isn't it? My awareness, my growth, and I'm still growing, yeah, still growing and has come through horses and I. It wasn't around horses until later in life. I've always liked horses, but as a child, it would be like running to the window and you hear the clip clop, clip clop of the hoofs and you'd go out lonely, looking, thinking, Oh, I wish they'd let me sit on that horse and obviously you wouldn't because you know, when you're an adult, you know why. And it was just like, Oh, I wish I had a pony. And I can remember when I was a kid, actually, I was an older kid. And I'm not ashamed to say this, but I used to ride around on a broomstick, and I don't care who knows that.

Gareth: 10:07

I think we all did that.

Ronnie: 10:08

Yeah, but I was like my teenagers, but that's between you and me and I used to go in this field and yeah, I used to have such fun on this broomstick. So the first time I got to ride a horse, I biked miles and I saved my pocket money and I went for a ride and. My parents you know, they weren't in a position to provide that sort of activity for me. So it was, it was very few and far between. So I was an adult when I had my first horse, so that introduced me. But it's through my horse I have now too, that the expansion and asking questions and being aware of myself, but it wasn't just that I was going through something personal and I kept thinking, why is this happening? Why is this happening? And it was questioning myself. So that brought something into the fold. I don't know where I'm going with this conversation now, but it's not just like you said you know, you're taught to deal with horse. It's about you and it's got to really start with you actually because if you don't change anything, it's just surface things. Where if you look at yourself and change how you feel or recognize how you feel, acknowledge how you feel don't hide. That's a lot of the things that horses Teachers. And that's where the mirror scenario comes into it and I think it's easier for people to start on that route if they think they're doing it for their animal. Because if it's just them, they don't always think that it's something they need to do. It's only when they start to see the results with their animals that they think, Okay, and people around them, you know, there's a change from their friends and things.

Gareth: 11:59

So I think one of the things that attract us from when we two horses is that, first of all, that non verbal, non judgmental relationship. You can be seen by an animal and connect to an animal that's, you can, you know, I'm sure we've all done the thing of sitting there and pour out all our troubles to a horse without any fear of, Condemnation or criticism. So that non judgmental relationship is kind of what normally draws us to horses somewhere along the line, we get lost and pulled into, well, if you've got a horse now, you've got to compete and it becomes, well, if you're spending all this money where you're getting something out of it for me, I only got back into horses as an adult. I was around horses when I was a kid. And. Yeah. Yeah. Those early experiences certainly gave me a focus on safety at These animals that I knew that were amazing, sentient, caring animals suddenly hurt you. You're like, well, I know this animal on a soul level. Why would it hurt me? And again, outside of that riding instructor thing of, well, you have to fall seven times before you learn to ride. It was a valid question and it did set me on a path to seeking. I was away from horses well in a decade. And It took personal tragedy. My 11 year old daughter died in 2006 and I was working in corporate and things just stopped making sense in terms of Getting up, going to work, making money getting home, not being a present person for my kids and I kind of lost my mind and found my purpose and ended up on a. Running away to a horse farm on the Lesotho border, which is the border of South Africa and Lesotho and had a lot of interactions with wild horses and well, feral, they went wild that is exactly where I've got healing. Anyone that's been through a major trauma knows. Even sympathy and kindness, when you're going through that stuff, is hard. It is torture to have people's sympathy and have people's understanding because none of it makes sense or is enough. Whereas with horses, it was, you just had that moment to regroup. So, that kind of, I suppose it gave me a sense of doing something to make up for that. And that was the purpose thing of when you have that kind of life saving moment from a horse, you want to give something back.

Ronnie: 15:09

Yeah. Somebody's just commented and I'd like to add that too, when you mentioned that I remember, I think it might've been in the podcast or I remember something about the loss of your daughter. May I ask you what your daughter's name was? Yeah, it was Sherilyn Sherilyn. Beautiful. I'm sure she's very, very proud of her dad, very proud of her dad. And thank you for sharing that, thank you. Okay. So, not only are you a renowned horse person, but you also play music, don't you, Gareth?

Gareth: 15:45

Yes, I do. Yeah. And Talya and I have a project with which was kind of catalyzed by another Warwick Schiller podcast guest, the guy that. Wrote and produced the journey on song Joe Ellis, he was kind of the catalyst for getting us recording our music. So that's been a lot of fun. And it's also been very rewarding to actually get our songs out there. So would you like to tell the, the audience the name of your, of your group, your band? Yeah, it's cool. We called the electric hat stands. And it sounds like an odd name. I had someone tell me the other day, but you guys play mainly acoustic stuff. The name, the electric hat stands is actually in reference to, Oh, we're all, we're all just energy. So energy is electricity and we're all just electricity walking around. Wearing hats we're just electric hat stands.

Ronnie: 16:47

I'm glad you explained that because I was going to ask you what's the relevance to hat stands. I get the electric bit, but I wasn't sure about the hat stand part. So would you like to explain what, how, a day in the life of Gareth? Now I know that you have Talia that's, she works with you. Do you want to explain who Talia is?

Gareth: 17:13

Talia is my girlfriend, and she has really bought into what we do, and a very specific part of what we do. Talia's equestrian story is much like so many people. She rode as a youngster. Well, she fell in love with horses, went to riding lessons. And because she loved horses and very quickly got funneled into jumping and competing. And she had a catastrophic fall, lost all confidence, gave up riding, always loved horses, but was. More interested in them from a not riding point of view. And she had, she came across a horse that she was caring for that was terrified of human interaction. And she really wanted to learn to connect, not from the point of view of riding, just to connect to this animal and help Talia is very passionate about healing and she would like to, wanted to give healing to this horse. So that kind of set on the journey of. Getting back into horses. And when we got together and she started being around my herd. She kind of had that epiphany of, well, why can't it always be like this? Why can't we ride them when they want to be ridden and that they actually come and ask for interactions rather than have to run around in a field for two hours. So that's kind of set her on a path of her own version of the heartfelt mission, which is not necessarily someone that wants to. Become a horse trainer or, you know, become a competitive rider. But even if they do start the right way on a well trained horse, that's not going to fight you. Yet another one of those myths of the industry, bad ponies make good riders. It's not true at all. Bad ponies made hard riders. So. She wants to, from the ground up, introduce kids to connected horses that want to be ridden and have them learn about understanding how a horse feels in every interaction, that empathy for a horse that understanding of what will keep both the rider and the horse safe. And once that stuff's in place, then sure, if you want to go work your way up to 1. 5m show jumping, that's great, but you've got that foundation in place. So she's working really hard on that at the moment. We've moved down to a more populous equestrian area and we've got a piece of property which is far from an equestrian property right now. It is absolute wilderness. But we are working towards building it into our ideal equest species appropriate equestrian center.

Ronnie: 20:34

So what do you mean by that what are you hoping to have in the future? Is it purely for riding or is there going to be some interaction clinics.

Gareth: 20:44

Yeah. So because of for people with confidence issues. There will be a lot of purely connection work. We definitely, I'm not big on forcing anyone to ride. So if they've had a trauma, but they love horses, we can offer them that connection and our facilities was, we want to keep our horses in a natural herd. And. We also want people to experience what it's like being with that herd. The healing I've had from just being in that herd setting with horses. You don't even have to have a horse within 15 meters of you, and you just feel that sense of acceptance. So that is a big part of what we do. But from a kid's point of view, people want their kids to learn to ride, and they don't want it to be spurs, bits, and whips. We offer that as well.

Ronnie: 21:39

Yeah. So you've got the best of both worlds. Gareth can you give the listeners an example of, it doesn't have to be horse because I know where you were before you had a baby zebra. Yes.

Gareth: 21:53

Yeah, she was a little filly, zebra Her name was Zio. Zeo is a shortened version of the Zulu word for heart. Initially, Zeo was when she was born, she had a little heart on her chest. Obviously at Heartfelt Horsemanship, so it was, had a whole lot of meaning attached to it. Yeah absolute blessing of an interaction. I learned so much from that. She was born just at, off my doorstep. I had no idea what was going on with her mother. It's her mother. When she was still pregnant, she used to follow me to every training session. So if I'm taking a horse to the round pen or the arena, she would follow and watch. And when her baby was born, baby followed along. This is a completely wild zebra. She had 480 hectares to go wherever she wanted, but she wanted to watch what was going on. She used to. Meet me for coffee every morning, leave the rest of her herd and sit there. I used to sit and play guitar and she loved the guitar. So she wasn't tame in the sense of you could touch her, but she followed us around. Then in the middle of we had a very harsh winter that year. And we don't know exactly what happened. If mom was just a little bit weak after having baby and. Got harassed by predators, whatever, but she ended up dying early hours of the one morning. in snowy conditions. So it was freezing cold. And I had to make the decision about, well, do I tame the baby and get feed into it? Because three months old in winter, there's no chance she would have survived on her own. Or, you know, some tough decisions can be made by the people that own the property and say, put her down. They agreed to let me tame her. The big thing there is you Don't tame a wild animal without communication in place. That cute little zebra becomes a 300 kg monster if you don't have communication in place, not for any malice within them. It's just they will be driven by resources. And if we provide that resource and we don't have communication, it gets dangerous. So I explained all that to them and said, it's got to be, she's got to be. Developed with communications and have the same skills, the horse would but it was touch and go the first two weeks, you know, everyone said, well, just give her a bottle. You don't give a three month old wild zebra a bottle because if she doesn't want to be caught, she can't be caught. There was no way she was going to, you're going to get anywhere near her and she was very skeptical of even putting out horse food. So I had to. And that took a lot of the connection work that I have learned with horses, I had to put in play with her and got her to the point where she would let me feed her. She was only on horse food. It wasn't the ideal, but at least something to get her through the winter. Once we were getting food in, we got her halter trained and got the basics in place that she wouldn't be a danger to the people in the lodge or the people around that work there.

Ronnie: 25:38

How is she doing? Have you heard? Is she still okay?

Gareth: 25:42

I haven't heard recently. When we left obviously my little unicorn of a mare saw me taming this zebra and took her as her own baby. And she would protect her through the nights and stuff. And they bonded very deeply. And then when that mare had a little baby that was his big sister. So there was a very close bond there. So it was, a huge challenge knowing that the right thing to do was to move on for the business and for my purpose, but I'd have to leave her behind was very challenging. So we actually got one of their mayors bonded to her. And the last I heard she was bonded pretty solidly with. And happy with the herd.

Ronnie: 26:35

Wow. I mean, what an achievement and I know it was hard for you, but what what a gift to leave. And she survived because of, of what you did. And and she's still around to tell the tale.

Gareth: 26:48

Yeah, her little brother went into depression for about three months because they used to play constantly. So when he came here, he became very serious. Six month old fall. He's only now starting to come out of the shell again.

Ronnie: 27:06

Oh, thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I loved seeing the photographs and I remembered the, the heart. Yeah, yeah, that was lovely. A lovely gift from the universe. Would you like to explain, so if somebody, oh, first of all, can people work with you at a distance? So can you work with them online?

Gareth: 27:26

Yes so I have started building a Patreon library of absolute basics. My goal with the Patreon is to have just absolute basics that build enough language that I can help people through video coaching. As... I go, I've got a few students going through difficult things that I have asked if we can film so that people can learn from other people's struggles. But the main goal is that there's enough language in place that as issues come up, we can address it via video coaching. The thing is. There's less troubled horses around and far more lack of understanding around. So doesn't matter what. There's so many different forms of communication based horsemanship around. As long as you've got somewhere to communicate with the animal, if they understand what we are asking, and they are relaxed. Horses are the most cooperative creature. On the planet. So that is the goal. Very straightforward videos on Patreon and then video coaching.

Ronnie: 28:41

And when you are working so do you do one-to-ones as well? Do you have private clients or do you have like group clients?

Gareth: 28:50

So with my in-person work, I used to do the, you know, 10 people in the clinic all getting taught at the same time. But as my focus went more to connection, I started struggling with. How do you focus on 10 people when you're working on connection? So I have started adjusting my clinics where I work with one person at a time and then other people watch. So there's other benefits of that in terms of when you're with the horse, you only absorb so much because you're so focused on your own horse. But then when you're watching from the outside of the next person's session and then I am doing a lot more one on one when I travel for clinics, the common one is people can't get their horse to the clinic because they can't trailer load. So in those situations, I normally do private sessions before or after the clinic. So I can still get to those people that can't get their horse there.

Ronnie: 29:54

That's a really good service because for anybody that's got a horse and they can load it, if the horses go on and come off easily, they don't really think about it, do they? But if it's something that you're worried about, concerned about, and your horse isn't always great, or I know people that the horses will travel there, but you cannot get them on for love nor money to come home, and that's even more stressful sometimes, because they just want to get their horses home, and I've had people ask me why I want my horse on the trailer to come over, I'm like, hello. It's not as simple as that, you know. It can be 101 things.

Gareth: 30:31

Yeah, look, I think the trailer loading thing is fascinating for me. But it also opened doors for me. Not everyone in the equestrian industry is very open to... This esoteric connection, bunny hugger thing. So we've just seen the weirdos wiggling ropes. But if you go to a show on the Sunday of a weekend, listen up before you go to show on the Sunday afternoon and you wear your shirt saying what you do, you get quite a bit of money coming in when it gets to hometown. And that all comes down to intention. They've had a full weekend of being stressed, their trigger stacking is to the roof, and that's just a human, never mind the horse. So when the horse gets, looks at this human that's trigger stacking through the roof, is exhausted, frustrated, grumpy, low on patience, and they are a little, a little stressed themselves. They're like, I'm not going in that can, tin can takeaway. You can just leave me here. So. It was really good for business, but also gives them opportunity to drop a few little seeds of, Hey, maybe think about it from the horse's point of view for a while.

Ronnie: 31:48

It's one of those things that you can have that look really, really easy and if people's horses go on then you forget. It's like anything when you do something without thinking about it, like driving, you get in your car, you drive, I mean I'm not sure about where you live, but here there's lots of windy roads and, and you're... You know, you are, you are driving, but then you'll think cri, I've gone around three bends I can't remember driving around there.

Gareth: 32:11

How did I make

Ronnie: 32:12

it Yeah. You, you just on autopilot. But it's so, it's it's muscle memory. Everything's da da da, duh. You're doing it. Whereas if you are. Unfamiliar, or you're already thinking there's going to be a problem. Every step is like oh my goodness. So to have you there. I know we do have people in the UK, but They usually sort of try and do that before they actually start to go to the show circuit and sort of show them how to load. And yeah, it's one of those things. And I know from from my experience from my work, sometimes you can have a horse that loads every time it's fine. And then it can be one thing and they'll say, but they were fine. Something could have happened in the back of the lorry. If a horse doesn't feel secure. Or say it's a bit unsure about its footing or it's got a little bit lame but not lame that you can see is it feels sore. It can be that. It can be a simple thing sometimes but it's not obvious to see and actually claustrophobia as well. Sometimes it's claustrophobia.

Gareth: 33:17

I mean, all horses are claustrophobic prey animals live in open spaces, predators live in caves, and then we want them to go into this little cave on wheels and go wherever we want. So they've got to have a ton of trust in us. And I mean, I work with a lot of horses that have been through, you know, accidents in a trailer. That's, you know, very clearly obvious, but then you have the people that say, well, nothing went wrong with this horse. Now, it's hard to say nothing went wrong, but let's say for argument's sake that they've always had a really nice drive, everything's gone well. One that I see regularly is just a lack of awareness about how a horse is feeling. Not at the trailer, 50 meters away, when the horse says, hey, I'm a little worried. And. The person is straight line and says, suck it up and let's go. That horse no longer feels seen. And if they're no longer seen when they express their worry, they don't want to be anywhere near that trailer. They don't want to be anywhere where they're going to be blocked in where they have to be defensive. When you've got them that you're paying attention, you see when they're worried, you reassure them when they're worried, then they're like, I'll go wherever you ask me because you've got my back. When the minute they don't feel you've got their back anymore, then they're like deals off with the trailer.

Ronnie: 34:48

Yeah that's a big deal. Yeah just go through how you approach that So, how do you?

Gareth: 34:58

so I like to get a story from the owner but I try not to attach too much to that story cuz the stories always through the perspective of an owner. But you can see common threads and starts off with letting people tell their side of the story. and then asking them what their program is. If there's a sudden behavioral change, asking them to assess what might have changed in the program rather than telling them, oh, could it be this? Could it be this? Ask them to actually sit and think, what could have changed to results? Then based on that, I'll either try and help people in South Africa is a big country and I've spent a lot of time on the road. So I do try and help people remotely first. As long as the horse isn't aggressive or if someone's got major confidence issues, they're going to put themselves in danger, then I would rather just go straight to those people and make assessments myself. But if it's neither of those things, bring it right back to the beginning, build some communication, and that can be done remotely, and then they can video their progress and see where to go from there. The difficult thing to tell people is that it is normally the stuff that we are taught that causes a lot of the issues. You ask someone what their program is with their horse after they've just told you they're really struggling to connect and they can't catch their horse and they run around the paddock for two hours trying to get to their horse and they've tried offering carrots and nothing works and you ask, okay, can you tell me your program? And they start off with, well, I get the horse from the stable and I lunge them for 20 minutes. I do sometimes have to bite my tongue. So if you chase your horse for 20 minutes, why are you surprised that they are running away from you? So it's sometimes really simple things that we have taken to be normal. That sometimes if we just stop doing the thing that comes naturally to humans and start thinking about it from a horse's point of view, the problems go away. So sometimes a lot of the time, it's just about changing people's perspective. But one of the most common things you hear from people is, Oh, that makes sense. But the reason we don't think of the thing that makes sense first is because we've got 300 years of tradition of this is the way it's done and getting in our way and stopping us. Nevermind connecting to the horse, connecting to our own common sense.

Ronnie: 37:57

Yeah, I remember reading I can't remember which one I think it was one of the first books I'd got from Mark Rashid and I used to sit in bed and read before I went to sleep and I couldn't put the book down. But I loved it because it was sort of storytelling. It wasn't telling you what to do and like you should do this and when you've done that, tick that box and tick that box. It was very much how The old gentleman that taught him he would say something and, and Marcus as a young man, young boy would just mull it over and think about it and I thought, God that's just common sense. Some of the things he said, I thought, well, that's so simple, but yet I hadn't thought of that because, as you said you're taught in a certain way and just because we've done something for years and years, it doesn't mean to say that it's valid today. Things change, things evolve. I mean, a lot of riding, if you go back years and years and years ago through wars and things like that horses need to be ridden, you know, you just had to get on a horse and you was taught the basics and that's what it was. So that was basic horsemanship and the horses did what they did and the riders stayed on if they could and they came home alive or not, so to speak that was the basics and I know in the western side it was similar, you had to get on a horse and you galloped and, and you had to know how to stay on a horse, that was the main thing to stay on, to live. We're not there now, so we can take the time.

Gareth: 39:34

Yeah. The thing is I think that is where a lot of the shift in horsemanship happened is the big wars where, They needed a large number of horses and a large number of men to go into war. They didn't have the time to train those horses like how they would have been trained them before. If you look at like the classical training before those big wars was a lot more putting the communication on the ground. Like when you look at the Spanish riding school, those guys went through months of the school before they ever got on a horse. But when you got to these big wars, the chance of the radar coming back wasn't great in the first place. So all we needed is find a quick fix and get it out there. And a lot of those methods became commonplace and it spread throughout the world. That is where we lost our our patience for doing it right. We just had to get it done quickly. And that's where you still hear people when they say, okay, well, let's take the time to have the horse understand what's going on. And I don't have the time for that, but you have the time to run around and chase the horse for two hours to try and catch it. And then when you sometimes take three months off riding, when you've had a broken leg and you've got to sit in hospital or vet bills from the horse running through a fence, you've got the time you can either use the time to. Put in the basics and foundations, or you can take the time to sit in a hospital bed.

Ronnie: 41:19

Yes. It's not for everybody. There are some people that have a timeframe that they've got to do things in. So, they will maybe do things slightly differently or they'll say, no, no, it's fine we'll go, you know, the horse is pace. But then as they're getting towards their end of the time frame, it's like, no, we need to speed this up now. And, it's not an easy thing and it's not, it's not an easy thing to teach because if somebody said to you, Okay, how long are we talking here? Are we talking weeks? Are we talking months? And say, Oh no, I think we're going to be a few months.

Gareth: 41:54

comes down to people's priority, you know. If your interest in horses is just that adrenaline kick, then sure you can't get through by just hanging on and hoping for the best. But if your priority is that connection or safety, then taking the time is important, but like your question is like, how long is this going to take? How much time do you have? Because if you're riding once a week, it's going to take far longer than the person that's. At three, four times a week and this is one of the things I hear from people is, oh, but we've been doing this for three months or I've been doing this with this horse for a year. When you take out the sick days, the hangover days, the days where you'd rather go shopping or it was rainy this day, it wasn't anywhere close to a year and the really committed people, if they get, I would say 50 hours riding in a year. That's a lot. That's the committed guys and 50 hours isn't a lot. Oh my God, that's like winning the lottery for me. Yeah.

Ronnie: 43:16

hours would be

Gareth: 43:19

10 hours a year. That would be great. Well, if I was riding my own horses that much, I'd be used to be happy. Being on the road a lot means I don't get to ride my own horses nearly as much as I should.

Ronnie: 43:29

Yeah, that's yeah, a lot of people that work with horses say a similar thing. Yeah, it must be special when you just, just go off and, do you do it? Do you go off and switch off? You just just switch off. Yeah.

Gareth: 43:44

Yeah, I've got I do get my time to just go and be with my horse. And then also have my days where I just want to go sit on the beach and don't want to hear a thing about a horse. I love horses. But it actually has to be a conscious thing. Okay, today I'm going to take a day off and not think about the problem that I'm facing over there and that person's horse over there that's giving trouble. What could be a solution? I actually have to make a conscious. Okay, today I'm not thinking about those things.

Ronnie: 44:16

Yeah, because that's your work, so it's more intense. Like if you've got a little problem, the more you focus on it, the more it wraps up into something else. Whereas if you leave it, it's like, Oh, okay, I know what to do about that, it must be similar when you just take time out.

Gareth: 44:34

I still have those moments where you're about to fall asleep and you have an aha moment for a horse you were dealing with three weeks ago. And you get... Get on the phone the next day and deal with it. But those are not on the days that I consciously decide to have a horse free day.

Ronnie: 44:54

So tell us a little bit about the music. What type of music?

Gareth: 44:58

On all the streaming platforms, it's categorized as country and alternative rock. And Talia is quite a fan of country music. I'm not, I do enjoy like Johnny Cash and that side of it, but most country music doesn't appeal to me. So seeing my songs categorized as country is kind of difficult for me. Acoustic rock would be where I would put it in. When I was younger, I played in a lot of rock and metal bands. So it's kind of strange to say I'm now doing acoustic rock.

Ronnie: 45:33

I like modern country. I like some old country but I do like some of the modern, I quite like that. I listen to that when I'm poo picking on Spotify. I listen to all sorts actually. Podcasts, French cafe music, whatever comes on, depends what mood I'm in.

Gareth: 45:50

Yeah, I do have eclectic tastes. But yeah, it's, I would never have thought I would be classified as country.

Ronnie: 45:59

Well, there you go. You are now, Gareth, you are now. You've got your guitar behind you, haven't you? No, that's not true. It is, but you said the mic wasn't working properly earlier so I won't we can have a little go towards the end, you want to push you into anything is. Talia there with you?

Gareth: 46:19

Yes, Talia has just arrived back. Yeah she can say hello if she wants to. Talia, do you want to come say hi? She's probably going to shoot me for saying that.

Ronnie: 46:31

Okay, so there's quite a few people I'm so pleased that you've come to join. It's lovely that you've come to say hi to Gareth. Hi Talia. Hi. How are you? Hi. Hello, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you. I couldn't hear you for five seconds. I just saw mouth movement and I was like, Oh, okay. Yeah. We had to put his headset on because there was a little interference. Sometimes you can get the white sound in the background and so we kindly put the headset on. So Gareth's been telling us about your project with working with the horses. Yeah. Yeah.

Talya: 47:09

Yeah. Yeah, so we've just moved to a property where it's a nice setup for what we are trying to achieve and as far as Heartfelt goes, we've created something that's very passion driven and it's all about. Teaching people that there's another way to be with horses and to express yourselves around horses. With our students, it's a lot of like understanding spatial awareness more than anything, and that everything is interconnected and yeah, so really what we do is it's just the awareness side of things, you know, making sure that people understand that their body language plays an intricate role with how, you know, horses react to them, so to speak. Yeah. That's lovely. Thank you. Yeah. Pleasure. Cool. Thank you. Okay I'm going to get Gareth to play his guitar a little bit later. Anyway, I'm going to pass the headset over. Bless her. Talk about putting her on the spot. Okay. So you can see these comments, I'm assuming that you know some of these people too.

Gareth: 48:19

Yes. I have some friends and students there.

Ronnie: 48:22

So for the benefit of the audio, because obviously this is going to be made into an audio podcast too so once this live has finished, you can view this on YouTube straight away. But for the benefit of just the audio. So Carol Lam says, Hi Ronnie from Wichita KS, so happy to make a live. I hope you're still here Carol, sorry, I didn't reply earlier. And you've got some students there.

Gareth: 48:48

Friend and student, yes.

Ronnie: 48:49

Okay, so Kim Brink. wierd guys with the ropes.

Gareth: 48:54

I think the rope thing is quite a, a big one for Kim. We talk about the awareness from the point of view of being aware of the horse or our body language but being aware of all these ropes that we use, it takes a lot of coordination.

Ronnie: 49:13

Remember I haven't done it for a while, but used to practice playing around really. Most of the play I've done with my horse was just me and her, because that's, you know, that's how it was. And, I would lead and when I say lead it would be like a washing line and you'd play around with just feeling if she's moving to the left or to the right without actually looking and that's really good because you get to feel and it's not so much that the ropes always move you start to develop your own senses and you can feel before they're about to stop. And in fact, toots would stop just before I was thinking stop. So I knew she'd stop. So it was quite funny. Sometimes yeah, we're just be in sync and then all of a sudden she goes, I've had enough of that. I'm going, she'd walk off and I'm like, Oh, okay, but I want to play and then sometimes we'd be playing and I'd finish and she'd be like, stood there, ears forward, eyes, well... Where are you going? Yeah,

Gareth: 50:10

I haven't finished. I'm not done yet. Yeah,

Ronnie: 50:12

yeah. I still want to play.

Gareth: 50:14

On our YouTube channel I've just put up the videos of things to practice with just the ropes, without the horses, before you have that extra dimension of being focused on the horse's body language, that people can build coordination and I call it cowboy touchy It's just practicing the rope skills. And really slowly because once you get the ropes, people get all nervous and they start doing really quick movements. So I always have to correct people instead of doing cowboy Tai Chi, they end up doing cowboy Kung Fu. So you just got to slow them down a little bit, have less jarring movements for the horses.

Ronnie: 50:54

Cowboy Kung Fu.

Gareth: 50:55

That has a different meaning. It's kind of a whole different ball game.

Ronnie: 51:00

Oh my goodness me. Okay. What things have you got coming up? I know you said you're developing your ranch there where you are? Is it a ranch?

Gareth: 51:09

It's a smaller property now, so it's a small holding that we're An area for the horses to move as a herd. We've gonna put in a small cowboy dressage arena and we're putting in a extreme trail obstacle course and then round pin. And tomorrow we having the KZN, the provincial representative of mounted archery come through. So we're going to try and find a appropriate place to have a mounted archery track. Wow.

Ronnie: 51:50

We have that in the UK. We have the stunt riders. They're not too far from here, actually. They do courses you know, when they jump on and off the horses galloping and they're upside down and they have a confidence course, where you could go along and you would be shown how to fall off safely. Because everybody when you're riding horses that's the thing you'd always dread falling off. Once you've fallen off, it was almost like, phew, that's it for a while, hopefully, and you'd be okay, because you'd done it. That

Gareth: 52:19

was it. You can do it planned. Offsets your seven falls you need before you become a good rider.

Ronnie: 52:26

Yeah. So they teach you how to roll but again that's going to be muscle memory, it's got to be instinct otherwise it's like, ah, I've forgotten.

Gareth: 52:34

I've, I've got this little bugbear about the focus on falling in the industry. I honestly believe that with this, you know, we spoke earlier about the evolution and horsemanship. I think that there are people that will start riding today that will ride their whole lives all the way up to 90, that will never fall off. If we are aware, if we're paying attention and we work on relaxation for horses and we've got that communication in place, unless we're going and we're trying to do Grand Prix courses or eventing the big stuff, there technical issues are going to happen and you're going to have falls. But a lot of us just want to ride for the pleasure of it. And those people could start riding today. Get to their 90s and never have to fall off. This mindset of, well, it's just part of writing. I don't love it. I don't think it needs to be the case. It gives us excuses. It says, well, it's out of our hands. It's just going to happen. No, it's 100% within our scope to pay attention to the signs when they get worried and do something about it. Because. Horses are not malicious beasts that want to harm us. There's always a reason why they get, either they get scared or they don't understand what's going on and they feel the pressure on top of misunderstanding and they act out. If we pay attention to those reasons and we look at how we can address them, we don't have these. Regular occasions to fall. And people in the industry will tell you, no, but horses are spooky and unpredictable. I don't believe that at all. I think it's one of the biggest lies in the industry. It's it's. almost an excuse for us not putting our foundations in place. Oh no, horses are just spooky, not predictable. No, humans are unaware and we don't prepare our horses.

Ronnie: 54:42

Yeah, I can see both sides of that. Yeah, but I hear, I hear you. We have in the UK we have a big problem, so this is nothing if anybody's got dogs, because I love dogs, but quite often there's limited riding and sometimes you'll get riders out and there's people with dogs and they're not on leads and the dogs will come out and chase the horses. Or if the horses stood still, sometimes the dogs will start at the legs and we have quite a few incidents where The horses have either galloped off or they've stood still and then all of a sudden they just had to escape, but then the dogs are chasing them. So things like that happen, but I suppose if you're more aware of that you can't always, what I'm trying to say is, in my world it's not always something that's seen because sometimes they'll just come from nowhere. Yeah.

Gareth: 55:41

You know, the have you heard the Swiss cheese analogy? No. The Swiss cheese analogy is that, like, if all the bubbles in Swiss cheese align, you could have a hole all the way through. That's what it takes riding accidents to happen. They did a thing with. Airplane crashes, and this is 100% stolen from Warwick Schiller's YouTube video on how to avoid freak accidents. In every plane crash that's happened, there were at least seven consecutive errors for that plane crash to happen. Not one, not two, they needed at least seven. This is where, in riding, If we miss the little stuff, we miss six other things. And then that happens. It's going to be a lot worse. But all of us humans, horses, we've got a capacity to deal with stress or worry, and if we miss those early signs. The capacity is already used up by the time we get the dog running at us. Let's say a dog running at you and it is fully intent on biting a horse. That's a good time to get off your horse. You know, staying on is maybe and riding through it, which is we've been kind of programmed to do is not maybe the ideal situation there. So. When I talk about people not falling off, it might not be a case of them never facing stressful situations. It could very well be, get a few horses, you're in danger. It's okay, it doesn't mean the horse has won. In fact, that mindset of never let the horse win you know, you're on their back, you kind of want them to win, because if they win, you win.

Ronnie: 57:37

Yeah I suppose the fear thing comes into it, doesn't it? Because you're thinking, I don't want my horse hurt. You're not thinking about one thing you're thinking about, again, that's going to the cheese thing and you're already off balance, you're already tense, you're already not breathing properly. But I do love dogs. Yes.

Gareth: 57:55

Nothing better than a well trained dog.

Ronnie: 57:58

Okay, so would anybody like to ask Gareth a question? Okay, before we start to listen to some of his music, he's going to play some music. Aren't you, Gareth?

Gareth: 58:12

Subliminal messages.

Ronnie: 58:15

So if anybody wants to ask Gareth a question, Carol says she's still here. Hi Carol. So I'm going to say hi Kim, Kendall, Megan Chai. I hope I'm saying these names right. So Maria. I'm saying a quick hello to everybody. So some of these your students, did you say? Yes. There's a few students in there. Yeah. So what's it like students working with Gareth Oh dear remember, remember you've got to see him again soon. Yeah, that would be nice actually some nice feedback for Gareth, or a question. Right, I'm thinking, what else can I ask you before we go on to the next bit? If I said to you, So the first thing that pops into your head, can you give, so we're not talking about horses now, we're talking about your time with the wildlife, if you can think about something that really stuck with you and, Stuck to your heart and stuck to your mind about what you witnessed in the wild about animals interacting with each other because they do some amazing things, sometimes you see things that people have videoed and it's, it's different species helping that you wouldn't think would help. You know, normally they'd be eating them and they help them and it's like, wow, you know, and we think we're the hierarchy.

Gareth: 59:41

Yeah, absolutely. I think the one beauty of everyone carrying phones on them all the time is we starting to see more of that stuff. But I think it's always been the case. Big one for me is. Species helping, you know, when my mania with zero or we had a massive Eland. So an Eland is a very big antelope can weigh up to a ton, a male, so a thousand kgs. And when. This was a young one that was left behind because they jump fences, a three meter fence is nothing to them. And obviously his mom jumped over the fence and he wasn't capable of jumping over the fence. So he was left on the reserve for a while. And we were having a lot of trouble with the baboon population had overpopulated and they were taking out the baby springbok. So baboon can't catch a baby springbok. But what they do, they just, the troop just walked behind them until they exhaust them. and then eat the babies. So there was two or three years that didn't have successful offspring of the springbok and they had this Irland just moved in with the springbok herd and ward off the baboons. No species affiliation. It just protected the springboks and they had their first successful lambing in years. So those things happen and have probably been happening since time memoriam. Now that we've got videos, we can lock onto YouTube and watch hours of it now.

Ronnie: 1:01:29

Yeah, you get to witness it, we have a program called The Blue Planet and David Attenborough, have you heard of David Attenborough? Yes, yes. Yeah, and his programs are so popular here in the UK but I love that when they show you how they got the footage and the depth that they go to, and obviously if they're filming a wild interaction, they're not supposed to intervene. So if something's getting attacked, you know, or you've got a little tiny penguin and you think, Oh, please just save it cause you know, what's going to happen. But sometimes they have, but not very often. And I find that fascinating because they get to capture things that. And from the tiniest things that you can't always see with the naked eye, you know, in the sea. And you see these amazing creatures and I know Warwick brought the attention about the octopus. Yeah, octopus teacher, yeah. Yeah, I watched that and I sobbed afterwards and I thought that is so... I was sad because I thought, what a short life. And then I thought, it's not a short life for the octopus. But the interaction between the man and the octopus and what it gave to him, because he was going through his own struggles, but just by diving and recording these events, things unfolded and that is amazing and there is so much more that we are unaware of

Gareth: 1:02:53

And there's like with my working with Zio there was a lot of ethical concerns from some of the rehabilitators, you know, you can't, the conservative knowledges don't ever save an animal that can't go back into the wild. In other words, that don't interfere thing. And. I do think we do, we need to have some serious discussions and thoughts on that. We are connected to things around us. We need to accept that. If it's going to cause harm, absolutely. You know, if you're going to habituate an animal that is then going to walk up to a lion and be eaten, yeah, of course. But at least you can give it a fair chance, you know. I think we need to have a real look at that. Everything about that form of rehabilitation is based on fear. Well, if they lose their fear of us, they're going to harm us. That's that old thing of kill the beast. We don't understand. And therefore fear, you know, we've got to like, Oh, if we don't understand it, that thing might harm us. So everything is if they lose their fear of us, they're going to kill us. I think it says a lot more about us than it does about those species. If in my experience of wildlife, unless you're on the menu, if they aren't threatened by you, they're not going to harm you.

Ronnie: 1:04:29

I like that phrase. Unless you're on the menu.

Gareth: 1:04:33

And just from that point of view. And our understanding of ethology, the only animal that actually views us as prey is a crocodile. So lions, all of them, I've had interactions with lions in the wild and they will, it looks like one of those situations where someone crosses the road and clutches their purse they, lions see us coming, they leave. They don't want to be around us.

Ronnie: 1:05:01

Can you blame them? Yeah, absolutely not. I'm going to go back to the comments because you've got a lot of love going on here, Gareth, so we'll share that. But there was a lady that I can't remember her name and she dives With whales, and she was diving with a whale. She'd been doing this for years and years, years. You might have seen this, it was going across Facebook. And she was diving with these whales, and she keeps a distance, and she's studying them as well. And for some reason this whale... came right for her. And it was nudging her and she was thinking, crikey this is, this is a first and I'll condense this story. And she was swimming away, pushing the whale back and trying to keep a distance, but the whale kept coming, coming towards her. And in the end, it put its flipper around and tried to get her under barnacles. So she was getting cut up a little bit. And this went on for a little while and she thought you know I could literally be killed by this whale, although she knows them. And what was happening was the whale was trying to protect her because behind her, there was a shark coming. And so he was getting right the way. So in the end, he went underneath her and swam to the surface. So she was lied across her back. Once she realized what was going on, she said this emotion that came from her because this whale was saving her life. And there was this understanding. So at the end, the whale took her back to the boat. She got on the boat and he stayed there for about 20 minutes and she said, it was just the most mind blowing thing and you could feel this coming off as she was talking, but what was amazing was I don't know how many years It's it's on YouTube. So I'm sure people find it or I can find the link somebody contacted said though we spotted a whale, So she went out with a crew and dived and as she saw the fin of the whale, so I recognized that I think that's the whale that saved me and it was quite a few years gone by and the whale came up to her and I'm getting goosebumps talking about it and it wasn't me and just stared at her and she says, my God, it was the same whale he recognized me and he stayed. Now, you know whoever says animals they don't have emotions and they don't have that. There's no way there was a bond between these two energies for whatever reason, but it was just, yeah it was magical. And as she was sharing this it was so lovely to hear. But we sidetracked there. So thank you everybody, we've got Annika Who says he has affirmed a lot of things that was felt but could not be put into words. I really value his input. And then we've got

Gareth: 1:07:54

I think that is actually Maria, she had commented earlier, I think her phone died.

Ronnie: 1:08:00

Gareth is awesome. Like I said before, many moments on my side, but he's brilliant and can't wait for our next session. So do you want to read that one out, Gareth? That's from Kendall.

Gareth: 1:08:11

Okay, so I only started my connection journey and I cannot believe how much I've learned in a few weeks that I didn't know about. My life of riding is incredible. I've always had a longing to connect with horses and be able to find this passion with Gareth's guidance is amazing. I only have great things to speak of. And as mentioned in the beginning, such a humble man and each time I've met both Talia and Gareth, I felt zero judgment, just encouragement to connect. Thank you, Kendall.

Ronnie: 1:08:37

That's lovely. Thank you, Kendall. Yeah, there's a quite a few, I'll just put one more on. So this is from Kim, life changing, Gareth introduced our family into loving horses and understanding them. He also identifies my connection with a mare during our beginner lessons in a very big herd and I was able to fall in love and have this mare forever and build my relationship and connection with her. I feel like I have been given the most beautiful gift of all. Thank you so much. From all of us here in the mountains. Love this podcast. Very informative. Thank you. I've had many out loud laughs too. Oh, that's lovely. You can feel the love, can't you? Thank you. Can feel the love coming off the screen yeah, as I said earlier you are a humble guy. Now, obviously this is not from a personal perspective. This is just from my intuition. And that comes across even now. There's a, there's a vulnerability but it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to be not okay. You know what I'm saying? And that comes across. From even your written posts, there's no judgment, Sometimes somebody said something and you have a you don't have a go at them, but you just say how you feel And at the end of the day, we're here to share and we all have a view but if we share from our heart We're sharing a part of us. We're sharing something that's us, too

Gareth: 1:10:05

Yeah, I think It's always something triggers, like how we interact with things, especially when it's linked to our purpose. And years ago I was in a situation where my horses were kept in a partnership and there was a lot of back and forth in terms of how best to keep the horses. Now, I'm sure anyone that loves their horses can relate. They're your horses, you want to do what's best for them. And when people don't either see it or understand it, you want to defend your viewpoint. And there was one of my colleagues, I have a habit of, well, at that stage, I had a habit of wanting to be right. So, and I come from a science background. So, I always had. I had my receipts. I always, when I sat down in a meeting, I had my receipts and it didn't really get me anywhere instead of getting me well, what I was hoping for in terms of. Yes, you're right. Let's do it your way. I got called. Intellectually arrogant. And that hit hard. Because that wasn't what I was going for. I was trying to explain a viewpoint, but it's while I might have taken offense at the time, I think it was something that it really hit home in terms of how you present a different point of view isn't supposed to be from who's right and who's wrong. It's, yeah. From, well, yes, my perspective on it. Yes, at some point you have to stand up for your own horses. And that normally ends up being your clear boundary where you can't see out if it's a business or work colleague, you have to, you know, part ways, but I think. When you're helping people with troubled horses, you have to think of it in a way that doesn't trigger that upper oppositional reflex. It's like if you tell someone they're wrong, the first thing that they're going to go into their defensiveness and they're going to defend the knowledge that they've spent years making. Whereas if you can have a discussion and related to your own journey, you immediately get people listening rather than listening to actually understand rather than listening to respond and rebuttal.

Ronnie: 1:13:04

I can appreciate that. So when I go see a client you, you might not always have the same opinion, but when you go there, you go there with the best interest and you go there because for me, it's whatever the horse presents and information they give to me and I'd like to say. That I always do that to the best of my ability with empathy and compassion, because as you've just mentioned if somebody comes to you and says, you're doing this wrong, you should be doing that, blah, blah. You automatically put your barriers up and you switch off. The nicest way is to put seeds there or to get them to to point a few things out and they say to you, Oh I do this, or this has happened, or do you think it could be that? And you go, yeah, there you go. You did know you just needed to realize that you did know that. So you almost give them, it's not the same as what you do, but you give them their, I want to say power back, it's not a power, ego power. You give them the right to. say yeah I, I feel that I understand that and it doesn't mean that they have all the answers that they're looking for, but they can go away and think about it maybe slightly differently. And you need the human on board because it's the human you're working with and it's human you need to help the horse and that is the similar thing with you, you know to enable them to, to address or to see or to release whatever it is, it's the human that is the catalyst is the, the flame and then the changes can take place. Okay. I'm just being told to say to you and to the audience that a lot of things and this goes across the plane to everything, human, human, animal to animal, human to animal, a lot of things are unseen. And it's the feel. And sometimes we're so used to what we see is not always what the feel is registering, that isn't always on the same page and we get confused. The feel is the first communication before anything else, the feel of what you're sensing. And it is a muscle, it's like a muscle, you have to develop it. And the more you play around with it, the more you do it. The easier it becomes. However, with that becomes even more questions. So it becomes bigger because you don't just see that and want a question for that you see that and want to know, okay, where's the questions for that? Does that make sense? to you. So I'm hoping that makes sense to the listeners, to the audience. Yeah,

Gareth: 1:15:48

I think, I think with your field I think it's even trickier to navigate the client's perspective. Because like you say, you can't go in and, you know, make them feel wrong in any way, but you also need to have them hear what you interpreting without them kind of obscuring it with their own fears and securities, whatever. So I think it's even more of a skill in terms of understanding the linguistics of how to present something in such a way that they're not just going to take all the fluffy stuff and drop the hard work.

Ronnie: 1:16:34

Yeah. It's funny because It sort of sorts itself out because me doing my normal talking is me but it's the same person, but when I'm connecting, cause I'm communicating when I'm connecting there's a flow. If I allow too much thought to come in, then it's sometimes the interpretation and I'm trying to find the words, cause sometimes there isn't the words to describe and what happens then is the horse will give something, it's almost like they'll show something, present something and then the client will go, I saw that, I understand that now, I I feel that because I'll say there's not a lot to see here, they'll say no, no but I can sense something I can feel something and to me that is that is the best part because that is what that is what the animal wants. But it sort of naturally has its own flow. And If I'm with somebody that's more anatomical minded, you know that's the way they think the communication will come in that way. If it's a gentler person, it'll be a softer. I mean, I've been to see horses when the clients have going through bereavement and I didn't know, and it's very nurturing communication that comes through. It's very, very gentle, very soft and then they'll say I've lost my best friend or something. And then you go, oh, okay, it makes sense. And then there's just this, okay, okay. And, and it's something happens there and it's lovely. It's hard to describe. I mean, I'm, I'm saying this from my perspective as the communicator. It might be different from the clients. point of view. It's almost like that the person is seen, they can let go of the, the armor just for a few minutes when they're in that communication and they can allow themselves to let go and that is what horses present for healing for the human. I don't mean that in a way that they're here to heal us, you know, we're here to heal ourselves, but that is facilitated in a natural way and it's very humbling and very beautiful when you experience that, and then you go away and you give him a hug, there's tears, you go away, and then the next time you see him, it's, okay, you know but it doesn't matter because whatever was needed, that moment was needed, and who am I to say what an impact that has on them, and it's not what I've done, it's what they've allowed themselves to let go of, and to see, and to witness and the horses are there too, and I always say, They know how you're feeling you don't have to pretend. And that's almost like giving them permission to do what's needed. That was quite deep. Was it that little bit? Yeah.

Gareth: 1:19:15

Okay. I completely agree that like horses aren't necessarily yet to heal us. But that I do feel that horses are yet to teach us about connection or get us to reconnect there's theories about how horses became domesticated. It wasn't this thing of humans, early human civilizations going out and domesticating horses. They just started hanging around human settlements. So the very stiff anthropological look is, oh, well, they were just hanging around for the protection from predators because when then humans around, there weren't as many predators and, you know, scraps of food or whatever. I always have this picture in my head of horses watching us. I'm sure you've gone into a yard and you turn around and you feel you've watched and the horses are like watching us, like almost like a entertaining show. And I'm sure that like. In those early settings, they're like, sure, these guys could be incredible if they could just connect back to nature. And almost like they had domesticated themselves. I'm sure there's moments that they regret that but they're like, they wanted to connect to us so they could show us how to connect again.

Ronnie: 1:20:39

And you don't have to have a horse and you don't have to want to ride a horse. There's just something about being in heart space, and I know there's the heart math but they are such huge animals and they've got such power and they could kill you if they wanted to and the fact that they put up with a lot. Before they get to that point and they, they are are very forgiving. They're just amazing creatures, just amazing creatures. Okay, Gareth, we've been on the go for an hour and 30 minutes now, so. Yes. No, no, no, don't apologize. No, I'm loving this. No, God, no. It's lovely and I'm so pleased you've had lots of people joining you, which is great. Would you like to play a bit of your music? You don't have to. I know I put you under pressure.

Gareth: 1:21:28

I thought I got my guitar. I can. Play a song. I'm going to have to obviously.

Ronnie: 1:21:32

Yeah. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't yeah, we'll just, we'll try a little bit. So we can still hear you. Yeah.

Gareth: 1:21:39

But when I heard you saying stay away from me Lord, I was gonna drown Lord, I was gonna drown Lord, I was gonna drown Learning to swim I just can't find the shore. I'm learning to swim. Oh, I wish I knew. If only I had words to change how you feel, If only I had ways to make you free, If only you didn't swim so deep. Slow down, boy, it's gonna hold you down. Slow down, boy, it's gonna hold you down. You're learning to swim. You just can't find the shore. You're learning to swim. The only wish I knew. Yeah. Yeah. Now, yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

Ronnie: 1:24:11

Wow. That was awesome. Oh my God. Thank you so much for doing that. You were so, so brave. That was awesome, that was so lovely. Oh, that was, that was lovely thank you for doing that. I can say you're my first person that's come on and sang. Brilliant, brilliant. Is there anything that you'd like to say before you go, Gareth? Any parts in information that you'd just like to say to the listeners?

Gareth: 1:24:41

Yeah, just look out for clinics if you're in South Africa. If you're around the world and you're struggling with an issue with either connection or misunderstanding with your horse, then check out the Heartfelt Horsemanship Patreon page. If you... have an interest or a love for horses, but I've been kind of put off by the fear side of it. Give us a call and come meet our horses they are completely safe and love being around people.

Ronnie: 1:25:11

Thank you and thank Talia as well for coming on bless her. What a lovely guy. What a lovely guy. He is very humble, isn't he? You can just, you can just see that in him, bless him. And to have music at the end. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you everybody that's commented. You can see these after the live, you've got to read them and if you want to add any more comments to Gareth or ask him any questions and I'll put the link to the Patreon, I don't think I've got that link on so if you want to go join that, that would be. Somewhere for you to go and yeah, experience some more of Gareth. Okay, thank you so much for joining us. It really means the world when you come and say hello. Have a wonderful evening wherever you are in the world. And I'd love to have him and Talya you back again sometime in the future yeah, lovely guy. So take care and bye for now, bye everybody.