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Warwick Schiller
Journey on Magic lies within the trails we ride. You're listening to the Journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick is a horseman trainer, international clinician and author who helps empower horse people from all over the world with the skills, knowledge and mindsets needed to create trusting partnerships with their horses. Warrick offers a free seven day trial to his comprehensive online video library that includes hundreds of full length training videos and several home Study courses@videos.warwick shiller.com G' day everyone. Welcome back to the Journey On Podcast. I'm your host, Warwick Schiller and I thought for this episode of the podcast I might kind of have a chat with myself and bring everybody up to date on what's been going on in all areas of Journey on them. So I thought I'd start at the start of the year and kind of go through what we've been up to and what's coming up next. And it's really interesting. You know, one of the, one of the concepts I guess I've talked about a lot on the podcast is there's a magic in giving, giving to others with no thought of receiving anything back from it. And I got a funny story. My son Tyler is in a band. He's been living in Hawaii for the last four years, but him and his partner Nicole moved back, moved to our ranch here just before Christmas last year. And while they're in Hawaii in the band, they headlined a lot of shows around Honolulu. They got quite a big following there. Their band is called Twin Fin. If anybody's interested, you can look them up on Spotify. But sometimes bigger names would come to town, bigger name acts and they would be a support act for these bigger names and they, you know, they'd get to meet the band members, whatever during, you know, before the concert sort of thing. But then for the most part they don't see them ever again. And last year they were the support act for a, an American rapper named Swayze. His name's Aaron Smith, but he's, he's better known as Schwase. And he came to town, they were support act for him. And you know, during that evening of the concert or whatever, like backstage, Swayze had asked, generally asked a question to the room about, I don't know, about a hike to a waterfall or something. He didn't, you know, some local Hawaiian knowledge he didn't know. And anyway, Tyler thought about it that night so made a point the next morning of going around to the hotel where Shwayzi was staying and knocking on his door and say, hey, I gave some thought to the request, you know, the question you had last night, and, you know, he's kind of the answer. And Shayze said, oh, you want to come to brunch with me? So we ended up going to brunch with Swayze. So Swayze is a. Like I said, he's an American rapper and he, he's had a couple of songs on the Billboard Hot 100. He had his first single, Buzzin peaked at number 46, and his second single, Corona Lime reached number 23. And so he's, you know, he's had some mainstream success. And anyway, so he said, wanna go to. Want to go to brunch with me? So Tyler went to brunch with him and they got to chat and they end up becoming friends. And then earlier this year, so 2025, which is the, you know, the update I'm bringing you, Swayze invited them to go on a western United States tour with him. So they're going to do 17 shows in 23 days. So life on the road sort of thing. You know, they started out in Boise, Idaho, then they went to Salt Lake City, Utah, then to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, two shows in places in Montana, then Washington. They did Spokane and Seattle, and they worked their way down to Bend, Oregon and all the way down the California coast and they were going end up in San Diego. And that, that whole invitation on that tour really came from Tyler reaching out to Swayze to help him with no thought of getting anything back. And like I said, I've talked about this on the podcast, that I believe there's a magic to that act, doing that act with no thought of getting anything back. And I was actually in Australia in January, late late January, early February, when this was going on. And they were going to do a show in Santa Cruz, which is a couple hours north of here. And then they had a few days off. And the next show was going to be in Morro Bay, which is a cup, oh, about an hour south of here. And while I was in Australia, Tyler messaged me and he said, hey, do you think the band. So there was two support acts, Tyler's band and another band named Bikini Trill, supporting Swayze. And Tyler said, do you think that all the guys can come to the ranch and hang out for a few days between the Santa Cruz show and the Morro Bay show? And I'm like, oh, yeah, that'd be cool. I could, you know, I could barbecue for him. It'd be fun. And so what that turned into. And that was Another one of those things, I thought, yeah, these guys have been on the road, living in hotel rooms, it'd be nice to have a home cooked meal. And what happened from that was they came here and all of them came here and stayed for a couple of days. And guess what happens after I barbecue for him? We have the fire pits in the backyard and so the band are all sitting around. And so it was a surreal thing. I'm sitting around a fire pit in my backyard with a, you know, with an artist who's had songs in the Billboard top 40. And I'm, I'm getting a, basically a private concert in my backyard. And at the time I was thinking, how does this happen? And I thought, once again, there's that energy behind. There's that energy behind doing things for others with no thought of getting anything back. So when, you know, when Tyler went to his hotel room, he was going there to help out, not I'm gonna help out and get something back. And that resulted in that big tour they did. And, you know, when I said, oh, I could barbecue him for him, that was not, oh, it wasn't a, you know, I can barbecue for them and then they can do something for me. You know, it's almost like when Emily K's daughter was on the podcast and she talked about giving versus trading. And I don't know, I don't care if it's working with a horse or just working with life in general. I really feel like there's a, there's a different energy to giving versus trading. And I suppose there's a knock on story from that. They did the whole tour. Swayze loves them, introduced him to his management team and then other songwriters and stuff. So here a week or so ago, Tyler went to LA with Robbie, the lead singer of the band, and they did some songwriting sessions with some songwriters and did some recording down there. And then Swayze and Robbie actually wrote a song together which they've just released. It's called Floating. If you look up Twin Fin and Swayze on Spotify, it's a great song, catchy song. And they filmed a music video for it while they were in la. This is how ridiculous our lives are these days. They filmed a music video for it in LA while they were down there. Tyler sends me this picture of a pool, a backyard with a pool in it overlooking the ocean. And he says, hey, we went to this really cool place today and filmed the music video for Floating. And I'm like, hey, that's cool. And then he texts back, he says, yeah, apparently the, the lady that owns it used to be a Bond girl. Her name's Jane Seymour or something. So, you know, if you think about Tyler going around to Shayze's hotel room to help him out, ended up with Tyler going to Jane Seymour's house in Malibu and meeting Jane Seymour and having a chat about the music video they made. But yeah, the universe is an interesting thing. And it's like I said, there's a magic energy to doing things for, to help out, you know, that trading versus giving. I just love that from Emily K's daughter. And I'm probably going to talk a little bit more about Emily K's daughter base later in this. Later in this. In this episode of the podcast. So I was in Australia doing some clinics in Victoria, which is on the very bottom on the South Eastern side, if you not familiar with Australia. And then I flew to the west coast of Australia and did some clinics in Perth too. But while I was at the clinic in Victoria. Well, let's back up a second. Last year there was an article written about me that came out in the New York Times, the magazine that comes out in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. I can't remember what that, maybe it's called the New York Times Magazine. I can't quite remember. But so that came out and there's a bit of buzz about that. And so the comparable newspapers in Australia, which is the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age, a writer there did a comparable article for the those two because they have a weekend magazine, a lifestyle magazine like that, that comes out in the Sunday edition as well. So while I was at this clinic in Victoria, they sent a photographer out to take some pictures for that. And I think that came out here probably maybe in late April, early May, something like that. That was kind of interesting. And then when I went to Western Australia, it was. I did two clinics there and also a master class. And the reason I went to Western Australia is because I at the World of question games in 2010, I met an Australian eventer named Sonja Johnson. Sonia won the bronze medal at the. I can't remember what Olympics it was, but anyway, she's won an Olympic bronze medal and I kind of got to know her there and we've kind of kept in touch over the years and she, she's kind of curious about other ways of doing things with horses and she wanted me to go over to Western Australia and actually do a clinic with the Western Australian High Performance Eventing Squad. And that was really cool. And then on the, you know, that was on the weekend, but on the Saturday night we did a. Did a. I did a masterclass which was a fundraiser for the Western Australian Eventing Squad. And it was actually at a facility called the Western Australian State Equestrian Center, I think it was. And it was originally built by Alan Bond back in the day. And then it be. I think they donated it to the state of Western Australia, I think. But something interesting while I was there was sometimes in my clinics, I will quote Nuno Oliveira. Like my favorite Nuno Oliveira quote is, your horse needs to be relaxed, yet remain powerful. To have, to have access to both sides of that, that's really nervous system regulation, really. But while I was at that clinic, which was very early in February, someone said, did you know this is the exact anniversary the 20 would be the 26th. 36th. Sorry, no, no, 26th anniversary of the death of Nuno Oliveira. And I said, oh, that's fascinating. And they said, no, no, no, you don't understand. He died while doing a clinic here. Apparently it was a two day clinic. He had a clinic one day, went to the hotel that night, didn't show up for the clinic the next day, and apparently, I think he passed away in his sleep, unfortunately. But the weird thing was here I was quoting Nuno Oliveira in the same arena that. Which is the last clinic he did. Exactly 26 years. No, 36 years. Sorry, yes. No, 36 years. It was the second of the second. 1989. And there's actually a plaque on the. In the lobby of that building and it says, in remembrance of Maestro Nuno Oliveira, it says, love is beauty. Beauty is art. Art is love. If you love horses as I do, how else therefore can you ride them, except with lightness? And so that was a. Yeah, that was a bit of an interesting. Another one of those synchronicities or coincidences some people call them. So after I got back from Australia, we had Swayze and all the crew here at the ranch, and so we had the barbecues. I got to go see the Morro Bay show and also the San Diego show, which was very cool. And then my next stop was Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for the Horse World Expo, where I did some demos there. That was. That was super fun. Got to catch up with former podcast guest Tick Maynard, and I actually want to talk about tickets. Tick, before the horse expo, had sent me a copy of his new book. So Tick had written a book a few years ago called Something about the Middle. Sorry, Tick, I can't remember the name of the book. Those in the Middle I think. And the whole gist of the. Not the gist of the book, but the gist of the title is one time a horseman said to Tick, Tick maybe asked him who the true horsemen are. And he said, see those ones over there that are really tough on their horses? That's not them. And see those ones over there that are just so in love with their horses they can't have any boundaries? That's not them. The real horsemen are somewhere in the middle. I think that's the name of the book. Somewhere in the middle. Nope, it's right on my shelf here. It says in the middle are the horsemen. Sorry, here. There it is, right in front of me. So a couple of years ago, Tick was asked to participate in the Road to the Horse. So Road to the Horse is one of those cult starting competitions. It's billed as the world championship of cult starting, where over three days, you know, group of contestants start a young horse under saddle. And Tick went. The first year he went, he won it. And then he was asked to come back this year and he won it again. And, you know, I'm not necessarily a fan of those cold starting competitions, but one reason I'm fascinated about this is because usually the people in these cold starting competitions have got decades of experience starting young horses under saddle. And so what they bring to the table is decades of experience starting horses under saddle. Most of them have started, or, you know, usually they've started hundreds of horses. Some of them, some of the competitors have started thousands of horses. Tick has started less than 20 horses in his entire life. And so how did Tick Maynard, who is the not only the least qualified contestant in Road to the Horse last year or this year, how does he win Both years over? Some people have had, you know, 40 years of experience starting horses. And the reason I believe he did is because Tick has a different perspective on life, different perspective on horses. And that Tick reminds me of me a lot. Not. And I'm not saying that like, yeah, I'm as good as Tick or whatever. What I'm saying is a lot of my influences, stuff that's influenced my horsemanship, has come from nothing to do with horses. Tick is an avid reader like myself, and we went out to dinner a couple of nights at that horse expo. I'm like, have you read this book? Oh, yeah. Have you read this book? Yeah, but they're not horse books. And so that's something I, you know, I think if you start horses for a living for 40 years, you will have 40 years of experience. And I imagine there's a possibility during that time your perspective might change a bit over and over time, but it doesn't necessarily have to change, you know, so 40 years of experience might not give you a perspective change. It might be 40 years of the same thing. But Tick, having started less than 20 horses, entire life, has a perspective that is equal to or possibly more developed than someone who may have started horses their entire life. And so I just. I thought that was fascinating. And so Tick wrote a book about his journey to the Road to the Horse. The first one, you know, it was about him. It's such a good book. I think it's called Starting in the Middle. So his first one was called in the Middle of the Horsemen. This one was called Starting in the Middle because it's about starting horses. And, you know, in that book, he questions. He questions even doing it, like, why am I doing it? And I have found in my journey that understanding why. Why you actually do the things you do and have the perspective you have is a lot of your. Can be a catalyst for a lot of your unraveling your societal and cultural and conditioning from your family of origin, too. Tic talks about that a lot in this book, and he does all sorts of interesting things. Like one of the things he does to prepare for Road to the Horse, a lot of people, when they prepare for the Road to the Horse, all they do is start horses. Tick went to Clicker. Sorry, I can never say this. Chicken Clicker training school, okay. To prepare for Road to the Horse. And so that's the perspective he has. It's an outside the box perspective. And that's something that we're trying to do in this podcast, is get people to have a different perspective on life. Because when you have that different perspective, you have it. You view the world through a different lens. And if you think about, you know, Tick has a lifetime with horses, so he has a lot of experience with horses, but not necessarily starting horses. But the point I'm trying to make here is having that different perspective is what enabled him to win the, quote, unquote, world championship of colt starting, not once, but twice. Being the least qualified person to do it, not only in the years he did it, but, I don't know, the 10 or 15 years it's been running. He would be the least qualified person out of any person who's ever done it, and he won it twice. So I really enjoyed hanging out with Tick at the Horse Expo. He didn't have a booth, so he would come and sit in my Booth when he was not doing anything. Oh, and I was telling you about his book. So Tick had sent me an advanced copy of his book on the computer. Before there, he wanted me to do a. What do you call it? A testimonial or whatever, you know, where you, you know, you read the book and you say, and, you know, you give a little quote like, this is a great book, whatever, and then you end up on the inside cover or on the back cover or one of those things. He wanted me to do one of those. So I had read the book on before I even got to the horse expo. So we had a lot to talk about at the expo, you know, about his journey to the road to the horse and all the interesting things and the story about the chicken clicker training course he took. And. Yeah, just a. Just a fascinating guy with a. With a totally different perspective. But at that horse expo, you know, I always. I always recruit problem horses for the horse expos. And one of the horses I had for that horse expo, the problems the lady has with the horse is the horse, number one, bites her, number two, pulls away from, tries to drag her around, and number three pushes into her. And I didn't video. I didn't have a videographer with me, didn't take the camera with me, but I wish I had because the session was really good. Because this horse, and you think about, number one, problem is biting. Number two, problem is pulling away. Number three problem is pushing into me. When I let. Usually I let these horses come in and the people lead them around or stand with them or whatever for half an hour so the crowd can actually see what's going on, that there's an actual problem. Because if I bought the horse in and started messing with the horse, they might think, oh, there's nothing wrong with this horse. So she brings the horse in, the horse is biting her, pulling away from, pushing into her, all those things. But when I took a hold of the lead rope the first time, that horse came up to me with his mouth, I did not interpret it as trying to bite me. I interpreted it to try to say hello and like, are you available for connection? And because I did that from the start, like, if the horse wants to put his mouth out, you know, I'll engage with him with my hand, the flat of my hand. Because I did from that the start, I didn't have much in the way of the pulling away. Because what tends to happen or what was happening Will, was this horse would come up to the lady and say, are you available for Connection with his mouth, she would interpret it as biting. So she would either step back or correct him or ignore him, one of those three. And basically she was saying, I'm not available for connection. So because she wasn't available for connection, he would then turn and walk off and think, okay, I want AMA Amma, I'm a herd animal, I'm a mammal. I have evolved for connection, to live in connection. I'm going to go look for another horse to connect with because this person can't connect with me. So if you think about the pulling away was caused by the lack of connection. So then the horse would try to pull away and then she'd pull on the halter and pull the horse back to it. So she's not available for connection, but she's not allowing him to leave. And then what would happen? He would push into her. So if you think about every one of those problems was actually caused by a lack of connection. And that's why I'm really big these days on this connection stuff, because without it, these horses don't feel safe. And it's funny, recently in on social media there's been a number of trainers who, you know, it always surprises me on social media, people sharing stuff, you know, trainers, professional horse professionals sharing stuff on social media. But the stuff that they share is not what they do. The stuff they share is what everybody else, they think everybody else is doing wrong. And it's really interesting. You know, when I first moved to America in 1990 and I saw political ads at the time in Australia, political ads, the politicians were saying what they were going to do for the people of Australia. That's the only thing they said. When I first moved to America, I thought the political ads here were kind of strange because no one was saying what they were going to do. They were just saying how everybody else is wrong, the other guy's a bad guy, the other guy's doing it wrong. They weren't actually offering suggestions, they were just offering complaints. That's called complaining. Anyway, there's been a number of trainers on social media who've been going out of their way to say basically what I'm doing or anybody else who's doing this kind of relationship based stuff or relationship first stuff, how wrong it is. But I think the reason they think it's wrong is because, because number one, they have no idea what I'm doing. They just assume they know what I'm doing. But some of the rants they go on is, you know, horses need leadership, they don't need Relationship first. They need leadership first, you know, and that relationship stuff's all for the person. You know, you're supposed to do it for the horse. The only reason I do the relationship stuff first is for the horse to make them feel safe. Because most of the problems people encounter with horses are horses with a dysregulated nervous system. They're anxious to shut down all those sorts of things. And so that relationship stuff is not about giving me the warm and fuzzies, it's about making them feel safe. And if you think about this horse at the horse expo first, first thing they did, the horse just came up to the person and said, are you available for connection? And they said, no. And the horse is like, okay, I'm out of here. And that was the cascade of all the problems. You know, when that horse came up to. When I took the lead rope, that horse came up to me and said, hello. I mean, this horse wanted to chomp on my hand quite a bit and I just kept my hand flat and eventually the horse ended up licking my hand and eventually the horse kind of ended up just standing with me and being quite comfortable. But the, the going away from me and pushing into me. There was a little bit of it, but not near as much as there had been with the owner. And so if you think about the lack of connection was what was causing all the problems. So that was a, that was a great demo. And then the next day I had a Warmblood Mare, a 10 year old war blood mare that they say has basically has adhd. She cannot focus, her mind is too busy, her head is, her neck is always stuck straight up in the air like a giraffe. She's always, you know, she's always on high alert. She had been a broodmare for a long time and they've just started her under saddle and they cannot get her basically to focus or be calm or whatever. And the, it wasn't the owner brought the horse in, but I think the trainer brought the horse in and led the horse around. Like I said, I usually let him do that for about half an hour. This horse couldn't stand still and her head was up in the air and her ears were pricked and her eyes were bulging and she was looking all over the place sort of thing. And when I finally took a hold of her, you know, that last half hour of the demo, I basically only had four. It was really interesting because I basically only had four interactions with her. The first one was I was handed the lead rope. That mare came up to Me and said, hello, can I engage with you? But it was very brief. It was like split second. She touched my hand and then she went to walk off. And as she got to the end of the lead rope, as she put that, as she felt a feel in the lead rope, I just used my flag a little bit to redirect her attention back to me. And then I did nothing because that's when her feet came still, when their mind and their body come in the same place at the same time as when their feet standstill. Some other point in time, she came up and briefly engaged with me, which I did engage with her. And one other time she walked off and got to the end of the lead rope and I redirected her attention back to me and then she stood still. And the rest of the time all I had to do was wait. And she went through a whole range of emotions. She poured the ground and I ignored it. She bit the lead rope, I ignored it. I just stood there and basically held space for her. And I did say to the crowd at the time, you know, and just so, you know, doing nothing is an action. I'm not doing nothing right now. I'm doing something. And that something is standing around with her with a relaxed posture and energy, with no intention of trying to change anything she's doing and just being with her. And in the end, that mare just relaxed, had these big sighs, big licks and chews, big yawns. And she kind of hung there, kind of stood there, and her nose was almost on the ground, like her ears were lower than her withers just then and there, just relaxed, kind of looking around and actually at one point in time crossed my legs and sat on the ground there and someone took a picture of that. And I, you know, I posted on Facebook about it, but. And my, my post on Facebook was about doing nothing is an action. So in the half an hour I had that mare, she went from a warm blood mare who's 10 years old, who never can relax and cannot focus, to a horse that went from that, in that environment to a completely relaxed horse. And for the most part, I didn't do anything. And so the, the two things I did were about connection and about communicating awareness, which I'm always on about. But yeah, I wish I had a video of it because it was probably the least amount I've ever done to get one of the biggest changes I've ever had. And yeah, that was quite a. Quite a fun little thing at that horse expo. So, yeah, it was a great horse. Expo to be at. And I, like I said, I did have a lot of fun hanging out with Tic. Actually. Tic's wife, Sinead, she has a podcast called In Stride. And recently she had me on her podcast and she sent me a list of questions beforehand. And what she was really interested in was talking to me about, like, the horse industry, where it's going, who's doing the wrong things, that sort of, that sort of thing. And one of the questions she had asked me was, what are my thoughts on the three Olympic disciplines where they're going or whatever they're doing, you know, so dressage, show jumping and eventing. And, you know, normally I don't speak out about things unless I'm asked. And a lot of times I don't, I don't like to make negative comments in public spaces. But when she asked me that on the podcast, I said, well, I really, you know, I really don't have an opinion because I don't do those. I don't do those events. But I said, when I have been around, especially like the Olympic level horses in those events was at the World of question games in 2010 and 2018. And I said, the one thing I will say is watching those horses be led around the facility, just in the general interactions going from point A to point B being led around, a lot of those horses are not relaxed at all. And so you think about they're not relaxed, just on the ground with a human. And I'm not talking about they're highly anxious, but I'm talking about there is a better starting point. And if you think about that, you know, so I said that's the best. Probably the only comment I made was that I feel like, you know, any of the stresses involved in doing the biggest stuff, the major competitions and the writing and all that stuff, there's a possibility that could be easier if there were some different practices on the ground. And that warmblood mare that I had at that horse expo I was talking about is a case in point. People can say, oh, but those horses are warmbloods and they're not relaxed or whatever. I read a quote today that said a horse doesn't know what breed he is. And that really resonated with me. Like, warmbloods don't know they're warmbloods. I'm a warmblood and I'm supposed to act this way. And so, yeah, I do feel like if there was room for improvement, it would not be improvement in the end result, like in the big areas. I feel like it would be in the little areas. But. So I didn't really have much to say about the Olympic disciplines apart from that, because, like I said, I'm not, you know, I'm not involved with that. I really don't have an opinion. But I said, but because you're asking me about Olympic disciplines, I do want to talk about the debacle at the. I think it was the last Olympics in the modern thing. Is it the pentathlon? It's the event that. It's the. It's the sport that has multiple disciplines to it, and one of them is horse riding. But the other ones, I think there's archery and running and shooting. I'm not sure that's how much I know about it, but there was that big hullabaloo about the horse that the person couldn't get to go. And I think the horse backed up to the fence, and someone leaned over the fence and slapped the horse on the bar. And then the rider tapped the horse with a whip. And there's like, they should not, you know, they shouldn't be there. They're terrible. They should be banned or whatever. And I said to Sinead on this podcast, I said, for me, as a horseman, the only one that shouldn't have been there was that horse. Okay, that. For me, that's riding a horse 101. For me, the first thing a horse has got to be able to do is walk, trot, and canter on a loose rein with no stewing, and use the whole arena. And I guarantee you, that horse that was trying to go out the gate, if at home, that horse would fail my very first level for riding under saddle, which, like I said, he's been able to control themselves and not have what I call destination addiction. You know, destination addiction is the idea you'll find happiness somewhere else. It's the idea you'll find happiness in your next house or your next partner with your next job. And it says, until you give up the idea that happiness is somewhere else, it will never be where you are. And for me, step one, training horses, is to teach them how to find peace and happiness with whatever they're doing. And you think about that warm blood mare at that horse expo. She found peace and happiness right there with me in that arena. Initially, she wished she was somewhere else. She couldn't stand still. She was wanting to go somewhere else where she felt safe. And so when I was talking to Sinead, I. You know, I said that I feel like the public outcry was just from a public that doesn't completely understand much about horses at all. And that horse shouldn't have even been there. The actions of the, the, you know, the person on the ground and the person on the saddle, to me, wasn't the problem. The problem was they shouldn't have to do that. It's not. They shouldn't have done it. They shouldn't have to do that because the horse shouldn't have been there in the first place. Because that was a, for me, a very, very, very underprepared horse. And you think about humans don't go to the Olympics being under prepared. But anyway, that was my rant on. That was my rant on that. But, yeah, Sinead asks some pretty sticky questions on her In Stride podcast. So if you're interested in sticky questions in the horse world, you could check that out on, I guess, on, you know, all the places that you listen to podcasts. So that was. That was February, then March, we had some March and April. You know, March and April here at our place in California are basically our busy times for stuff at the ranch here. Because before that it's raining and I don't have a covered arena. And after May, it gets too hot here. You know, we have a beautiful hillside overlooking the arena that's got these huge, big oak trees, and it's beautiful in the shade there. But if you're in the arena, it's kind of hot. So we're kind of limited to what times of the year we can do those sorts of things here. So March and April, we had some retreats and some clinics. So the retreats we have, they're called, you know, attunement and connection retreats. And they're all about attunement and connection with horses, with each other and with ourselves. And they're always fun. We always have amazing people here. The groups of people that come to those are amazing. I had a couple of clinics I also went to. I went to a retreat, actually. So a previous guest on the podcast, Andrew Cohen, was in the podcast here a little while ago when I had him on there afterwards, he was telling me that he was running men's retreat in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And I haven't been to a men's retreat for about four years or so, and I've only been to one. I enjoyed it so much so I thought I'd go down there. And so I think I went a little early and spent a day looking around Santa Fe, New Mexico, drove up to. Oh, my goodness, I can't remember. It's just north of Santa Fe, where there's a Native American pueblo village that you can go visit. Fascinating. Really beautiful. I think it's actually a, it might even be a UNESCO World Heritage listed place. But that was amazing. So that was March and April. In May, one of the cool things we got to do, Robin and I went down to Santa Barbara to a premiere of a documentary called Rescued Hearts. And Rescued Hearts, I'll read the little blurb off their website. Rescued Hearts is a powerful documentary that explores the profound and often miraculous connection between humans and, and horses. Inspired by a life changing moment when a 7 year old boy diagnosed with autism spoke his first words while interacting with a horse, filmmakers Dana Crochier and Krisanna Sexton set out to uncover the deeper meaning behind this extraordinary bond. Through deeply moving personal stories, expert insights and research, Rescued Hearts explores how horses serve as catalysts for healing and transformation, helping us open our hearts and reconnect with our authentic selves. The film not only highlights lives forever changed through these experiences, but also reveals a profound truth. Healing is never one sided. Rescued Hearts isn't just the story of horses. It's the story of us all. Oh, sorry. It's the story of all of us offering an invitation for deeper connection with ourselves, each other and of nature. And so the reason I went down to watch that is because I'm actually in that documentary. I show up there for maybe a couple of minutes, maybe five minutes in there. And how I got involved in that was they had, oh, it's interesting, there's a number of, number of former podcast guests who are actually in that documentary. Nishan Cook's in it, Joa Dunlap is in it, Amber Marshall from Heartland, she's in it. Trying to think who else who's been in the podcast? Is it? Oh, Carolyn Resnick, who's been on the podcast. Carolyn's in it and Carolyn's actually the reason I got involved with it. They were, they're going to film Carolyn here in California. And for some reason Carolyn thought I should be involved and she said, yeah, I'll be involved if you can get this Australian fellow named Warwick Schiller involved too. So I got a call to go up and actually spent a couple of days, this is several years ago now, this is maybe two or three years ago now. I got to go up there. I went up for a couple of days and spent the first day hanging with Carolyn. And then the second day, Dana and Chrisanna, they spent the day interviewing me and watching me interact with horses or whatever. And you know, that's where I learned that in documentaries, a whole day of filming, you know, can end up being three or four minutes in a movie. But that was really cool. So it was the release of, that was the premiere of that was in conjunction with a, a film festival called Illuminate. It was the Illuminate, Illuminate Film Festival. And so it's all kinds of documentaries to do with pretty much kind of the same sort of thing that this, you know, this podcast is, you know, the Illuminate Film Festival. It says, do you love conscious films? Make them part of your everyday life. Join a global movement of heart led storytelling. And so that's what the, the Illuminate Film Festival was about. It was really interesting. When we went into the theater before the start of the movie, there were these two girls on stage. One was a, I think she's a cellist, she had a cello and the other one had a violin. And they were playing this beautiful, almost haunting type music. And it wasn't till I think it was after they showed the film that they said that they introduced those two girls up on stage. They were them, they wrote and performed the music for the movie. And so it's so cool. You know, there was, when they were on the stage before the movie commenced, there was a thing appeared on the big screen behind him and it said, when crafted with purpose, entertainment becomes a path to transformation. Conscious media inspires us to be the best version of ourselves, rooted in awareness, guided by love and illuminated by possibility. So that was one of the cool things that came up on the screen behind these girls while they were playing. Another one I took a picture of. It says, I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. E.B. white. But yeah, it was a great, great evening there. There were, you know, like I said, there was a number of podcast guests, previous podcast guests in the film, and there was some podcast guests in the audience. We sat with Christine Dixon and badass stuntwoman Hannah Betts. So that was a pretty fun evening. And then here in May, we had another clinic and another retreat too. And it's now June. And I just got back from the Western States Horse Expo in Rancho Marietta, which is just outside of Sacramento, California. And I've been going to that horse Expo for, probably have been presenting at Horse Expo for probably about 10 years now. And so it's always fun to go there. And like I said before, when I do horse expos, I usually recruit problem Horses. And it's funny, one of the, one of the common themes that shows up in emails because I'll usually I'll send out a. Put a thing on social media looking for horses with problems at, for the horse expo, please email me and tell us about the problems you're having with your horse. And one of the most common problems that I get, it's not a one problem, but a lot of the emails I get, they sound a bit like this. My horse is hard to catch. He doesn't like to be brushed, he doesn't like to be saddled. Anyway, when I'm riding him, I have such and such a problem. And that's probably the big, you know, that's probably the main type of problem is, you know, people tell me my horse, basically they tell me my horse failed the first grade and the second grade and the third grade and the fourth grade and the fifth grade and the sixth grade. Anyway, he's struggling with the seventh grade. How do I fix that? That's basically what they are saying. And you know, and this one was, was no different. Some of the, you know, a lot of the emails I had, a lot of the emails I had were for, were about that. You know, no one ever says I can't do this. And it stops there. They also say, you know, they always say I can't do this. Oh, and I also can't do the second step. And also I can't do the third step and I can't do the fourth step. Anyway, in the fifth step, I'm having a problem. And so it's, it's just a, it's like a mindset. You know, it's a perception issue. Like if that first thing's not working, I would be, I would be, you know, doing the first thing till it, till it is. So that's, that's. Yeah, that's something that pops up a lot. I'll tell you what, I had a really interesting conversation at that horse expo with a, with one of the presenters there. Actually. He came up to me and he said, this is after the horse expo. He came up to me and he said, hey, I gotta, I gotta tell you something that, that basically he told me I'm doing it wrong. And this is a little bit like before when I was talking about those people posting on social media saying that, you know, that the, you know, the relationship first stuff is all wrong because they don't, you know, you shouldn't be trying to get out of it what you want to get out of it. It should be all for the horse, but that, you know, that relationship is about the horse. Anyway, this guy was kind of saying something similar, and I think the old me would have wanted to argue the point there with him, but I just kind of nodded and said, okay, thank you. I really appreciate your input. Thank you so much. Great chat. And what it made me think about was like, I've seen a meme somewhere that something about one of the. One of the hardest lessons to learn in life is allowing yourself to be misunderstood. Like, I think years ago I would have. I would have probably said to this guy, no, no, no, no, it's not like that. And went on and tried to explain, you know, what he was misunderstanding about what I'm doing or whatever. And I didn't. And it's kind of the same thing. When I read those. Those posts on social media that seem to be directed at me about what I'm doing or what people who are doing, like what I'm doing is doing, I just. I just kind of blow it off, you know, And I don't mean blow it off, like, yeah, screw you sort of thing. It's. But blow it off, like, yeah, whatever. So it seems like I'm getting. I'm getting better at being misunderstood by people who are not, I don't know, maybe vested in what I'm doing. You know, like, if it's someone who is a client, you know, someone who subscribes to the video library in there, they, you know, they have a question and whatever, hey, I will help them till the ends of the earth because they want to understand. But it seems like these people who look at things, things from the outside don't involve themselves in it, don't study it or whatever, and then have a perception of it. I think that used. Would have used to bother me in the past. And it was. Yeah, it was just interesting having this conversation with this guy the other day when I just like, okay, yep, thanks. Great chat. Thanks for your input. I'll take it into consideration. And it didn't. Didn't bother me. I won't say it didn't. Well, it didn't bother me that much. I wouldn't say it didn't bother me. I've had a lot. I've been thinking about it a lot. But yeah, it didn't bother me that much because it kind of, you know, from what he was telling me, it's quite obvious that he has no idea what I'm doing. Hasn't studied it, you know. So, yeah, so that's. That's Kind of some growth there I think is being, being okay with people misunderstanding you. So that's, that's the year to date. It's getting, it's gonna get interesting here this summer. I'm gonna be pretty busy. I leave tomorrow, Kanab, Utah for a clinic. Kanab, Utah is in southern Utah, so it's very close to Zion national park and all those beautiful red rocks formations and stuff. So the drive from the airport to where I'm going to will be great. Then the next week I am going to Eastern Europe. I'm going to Poland to present at a horse expo. And then the following week I'm doing a clinic in Slovenia. And so when I was approached earlier this year about doing this presenting at this horse expo in Poland and I agreed to do that, it's funny about, I don't know, it could have been two weeks, could have been a month later, I had an email from someone in Slovenia who said, hey, is there any chance we could ever get you to Slovenia? And I replied back and said, are you anywhere near Poland? Because my, I've never been to Eastern Europe. I've been all over Western Europe, but not Eastern Europe. So my Eastern Europe geography is pretty poor. And they said, yeah. And I told them where the horse expo was. And you know, where I am in, where we're going to go in Slovenia is actually, I don't know, it'd probably be a nine hour drive if I drove straight there. So Tyler, my son's going to come with me. We're actually going to have a bit of a look around. We're going to go to Budapest and Prague like in the time between the Poland Expo and the Slovenia clinic. So that'll be, that'll be a little bit of fun. And then when I get back, we go to, we do a clinic in, I do a clinic in Washington state and so in Wenatchee, Washington and then I do another one in Kiowa, Colorado. So if anybody's in those areas, you can go on our website, have a look under clinics and see the dates. The clinics are full for participants, but there's plenty of spectator space in both of those, both of those places. And then probably the bigger exciting news for towards the end of the year is when we usually have our podcast summit is, you know, usually when we announce our podcast summit, we get a lot of ticket sales very early on and we didn't get that many this year. Like not, you know, probably we got about half what we would need to break even and so unsure what we're going to do with the. The podcast summit. And so then we've decided we're going to have a bit of a pivot and instead of it being the podcast summit with, you know, 18, maybe 20, something like that, speakers, we're actually going to turn it into a retreat with a certain number of people. And the reason we're doing that, I've got to back up a bit is a couple of years ago, we had a documentary filmmaker from. Was living in Switzerland at the time. He lives in Mallorca, Spain now. He's this documentary filmmaker who makes these really artistic films and he wanted to do a film involved what we're up to, basically. The. Basically the, you know, the whole idea behind, you know, this podcast and, and what we're on about. So he's gonna make a film and it's called. It's. The film's called Rekindle. And I'll just read you the mission statement for the. For the film. It says. For millennia, humans and nature have shared an unspoken dialogue, one of balance, respect, and interdependence. Yet in today's rapidly modernizing world, this connection is fading. Rekindle exists to restore this bond, bringing forth the ancient wisdom of our ancestors and the transformative power of storytelling to create a future rooted in harmony with the natural world. At the heart of our mission is the belief that animals, particularly horses, are more than companions. They are sentient beings with whom we have evolved alongside, shaping our culture, consciousness, and sense of self. Through Rekindle, we advocate for their welfare, recognizing their role not only in our past, but in the healing of our present and the shaping of our future. Horses now stand at a liminal tipping point in their long history with us. Without a shift in how we understand their value, not as tools of industry, but as sentient beings and companions on our journey back to nature. They risk fading into obsolescence with the machinery of modern society. Yet many of us believe the horse is calling to us, urging us to awaken, not only to preserve their place in the world, but to remember our own. We are committed to amplifying indigenous knowledge, honoring the voices of those who have long understood the sacred relationship between humans, animals, and the land. Indigenous traditions hold teaching essentials about stewardship, interconnectedness, and respect, wisdom that is urgently needed in the face of ecological crisis. By supporting and sharing these perspectives, we aim to help preserve them for generations to come. Rekindle is more than a documentary. It is a movement. Through the stories told in our film, we invite people to reawaken their connection to the natural world fostering a consciousness that values empathy, mindfulness and coexistence. We believe that by listening to the stories of horses, healers and wisdom keepers, we can reshape our relationship with nature, shifting from domination to partnership. We stand at a crossroads. The choices we make now will determine the kind of world future generations will inherit. We will continue to drift. Sorry, will we continue to drift further from the rhythms of nature? Or will we choose to rekindle the ancient ties that have guided us for centuries? Our mission is to inspire, educate and advocate for a world where animals, indigenous knowledge and the natural world are honoured and protected. By bringing these stories to life, we seek to awaken a deeper understanding of our place in the web of life and the profound responsibility that comes with it. And so that is that documentary. Sean came out last year for the, for the, the podcast summit and kind of got a really good idea of exactly what we're trying to do and it kind of aligned with his, his idea for his film. And so instead of having a big summit this year, we're having a limited number of speakers and, you know, it talked about nature's wisdom and indigenous wisdom there. And so this summit where they're basically going to have repeat presenters. Emily Ksdotter, the amazing Emma Case daughter, is coming back from Sweden. For it, we're going to have Jordana anawalt from Oregon, Dr. Jessica White Plume from the Dakotas is going to come back. So if you think about, Emily's going to be sharing her perspective on the wisdom of horses, what horses have to tell us and nature has to tell us. And Then Jordana and Dr. Jessica White Plume are going to be talking about indigenous wisdom and a connection with the land. We're also having Dr. Steve Petersbach and he's going to, you know, as you know, if you heard Steve recent podcast with me, Steve is really on that same path, but he's also going to bring the scientific part to it. And those are, those are some of the presenters we're going to have. It's going to be quite an intimate gathering, a bit different than the podcast summits of the past. Like I said, it's going to be a retreat and it's all going to be held here at the Journey On Ranch. We're not going to go into town to the event center work we did last year. It's the whole three days are going to be here at the Journey On Ranch. Sean's going to come out and film for the movie. So whoever attends that, you know, the movie, this documentary, Will be a part of that. And Sean has done a. He's got a website that's got some information about this documentary. So the website is rekindledocumentary.com and if you go on there, you can see a little bit more about it. There is a little snippet on there of Jordana. There's a little snippet on there of Emily. And I'd like to play you the audio right now of Emily, because what Emily has to say, it's pretty profound. And at the end of this clip, she's talking about a tree, a tree that's half dead, half alive. That tree is on our place here. It's an old oak tree that's died. It's riddled with woodpecker holes. So it looks like someone's taken to it with a machine gun sort of thing. And when Emily was here last year, she spent a day sitting under that tree downloading information from that tree. And she led a group of us up there afterwards and told us things that the tree told her. So, yeah, have a listen to this. This is from the movie, from the teaser for the movie. This is some of the stuff that Sean captured from Emily.
- [58:25]
Emily K's Daughter
Well, the benefits for humans when we reconnect with nature is that we get out of this emptiness and underlying grief that we experience from the separation which is a natural in itself. In the communication with animals or any other living being, your self opens to include more than yourself. So you experience the other one from inside, not the interpretation of your own experience. So you don't dissolve the self, you expand the self. I definitely believe it's something that anyone can do, because I think that deep down, we are designed to connect. We have just lived in disconnection for long enough to turn the natural order upside down. Well, we could presume that they would want humans to back off because we have destroyed so much and created so much suffering. But I never heard an animal say that. They continuously ask us to step back in to creation. We are so used to live in a hierarchy, and we seem to have this terrifying idea that we must be on top of or the animals will take over. But the only species that ever really did take over was humans. It was rather disastrous, actually. So maybe we should just turn it around and make it so that we follow them instead of having them following us. I think we're trees. It's always a question of, you know, when are you really dead? Because with humans, it's so obvious. Either your heart beats or not. So you're either dead or alive. But if you're a tree or a plant, that is an ongoing transition. I remember asking an old tree once, when are you really dead? And got the answer that for as long as you give nurture to something else, you're not, you're never dead. So, and I think trees spend sort of half of their lives being born and then half of their lives dying. So from this one I would feel that there is still a sense of a individual and of a life force, although it's very deep down in the ground. So you're at this point you're more the other trees than you are you. But because of you, there are all these other trees. So there is this, you know, this feeling of a great life achievement. You sort of, yeah, you can really die with the feeling of you did what you were meant to, sort of.
- [61:37]
Warwick Schiller
So if you go to the rekindled documentary website, you can actually see the footage of Emily talking when she said that, that, that whole bit right there. So we're really excited about, really excited about where this is going to go. It's quite an undertaking and I don't know much about it, but we have, you know, Sean's done some amazing documentaries in the past. We have amazing people who are going to be in it and we also had some, we have some amazing advisors who I think they wish to remain behind the scenes and not necessarily mention that they're advising us. But yeah, we've got some really good people working on it. So that's, yeah, that's some exciting news that we're, that, you know, I guess we'll be talking about in the future. I think, you know, Sean's such an interesting guy. I think I'll probably get him on the podcast and hear his whole life story about how he got to making these really artistic documentaries that he makes. Anyway, so that's, yeah, that's a bit of an update on what's been going on this year and what will be going on the rest of the year. We hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the podcast and we'll look forward to catching you in the next one. Thanks for being a part of the journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warwick has over 850 full length training video on his online video library@videos.warwickshiller.com Be sure to follow Warrick on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to see his latest training advice and insights.