Men are half the population but a small percentage of the non-professional horse world. Solange discusses the challenges and differences in teaching a male rider and interviews a gentleman who came into hunt seat riding as both an adult and a complete beginner. Listen in...

Horses in the Morning Stable Riding with Solange Episode 3806:

• Host: Solange of Stable Riding
• Sponsor: Stable Riding
• Guest: Dan Stohlmann

Time Stamps:

00:26 - Introduction to Stable Riding

06:25 - The Journey into Riding: A Personal Story

13:03 - Beginning the Journey: From Running to Riding

18:52 - Learning to Ride: The Journey Begins

28:13 - The Transition to Equestrian Life

29:21 - The Experience of Fox Hunting

35:26 - The Impact of Riding on Personal Life

44:53 - Rider tip

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the importance of diversity in the equestrian community, particularly the inclusion of male riders who may feel underrepresented.
• The discussion reveals that teaching male riders presents unique challenges and opportunities, highlighting the differences in learning styles between genders.
• Listeners are encouraged to recognize the historical significance of riding, as it connects them to a long-standing tradition that transcends generations.
• The conversation stresses the necessity of direct communication in instruction, particularly for male riders, who often prefer straightforward guidance.

You are listening to the Horse Radio Network, part of the Equine Network Family.

What a beautiful day for Horses in the morning.

You are listening to the number one horse podcast in the world.

Here's your entertaining look at the horse world and the people in it.

I'm here the fourth Tuesday of every month to talk to you about the rider and how we can make ourselves better in the saddle.

This month I would like to talk about the visible OB minority in the horse world.

Men male riders are rare.

Male professional riders are not.

But that's a topic for a different conversation because of how I structure my stable riding facility up here in Ohio.

If there's a grown man who wants to learn to ride in my area, I generally end up getting them.

And here's why I think this happens.

I teach exclusively private lessons.

I also offer both English and Western saddles and I do not have a set weight limit.

I ask the riders to tell me both their approximate weight and and height and from there let the rider know if I have appropriate horses for them to learn on.

This all works out great for me because here's the secret I love teaching dudes.

Men are some of my favorite riders to teach.

My joke is teaching men is great.

You can swear at them if they fall off, they don't cry and you never have to call their mom.

But in all seriousness, I love teaching men because they're so incredibly different from teaching women.

Plus, I get the added bonus of me supporting another underserved segment of the rider community.

Men's bodies are different.

When I teach clinics in front of crowds, I tell the primarily all female audience, you know how when your husband rides he naturally sits back and they all nod and smile.

Then I say I can think of two reasons why they sit back and that usually gets a big laugh.

I'm always trying to work jokes into my clinics.

So along with male bodies, saddle fit, stirrup length and wardrobe recommendations are going to differ from the ladies that I teach.

Men often have their height in their torsos.

This affects their center of mass and their tipping point.

If they have a long torso, that changes their hand position.

If their hand position is incorrect, it rounds their shoulders, which is big bad when paired with the higher center of mass.

Speaking of hands, men carry their tension in their forearms, so hands down becomes a thing that you need to be ready to say and if you're a rider ready to hear they have a different skeletal pelvic structure than their female counterparts which affects how they sit their trot and canter.

From that you will more often encounter type hip flexors and all male riders which makes it more difficult for them to put their heels down.

With taller men six feet and above, their inseam changes how, when and where they grip with their legs.

See, A man who's 6 foot 4 inches tall and weighs 220 pounds is not going to walk, trot and canter the same way a woman who's 5 foot 4 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds will.

They can both ride in a stable effective and empathetic fashion just differently.

Also, the way that men think and learn is different.

Men who are drawn to horses tend to be very driven.

When I take their bios, they've often raced cars or motorcycles.

Motocross and ATVs are also a common back trait.

I teach many men who are mechanics, engineers and entrepreneurs.

Sales and marketing guys are also very common as well as veterans from our armed forces.

I also teach a lot of dudes who golf, which is fabulous.

Golfers have excellent body awareness and understand how making a minute change in one part of their body affects another part.

Plus they deal with rotation in their swing.

And I have a grand unifying rotation theory that one day I'll understand well enough to explain.

But in the meantime, the men really get it when I start to talk about it.

Men with these types of professions and life experiences tend to prefer more direct and practical instruction.

Stripping my instruction down to the core information that they're looking for really helps inform me my teaching skill set.

And I adore the freedom to be very direct in my speech.

In fact, let's dive deeper into that for a moment.

Since teaching men and women is different, that means on the instructor's end it's a different skill set.

Just as teaching kids is different from adults and the littlest, the under six set is even more different than that.

I spent several summers when my daughter had her mini pony teaching about 15 hours a week of kids under 6.

And let me tell you, if you've never taught a toddler in shark themed rain boots to trot on a mini pony who really wants to bite you, you haven't truly lived.

But back to the men, when a facility doesn't cultivate diversity in their rider base, it impedes the structure's growth and progress.

I'm located in a very horse heavy area.

There are about 30 other horse barns within 30 minutes of me.

These facilities are primarily shown on competition barns that specialize in English disciplines.

So what happens here around my house is when a guy decides to ride, he walks into a space that's already primarily female, which he's willing to do.

But then the instruction he receives sometimes falls flat as that particular coach has difficulty pitching to a male audience, which is completely understandable if they don't have access to a male student base.

What happens next is that the rider ends up quitting, which is really a terrible shame to our sport, as the men who want to ride, really want to ride, and are often excellent candidates to purchase, own and care for a horse of their own.

Or if they don't quit, they bop around barns hoping to find a space that fits them better.

To speak on this subject, I have sourced an excellent guest for this episode.

I interviewed Dan, or as I call him, Lord Daniel.

Dan came to me looking to learn to ride as an adult man and wanting specifically to learn to ride.

English hunt seat to be exact.

Thus began my grand adventure of teaching Dan to ride.

In this interview, I don't have a specific story I'm asking Dan to tell.

Our conversation is focused more on his experience entering the horse world and what he has learned and observed about our sport.

Dan.

Yes, sir.

Thank you so much for coming on the stable riding podcast.

I just know we are going to have a fabulous conversation.

I'm thrilled to be here.

It's an honor and a privilege every.

Time we talk, Dan.

I have the best time, so I'm excited.

This is going to be really fun.

That's what I'm going for.

I'm going to want everyone to be happy.

I'm going to start with the basic questions for the listeners so they know.

How old are you now?

And how old were you when you decided you wanted to start riding?

All right, how old am I now?

Where's my driver's license?

No.

46.

40.

It's 2.

20.

25.

So 46, that sounds right.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And how old was I when I started?

Decided to start.

Easy for you to say.

How old?

How old was I when I decided to start writing?

36, as a matter of fact.

It's funny that you ask that because it it today, the recording day of this podcast is almost exactly 10 years to the day when I started writing.

I want to say it was like the first or second week of October.

Or your horse anniversary.

My hors.

I remember this.

Yeah, we've known each other.

Nine year horse anniversary.

It's our nine year horse anniversary together.

So, yeah, I was, I was 36.

And I tell people that, and they're like, you started riding when you were 36?

Yeah, I know.

I was old when I decided I was old, especially.

Are you sure you want to do that?

And I'm like, nope, let's do it, find out.

Well, that's leads in perfectly to my next question.

I know I planned all of this.

What drew you to horses in first place?

What drew me to horses?

All right, so.

So we're gonna.

If we're gonna cover the origin story, let's, let's start at the beginning, which I'm informed is a very good place to start.

I mean, I was round, and round technically is a shape, but it wasn't the shape that I wanted to be.

It wasn't what you wanted.

Yes, exactly.

I, I wanted.

I wanted to be in better shape.

I wanted to have a more active lifestyle.

At that point, my, my life consisted of waking up, going to work, coming home, sitting in front of a computer again, more still, and, you know, going back to sleep and then.

And then repeating that over and over again with a couple of little hobbies sprinkled in.

And I said, I need to do something about this.

I don't feel well.

Excuse me?

I don't feel well.

I need to make a change.

I need to do something for physical activity.

And so I started going through the list of possibilities.

I said I could start running.

I tried that before with my wife.

My wife at, at one point was really into the running things.

Yeah.

And she was, you know, going to these races and everything.

All right, I can give that a whirl.

Hated it.

Hated it.

The only time, Dan, this is why we're friends.

I only run if something's chasing me.

I'm going to run is if it's from the police or a dog.

So I cried.

That was off the list.

It says, oh, I can go.

I can go to the gym and learn to lift weights.

That didn't appeal to me either.

But horses sound like a lot of fun.

What else?

Yeah, so I, so I, so I, so I said, well, what about horses?

Well, I don't really like horses.

However, there's.

There.

They've been an integral part of human history for, you know, several thousand years now.

Correct.

Probably a lot to learn.

Probably a lot to discover.

Probably a lot to be nerdy about.

Probably.

There's probably more to learn than simply the technique and the skill.

There's probably, it's probably going to be a pretty in depth thing.

That historical bent and the idea of how it's been something that's gone on for centuries and millennia and like captured the hearts of men.

Did that help you choose the discipline that you wanted to ride?

Because I feel like you knew coming in what you wanted to do with your horses.

Well, yeah, to a degree it did.

So it kind of went like this.

I knew I didn't want to ride Western.

I knew that.

So the very first thing I did when I just, when I made this decision, and that's what it was.

It was a decision like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try it out and see.

No, I'm like, this is what we're doing.

So I went, I went on the Internet, of course, where all things, where all things can be found, and I did a very little bit of cursory background research, found that the two main disciplines were Western and English and, and like.

Well, I don't really care for the Western style.

I do care for the English style because it is what's most, what links us most directly to kind of historical writing and military type writing and gentlemanly.

Gentlemanly.

Gentlemanly.

And I'm a hist.

I'm a bit of a history nerd.

I'm a bit of a military nerd, you know.

Dan, you're in my phone is Lord Daniel.

So we've got to fix that.

It should be, it should be Duke.

You probably weren't, you probably weren't destined for a 10 gallon hat, you know, that's your vibe.

Although I do own one, I'm pleased to report.

So, you know, I, I started looking at, at, you know, different.

I said I was going to make, I was going to go.

Go English for sure.

And I started looking around in my area at various barns, stables and structures that were within a reasonably short driving distance of my house.

And this is where things kind of took an unexpected turn.

I started reaching out to people.

My Name's Dan, I'm 36, I'd like to learn.

Well, I, I also dragged my wife into it.

She didn't know any of this.

I remember that my wife, without her knowing.

Yeah, my wife and I, we're gonna go ride horses.

We want to learn to ride.

We want to learn to ride.

English.

We're both adults.

I'm 36, she's ancient and we're, you know, will you teach us?

And the re.

The.

I got no response from the vast majority of people.

They wouldn't, they wouldn't Even.

They wouldn't even talk to me.

They wouldn't even acknowledge me.

Wouldn't call me back, would email me back.

Course, people are bad about answering their phone.

Man, I've gotten so many clients because I'm just the one who answ.

Well, funny story, though, is that almost a year later, one of them did email me.

I remember that.

12.

Yeah, I'll teach you.

And I like, should I wait nine months and then say, no, thanks, I've already found someone?

No, I didn't do that.

But so.

But when I did get responses, they were things like, we don't take adults or we don't take men.

Yes.

Like, well, that's sexist.

What did I do?

Yeah.

So, all right, whatever.

You know, you.

If you're a business owner, it's your choice.

Who you want to have is your business.

Fine.

So what I wound up having to do is expand my search further and further and further away from my house.

Right.

And I kept looking up, you know, going, going and looking up who, you know, who's giving instruction and where are they?

And I stumbled onto this one page that started talking about fox hunting.

Yes.

And I said, oh, you wear ridiculous clothing, you ride horses through the woods, and you drink.

Yes.

Yep.

Those are the bullet points, man.

This.

This sounds like my cup of tea or flask of bourbon, as it were.

100.

And so, of course, I did the thing.

I sent an email, and I. I will never forget this day as long as I live.

I sent the email, and I had some errands to run, and I sent the email, not expecting to hear anything back.

And I'm in my car on the way to take a drum, like a musical.

The drum kit.

Yes.

To get.

To get it fitted for a drum head, because it was a weird.

A weird drum.

And I was taking it to the store, and on my way there, Solange calls me.

Hi, I'm Solange.

I would love to have you.

As it was less than an hour after I sent the email.

I know what happened on my end.

You had sent the email.

My husband, who has access to the barn email, saw it on his phone and yelled up to me, hey, there's a guy who wants to ride with you.

Check your email.

And I went, oh, man, I got to call him right back.

Because I love teaching men.

They're my favorite.

So whenever a dude requests, I'm like, on it.

Because I'm like, I got to teach this guy.

Yeah, you were on it.

And.

And I remember you.

You telling me, you know, when can you when can you come and visit?

I want you as a student.

When can you come and visit?

Yes, I said, give me about two hours.

Yes, I will be there.

Yes.

And I, She.

And she.

And you said to me, okay, I'll.

I may or may not be riding a horse and I may or may not be wearing a hoodie that I stole from one of the kids.

Yes.

Wow.

Yeah.

And I, I said, great.

So I did my.

Got my.

Got my drum taken care of, hopped back into my tiny little black sports car.

I really missed that car.

It was a cute car.

I love that car.

It was.

It was an awesome car.

And I drove, you know, except for the oil leak.

So I drove down and I.

And I pull into the driveway and they're, you know, I, I park my car and from around a corner comes a 12 foot tall woman riding side saddle on.

On a.

A big tan horse.

She looks down at me.

He says, are you Dan?

And I said, yes.

Are you salon?

She's like, yes.

She gets off and.

I mean, I guess the rest is history.

Best friends for life, man.

It's been an adventure.

It's.

It had.

Well, so.

So there's even.

There's even a little bit more that I'll share.

We were talking.

We were talking about the goats and she.

And, and you said, this is.

I. I forget which goat it was.

She likes men.

She'll probably chew on your pants.

Roxy.

Roxy.

It was Roxy.

And did she indeed chew on your pants?

Probably.

Yes, she absolutely did.

And I remember.

I remember taking this.

I asked you what.

Tell me what I need to buy.

I had, I had already made the decision within the first probably five minutes of being there that this is, this is where I was going to be.

I need not look any further.

Right?

Tell me what I need.

And I remember getting back in the car, driving home, and I'm like, I just met my new best friend.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, I remember this.

I did.

I just met my new best friend and I did.

Yeah.

So I get home and my wife.

My wife had gotten home from, from work a little bit later than I did, and I said, wife, guess what?

And she said, what?

She.

She knew none of this?

Yes.

This was a complete surprise.

You did all this without her?

I remember this part.

Yeah, I did.

All this is that I said, guess what?

We're gonna go learn to ride horses.

And she's like, what?

What?

We're gonna go learn to ride horses.

And she's like, it's now a bad time to tell you that I'm terrified of horses.

I remember this.

You've got two weeks to get over it because our first lesson is on like October 9th.

Start visualizing it's happening.

Yeah.

Like, you got two weeks to get over it, so.

And that's how I broke the news.

I was just like, have you lost your mind?

Never mind.

I know the answer.

Right?

Yeah.

She's used to you.

Yeah.

She lives with you full time.

About.

As an adult man learning to ride, specifically English, were there any challenges you feel like you faced other than the obvious lack of riding attire for men?

Balls.

Yep.

Yeah.

I say that sort of half jokingly, but, you know, it's.

It's.

It's a thing.

It's a.

It's a thing.

Men and women were built differently.

Yes.

That's just, you know, that's just the way it is.

That's the way you set, you know, when you go.

When you go to your instructor and your instructor sets your stirrups, this is the right height for you for your legs.

Well, as a female, that might be fine, but as a man, it might be the right height for your legs, but it might not be the right height for something else.

It's so true.

It's so true.

It's.

And the logistics of the situation.

Yeah, it's.

It's.

There's that.

I think the other thing is, is kind of, kind of interesting and you kind of hinted on it with the clothing situation.

There's not a lot of clothing options for men, which is something that irritates me to a degree.

But here than in Europe, if you go over to the uk, it's really.

That's where I wind up.

That's where I wind up getting most of my stuff from anyway.

But the thing is, is that you're outside of our barn.

I'm talking about.

When I'm talking about, you know, our barn, it's not the case.

But outside of our barn, we go to 100 paces.

We go to.

When we go.

We go do this or go do that.

It's like I'm usually the only dude there.

Right.

Or maybe one or two others.

And if they're even riding.

And usually, you know, usually not usually, but in a lot of cases, I'm the only guy there riding a horse or riding English.

So it really kind of feels like to a degree, where I'm in.

Where I'm in a stranger's world, like I'm kind of a fish out of water.

To a degree.

100.

But not in an unfriendly sort of way.

Not.

Not like, oh, he's an outsider.

Right, like that.

But, but you know, it's like this is a world that's not made for you.

Which I really feel is incredibly ironic considering for the multi thousand year history of equestrian disciplines.

It's been a man's sport and now we're the weirdos.

It's an interesting social dynamic.

It is.

You know, you could, you could, you could go on and on about it, but the, the fact of the matter is the.

But I wouldn't really call that a challenge.

It's just kind of something interesting to note is that, you know, I'm one of the few men in a mostly female world and it's not necessarily a problem.

It's just, it's just interesting.

It's an observation.

Yeah.

So, you know, Dan, you know that I designed my stable routing system to be two things.

A real world practical writing system.

As well as being really inclusive and as inclusive as possible.

My all rider stance is important to me because, well, selfishly, I want to teach as many different riders as possible because I think that's the fun part and that's what helps me grow my curriculum and progress as an instructor.

But I want to ask you as a man, was there a particular style of instruction that you were looking for in a riding coach coming into our sport?

Because so many instructors primarily teach women and I sometimes wonder if then their style doesn't land as well with their male students.

So that's a really interesting question.

I wasn't looking for a particular style of instruction so much as someone that could communicate concepts clearly in a way that I could understand.

So I, you know, a lot of people categorize as well.

I'm a visual learner or I'm a, I'm a, you know, doer or what, what have you.

Of course.

Yeah.

And I think, I think a lot of people are a lot of those things without necessarily realizing that I need to hear it, I like to see it, I like to do it.

And once I, once it kind of clicks in my brain, then I can do it.

And the thing that really makes riding with you as my instructor so great is that you can explain it in a way that I'm able to understand it easily without getting either too technical or too obscure or using big words that I don't understand.

You're able to do it.

You can, you can go and get on the horse and do the exact thing that you are asking me to.

Do, which is handy when you're learning, when you're a very high level Rider, you can extrapolate from like water cooler talk.

You know, you can read something or watch something or talk to somebody on the sideline and pick up a tip.

But when you're really forging those basics, having someone who can physically do it in front of you I think is particularly handy at that early phase of your riding instruction.

Yeah, I mean, there have been countless times where I've been riding and you're, and you're telling me to, you know, do this or that, and I'm like, I'm trying.

And you're like, oh, just get off your horse.

And then you get on with my absurdly short stirrups.

And then you go, and you're like, okay, now I get.

And then I'll get back on.

And now I've, I've heard it, I've seen it.

Now that's going to give me a much better chance to do it.

And I think, you know, there's a lot of.

I've, I won't say a lot, but I've heard people use the expression those who can do, those who can't teach.

Right.

Yes.

And it's unfortunate.

Yes.

But that is the same.

Well, and that.

But it is true.

It's, it's true in some cases.

But you know, you're, you're certainly kind of the exception to that rule in the, in the sense that you do, you know, as well as teach and you, you do exceptionally well and well.

Thank you, Daniel.

Teaching men is different than teaching women.

Teaching adults is different than teaching kids is different than teaching really little kids.

And having that diversity in my student base gives me more tools in my communication toolbox to be able to say different things to different people and have it land right away.

I had a lady ask me yesterday if I could tap into my angel wisdom for her, which I did good.

And it worked really well.

And the kind of explanation that a lady who wants me to tap into my angel wisdom with might not be the kind of explanation that an engineer wants.

Might.

Might be the kind of explanation that, you know, a little kid who's five and doesn't really know their left from their right wants.

And it gives me, it gives me the experience of having this huge rider base to communicate to.

It makes me such a much better instructor, which is why I always appreciate that I have this all rider base because it helps me sometimes serve underserved parts of a riding community, but it also, it levels up my instruction skill set because really, you learn how to teach people to ride by teaching people to ride.

Well, sure.

It's like anything.

Hugely helpful on my end for experience.

Right.

There's no such super experience.

And the unfortunate part about experience is that it only comes after you need it.

Yes.

Isn't that the truth now?

It's a real downer.

Let me ask you this.

Has riding and fox hunting been what you anticipated when you started?

Oh, no.

It's so much more fun.

Yeah.

Isn't it?

So, look, so that's actually a really interesting question.

When I first started writing, I was work.

I was.

I was doing some work at a university, and I mentioned to one of the ladies that was working on the project that I was also working on that I was riding with the intent to start fox hung it.

Fox hunting.

And she what she wrote as part of their local hunt.

And she like, are you gonna be riding with us?

And I'm like, possibly.

I mean, I don't know.

I've only been doing this for like, two months now, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she's like, that's great.

I'm like, yeah, it seems like it's a fun hobby.

And she's like, it's not going to be a hobby.

It's your.

It's going to be.

Yeah, it's going to be a lifestyle because you're going to.

You're going to get a saddle, then you're going to get a horse.

Yep.

Then you're going to get.

You're going to get more saddles then.

Yeah.

Then you're going to.

Then you're going to buy a pair of boots, then you're going to buy another saddle, maybe another horse, maybe another pair of boots, more clothes, and it's gonna be this huge.

It's.

It's not gonna be a hobby.

It's gonna be a way of life.

Oh, yeah.

No, it's not.

I'm back.

I am never going to buy a horse.

Why would I buy a horse?

I'm not gonna buy a saddle.

There's saddles at the barn.

Yep.

Why do I need a set?

I'm not gonna.

I'm not gonna.

I'm not gonna spend all that money on all the.

On the list.

Come on.

And now look at you, Daniel.

Oh, boy, was I. Oh, boy, was I wrong.

There was a couple years of my life when I was leading Second Flight three days a week, when I separated my life into hunt season and non hunt season.

And for like eight months, I never had a dream that didn't include me hunting in it.

Like, it was really.

It was all I did for years.

That sounds Wonderful.

Yeah.

It's kind of like when you learn a language and then you start to dream in it.

I feel like that's what I was doing.

Like, I was fluent in fox hunting, and I dreamt about hunting every night.

The first time we went on a real fox hunt, it was.

I remember it was.

It was in the odds.

First formal hunt.

I'd been.

I'd been.

I'd been informal hunts a couple of times, but the first formal hunt we went on, it was.

It was late autumn, and the.

The trees were mostly bare.

And I remember.

I remember walking down this trail with you and the.

The master and the masters and the huntsman were ahead of us with the hounds and.

And on this trail, framed by the trees, I'm like.

It looked like a painting.

Painting.

Yep.

Isn't that so great?

Hundreds.

When I was just stunned, I'm like, this is.

Is.

Yeah.

This is magnificent.

This is.

I get why people used to do this because it's aesthetically beautiful.

You meet people.

Yes.

You have fun.

You're challenging yourself.

You're challenging your horse.

You're getting exercise, You're.

You're socializing.

Like, there's just so much more than you can really put on paper.

And until you experience it, it's there.

There's no adequate way to describe.

Sure, I can tell you all about.

I can tell you stories, but that doesn't.

That doesn't do it justice until you actually get on a horse, get out there and do the thing.

That time of year when the leaves are down, but the trees are bare and, like, kind of arch over the trail.

To me, that's.

To me, that's my cathedral.

That's.

That's the cathedral that I go to with those.

Absolutely.

And I'll take people fox hunting the first time, and I'll go.

People have done this for centuries, and the only substantive difference is I have an iPhone, you know, but other than.

That, I leave my phone.

I leave my phone in the trailer.

I know you do.

I don't.

Because I'm paranoid, and I led.

I led third flight or second flight for too long, and I need to be able to call somebody if I feel like it.

But it's that you're.

You're hooking into something that's happened for centuries, and that could be said about a lot of other types of riding as well.

If.

Even if you're not hunting, even if you're hacking, you know, if you're moving cattle, it's that same idea of your.

Your.

You're joining a cumulative Historical experience in real time in a way that I think it can be deeply moving to people.

It's really an incredible experience.

You said that.

You said that brilliantly.

I'll tell another story really quickly because you made me think of it just now.

We had just finished up with a hunt and one of the other areas.

It was Dr. Will.

Dr. Will.

Yep.

I love Dr. Will.

Dr. Will is back in his car, and he's like, oh, my watch stopped.

Do you know what time it is?

And I'm like, nope.

Sure.

Don't.

Like, don't you.

Don't you have a phone or a watch?

I'm like, nope.

Yeah, it's like, really?

Like, we're fox hunting, Will.

We're gentlemen.

We have no need to know the time.

Yes.

Oh, my God.

Such a dance.

There's me with this look of our.

Did you just say those words?

Yeah.

Are you serious?

Dead serious.

Because it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

Well, and that gives.

I think a lot of us find that presence and that.

You know, I always say.

I didn't realize that when Oprah talked about mindfulness, she meant how I feel when I canter my horse.

Like, I didn't realize that it's that true presence of really experiencing what you're in all the time without distraction, which is so rare in the current landscape that we live in.

Well, when you consider other sports, like, you go to a baseball game, there's a giant scoreboard.

There's an announcer.

There's the guy on the organ playing.

There's a dude in a funny suit running around.

Yeah, there's a guy.

Hot dogs, peanuts, ice cold bear.

There's, you know, billboards with advertisements for everything that you can think of.

And, sure, all that's part of the baseball experience, but all of it's distracting, I think, because it's.

While it's part of the experience, it's not part of the sport.

And I'm kind of.

Let me think of how to say.

I think you said it.

I think maybe you said it the best is that it's.

It's really about being fully in the moment.

Yes.

And there's no phone, no watch, no anything.

It's.

It's you, it's your horse, it's the people that you're with, and it's the world.

Oh, yeah.

The landscape, the terrain, the hounds, everything.

And you're.

It'll.

It really gives you a chance to disconnect from technology, from society, from popular culture, and allows you to reconnect with the.

With Humanity.

And with this kind of the.

The human story that comes along with writing, if that makes any sense.

For years, in the very beginning of my career, I taught a lot of little kids.

And then maybe five or six years in, it was about half kids, half adults.

And 90% of the adults I taught were in the medical industry.

They were doctors and nurses and pharmacists and X ray techs.

And it just sort of happened that way.

I think I had an anesthesiologist, I had all these medical people, and when I realized, I started asking them, and it was, I get to be outside because they're indoors so much, and I get to be around animals instead of people, and I get to be fully present.

You know, I had so many doctors who told me that this hour lesson is the only part of my week where I really can't think about my patients like it's there.

It's the one thing that was so engrossing that it allowed them to fully separate from what's a really big, heavy, sometimes very heavy, emotionally heavy, mentally straining job.

So let me ask you this question, Daniel.

Yeah, you can just ask.

You don't have to ask.

How has becoming a rider impacted your life outside of horses?

Because we've talked about how much it's impacted your riding life, but now we want to know how has it changed who you are as a person now that you've integrated it into your lifestyle?

There's a life outside of horse.

Now.

That was the right answer for the audience.

But that's.

That's the thing.

You know, I say that as a joke, but the reality is, is that it really is a way of life.

Because, you know, you walk into any room in my house and there's some.

There's something horse related there.

Not because I feel the need to decorate my house with my.

With.

With horse things, just.

Just because that's the way it is.

You walk out on.

It spreads out, and there's.

And there's saddles there.

You know, you.

You walk in, you open up the hall closet, and there's riding boots everywhere.

It's just.

That's the way.

It's just the way things are.

How has it affected my life outside of.

Outside of horses?

Well, it gives me something productive to do instead of sitting in front of a computer, instead of sitting on a phone, instead of sitting in front of a tv, instead of doing something like that.

It gives me instead the opportunity to experience again that human story.

You know, it gives me a chance to be out of the house, to be Outside, to be in nature, to talk with and commune with other people.

It allows me to learn a sk.

To learn a skill that I didn't have before.

It allows it a lot.

It allows me to disconnect even when I'm just in the barn riding.

I don't have a. I don't have my phone with me.

I wrote down two things while you were answering.

The first one I wrote down was community, and the second one I wrote down was art.

Because I know I've heard you refer to riding as you're an artist.

It's an art.

Oh, absolutely.

So it goes past.

I know for you it goes past a recreation or a hobby or a skill or a sport.

And I think you really view it as an art.

And when that happens, it becomes a little bit more all consuming because a hobby is something you can pick up and set down, and a recreation, something you can do part of the year, and a skill, something you can learn and complete.

But I know that your perspective on riding is that it's.

It's something that you're going to continue with forever because there's no real bounds to the ability and there's no end to what there is to learn.

And then it really does.

When you start riding.

All the other horse people you didn't know have horses kind of like come out of the woodwork.

Oh, do they ever.

Somebody, I.

Somebody sees a picture of a horse, my father, like, oh, you ride like that?

Yes, yes.

And it's such a instinct, constant connection to groups and peoples and areas that you normally wouldn't.

It's a piece of access to.

Yes, definitely.

Common ground that you can start from.

And it's funny because you meet people, not just you meet people riding, of course, that you would never ordinarily meet from all sorts of places, but even when you're out and about, you know, so when I'm going to or from the barn, I wear riding clothes.

Yes.

And if I go somewhere else on the way to or from the barn, I don't change.

You're in your daters.

I'm in my riding clothes.

Yep.

If I.

If I go to lunch.

Yeah, I'm going to lunch in my riding clothes.

If I'm going to the grocery store, I'll go to the grocery store.

Right.

I just don't care.

People think I'm weird.

Well, tough tomatoes.

Oh, yeah, whatever.

But the thing is that almost universally someone will say, do you.

Do you ride horses?

I'm like, well, what gave it away?

But no, and it's.

It's a.

It's a conversation start or start.

It's a conversation starter.

Yes.

Or a conversation continuer.

And it gives you something.

A piece of commonality with that other person that you can talk about, that you can.

That you can build for, however briefly you're talking to that person.

Build some kind of.

At least a little bit of a.

And people have, like, an opinion.

Oh, I love horses.

I've always wanted to ride horses, or I rode horses, or my friend had horses.

I met one of my young students was probably in her early 20s, and she was dating a guy who played a lot of basketball, and he came to watch her ride.

And I go, hey, do you want to like it on?

Do you like horses?

He goes, I hate horses.

And I went, really?

And he goes, yeah, I rode my uncle's horse once, and it bucked me off and then peed on me, which was my favorite answer.

And, like, realistically, logistically, in my head, I can't quite conceptualize how that incident occurred.

But regardless, I respected his opinion and I went, you know what, sir?

Maybe you just shouldn't ride.

He's like, yeah, that's what I think.

So, like, either way, when you tell people you're with horses, you know they have an opinion.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

It's just.

I just.

I'm trying to picture that in my head.

It was really a hoot.

But I mean, that checks out.

I could see.

I could see, like, Pickles or Pancake doing that.

The ponies.

All right, I have one final question before wrap up our conversation.

All right?

What advice or encouragement would you give to other men out there who are considering starting riding?

Or even a man who started riding and is maybe thinking about trying something new in their riding?

What could you say if you had the chance to say something?

Boy, this is one of my favorite questions to answer.

First of all, if you're single and you're looking for dates, there ain't horses of pretty girls that ride horses.

And since they're riding, they're all in good shape.

Yep.

They know how to move their hips.

It's.

I've been saying this for years, Dan.

I've been saying this for years.

If you.

If you're a single man and you.

You have trouble getting dates, go, go, go.

Start riding.

Write English.

You will have no shortage of attention.

None.

It's so true.

So that's number one.

Number two, men like things that allow us to connect with nature.

We like things that allow us to feel at peace.

We like things that connect us to our ancestors.

That's why we go camping.

We go and we sit in the woods in a tent so that we can be at peace.

Yes.

So that we can enjoy the camaraderie of our friends.

If we're going with someone else, so that we can enjoy the quiet solitude of nature.

If we're going by ourselves or some of both.

Yep.

Where we do that, to live and understand again in that same sort of way that how our ancestors lived, what the human experience has been like over the tens of thousands of years that we as a species have existed.

And if as a man, much like riding is very similar to camping, you're getting all of those same benefits that you get with camping.

So it's another way to have kind of that I won't say typical, but kind of traditional masculine experience of.

I'm going to go participate in the thing that my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather did.

100%.

Yeah.

I'm going to go participate in that thing that allows me to disconnect, to be, you know, at peace.

I'm going to go do the thing that allows me to be part of a social circle that I enjoy being with.

You know, it's.

It's the same motivation to go camping as it would be to go riding.

And now you get to go fast while you do it.

And who doesn't love.

And there's drinking.

I've got a flask holder on my saddle.

You can, you can drink while you're camping.

You can drink.

You heard it right next here, gentlemen.

If you like pretty girls going fast and drinking horses are for you.

Yeah.

No, that's the tweet.

Is there a better ad?

Yeah.

And you get, and you get to wear the cool clothes.

You have to wear the cool clothes and you go out and you go out in public and riding clothes, you will absolutely get attention.

No bout a doubt it.

Thank you so much, Dan, for being on the pod.

I really appreciate it.

I think that was a really great conversation.

The pleasure has been all mine.

Thank you for listening to my unhinged rambling for always fun.

Thank you, Dan.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

Okay.

Dear listener, I'd like to add a little postscript to my fabulous conversation with Dan.

Wasn't he great?

Talking about male riders and female riders, I feel compelled to share once again the all rider nature of my instruction and how stable riding is designed to work for everyone.

In Lisa's episode, I gave a description of complex body history riders as well as complex rider history riders.

Another type of rider I teach often and enjoy guiding is the new body rider.

A new body rider can look like a few different things.

It may be an adult who's returning to riding after a break who previously only wrote as a child.

In this instance, that rider has the muscle memory and skill set of their child body.

So now they need to evolve their skills into their new adult frame.

I also teach riders who've embarked on epic fitness journeys and lost 50, 75 or sometimes even 100 pounds, sometimes even more than that.

So they truly have a new body and need to learn how to use it to their advantage.

And in celebration of all their hard work, I've taught riders after breast reductions which drastically changed their center of mass as well as their shoulder position.

And I'm understanding of riders who are going through gender transition, whether through medication or procedures, as they for sure fall under the category of new body.

These riders also need and deserve technical skill instruction as they evolve into a new phase of their life and riding.

When I say stable riding is for all riders, I truly mean all riders.

Okay, on to this month's rider tip and homework.

Today we're going to talk about our chin, our head and our eyes.

When I go to an event like Equine Affair, I'll set my equi sizers up in my booth and give short mini lessons all day, which include my famous stability check.

And I get to see a lot of riders in those four days, usually around 70, and it's a good, healthy mix of all types of riders.

I love these events because where else can I teach 70 riders one on one in four days?

It's really an instructor's dream come true.

I learn so much at these events.

I also always eat too many cheese strudels to a point that my stable writing team cuts me off and I have to like sneak around them to get my fix.

This last year in Columbus, the giant strudel men who run the stand recognized me and came over on the last day to tell me they were running a sale.

It's.

It's a problem.

Problem.

I. I really do need some help.

But in the booth, a pattern that I see in my home riders was reinforced.

All riders chins are almost always too low and how we describe this is by saying they look down too much.

So these riders are met with a chorus of look up, eyes up, chin up and my personal favorite I ever heard there is no money on the ground.

That line is credited to my childhood saddle seat trainer, Lonnie Lavery.

First, let's talk about why we're looking down and how generally, it's not a conscious, purposeful choice.

See, I fox hunt, and often in the field I will look down because I'm traveling at speed over rough terrain with hounds and mud and holes and tree roots.

So here's the thing.

You're allowed to look down if you need to.

But more often than not, when a rider's looking down, it's not a choice, it's an involuntary habit.

This often stems from the want to look at our horse's head.

Either because we're focused on the horse's behavior or emotional state, we're trying to divine their feelings by staring at their head, or because we're concerned with their head position in relation to a frame, headset outline, bend or shape.

In either of these instances, visually staring at them is unnecessary and causes issue in our body position.

What happens when you look down at the ground or your horse is that your chin, the bottom of your mandible bone, drops below the parallel line with the ground.

When your chin dips below level, your head weight shifts forward.

I've asked Uncle Google how much the average head weighs, and each time I look, the answer is always about 10 pounds.

So that's your skull, your brain, your eyes, your blood, all the goo in your nose.

It's quite a lot.

Plus, add your hair.

And now your riding helmet.

This makes your head basically a bowling ball on the skinny little stick of your neck.

When you drop your chin, your head weight shifts forward.

Then your shoulders round.

Then your ribs and sternum drops.

Then your hip angle gets closed because your hips are being pushed back by your top line coming forward.

Your thighs roll in, causing you to pinch with your knees.

Now your lower leg swings back as your toes straighten and your heels come up.

So while you haven't fallen forward and off your horse yet, you've definitely started the process.

Dropping your chin causes a negative weight distribution waterfall effect that goes all the way to your feet in the blink of an eye.

Now, what I think is so funny is that after that long involved explanation, my solution and your rider homework is really stupid.

Easy.

Like silly, crazy easy.

What I know for fact is that riders have extreme difficulty raising their chin to level.

They have zero difficulty lowering it to level.

So while riding, look up.

Like all the way up.

Up at the arena roof, up at the lights on the roof, up at the actual sky.

Turn your face towards the heavens, then slowly lower your head to level.

It's easy and it works every single time.

And if you don't believe me, have your friend watch and film you so you can see for yourself.

You can find our show notes and links to today's guest end products on your podcast player or on my website.

Stableriding Us we are on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok as Stableriding.

We are here once a month on the fourth Tuesday of every month.

We have our own RSS feed.

Just search Stable Riding with Solange in your podcast player or you can find us on the main horses in the morning feed.

All riders can be stable riders and a stable rider makes for a happy horse.