March 9, 2024 • 34 mins
In this compelling episode of the Inscape Quest podcast, host, Trudi Howley, welcomes dressage trainer and passionate advocate for equine welfare, Diana Mukpo. A veteran in the field, Diana enlightens us with her insights on the discipline of dressage while advocating for a more mindful and compassionate relationship with our equine partners.
Diana's journey in dressage began in England before she moved to the U.S in the 1970s, where she deepened her passion and understanding of the extraordinary bond between a horse and its rider. Her unique perspective blends her total dedication to dressage and her spiritual devotion rooted in Buddhist teachings and brings a fresh outlook on the discourse around horse welfare.
Dive into her richly layered discussion with Trudi about the importance of empathy in equine training and competition. Drawing from her extensive experience and philosophical perspectives, Diana advocates for a transformative approach in training horses. Diana also calls attention to the urgent crisis prevailing in the dressage community and suggests revisiting classical practices within dressage.
The episode is a deep dive into the world of equestrianism, presenting an opportunity to question the status quo and champion an empathic model of horse training. The conversation also highlights the unique bond horses provide, stepping into the expansive world of dressage. Diana navigates topics through her diverse experiences in the world of Shambhala, Naropa, and marriage to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
In an increasingly divided world, the podcast showcases the potential for growth and change. The conversation also illuminates the crucial issues of horse welfare and abuse in the sport, escalating competition costs, and the challenges facing trainers in disseminating traditional dressage training. Listen in to discover fascinating topics in a conversation that seeks to create a nurturing environment for our beloved horses.
The participants in this conversation have no personal involvement or knowledge associated with recent allegations of equine abuse in the dressage community.
Shambala Publications is dedicated to creating books, audios & courses to improve lives.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello podcast listeners. Thank you for tuning in today to the InScape Quest podcast show.
I am your host, Trudy Howley.
Here I have the privilege of exploring the unique inner nature of individuals
through interviews with fascinating guests.
Together we embark on a quest delving into discussions about relationships,
(00:22):
work and passions, unlocking insights that shape our lives.
Get ready to navigate the realms of discovery. This is InScape Quest,
where the journey within meets the quest for understanding.
This podcast is about equine welfare.
It contains references to recent public allegations about the abuse of dressage horses.
(00:46):
The participants in this conversation have no personal knowledge as to the truth
or falsity of any of these allegations,
and nothing in this podcast is intended to comment on or should be interpreted
as commenting on the truth or falsity of any allegation.
I'm grateful to be talking to Diana Makpo today.
(01:08):
Diana is a dressage trainer, rider, and competitor, and she has a very colorful
history, having grown up in England and then moved to the U.S.
In the early 1970s when she became serious about studying dressage.
At that same time, she was married to Chögram Trungpa, who is widely considered
(01:31):
one of the most important figures in the transmission of Buddhism to the West.
Diana studied under some dressage greats. She studied with Charles de Comfey
in Northern California.
She trained in Austria with Arthur Cortes.
She was admitted to the Spanish Riding School in their foreign student program,
(01:53):
where she rode three or four train stallions every day.
After the normal three-month session, she was granted an extension to stay for
another two months and accomplished in riding courses at the highest level of training.
Her career continued with training with Herbert Rehbein in Germany,
and simultaneously she founded the Shambhala School of Dressage in Colorado,
(02:17):
which offered training for horses and riders of all levels.
Diana also ran a sales business, Windhorse Dressage, in the early 2000s,
importing horses from Europe.
And during that time, she competed her own horse, Pascal, successfully at Grand
Prix, both at national and CDI levels.
(02:38):
She won the Region 8 Championship with Pascal at the Grand Prix level.
Welcome, Diana, today. I'm so thrilled that you are willing to talk to me.
I think it's an amazing opportunity because you have such a rich,
wonderful history to bring to our conversation, not only in relationship to
(03:02):
current things going on in the dressage community,
but historically in terms of training horses,
and also from a spiritual perspective and how we can really understand better
of how to be in right relationship to both horses and ourselves.
(03:23):
I'm very excited to be talking to you.
Thank you. you. Thank you, Trudy. I'm so happy to be part of this discussion
and hopefully we can all collectively come together and find a way forward that
is beneficial for both the animals and the people. So thank you for hosting me.
Diving in, people that may not know you, I think it's important to name not
(03:47):
only are you a lifelong horse person and we can get deeper into your history with training horses,
but you're also the legacy holder and legal legacy holder of a very important
Buddhist tradition that Trungpa Rinpoche brought to the West.
(04:08):
You were married to Trungpa Rinpoche for 17 years.
Admire and I'm in awe of this fearlessness, feistiness of the young you.
And I'd love to dive into both of those aspects of your life.
As we get started with that, Trungpa Rinpoche was was widely considered one
(04:34):
of the most important figures in the transmission of Buddhism to the West.
He wrote the book Meditation in Action in 1969, which has been deemed a classic
of 20th century spiritual literature.
Let's get started there, your intriguing and poignant relationship.
(04:55):
Trungpa Rinpoche had a very broad vision.
That his perspective on meditation and action and so forth was that this particular
state of mind that one develops through practicing meditation and studying and
so forth applies to one's general life.
So he had a very broad societal version and the principles that he taught that
(05:20):
one obviously needs time with oneself to see how one's mind works and so forth,
but that once one needs to bring that into one's life in general and,
His legacy has so many of those aspects, from Naropa University's educational
institution that was extremely ecumenical and so forth,
(05:43):
and also how he embraced the arts, so many arts from theatre to photography
and Ikebana, flower arranging and so forth,
that he brought these Buddhist principles of mindfulness and awareness into
so many. And one of the things he loved, too, was research.
And it always used to strike me that he had no formal education in it.
(06:04):
But obviously, Tibet, during the era that he grew up, they didn't have the wheel.
So he grew up riding horses, had a very intimate connection with horses.
It was the method of transportation.
It was a really medieval culture, which he grew up.
But sometimes he would come and he would watch me ride.
And he would say things like you have first to
(06:26):
the left is better than you have first to the right i think
you need a little more cadence and so forth and i was used to wonder
where on earth did that come from but i think there was just this magnanimous
view that he had that translated into actually understanding the mechanism or
the manifestation of so many different art forms And at a certain point,
(06:50):
I was in Vienna for three years, called me, and he was in the United States, he was in Colorado.
He called me in Vienna and he said, it's time for you to go to Germany.
He said, you need to understand both aspects of the discipline,
the way it's taught in Austria, and then you also need to understand the German perspective.
So I thought it was very interesting that without any formal education,
(07:11):
that he really had very good perspective on the whole discipline.
And he was extremely supportive of the writing and really valued dressage was
one of the disciplines that he felt that would actually apply to mindfulness in action,
that if one rode correctly and studied correctly,
(07:32):
that it was almost like a meditation practice in itself.
Wonderful. I love that you named that cultural connection that was just ingrained
in Tibetan culture about the lineage of horses all the way through that co-evolution.
Sounds very important.
I just want to read a quote actually, because it seems very poignant and I'd
(07:56):
love to hear your comments on this because you've named about the meditative piece.
It goes, meditative awareness shows you
how to regain your balance when you lose it and
how to use the messages from the phenomenal world
to further your discipline the practice
of meditation also allows you to be completely
(08:18):
grounded in reality then if
someone asks how do i know that you
are not overreacting to situations part reply
my posture in the saddle my seat
on the earth speaks for itself he used
to use a lot of analogies with the riding he used to talk about
holding your seat while all sorts of chaotic situations would happen in life
(08:43):
and that you would have to hold your seat as you did on the saddle on a bucking
horse so he used to use those analogies quite often feel like we're a little
bit sitting on a bucking horse in some ways right now I'm very interested to know,
you've been a rider, a trainer,
you've ridden all the way through Grand Prix, you've trained horses yourself
(09:05):
all the way through Grand Prix, you've competed nationally.
You've had all this historic training with very important legacy holders of
dressage training, like Charles de Comfey, Herbert Rheinbein.
In terms of your learning experience
(09:26):
it's got to be incredibly rich and
there's got to be i think it's very interesting
i think we're actually now at this particular point in
time that's a really pivotal point because what i want to talk about here is
how we make it standard to have empathy for equine partners i think correct
(09:49):
training and from all the experience that i have have had that what really works.
Is having that awareness, or that's my understanding of training horses.
Herbert Rabin used to have the saying, which was that violence is an excuse for lack of knowledge.
We are at a point in time, there's been the Me Too movement,
(10:12):
which has brought awareness to situations which may have been going on for a very long time.
So I don't think that the crisis that we have right now in the dressage world
is necessarily because something new has happened.
It's because the society will be becoming now brave enough to actually acknowledge
where problematic issues may have been not brought to the forefront.
(10:38):
And now we're actually starting to talk about these things. So I think it's really good.
And hopefully all of this will will help to create some sort of a reset button.
Because I do think to a certain extent that the discipline is in danger if we
don't begin to become aware and have the courage to address where things are going awry.
(11:00):
I was struck by, I don't think any of this is new, what's going on.
Xenophon, the military commander and horseman from ancient Greece,
wrote the first book on horsemanship 2,300 years ago.
And one of the things that he said, one of the famous quotes that he has is,
anything which is forced or misunderstood can never be beautiful.
(11:21):
So there must have been things that were forced and misunderstood,
even in that time 2,300 years ago. and he was addressing that,
how people's perceptions become, how one evaluates one's perceptions.
And I do think that's a little bit the case now that we maybe need to put a
(11:41):
reset button on what we perceive as beautiful and correct.
And that's one thing I was very fortunate to have very classical training.
I think that a little bit the sport is becoming,
because of honestly but partially greed and other factors
become that maybe we need
to change what we perceive as correct for
(12:02):
instance the whole situation with asking young
horses to perform the way they do is not
really honestly classical research it's something
that's driven by financial gain but those horses i think we're putting stress
on them in the way that we know it's similar to gymnastics that some of those
children really develop problems through too much training training before the
(12:24):
muscular and skeletal system was ready for that kind of pressure.
So I think there's that, and I think also educating the young professionals,
not only in classical dressage, but also understanding the horse's perception.
This one, I actually wanted to quote Mathieu Ricard, who is a Frenchman who is a Buddhist monk.
(12:47):
And he's written some beautiful things about animals.
And one of the things that he says is the most striking quality that humans
and animals have in common is their capacity to experience suffering.
I think it's really important that we begin to identify what is suffering because
the horses can't talk for themselves.
(13:09):
So I think it's also the development of empathy along with classical and good
training that's going to help to change things.
Thank you. That's so important. And just putting
the horses at the center of these conversations and utilizing perhaps the timeless
realities and truths from your spiritual practices and knowledge and wisdom
(13:35):
and combining that with ways of moving forward.
So in terms of training a horse horse to do PR.
Typically, that's considered maybe the most difficult part of dressage training.
And I'm wondering, how long do you think that typically takes?
Or how long do you think that should take?
(13:57):
I'm really glad you asked me that question, Trudy. Because this is one of the
things that pains me the most.
Having had the opportunity to spend time and watch and tour it in a really classical
way, which is why the horses from the Spanish Riding School pee off so beautifully
and with pleasure, honestly.
Again, it's a question of, again, quoting Herbert Rabine, that violence is an
(14:21):
excuse for lack of knowledge.
People don't, firstly, they are not always educated in how to create that.
And secondly, there's this pressure to make the horse more valuable because
the horse is significantly more valuable once it can pee off.
So people dry and I think it tends to at times become abusive.
(14:44):
So what I understand and know from PF is that it really takes a year to even begin.
And if it's done correctly, the horse has to feel happy about it, that it's rewarded.
Personally, when I work with them on the ground, I give them a lot of sugar every time.
It's good. And in the end, they PF well because they're happy and they have
(15:07):
really good associations with it.
So just beating them, maybe it works temporarily, but they're not going to PF
every time you take them in the show ring and say, okay, here you are now.
We're making a transition from Prasaj to PF and you have to do your thing.
13 steps or whatever, with pleasure and understanding, and you have the correct
(15:28):
muscle base, and you have a good association.
If it's taught incorrectly, it might work at home, it might work occasionally in the show ring.
But if one wants consistency with that, I think it's important to really do
it methodically because it puts a great deal of pressure on the horse's physiology.
And so just as with any gymnastic movement, I think it really takes a year to put the muscle base on.
(15:50):
Firstly, being done in hand, and teaching the horse to respond correctly to
the aids from the whip, not the abuse from the whip, but the aids from the whip,
and then transferring that,
which is quite difficult for the horse because then you put a rider on top and
you also ask them in the same way with help from the ground.
And the horse has to gradually, you don't develop strength overnight.
(16:11):
I think if it's given the time and the horse has the capacity physiologically
to do it without that undue stress, and also mentally has positive associations,
that is probably the best recipe for success.
And in that, I'm also curious about the journey of training the rider,
because you've had some amazing training.
(16:35):
And also in your autobiography, Dragon Thunder,
that was published in 2006, you do talk about working with your own students
and how you try not to rob them of self-esteem.
I'm wondering if you might want to elaborate on that piece with the listeners,
(16:56):
just sharing some of your experience into a different, more compassionate way
of working with students.
I think there's a middle ground. Now, on the one hand, dressage for a long time
was a military discipline.
So there was no questioning, no communication, basically from the right.
One just did what one was told.
(17:17):
I will say, honestly, during my learning experiences while I was in Austria,
the only communication one had from one's teacher was negative criticism.
There's almost nothing positive.
I remember asking one of my teachers once, saying, you haven't said anything to me for a week.
And he said to me, then you should be happy. And I don't want to negate the
(17:37):
fact that I'm incredibly grateful for everything I learned there.
But I also learned about some things not to do, because I remember beginning
to really hate my teachers at a certain point, and then starting to feel competitive
with them because I wanted to show them that I could actually do something better.
And I think that's very negative in a way. I think it's really important to
(18:00):
have a proper communication. education.
And I will say a situation that happened a few years ago, a European clinician
came over and we had headsets.
I gave the clinician headsets and I was riding and I said something to him and you couldn't hear me.
And I said, you can't hear me because I don't want to hear you.
(18:20):
I said, I want to communicate with you about how I trained this horse to be
able to, I don't want to hear from you at all. He said, shut up and ride.
I think, I don't think that's healthy and
maybe that is better but people tend to say too much but
also as a teacher sometimes you just
want that headset on because somebody may be quite
(18:40):
tense at the beginning of the lesson and they may
want to just tell you about the drive to the barn for a minute
yes that doesn't really necessarily have to do with what you're trying to teach
them but that sort of communication for a moment helps people relax a little
bit and you open the door to good communication so i think having open communication
(19:00):
and being able to get feedback from your students, but again, not too much.
They also have to be able to focus. So I think it's always finding the middle way.
And it also sounds like it's on a unique individual basis as well.
There's obviously systems of training in place that can also be improved on,
but just respecting this intimate one-on-one relationship or triad,
(19:23):
really, as the trainer, the rider and the horse.
I also want to touch in on the fact that there has been controversy in the world
of Buddhism, in the world of Shambhala and Naropa as well. Your book was published 18 years ago now.
I'm wondering, in light of navigating public controversy, what you might want
(19:47):
to add if you were to write an afterward or an update of your book.
It's very difficult in a way.
I understand that Trungpa Rinpoche had an extremely unconventional lifestyle.
I think it's very difficult to judge it if one wasn't there.
I think the interesting thing is most of the people that were there felt very
(20:09):
comfortable with the way things were.
Looking at it from another perspective, I understand how people could be absolutely
be horrified by the stories that came.
But being there, it was a very different situation.
He created a very powerful environment around himself.
The last few years of his life were very difficult for me personally.
(20:31):
Things did become extremely unconventional at that time.
To me, nothing negates the fact that I can only speak about my own relationship with him as a.
And even though his lifestyle was extremely unconventional, he was an incredible, kind human being.
I felt unconditionally loved by him always.
(20:52):
I never heard him say a bad word about anybody. He loved his students.
He was truly and deeply a really good and decent human being.
I think a lot of the things that happened later with his son have shed a very
unfortunate light on his life.
And I do understand why people have the attitude they do, but I wish they had
(21:15):
been there with them because I do honestly believe that most of these people,
had they been there with them, would have had a very different feeling.
It was extremely unconventional, very groundless. He taught through unconventional methods.
But I know hundreds of people who will say to you, we're all getting really
old now, soon it won't be hundreds of people anymore, but who say that their
(21:37):
lives were completely transformed by him.
They're so grateful for the teachings and how he taught them to live their lives
and he is still 35 years after his death really the center point of people's
lives they live their lives according to his teachings and he empowered them
to be feel like he always empowered people,
(21:58):
to be what they were and i think a lot of things get misinterpreted like the
forms he created and so forth.
But most of the forms he created were just creative ways to give people more
contact with him and also to really explore their capacity to develop as human beings.
It was very unconventional, hard to understand, but also extraordinarily powerful
(22:21):
for those people who inhabited that time.
Wondering how you maintained your seat through all that.
Truly, I have to say, it wasn't that difficult. He was wonderful.
I never felt minimized by him in any way. He was...
Was so kind and so wonderful to me.
(22:42):
And he also, I was so young when I married him and I'd never really had the
opportunity that so many young people had to really explore the world.
And I think he understood that, which is why he totally supported my riding career.
He really wanted me to go to Europe. He wanted me to experience the training,
but correctly at some point, I was really overwhelmed. I wanted to come home.
(23:03):
And he actually said, no, No, you don't come home. You have to finish your training
properly. So he was quite tough about that.
Even though the last few years as he started to degenerate, honestly, were very hard for me.
Prior to that time, it was a wonderful time in my life.
And I remember him saying at some point, this is the most important time in your life.
(23:24):
When you look back, you'll remember it as the most glorious time in your life.
And I laughed at him, but actually it's true.
Maybe you might even have time to write another book and lay it all out in parallel
with dressage and horse training.
You said something that I'm wondering about in terms of the discipline of training,
and I know we've already touched on it, but just to elaborate on that further,
(23:48):
you were a participant in 400 years of traditional dressage training.
Training how is that translated today
because if it's not written down or you
can't go and train in another country
how that communicated to to
a wider audience i think that there are still some teachers
(24:10):
out there who really have good classical background who also
compete competitively and so forth so i think it is the same as in spirituality
you have to seek out the right teacher and then when you decide who your teacher
is i really don't believe in teacher I think one should stay with one trainer
for as long as that really seems to be working before going on.
(24:30):
I do like in this country is very different than what I experienced from training
in Europe where you hop from clinic to clinic.
And I don't think that's particularly helpful because I think that quite a few roads lead to Rome.
Not to keep getting on different ones all the time. So you have to map out your process.
And part of that is what is your trainer? What is their training?
(24:52):
What have they produced?
Are their horses happy? Do their horses enjoy their work? Are they able to develop
and really show the upper level work with relaxation and supplements and so forth?
So it's a certain sort of feeling that one investigates who one's going to train
with, and then you really work with that system.
I do think that there's a lot to be gained from the European style of training
(25:13):
from the perspective of really training the rider to have an independent seat.
Training the rider on a trained horse, and so forth.
I do think there are some problems in this country. It's a very different segment
of the population that tends to ride here.
A lot of times people start riding seriously a little bit later in life and
maybe are more more financially able to buy trained horses and so forth.
(25:38):
And all of that is really good. I think it's excellent to learn to ride on a trained horse.
You can't buy your way into the show ring. I don't think that's ultimately really good.
And the one thing I really would like to see in American dressage more is people
who train their own horses.
To see some of these riders, Grand Prix riders, and the top riders on horses
(25:58):
that they've trained themselves.
I would really like...
To see more young horses being trained from the beginning all the way through.
And I do think that is one advantage of the Europeans, because to a certain
extent, if we look this year before the Olympics, some of the second-line horses have been sold.
And I understand that sometimes that's necessary. A lot of horse swapping happens in Europe too.
(26:23):
But it would be really nice to see some of these people who are competing for
a spot on the team to have some horses that they've actually bought out themselves from young horses.
And I think that until we start to do that and start to be able to do that in
this country, that we will fall short.
And really important just to acknowledge the people that train children,
(26:44):
people that are engaged in taking that brave step of watching young children
who may not have body control or the wherewithal to understand all the nuances
of dressage, but they're still out there.
Braving the risks really of teaching
(27:05):
young children not only how to ride but to
do dressage and just want to give a shout out to them you and I both started
riding at a very early age I know I was careening around the English countryside
just going back to your earlier childhood as a rider How did you start out riding,
(27:27):
and how do you think that that became so fulfilling for you?
Yeah, definitely. It's a wonderful thing to be able to have children come along.
I think we have to remember why we all got involved in horses in the first place.
It wasn't because of thinking we were going to win ribbons. It was touching
them, the beauty of the horses, the spell of the born, being able to sit on
(27:50):
these horses. and to, you know, it all started with that passion.
And I think if we can continue to hold that and the teachers can continue to
reward that and encourage that, the children. Personally, I...
Remember the first time I rode, I was four years old. I went for a riding lesson.
I still remember the little white pony and how angry my mother was when she
(28:14):
came to pick me up when we had,
gone back to the stable and I had to let him eat all the gold buttons off my
jacket and take it in my, we called it a hard rider, helmet at that point and
filled it with water and let him drink from it.
And I was completely disheveled and she was absolutely horrified when she came to catch me.
I kept regular riding lessons until then.
(28:36):
And my mother actually didn't know very much about horses.
Neither did my father for that matter. He'd grown up riding a bit.
So when I went away to boarding school when I was nine, I said,
I want my own pony because we were allowed to take our pony to school.
So my mother took me to an Irish horse dealer's yard and there must have been
about 20 ponies in the field there. And he said, just pick one.
(28:58):
So we picked this little devil out we found later.
There was this little Welsh pony with four white stockings in the blaze and he was called Blaze.
So we bought Blaze and Blaze got sent to my school, which point he was put in
the paddock and they couldn't catch him for months.
And it turned out that Blaze was completely untrained.
But eventually we really got along and I had him for years and he turned into
(29:21):
quite a little bit devilish.
But again, I also careened around the English countryside on Blaze.
That's a truly wonderful story. And I'm wondering about being a young child
and being at boarding school and the relationship,
that companionship of Blaze, if that was important to you, being separated from
(29:42):
your family. That was a highlight.
The fact that we have had wonderful... Like boarding school,
I think sending young children away to boarding school is a very.
Unfortunate part of the English tradition. That was the complete highlight of
my life. And I was allowed to ride what I thought was enormous.
I think he was only 16 too. They had a gray hunter called Shadowfax and we used
(30:03):
to ride them out on the roads.
And I used to love going, the stables were across from my classroom.
So I used to love going to the stable and seeing the horses.
So that was really the highlight of my time in boarding school.
Looking back at your life, and you've mentioned a couple of times,
these are the golden years years and these were some highlights but
what are you excited about going forward particularly
(30:26):
now we are having these conversations around
change and growth hopefully because we are living in polarized times generally
we're definitely living in polarized times and i think one has to appreciate
the middle ground but i do think it's excellent that we are starting to have
(30:46):
awareness of where the problems have been.
And I wanted to quote Matthew again, Matthew Ricard, that another one of his
sayings is that one could judge a culture by the treatment of its animals.
I think there are a lot of positive things about our culture that we are becoming
aware of it. People are now willing to speak out.
(31:07):
I really want to be part of that conversation that I think we have to find a
middle ground with our sport, not where it gets silly, where you shouldn't be riding at all.
But we shouldn't open the door to that kind of unreasonable situations by actually
finding an awareness of what is abuse, what is not abuse. I think it's also...
(31:28):
We need to lobby some of the organizations to have some sort of rule in place
that is not only on the showgrounds where people have to be accountable for abuse.
And I don't know the legal aspect of this.
I wonder if these non-disclosure agreements actually cover abuse or not.
And if people are aware and they're afraid, if they go and train with somebody
(31:50):
who's being extremely abusive and they feel they're threatened because they've
signed a non-disclosure, disclosure actually if those non-disclosures cover abuse.
And if they don't, then maybe we need to look and try to reevaluate some of that.
I think going forward, there are a lot of really positive things that it's almost
sometimes like things have to reach a critical point before that's acknowledged.
(32:11):
And then we implement methods for change.
And I think we are at that point. I think there are a lot of things in the dressage
world, you know, also, which is not really worth getting into today so much,
but how it's become so economically difficult to people that the prices are really out of control,
that greed is a factor, but that's not the only factor in what's happening there,
(32:32):
that it's so expensive for people to compete.
Whereas in Europe, it's a different culture. It's more a horse culture,
and one can compete for a lot less.
And I don't know what all the answers are, but I think it's become such an elitist sport here.
And it's a pity because then a lot of people that are incredibly talented end up becoming excluded.
Excluded so i don't really know but i think there's
(32:53):
so much potential for change because i think we
are actually acknowledging things that
need to be changed because it has reached this point
and i think we have a lot of really intelligent brave people who
need support in implementing those things
thank you so much for summarizing that
i think that's really important and just
(33:16):
sitting with that idea of the
bigger picture my concern and this collective
fear i guess we can show up in in
new ways exactly and i think we all share the collective appreciation for this
amazing sport this wonderful discipline the love for our horses so i think collectively
(33:36):
we're going to forge a path forward thank you so much diana i think it's been
a a wonderful conversation today.
And I'm excited to share this with our listeners.
Thank you so much, Trudy. Please share this show with a friend and hit the subscribe
or follow button and we can grow meaningful conversations together one episode at a time.
(34:01):
This podcast is about equine welfare.
It contains references to recent public allegations about the abuse of dressage
horses. The participants in this conversation have no personal knowledge as to the.
Music.
Hello podcast listeners. Thank you for tuning in today to the InScape Quest podcast show.
I am your host, Trudy Howley.
Here I have the privilege of exploring the unique inner nature of individuals
through interviews with fascinating guests.
Together we embark on a quest delving into discussions about relationships,
(00:22):
work and passions, unlocking insights that shape our lives.
Get ready to navigate the realms of discovery. This is InScape Quest,
where the journey within meets the quest for understanding.
This podcast is about equine welfare.
It contains references to recent public allegations about the abuse of dressage horses.
(00:46):
The participants in this conversation have no personal knowledge as to the truth
or falsity of any of these allegations,
and nothing in this podcast is intended to comment on or should be interpreted
as commenting on the truth or falsity of any allegation.
I'm grateful to be talking to Diana Makpo today.
(01:08):
Diana is a dressage trainer, rider, and competitor, and she has a very colorful
history, having grown up in England and then moved to the U.S.
In the early 1970s when she became serious about studying dressage.
At that same time, she was married to Chögram Trungpa, who is widely considered
(01:31):
one of the most important figures in the transmission of Buddhism to the West.
Diana studied under some dressage greats. She studied with Charles de Comfey
in Northern California.
She trained in Austria with Arthur Cortes.
She was admitted to the Spanish Riding School in their foreign student program,
(01:53):
where she rode three or four train stallions every day.
After the normal three-month session, she was granted an extension to stay for
another two months and accomplished in riding courses at the highest level of training.
Her career continued with training with Herbert Rehbein in Germany,
and simultaneously she founded the Shambhala School of Dressage in Colorado,
(02:17):
which offered training for horses and riders of all levels.
Diana also ran a sales business, Windhorse Dressage, in the early 2000s,
importing horses from Europe.
And during that time, she competed her own horse, Pascal, successfully at Grand
Prix, both at national and CDI levels.
(02:38):
She won the Region 8 Championship with Pascal at the Grand Prix level.
Welcome, Diana, today. I'm so thrilled that you are willing to talk to me.
I think it's an amazing opportunity because you have such a rich,
wonderful history to bring to our conversation, not only in relationship to
(03:02):
current things going on in the dressage community,
but historically in terms of training horses,
and also from a spiritual perspective and how we can really understand better
of how to be in right relationship to both horses and ourselves.
(03:23):
I'm very excited to be talking to you.
Thank you. you. Thank you, Trudy. I'm so happy to be part of this discussion
and hopefully we can all collectively come together and find a way forward that
is beneficial for both the animals and the people. So thank you for hosting me.
Diving in, people that may not know you, I think it's important to name not
(03:47):
only are you a lifelong horse person and we can get deeper into your history with training horses,
but you're also the legacy holder and legal legacy holder of a very important
Buddhist tradition that Trungpa Rinpoche brought to the West.
(04:08):
You were married to Trungpa Rinpoche for 17 years.
Admire and I'm in awe of this fearlessness, feistiness of the young you.
And I'd love to dive into both of those aspects of your life.
As we get started with that, Trungpa Rinpoche was was widely considered one
(04:34):
of the most important figures in the transmission of Buddhism to the West.
He wrote the book Meditation in Action in 1969, which has been deemed a classic
of 20th century spiritual literature.
Let's get started there, your intriguing and poignant relationship.
(04:55):
Trungpa Rinpoche had a very broad vision.
That his perspective on meditation and action and so forth was that this particular
state of mind that one develops through practicing meditation and studying and
so forth applies to one's general life.
So he had a very broad societal version and the principles that he taught that
(05:20):
one obviously needs time with oneself to see how one's mind works and so forth,
but that once one needs to bring that into one's life in general and,
His legacy has so many of those aspects, from Naropa University's educational
institution that was extremely ecumenical and so forth,
(05:43):
and also how he embraced the arts, so many arts from theatre to photography
and Ikebana, flower arranging and so forth,
that he brought these Buddhist principles of mindfulness and awareness into
so many. And one of the things he loved, too, was research.
And it always used to strike me that he had no formal education in it.
(06:04):
But obviously, Tibet, during the era that he grew up, they didn't have the wheel.
So he grew up riding horses, had a very intimate connection with horses.
It was the method of transportation.
It was a really medieval culture, which he grew up.
But sometimes he would come and he would watch me ride.
And he would say things like you have first to
(06:26):
the left is better than you have first to the right i think
you need a little more cadence and so forth and i was used to wonder
where on earth did that come from but i think there was just this magnanimous
view that he had that translated into actually understanding the mechanism or
the manifestation of so many different art forms And at a certain point,
(06:50):
I was in Vienna for three years, called me, and he was in the United States, he was in Colorado.
He called me in Vienna and he said, it's time for you to go to Germany.
He said, you need to understand both aspects of the discipline,
the way it's taught in Austria, and then you also need to understand the German perspective.
So I thought it was very interesting that without any formal education,
(07:11):
that he really had very good perspective on the whole discipline.
And he was extremely supportive of the writing and really valued dressage was
one of the disciplines that he felt that would actually apply to mindfulness in action,
that if one rode correctly and studied correctly,
(07:32):
that it was almost like a meditation practice in itself.
Wonderful. I love that you named that cultural connection that was just ingrained
in Tibetan culture about the lineage of horses all the way through that co-evolution.
Sounds very important.
I just want to read a quote actually, because it seems very poignant and I'd
(07:56):
love to hear your comments on this because you've named about the meditative piece.
It goes, meditative awareness shows you
how to regain your balance when you lose it and
how to use the messages from the phenomenal world
to further your discipline the practice
of meditation also allows you to be completely
(08:18):
grounded in reality then if
someone asks how do i know that you
are not overreacting to situations part reply
my posture in the saddle my seat
on the earth speaks for itself he used
to use a lot of analogies with the riding he used to talk about
holding your seat while all sorts of chaotic situations would happen in life
(08:43):
and that you would have to hold your seat as you did on the saddle on a bucking
horse so he used to use those analogies quite often feel like we're a little
bit sitting on a bucking horse in some ways right now I'm very interested to know,
you've been a rider, a trainer,
you've ridden all the way through Grand Prix, you've trained horses yourself
(09:05):
all the way through Grand Prix, you've competed nationally.
You've had all this historic training with very important legacy holders of
dressage training, like Charles de Comfey, Herbert Rheinbein.
In terms of your learning experience
(09:26):
it's got to be incredibly rich and
there's got to be i think it's very interesting
i think we're actually now at this particular point in
time that's a really pivotal point because what i want to talk about here is
how we make it standard to have empathy for equine partners i think correct
(09:49):
training and from all the experience that i have have had that what really works.
Is having that awareness, or that's my understanding of training horses.
Herbert Rabin used to have the saying, which was that violence is an excuse for lack of knowledge.
We are at a point in time, there's been the Me Too movement,
(10:12):
which has brought awareness to situations which may have been going on for a very long time.
So I don't think that the crisis that we have right now in the dressage world
is necessarily because something new has happened.
It's because the society will be becoming now brave enough to actually acknowledge
where problematic issues may have been not brought to the forefront.
(10:38):
And now we're actually starting to talk about these things. So I think it's really good.
And hopefully all of this will will help to create some sort of a reset button.
Because I do think to a certain extent that the discipline is in danger if we
don't begin to become aware and have the courage to address where things are going awry.
(11:00):
I was struck by, I don't think any of this is new, what's going on.
Xenophon, the military commander and horseman from ancient Greece,
wrote the first book on horsemanship 2,300 years ago.
And one of the things that he said, one of the famous quotes that he has is,
anything which is forced or misunderstood can never be beautiful.
(11:21):
So there must have been things that were forced and misunderstood,
even in that time 2,300 years ago. and he was addressing that,
how people's perceptions become, how one evaluates one's perceptions.
And I do think that's a little bit the case now that we maybe need to put a
(11:41):
reset button on what we perceive as beautiful and correct.
And that's one thing I was very fortunate to have very classical training.
I think that a little bit the sport is becoming,
because of honestly but partially greed and other factors
become that maybe we need
to change what we perceive as correct for
(12:02):
instance the whole situation with asking young
horses to perform the way they do is not
really honestly classical research it's something
that's driven by financial gain but those horses i think we're putting stress
on them in the way that we know it's similar to gymnastics that some of those
children really develop problems through too much training training before the
(12:24):
muscular and skeletal system was ready for that kind of pressure.
So I think there's that, and I think also educating the young professionals,
not only in classical dressage, but also understanding the horse's perception.
This one, I actually wanted to quote Mathieu Ricard, who is a Frenchman who is a Buddhist monk.
(12:47):
And he's written some beautiful things about animals.
And one of the things that he says is the most striking quality that humans
and animals have in common is their capacity to experience suffering.
I think it's really important that we begin to identify what is suffering because
the horses can't talk for themselves.
(13:09):
So I think it's also the development of empathy along with classical and good
training that's going to help to change things.
Thank you. That's so important. And just putting
the horses at the center of these conversations and utilizing perhaps the timeless
realities and truths from your spiritual practices and knowledge and wisdom
(13:35):
and combining that with ways of moving forward.
So in terms of training a horse horse to do PR.
Typically, that's considered maybe the most difficult part of dressage training.
And I'm wondering, how long do you think that typically takes?
Or how long do you think that should take?
(13:57):
I'm really glad you asked me that question, Trudy. Because this is one of the
things that pains me the most.
Having had the opportunity to spend time and watch and tour it in a really classical
way, which is why the horses from the Spanish Riding School pee off so beautifully
and with pleasure, honestly.
Again, it's a question of, again, quoting Herbert Rabine, that violence is an
(14:21):
excuse for lack of knowledge.
People don't, firstly, they are not always educated in how to create that.
And secondly, there's this pressure to make the horse more valuable because
the horse is significantly more valuable once it can pee off.
So people dry and I think it tends to at times become abusive.
(14:44):
So what I understand and know from PF is that it really takes a year to even begin.
And if it's done correctly, the horse has to feel happy about it, that it's rewarded.
Personally, when I work with them on the ground, I give them a lot of sugar every time.
It's good. And in the end, they PF well because they're happy and they have
(15:07):
really good associations with it.
So just beating them, maybe it works temporarily, but they're not going to PF
every time you take them in the show ring and say, okay, here you are now.
We're making a transition from Prasaj to PF and you have to do your thing.
13 steps or whatever, with pleasure and understanding, and you have the correct
(15:28):
muscle base, and you have a good association.
If it's taught incorrectly, it might work at home, it might work occasionally in the show ring.
But if one wants consistency with that, I think it's important to really do
it methodically because it puts a great deal of pressure on the horse's physiology.
And so just as with any gymnastic movement, I think it really takes a year to put the muscle base on.
(15:50):
Firstly, being done in hand, and teaching the horse to respond correctly to
the aids from the whip, not the abuse from the whip, but the aids from the whip,
and then transferring that,
which is quite difficult for the horse because then you put a rider on top and
you also ask them in the same way with help from the ground.
And the horse has to gradually, you don't develop strength overnight.
(16:11):
I think if it's given the time and the horse has the capacity physiologically
to do it without that undue stress, and also mentally has positive associations,
that is probably the best recipe for success.
And in that, I'm also curious about the journey of training the rider,
because you've had some amazing training.
(16:35):
And also in your autobiography, Dragon Thunder,
that was published in 2006, you do talk about working with your own students
and how you try not to rob them of self-esteem.
I'm wondering if you might want to elaborate on that piece with the listeners,
(16:56):
just sharing some of your experience into a different, more compassionate way
of working with students.
I think there's a middle ground. Now, on the one hand, dressage for a long time
was a military discipline.
So there was no questioning, no communication, basically from the right.
One just did what one was told.
(17:17):
I will say, honestly, during my learning experiences while I was in Austria,
the only communication one had from one's teacher was negative criticism.
There's almost nothing positive.
I remember asking one of my teachers once, saying, you haven't said anything to me for a week.
And he said to me, then you should be happy. And I don't want to negate the
(17:37):
fact that I'm incredibly grateful for everything I learned there.
But I also learned about some things not to do, because I remember beginning
to really hate my teachers at a certain point, and then starting to feel competitive
with them because I wanted to show them that I could actually do something better.
And I think that's very negative in a way. I think it's really important to
(18:00):
have a proper communication. education.
And I will say a situation that happened a few years ago, a European clinician
came over and we had headsets.
I gave the clinician headsets and I was riding and I said something to him and you couldn't hear me.
And I said, you can't hear me because I don't want to hear you.
(18:20):
I said, I want to communicate with you about how I trained this horse to be
able to, I don't want to hear from you at all. He said, shut up and ride.
I think, I don't think that's healthy and
maybe that is better but people tend to say too much but
also as a teacher sometimes you just
want that headset on because somebody may be quite
(18:40):
tense at the beginning of the lesson and they may
want to just tell you about the drive to the barn for a minute
yes that doesn't really necessarily have to do with what you're trying to teach
them but that sort of communication for a moment helps people relax a little
bit and you open the door to good communication so i think having open communication
(19:00):
and being able to get feedback from your students, but again, not too much.
They also have to be able to focus. So I think it's always finding the middle way.
And it also sounds like it's on a unique individual basis as well.
There's obviously systems of training in place that can also be improved on,
but just respecting this intimate one-on-one relationship or triad,
(19:23):
really, as the trainer, the rider and the horse.
I also want to touch in on the fact that there has been controversy in the world
of Buddhism, in the world of Shambhala and Naropa as well. Your book was published 18 years ago now.
I'm wondering, in light of navigating public controversy, what you might want
(19:47):
to add if you were to write an afterward or an update of your book.
It's very difficult in a way.
I understand that Trungpa Rinpoche had an extremely unconventional lifestyle.
I think it's very difficult to judge it if one wasn't there.
I think the interesting thing is most of the people that were there felt very
(20:09):
comfortable with the way things were.
Looking at it from another perspective, I understand how people could be absolutely
be horrified by the stories that came.
But being there, it was a very different situation.
He created a very powerful environment around himself.
The last few years of his life were very difficult for me personally.
(20:31):
Things did become extremely unconventional at that time.
To me, nothing negates the fact that I can only speak about my own relationship with him as a.
And even though his lifestyle was extremely unconventional, he was an incredible, kind human being.
I felt unconditionally loved by him always.
(20:52):
I never heard him say a bad word about anybody. He loved his students.
He was truly and deeply a really good and decent human being.
I think a lot of the things that happened later with his son have shed a very
unfortunate light on his life.
And I do understand why people have the attitude they do, but I wish they had
(21:15):
been there with them because I do honestly believe that most of these people,
had they been there with them, would have had a very different feeling.
It was extremely unconventional, very groundless. He taught through unconventional methods.
But I know hundreds of people who will say to you, we're all getting really
old now, soon it won't be hundreds of people anymore, but who say that their
(21:37):
lives were completely transformed by him.
They're so grateful for the teachings and how he taught them to live their lives
and he is still 35 years after his death really the center point of people's
lives they live their lives according to his teachings and he empowered them
to be feel like he always empowered people,
(21:58):
to be what they were and i think a lot of things get misinterpreted like the
forms he created and so forth.
But most of the forms he created were just creative ways to give people more
contact with him and also to really explore their capacity to develop as human beings.
It was very unconventional, hard to understand, but also extraordinarily powerful
(22:21):
for those people who inhabited that time.
Wondering how you maintained your seat through all that.
Truly, I have to say, it wasn't that difficult. He was wonderful.
I never felt minimized by him in any way. He was...
Was so kind and so wonderful to me.
(22:42):
And he also, I was so young when I married him and I'd never really had the
opportunity that so many young people had to really explore the world.
And I think he understood that, which is why he totally supported my riding career.
He really wanted me to go to Europe. He wanted me to experience the training,
but correctly at some point, I was really overwhelmed. I wanted to come home.
(23:03):
And he actually said, no, No, you don't come home. You have to finish your training
properly. So he was quite tough about that.
Even though the last few years as he started to degenerate, honestly, were very hard for me.
Prior to that time, it was a wonderful time in my life.
And I remember him saying at some point, this is the most important time in your life.
(23:24):
When you look back, you'll remember it as the most glorious time in your life.
And I laughed at him, but actually it's true.
Maybe you might even have time to write another book and lay it all out in parallel
with dressage and horse training.
You said something that I'm wondering about in terms of the discipline of training,
and I know we've already touched on it, but just to elaborate on that further,
(23:48):
you were a participant in 400 years of traditional dressage training.
Training how is that translated today
because if it's not written down or you
can't go and train in another country
how that communicated to to
a wider audience i think that there are still some teachers
(24:10):
out there who really have good classical background who also
compete competitively and so forth so i think it is the same as in spirituality
you have to seek out the right teacher and then when you decide who your teacher
is i really don't believe in teacher I think one should stay with one trainer
for as long as that really seems to be working before going on.
(24:30):
I do like in this country is very different than what I experienced from training
in Europe where you hop from clinic to clinic.
And I don't think that's particularly helpful because I think that quite a few roads lead to Rome.
Not to keep getting on different ones all the time. So you have to map out your process.
And part of that is what is your trainer? What is their training?
(24:52):
What have they produced?
Are their horses happy? Do their horses enjoy their work? Are they able to develop
and really show the upper level work with relaxation and supplements and so forth?
So it's a certain sort of feeling that one investigates who one's going to train
with, and then you really work with that system.
I do think that there's a lot to be gained from the European style of training
(25:13):
from the perspective of really training the rider to have an independent seat.
Training the rider on a trained horse, and so forth.
I do think there are some problems in this country. It's a very different segment
of the population that tends to ride here.
A lot of times people start riding seriously a little bit later in life and
maybe are more more financially able to buy trained horses and so forth.
(25:38):
And all of that is really good. I think it's excellent to learn to ride on a trained horse.
You can't buy your way into the show ring. I don't think that's ultimately really good.
And the one thing I really would like to see in American dressage more is people
who train their own horses.
To see some of these riders, Grand Prix riders, and the top riders on horses
(25:58):
that they've trained themselves.
I would really like...
To see more young horses being trained from the beginning all the way through.
And I do think that is one advantage of the Europeans, because to a certain
extent, if we look this year before the Olympics, some of the second-line horses have been sold.
And I understand that sometimes that's necessary. A lot of horse swapping happens in Europe too.
(26:23):
But it would be really nice to see some of these people who are competing for
a spot on the team to have some horses that they've actually bought out themselves from young horses.
And I think that until we start to do that and start to be able to do that in
this country, that we will fall short.
And really important just to acknowledge the people that train children,
(26:44):
people that are engaged in taking that brave step of watching young children
who may not have body control or the wherewithal to understand all the nuances
of dressage, but they're still out there.
Braving the risks really of teaching
(27:05):
young children not only how to ride but to
do dressage and just want to give a shout out to them you and I both started
riding at a very early age I know I was careening around the English countryside
just going back to your earlier childhood as a rider How did you start out riding,
(27:27):
and how do you think that that became so fulfilling for you?
Yeah, definitely. It's a wonderful thing to be able to have children come along.
I think we have to remember why we all got involved in horses in the first place.
It wasn't because of thinking we were going to win ribbons. It was touching
them, the beauty of the horses, the spell of the born, being able to sit on
(27:50):
these horses. and to, you know, it all started with that passion.
And I think if we can continue to hold that and the teachers can continue to
reward that and encourage that, the children. Personally, I...
Remember the first time I rode, I was four years old. I went for a riding lesson.
I still remember the little white pony and how angry my mother was when she
(28:14):
came to pick me up when we had,
gone back to the stable and I had to let him eat all the gold buttons off my
jacket and take it in my, we called it a hard rider, helmet at that point and
filled it with water and let him drink from it.
And I was completely disheveled and she was absolutely horrified when she came to catch me.
I kept regular riding lessons until then.
(28:36):
And my mother actually didn't know very much about horses.
Neither did my father for that matter. He'd grown up riding a bit.
So when I went away to boarding school when I was nine, I said,
I want my own pony because we were allowed to take our pony to school.
So my mother took me to an Irish horse dealer's yard and there must have been
about 20 ponies in the field there. And he said, just pick one.
(28:58):
So we picked this little devil out we found later.
There was this little Welsh pony with four white stockings in the blaze and he was called Blaze.
So we bought Blaze and Blaze got sent to my school, which point he was put in
the paddock and they couldn't catch him for months.
And it turned out that Blaze was completely untrained.
But eventually we really got along and I had him for years and he turned into
(29:21):
quite a little bit devilish.
But again, I also careened around the English countryside on Blaze.
That's a truly wonderful story. And I'm wondering about being a young child
and being at boarding school and the relationship,
that companionship of Blaze, if that was important to you, being separated from
(29:42):
your family. That was a highlight.
The fact that we have had wonderful... Like boarding school,
I think sending young children away to boarding school is a very.
Unfortunate part of the English tradition. That was the complete highlight of
my life. And I was allowed to ride what I thought was enormous.
I think he was only 16 too. They had a gray hunter called Shadowfax and we used
(30:03):
to ride them out on the roads.
And I used to love going, the stables were across from my classroom.
So I used to love going to the stable and seeing the horses.
So that was really the highlight of my time in boarding school.
Looking back at your life, and you've mentioned a couple of times,
these are the golden years years and these were some highlights but
what are you excited about going forward particularly
(30:26):
now we are having these conversations around
change and growth hopefully because we are living in polarized times generally
we're definitely living in polarized times and i think one has to appreciate
the middle ground but i do think it's excellent that we are starting to have
(30:46):
awareness of where the problems have been.
And I wanted to quote Matthew again, Matthew Ricard, that another one of his
sayings is that one could judge a culture by the treatment of its animals.
I think there are a lot of positive things about our culture that we are becoming
aware of it. People are now willing to speak out.
(31:07):
I really want to be part of that conversation that I think we have to find a
middle ground with our sport, not where it gets silly, where you shouldn't be riding at all.
But we shouldn't open the door to that kind of unreasonable situations by actually
finding an awareness of what is abuse, what is not abuse. I think it's also...
(31:28):
We need to lobby some of the organizations to have some sort of rule in place
that is not only on the showgrounds where people have to be accountable for abuse.
And I don't know the legal aspect of this.
I wonder if these non-disclosure agreements actually cover abuse or not.
And if people are aware and they're afraid, if they go and train with somebody
(31:50):
who's being extremely abusive and they feel they're threatened because they've
signed a non-disclosure, disclosure actually if those non-disclosures cover abuse.
And if they don't, then maybe we need to look and try to reevaluate some of that.
I think going forward, there are a lot of really positive things that it's almost
sometimes like things have to reach a critical point before that's acknowledged.
(32:11):
And then we implement methods for change.
And I think we are at that point. I think there are a lot of things in the dressage
world, you know, also, which is not really worth getting into today so much,
but how it's become so economically difficult to people that the prices are really out of control,
that greed is a factor, but that's not the only factor in what's happening there,
(32:32):
that it's so expensive for people to compete.
Whereas in Europe, it's a different culture. It's more a horse culture,
and one can compete for a lot less.
And I don't know what all the answers are, but I think it's become such an elitist sport here.
And it's a pity because then a lot of people that are incredibly talented end up becoming excluded.
Excluded so i don't really know but i think there's
(32:53):
so much potential for change because i think we
are actually acknowledging things that
need to be changed because it has reached this point
and i think we have a lot of really intelligent brave people who
need support in implementing those things
thank you so much for summarizing that
i think that's really important and just
(33:16):
sitting with that idea of the
bigger picture my concern and this collective
fear i guess we can show up in in
new ways exactly and i think we all share the collective appreciation for this
amazing sport this wonderful discipline the love for our horses so i think collectively
(33:36):
we're going to forge a path forward thank you so much diana i think it's been
a a wonderful conversation today.
And I'm excited to share this with our listeners.
Thank you so much, Trudy. Please share this show with a friend and hit the subscribe
or follow button and we can grow meaningful conversations together one episode at a time.
(34:01):
This podcast is about equine welfare.
It contains references to recent public allegations about the abuse of dressage
horses. The participants in this conversation have no personal knowledge as to the.
Music.
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