My year of the horse

Here i am in Farmborough, near Bath doing Equine Tellington Touch or TTouch as it is known and you may have heard of.

Its my third day today and just got internet so haven't been able to get a blog up before now but its probably a good thing as yesterday my head was full of mince so god knows what would have come out of me and onto the blog!

Not that i am much better today but i feel like i have a bit more understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it where as yesterday i just felt like my head was going to explode with all the TTouches i have learnt.

So TTouch is a way of touching an animal that helps it in many ways.  It can help an anxious animal relax or it can make a sleepy animal more alert.  Mostly we are trying to make anxious animals relax!

This course is specifically for Equines but the good thing about it is we do a lot of work with other people.  We will be shown the touches on a person then we will try it on a person and have it tried on ourselves so we can feel the different pressures and the different feel to each touch.

Now they all have interesting names - the Zig Zag - yep you guessed it that you zig zag your hand across the horses body or the Chimp where you hold your hand in a fist and rub gently in a small circle and 1/4's (it has to be a circe and 1/4 each time but haven't quite found out why yet!). There is the Orangatan, the Llama, Clouded Leopard, Octopus and about a million other touches that i am learning and will hopefully absorb over the course of the next two years which is how long it will take me to qualify as an Equine Practitioner.

We have also been using Wraps which are like bandages but stretchy and putting then on ourselves and the horses and its amazing to see how a horse that is very forward in its chest can change the structure of how it holds itself just by putting a wrap on its front and over its withers but joining one on that goes over its rump - it connects the back to the front and seems to balance the horse.  We practiced wraps on ourselves first so i had a nice head wrap which actually seemed to make my head feel lighted and my shoulders started to untighten which is great.  Head wraps on horses that are head shy help them to relax and i can understand why now that i have tried one.  We all looked hysterically funny with our multi coloured wraps all in different body parts but it really is a great way to learn if you can feel a difference yourself.

We have also been learning how to lead horses - i have all my life always lead a horse from under its chin and will push and pull and do whatever i had to to get the horse to move but i have learnt to always be in front of the horse now and use my whole body movement to encourage the horse to move forward and also how to gently rock the horses head or withers if it gets stuck.  So all these years i have been thinking that a horse that is stuck is a stubborn horse and needs to be pushed at or pulled at and it has just been stuck and just needed a gentle rocking to allow it to unlock its legs.  Truly Amazing to have it happen.

I also did Mouth Work today!  YES I STUCK MY FINGERS IN A HORSES MOUTH AND RUBBED ITS GUMS!!!  I never thought I would have done that on my first course but Rusty my trusty horse teacher was a perfect gentleman and didn't try to bite me and he really loved it, as i rubbed his bottom gums his eyes were rolling in his head!  Pretty stunning stuff for me - its funny how i think i won't be able to do something but i just end up getting on with it - the same on the Animal Healing Diploma when they brought the Reptiles in, i jumped straight in and handled Spike the bearded dragon - something i never thought i would do! So if these courses are teaching me one thing it is not to hold back but just to go for it and not to be scared or anxious.

So my year of the horse is starting off well - i am camping with the horses so i am with them 24/7 which has been amazing just to hear them breathing during the night near my tent.  I don't know if i have shared with you that when i was doing my Mediumship course i met one of my spirit guides Charity who we spent a previous life as best friends during the American Civil War when we were both Nurses but apparently i preferred treating the horses rather than the soliders which of course doesn't surprise me or anyone who knows me as animals have always been my focus in this life.  Without knowing my link to healing horses in a previous life i had already signed up to do the Equine TTouch course before i signed up to do the Companion Animal TTouch course so its interesting that i was drawn to do this for horses before dogs.  I also start my Equine Healing Certificate with the same place i did my Animal Healing Diploma so between my TTouch course and that I will have 21 days just with the horses this year which is really exciting!!

now that i have got internet will give you more info on TTouch tomorrow!

suz
xxx