Early Morning Dog morph

So one of the things about being a good morpher is keeping up your fitness for all of your regular morphs.  This means you have to get into morph regularly  and get out there and fly, run, gallop or swim!  I made the classic newbie mistake when I first qualified as a morpher, and wanted to acquire each and every animal I could touch (back then, you could still just about get away with acquiring any animal, nowadays of course they've all be bio-chipped to make acquiring impossible unless you pay the owner or council a fee).

I acquired several cats, lots of pet dogs, even small animals such as gerbils - simply because I could!  I then discovered it was really different keeping track of which morphs I had, not to mention pretty pointless for having most of them.  I guess the original Animorphs would have acquired various different animals of the same species over the time fighting, but there would have been a reason for it, such as needing to pass as a particular animal for so they could spy on the Yeerks (someone's pet, or a specific racehorse) rather than just any old dog or horse.  Not really any need for me though, too much clutter!

Plus like I mentioned about, to morph well you need to keep your morphs fit and strong.  Sure, the DNA doesn't change so the animal stays the same in essence, but just like your original human form, you can develop it's fitness over time as long as you spend enough time in that particular morph.  Works well, since the opposite happens when yourself or the animal is injured - you heal once you've done a morph transition!  So why have 5 dog morphs when one will do the job well and you can focus your energy and time on that one?

Anyway, that aside, I went for a dog morph early this morning.  I wanted to spend a good half and a half in morph and have a good run, plus some time to have fun as a dog and enjoy the smells and sounds of the early morning before most people are up!  My dog is a German Shepherd, which I acquired from a morphing school about 5 years ago.  The British governing body for morphing had tightened up the rules for declaring your new morphs, and most places were charging for you to acquire their animals now.  The German Shepherd was £25 to morph, which is quire reasonable for a very good dog.  I would have loved a wolf morph, but they're really difficult to acquire now as they are in the next category up, plus you're looking at around £200 for acquire one!

I got up at about 4.30am, which was ridiculously early and I really wanted to go back to bed!  But I needed to eat breakfast, and I like to leave at least an hour between eating and morphing as otherwise I get bad stomach cramps and the morph doesn't go smoothly.  Not sure exactly what happens to swallowed food whilst in Z-space but I am not keen to find out! Anyway, I was ready to leave just before 6am, no need to worry about a complicated morphing suit (a tight workout shirt and shorts did the trick) as I would be morphing and demorphing straight from home.

Good initial morph to the dog (or "in-morph") - managed to get the fur to grow first, followed by the tail, which looked awesome!  The senses kicked in really quickly this time, before even my limbs had followed developed.  I think I still had a part human nose, yet was able to pick up the faintest scents and hear tiny, distance sounds.  Eyesight is not as good though.

I spend about 90 minutes in morph, trotting off to the outskirts of the neighbourhood, and then then breaking into a run for a good few miles along an old railway track.  Let's just say that if you feel tired at 6am, doing a good run as a German Shepherd really wakes you up!  The sun was just coming up and it was a really nice, crisp morning - not that the dog cared, that part of the brain just wanted to take a sneak at every bit of old food, creature, rubbish or person it could smell!  Whoohoo, they love to have fun!

Got back home, rather exhausted, and did a lazy demorph before getting my gear together to cycle to work.  Not a bad start, although I think I could have done with some more sleep!  Got another club session tonight, this time a water session at the animal shelter, so might have the chance to do a duck or fish.

Summer is over - final Horse session of the year

My morphing club, MorphHerts, organise plenty of training and fun sessions for it's members every week.  Wednesday night during summer is Horse morph night, and it's one of my favorites, although quite tough as it has a reputation of being quite competitive!  The horse is one of my favorite morphs, a beautiful chestnut polo pony I acquired in just before Christmas in 2005.  Like many new morphers I acquired it fairly on, once I'd got used to the animal's mind being part of my own.  Horse's brains are quite skittish, and if you don't control it then it's easy to became very worried and paranoid whilst in morph if you're not very experienced.  We all had to spend a month or so practicing easier morphs such as dogs before we were allowed to acquire a horse.  But once you become one, it's awesome!  The speed, the power, and sheer muscle is an incredible feeling.  Perfect for when all you need is a good hard gallop to escape from everyday essay writing or sitting in an office for hours.

So last night three of us met up on the outskirts of town, near to the countryside.  Only three of us that night - it's the end of August so I guess people are still on holiday.  I rode my bike there, it's a couple of miles away so good for the extra exercise, and besides cycling clothes (bar trainers - they never cracked shoes!) are very easy to morph.

Wednesday nights started off as casual evening canters around the local countryside, about an hour or so, for anyone who could get away from work in time and needed to let off some steam.  It doesn't need to be a horse - we have a few people morph deer and antelopes too - just a large, fast animal that can keep up with a herd.  We prefer no large carnivores though, as there may be new morphers around whose instincts may come on too strong which can present risks to the rest of the group.

Now, they are a bit more planned and competitive, especially when it's most guys.  They love to race!  There's now a set route that you can follow of 10 miles, and the idea is that you morph as fast as you can, gallop the circuit, and demorph when you return.  It's basically a race against the clock and your friends, and calls for quick morph skills, good control of the animal's instincts fitness and stamina!

I had a reasonably good morph last night.  Not one of my fastest, but it was fun.  I did a really quick demorph, which is usually as that’s when I’m usually knackered, but it took just two minutes which is a good goal to aim for.  I didn’t bother about trying to make it look pretty, so there was a really odd moment where my head, hands and feet were still fully horse, but the rest of my body was human.  I’d already stood up as normal but the weight of my hooves and massive head made me fall forward onto all fours again, oops!  But over all it was a nice evening for a gallop, even though the other two guys stormed off ahead.  Totally in their own world.  You pick up a lot more of the world as an animal, and whilst as human I’d appreciated the low sun and cloudless late summer sky, the horse part of me was far more interested in the smells of the local farms.  It was especially interested in the smell of manure that seemed to be everywhere, yuck!  But it wasn’t too keen on the sound of the cars – there’s a motorway bridge we usually pass over, and it’s noisy and unnatural and as an animal it’s scary.  Made me think how many cars there are on the road and how great it is to just morph a horse and run at 30 miles an hour without polluting the environment.

In the end I was in morph for just under an hour, so no need to worry about the two hour time limit.  I was so tempted to canter home, but I had my bike and needed to get some proper human fitness training in (fitter bodies means faster morphs!).  It was a bit sad, but that was the last horse session of the year.  Autumn will be here very soon, and not many people want to go out morphing in the cold, wet, dark evenings (costs more insurance wise too), although a few who have acquired reindeer or wolves sometimes carry on.  From now on we'll be doing farm or zoo sessions on Wednesdays and getting coaching from expert morphers to perfect our morphing/demorphing skills.  I'll still use my horse morph to do a few long gallops over the weekends though, as there's nothing like being out in the mountains in the snow on a cold, crisp Saturday morning going for miles and miles. 

Below - morphing my horse 

Welcome to the world of Morphing

It's always exciting, but also a bit daunting, starting a new blog!  A blank canvas - where to start?!  I've got one already, following my training for the Berlin Marathon, but this is something very different.  For a start, it's almost entirely fictional!  It's based on the Animorphs books series by KAA Applegate that I used to love as a teenager, and whilst at Uni I wrote a few fan fiction stories about it.  I also kept quite a popular fan art gallery on Deviant Art.  But that was all "back in the day" and as time went by, new hobbies, working full time and way too many social media sites to keep track of (Facebook, Twitter, email, various forums and club message boards etc etc) I did drift away from Animorphs and the fan world.

I'll say it now, if Animorphs doesn't mean much to you, my blog may not mean much either!  But if you were/are still a fan, hope you'll find this fun!

I miss the days, feels very odd to think I was about 12 when the books came out, and every month I'd spend my pocket money (and later part time job money) on the latest release.  I was a huge Harry Potter fan too, but Animorphs was always my favourite.  Reminiscing, the books reflected teenage life in the 1990s, and many of us feel like we grew up along side Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias and Ax.  I recently re-read #16, The Warning, where the Animorphs come across a chat room talking about the Yeerks, and laughed at how basic the internet site was shown to be.  Do we even have chat rooms like that nowadays - or are mostly shut down to keep online predators away from younger children?!  And no mobile phones either... wow, we actually went out and did stuff.  I'm sure if Animorphs was set nowadays they'd try to fight the Yeerks by sending tweets and creating Facebook pages!

So, this will be my only "genuine" post of this blog.  From now on it will all be fictional (although this isn't an anonymous blog so my name and home town will still be mentioned).  The blog takes place in the present day, a decade after the Animorphs won the fight.  Morphing is now a sport, and there are many of us who train and compete in it.  In my blog I am a morpher, who gained the ability whilst at University 10 years ago and am now an Estreen - someone who creates art and dance out of morphing.  My morphing journeys will reflect my real-life marathon and triathlon training (long runs and cycle rides become mornings spent flying as birds, and swimming sessions become playing as dolphins in the sea), and I'll be sharing many of my old fan art once more!  Enjoy!

Below - a white tiger morph from August 2007