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
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