Fast Track – Oliver’s bandaging to help the inner foal

Yes, “inner foal” is a pun around the human version ” the inner child”. 🙂

What happened first:

The video in this lesson was done about three years after Oliver arrived.  I was throwing a rug over him – both of us humming in happiness – when the clip on the belly strap touched the fence on the other side of me and made a rattling noise.  In the most shocking of tiniest split seconds he had knocked me to the ground and run right over the top of me.  Mannn… he hurt me.

The most shocking part was that he literally went from humming in happy connection with me to what I later realised was a PTSD response.   After I got over the shock and swearing – or maybe it was part of me getting over it – I sat with him to ask ” how the hell did that just happen?” and he showed me.

He showed me a vision of being carried by someone who was staggering under the weight of this giant foal, terrified of dropping him – maybe they did drop him because my vision was only a second or two and it was accompanied by a feeling of terror.

We knew from his previous owner that he’d had collapsed, bent over fetlocks as a foal and Oliver himself had shown us that the fetlock damage was caused by a difficult, assisted birth and being lifted to his feet when he was still “shocky”.  He’d already shown us that he’d been locked up in a stable with his stressed mother who’d never been in a stable before.  So this vision of someone staggering under the weight of this giant foal fitted with the circumstances.

The understanding that came with my vision was that he was IMPRINTED with terror which was layered underneath every other fear he ever had was causing an uncontrollable PTSD response whenever he got a sudden startled fright. 

So how the heck could we simulate and help him to release THAT?

Our version of TTeam bandaging was the answer that one of the Fast Track students came up with in a seminar – using the bandage to simulate the arms that were wrapped around him that night – moving forward with what we were doing when it felt good, stopping and waiting for him to process each step and signalling that he was ready for the next one by licking and chewing.

He was incredibly vulnerable and it was SUCH a privilege for a horse to have such confidence in us that he was prepared to expose and “ride the edge” of such a deep seated trauma. Because of our connection, our two way communication with the five ways of feeling Not Quite Right, Oliver himself was in control of what happened in this lesson.

The technique

You’ll hear me say on the video that techniques are a dime a dozen and that I believe it’s the Feel used in this video that is responsible for the resounding success – following the good feelings and using the Not Quite Rights for change.  Being Present, having a gentle awareness of what our bodies felt like in the moment enabled us to feel Oliver – to know what to do next, when to back off, when to stop and wait for him to process and then lick and chew.

Oliver had made breakthroughs into gentleness before, but this day he broke through into a whole new layer of deep, huggable teddy bear, with no signs since then (five years now? more?) of his old ability to run right over the top of us when he got a sudden fright.

This is 8 minutes of edited video in a session that was maybe 20 minutes in its entirety – and that includes standing around waiting for The Chew.

For those doing Straightness Training or some other classical dressage  ground work, keep your eye out for Steve’s brilliant Feel / pause / melt / wait that allows Oliver to either release or not add to resistance in his body.  Steve has done this so often with Oliver that the resistance’s are only small and melt off quite quickly now.  Earlier in his rehabilitation he needed us to stop and back off rather than a pause.

Any time we push through a horse’s “can’t” or “won’t”, we CREATE resistance in our horse and if that establishes a brain neural pathway, then it’s there, waiting to resist the human again in similar circumstances next time.  We used the valuable technique of meet, melt and wait during this process.

In the original meet and melt lesson, you can see quite a loop in the rope.  If you were watching me do it these days,  you would be lucky to see the rope move.  If you get the “melt” in exactly the right place, you can feel a very faint vibration, an energy in the rope that can facilitate enormous healing.  

If you’ve never felt that before and are interested,  just ask me on a Live Seminar  and I’ll talk you through to experience the Feel of it sitting at your computer.  It’s a great exercise that we’ve done many times and I’m happy to do it again for new people. 🙂

If the video is slow to load, click on “Youtube” in the bottom right hand corner and watch it in youtube.

 

 

The Lesson

The aim of this “task” was to simulate those arms that were wrapped around him in fear and anxiety when he was born and give him the opportunity to Release the deep fear and anxiety that was intensifying every fear that he felt since then into a PTSD response.

Pay attention to your safety, specially if you’re ever drawn to do this by yourself.  Some horses don’t do things around the hind end very well and you may need to do my version of the Friendly Game with a stick first to keep your self safe – maybe with something scratchy or something soft, tied to the end to create a pleasurable experience.   My version of the Friendly Game is with Feel and waiting for The Chew as per the Fast Track lesson about rubbing your horse all over. 🙂 

You’ll also want a rope around their butt in their Comfort Zone for additional safety.

The Keys to Success

1.   If you do this lesson with your own horse, then make sure you are Present, aware of your Inner Guidance system and not nervous.  It’s someone’s anxiety and fear that caused this issue that needed Releasing in the first place, so you have to feel REALLY good about each step and if you don’t – then simply don’t take that next step until you DO feel good and have clarity about what that step is.

2.   Each bandage was put on in baby steps and not tied on until there was a rightness about that.  We even walked him holding the hind end bandage in place, so that we could let it go in a hurry if we needed to.  Feel – following the good feelings and using any Not Quite Rights for change should avoid problems, but safety is also about safe habits that take the unexpected into consideration.  Here in Australia we call that Murphy’s Law – if you make plans for the unexpected, it doesn’t happen.

3.   Holding Space – being gently aware of what was going on inside MY body – for him was a big key, I can’t emphasize that enough.  We’re Holding Space for him while we wait for The Chew – which speeds things up from the way I used to do it in the old days which was “ho hum, this is like watching paint dry and what am I going to cook for dinner?”  Before I discovered Holding Space while we wait for The Chew, some waits for The Chew were an hour long and occasionally even more.  Being Present and Holding Space DRAMATICALLY reduces that time. 🙂

We’ll often talk about Holding Space in a live seminar – if it hasn’t happened yet, ask me in the next one and I’ll lead you through doing it effectively yourself.

4.  Part of Holding Space for him was FEELING the feelings with him as they came up in me – allowing them to flow.

5.   Appreciation of each feel good moment was a big key to success, as was soaking up every feel good moment – THAT is what creates new muscle memory REALLY fast and is the key behind Fast Track being a fast track.

Forum

Join in the commentary and ask any questions that you have on this lesson in the forum at this link. 🙂 

Bandaging by yourself?

Here’s a little exercise you could get good with, before bandaging by yourself.

If the video is slow to load, click on “Youtube” in the bottom right hand corner and watch it in youtube.