Buzzy Learns That It's Okay to Freak Out

Dear Wal,

I've decided that a good way to motivate myself to get more involved with my horse is to post my weekly assignment from my fantastic natural horsemanship instructor, Lynn Brown of Transitions. She's been guiding me and Buzzy for almost three years now (gosh, has it been that long?) through this long and interesting journey of ours. Buzzy and I are still overcoming our collective fears, after all this time. But in different ways. This week, our homework was to basically run around like an idiot and freak out, because sometimes you just need to freak out.

What's going on inside Buzzy's head

I took off Buzzy's halter and let him out, loose, in the vast, distracting space of the arena. He had every opportunity to just lose his mind. However, he isn't the kind of horse that does that easily. He gets stuck, and then his feet stop moving, and very soon after that his mind stops working and he goes into what Lynn likes to call his scary place, where everything is terrifying. It takes a very long time, usually, for him to return to Earth. That is, if we let him stand still.
Not this time, Buzzy, not this time.
No, this time Lynn decided it was time to practice a little shock and awe to totally shake up Buzzy's scary place. And shake it up we did. The first thing Lynn tells me to do as soon as I step into the arena is to just chase Buzzy, full speed. I looked at her like she was crazy. And then I went after Buzzy, somewhat half-heartedly, and even my tentative effort sent him off like a rocket.His bubble (and when I say bubble, I mean his personal space. Horses have it too.) is about the size of the planet Mars. From forty feet away, I can give him directions and have him respond, and from ten feet further away after that he's still connected to me. That's sixty feet. That should tell you how sensitive Buzzy is.
So then Buzzy and I start playing circle game, offline and with the-as I said before-vast, distracting space of the arena. He's remarkably connected to me, but he still occasionally takes off like an idiot. You know what I did? I went after him. I made the undesirable thing, running away, very uncomfortable. As soon as he took off, I charged him, sending him galloping around the arena in a wild frenzy. It didn't take him long to snap back around and focus on me again. And, eventually, there was less flight and more thought, which was the point of the whole exercise. If I kept his feet moving, then his mind would have to follow along and actually function, otherwise the feet would get tangled up and confused. This sounds like an easy thing to do, considering the behavior I just described, but it's not easy at all. Buzzy operates in stops and starts. One moment, he's galloping top speed, and the next, he's stuck again.
Once we had the flight out of him (mostly) then I had to get him to move out like he needed to, consistently. That was hard. But that wasn't the point.
The point of this lesson, was for Buzzy to learn that it's okay to freak out. In fact, that freaking out can be a very character and confidence building experience. Something we can both take to heart.

/endrant

P.S. I HAVE RAINBOW DRUMSTICKS. O: