You know those ‘not-so-good’ training days? The ones that just fall apart. The ones that make you take a step back, humble yourself, and hopefully make you think really hard about what is happening training-wise? Are you moving too fast? Is it just one of those days that you’re off sync? Are you actually doing what you think you are doing (like collecting yourself, turning on time)? I have these days probably at least once a month. Now, I am super picky and analytical about each training session and some “not-so-good” days are actually quite average and just fine. But I hate ‘just fine’ I want awesome all the time! Greedy, I know. Recording my training just makes me even more analytical, but I get to see things from a different perspective an- wow-do I miss things!
Now, I have different degrees of not-so-good days and bad days. Sometimes everything goes really well except for something little like a collection before a jump, and I find myself obsessing about the collection. I start thinking the dog is just losing their sensitivity to my foot work so I start making him circle the upright again on every try just to enforce the collection. Then I walk inside with my camera, start watching my sequences and then boom- guess who wasn’t actually slowing down- ME! I want to blame my new ankle for it- you know we don’t really know each other very well yet. That thing is like some one else’s foot (part of it is). But really, if I don’t shorten my strides, why would my dog? Reflection- so important!
Anyways, I digress, what I mean to focus on are the days that happen after those ‘not-so-good’ days. I don’t know about you, but when I go out for the next training session, I feel like we are a whole new team. An even better team and I just love that feeling. It’s addicting to me. I love to see progression and to feel like more and more of a team. That’s the best part of training a new dog- getting to have so many opportunities for improvement and learning.
Just recently, I went out to train Epic on the dog walk (we’re working on a running dog walk contact). We had been at the current height for about 4-5 training sessions. All very successful and getting more consistent. I wanted to increase the height but something inside me (perhaps laziness) didn’t want to make that change yet. Oh man did that dog walk fall apart. 75% launching! Literally head up in the air bouncing himself over the contact. Immediately I wanted to digress huge strides- literally go back to running on carpet. For some reason I did nothing. I just ended the training session, reviewed the video (it was worse than I originally thought) and decided to try it again another day and then reassess from there. I’m so glad I did that- we went out the next day and had a 90% run through rate. Just crazy- perhaps epic felt a little frisky or he was just testing the waters- you have to know what is wrong in order to figure out what is right. So then today, I decided to raise the height. It’s starting to look more like a dog walk now and not a flat plank. Wow was it awesome! I’m starting to see small adjustments and variation of his stride. He was such a good enthusiastic boy! He went 8 out of 10 beautiful running contacts! One complete launch, other on the edge, and one dog walk where he was falling off, but still managed to make the effort to run through the yellow- such a little smartie. I’m just so impressed. All the time.
here it is at 50% speed:
It’s so much fun getting back into this Agility thing. I love the training, growth, and constant learning. I’m really beginning to appreciate these not-so-good days. They make the good and awesome days so much better. When things go wrong, I’m not discouraged, I’m encouraged. To reflect, have patience, and stop asking for so much perfection. Take things little by little, putting the pieces together slowly and before you know it, all the pieces fit together like a puzzle – creating a beautiful masterpiece.
Lookout Agility 