But as an introduction to trialling for Ivy, I don't think she could have had any more fun than she did, plus I have learnt more this year than any other year, mainly due to having lots more questions and needing to find lots more answers- many of which I am still looking for.
Anyway, here are some of the things I learnt in 2011.
1. Video editing.
Up until last year, my video analysis went something like this : record it, watch it, be very down on myself at how crap I thought I handled a particular sequence, save it, never watch it again. The fact that this was 'Pre-Flip' and my old video camera recorded to those little tapes and is a pain in the butt to download into the computer may have had something to do with it, but I can't believe I wasted such a great training tool all these years. And is why I am now rabbiting on about my very mediocre video editing skills that most likely make everyone else roll their eyes and think BIG DEAL ! Because it has been a big deal for me.
I enrolled in a few online courses last year - in particular to work on my mental management skills so that I could stop doing things like being down on myself because I thought I handled a particular sequence like crap. I started with Daisy Peel's 'Mental Management', then moved on to John Cullen's 'The Winning Process'. More on those shortly, as I am trying to stay on task with the video editing, LOL.
Anyway, one of the things I learnt in Daisy's course was how to slow down a clip to half speed, and how to split a clip to get rid of the parts you don't want. Pretty basic stuff, but not something I have ever thought of doing before so have never bothered to find out how. Then on John's course, he talked about making a video montage from your trials to motivate you when you watched it and after a couple of other people shared examples of theirs, I decided to have a go with some of the footage that I have from our first few months of trialling as a record of our first (partial) year in the trial ring. So this is the result.
Even though we have a long way to go, it does make me smile to watch this and see just how much she really enjoys running agility. Especially as the number one prerequisite in an agility partner for me is one who enjoys running as much as I do, if not more. Oh, and to see my new found video editing skills too of course, LOL.
Plus I can watch this back and still see places where my handling was not quite spot on (at times I can almost hear my old ballet teacher yelling 'look at those feet' ) - but it doesn't bother me any more, I no longer feel that I am 'crap' and merely see it as information I can now use to improve. So the next thing I have learnt is :
2. Making handling errors is OK and you are not useless just because you do.
Not feeling as emotionally involved when I watch myself run any more - sure there are still some occasions when I handle sequences like crap, but this doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as it used to - thank you Daisy and John !
3. Goal Setting
Another really useful thing I learnt from both courses. Especially now that I am using it not so much as goal setting to achieve particular things, but to develop my training focus around it as well. In the past I have been pretty much a 'putting out fires' type of trainer where I mainly focussed on what I stuffed up at trials. No more. This doesn't mean I don't give that any attention, but it's not my main training focus. And my computer skills are improving as I can now make pretty spreadsheets and tables and stuff - is there a theme developing here?
4. Help is only a 'Paypal' payment away !
2011 has certainly been the year of online agility related courses ..... which can get pretty expensive and can also make a bit of an online junkie out of you and which my bank account says I will be much more conservative and discerning about what I sign up for this year. But for someone who lives in the great agility wasteland of my state - nowhere near the 'fashionable' clubs where all the up to date agility training takes place - these courses have been like letting loose in a candy store. You want help with training, handling, mental skills and have no one to help you in real life ? Never fear, just give us vast quantities of your money and we will help you. Praise the Lord ...... Agility Salvation !
My favourites courses (so far, LOL) for 2011 :
*Daisy Peel and John Cullen - I am listing these as a 'package'. Daisy's course was a lot simpler to understand and gave me the basics, not to mention really got me motivated, so money well spent. (Plus I like Daisy a lot from her 'conversations' and respect her as a trainer, even though she doesn't worship at the temple of GD like I do but is a LM follower... religion doesn't matter to me !) John's course is in a lot more detail and is an excellent follow on to Daisy's as it expands on a lot of the concepts that she introduced so if you want to get into it in more detail, then you can. Also very professional in the way that he presents his information and very generous in what he shares. Big thumbs up from me !
*Greg and Laura Derrett - Ultimate Handling
I wasn't going to sign up for this one initially due to the cost, but boy am I glad I did ! Freaking brilliant - and well worth the money. Really smart sequences that allow you to get to position early enough to get it right from the beginning. (Well, almost right anyway ) Thumbs up and fingers up too ( in a nice way of course)
*Susan Garrett - Puppy Peaks
Apart from the monthly payment option, the thing I have enjoyed most about this is watching Susan deal with 'issues' (or at least potential issues because she is savvy enough to nip them in the bud long before the rest of us even realise they are turning into issues) that arise along the way and to see that she doesn't necessarily start with a 'perfect' puppy and that she also makes errors sometimes and is not 'perfect' either.
Plus apart from getting an awesome 'blueprint' to train a puppy (must not be tempted!) you can really learn a lot from Susan about good training mechanics ..... being prepared, not wasting time, rewarding in the right place from the right hand, etc. Downside is that it makes you wish you had a puppy to start doing all these amazing things with all over again (must not be tempted !)
5. 'Issues' are not problems and are just training opportunities.
We survived the start line issue and the no longer waiting for release on contacts issue. I blew several runs dealing with these things- a number of which would have been clear if I had let the behaviours go, but it was well worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
The current issue is whether or not the 'just one bar' runs (of which there are numerous) is actually an issue or not. That sounds confusing even to me and I wrote it !
The last couple of trials for the year I didn't enter agility, as we finished our AD and I didn't want to start trialling with a full height seesaw (which she can do but I haven't proofed to what I would consider trial standard) when we are changing to the ridiculous 'weesaw' from this year. Let's not even bother with what I think of that rule change ! So we entered Open Jumping for the first few times instead. Ivy is mad for running agility but she is even crazier for jumping and I think the agility runs are actually a bit settling for her when they are mixed in with the jumping runs. I learnt that entering only jumping runs is like crack to an addict and when you team those with a ridiculous amount of big, open flowing courses that are designed to test very little except how fast you can run and how many bars your dog can keep up while you are running like a madwoman, well..........
The results were : 3 Excellent Jumping runs on 'Yeeee- haaaar' courses with just one bar down on each one. (2 were totally my fault and the other I'm not sure) Another Excellent Jumping run with one bar down on a very technical course - not sure why the bar came down. Two Open Jumping runs on yet more 'Yeeeee- haaaar' courses with one bar down each time - one my fault and the other caused by her catching her foot on the distance tape. I knew something NQR had happened on that run, but until I saw the video afterwards wasn't sure what.
Plus one 2nd place NQ in Novice Gamblers where she ran the opening like a dream but unfortunately it was the gamble from hell (that was set up identically for Masters, with just the tape moved further away) and only one Novice dog actually managed to do it, which was pretty impressive actually.
I'm trying not to stress about the bars a great deal. Ivy gets very excited on 'Yeeee- haaaaar' courses and the more excited she gets, the earlier she tends to take off. She is a big jumper (as in distance), puts minimal strides between jumps and there are definitely going to be 'bad bar days' every now and then. I can accept that.
I love the way she is so confident running agility and I definitely don't want to do anything to change that so I will continue to try very hard not to react when the bars come down. I believe there are some bars that will come down that I can't do anything about, but I also think that quite a few that she dropped over the last couple of trials were my fault (head check often equals bar down) so I am certainly going to try and do something about that this year.
The hardest thing about this 'issue or not issue, still not sure what category to put it in' is that I am so not used to running a dog that pulls bars. I could count the number of bars my kelpies have dropped in their entire trialling career on one hand - so this is a totally new experience for me.
Hence the reason that I can't decide whether I should worry about it or not and something else I need to learn.
For the moment I am taking the attitude that if it doesn't particularly worry Ivy then it doesn't particularly worrry me........... and for every bar that came down in the last couple of trials, there were around 16 or so that stayed up!
6. I think I totally hate 'Yeeeee-haaaaar' courses.
(Just wait, once we do finally hit Masters Jumping I will most likely be complaining about how tight and twisty the courses are, LOL)
