This weekend I
attended 3 seminars (2 half day, and one full day) with Jessica Martin,
hosted by The Summit. I was excited to attend mostly because her
handling style truly embodies Greg Derrett’s handling system (I think
it’s weird that we refer to handling system by the name of their
“founder”, the should be called something cooler and less pretentious).
From what I have seen in our local level of completion, everyone seems
to mix up a few handling systems, an “All Canadian” if you please, and
it confuses the heck out of me. I hate ambiguity – so do my dogs.
My
point, and I always have one – it was nice to get some advice from an
instructor who truly believes in their system, follows it religiously,
and has results that speak for themselves.
Saturday
AM seminar was “Body Cues, Footwork and Synchronization”. In an
nut-shell it was about being your most agile, so that you can
communicate clearly with your dog. The theory is (I guess it isn’t a
theory, but more like proven fact) that the more clearly you communicate
(the more accurately you use your body) your directions to your dog
through acceleration, deceleration and accurately timed turns, the more
confident and faster your dog will be.
In
the group classes I had taken last year we defiantly touched on
acceleration and deceleration, but I realized that I never really got
how truly fundamental it was as a body cue. Let me say, it works and it
is absolutely a necessity for any agility handler. Used correctly, you
can get more accurate and tighter turns which are truly key to
preventing an off-course and keeping course times down. The footwork
portion was truly an “Ah-ha” moment for me (thanks Oprah) because I
always thought to myself “My dogs are not following my arm cues!”. This
was always so frustrating and then Jessica pointed out that 1) Our arms
are a distraction – you don’t want your dog looking up at your flailing
arm when they would be looking at their next obstacle and 2) my dogs are
both under 16”, they can’t see my arms up close anyways (hence, why
they don’t follow my arm changes) but they can see my FEET!!! Duh – oh
wait, Ah-ha!! I am defiantly going to be paying way more attention to my
foot position then my arms from now on.
Saturday
PM seminar was about “Crosses and Arm Changes” – which was really just
the practical application of everything from the AM. Positioning
yourself at the optimal position to cue every turn imaginable.
In
the morning Jessica emphasised how important foot position was and how
distracting arms can be. However, in this seminar we learned how and
when to effectively use our arms to cue turns!
Sunday’s
daylong seminar was all about “Masters Handling Challenges with
Efficiency” and making the best course choice for your dog – all while
applying the theories of the previous day in to super-fast, but very
technical international courses.
I
opted for a working spot in this seminar because it is not secret that
Travis and I need to get more speedy on technical courses. I’ll admit,
knowing that some more “well know” handler/instructors were also working
with their amazing dogs really pushed me to step out of my comfort
zone. I did things (and so did Travis) that we have never even attempted
before…but we sure will again! While overall his course “times” were
not much faster than normal, I was sure able to shave a second or two
off some technical jumping sequences with the handling that Jessica
suggested…and sometimes seconds is all you need!
I
don’t think Travis will ever be a very motivates agility competitor.
This doesn’t mean that I won’t keep trying to get him to be faster, it’s
just that for now, he’s enjoying the ride instead of focusing on just
the destination.
Hey cool to know she's going back, maybe I'll take Keltic to a seminar by then, if one of the seminars designed for younger dogs. If not, maybe I'll do a full day one with Beckett.
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