First "real" class. THIS is what I was looking for!

[wildo]

Last week was the end of my first 8 week Beginner II class. At the end of the class, my instructor pulled me aside and told me that she was advancing me to the "real" Beginner II class held on a different day. Yeah- I know that's pretty weird, but I've kinda stopped caring about the name of the class. Every class has had us doing more and more advanced stuff than the last class, so I guess I have no complaints.

Anyhow- so today was my first class in the real Beginner II, and let me just say: THIS is what agility should be like! I was the only person to advance, so I don't feel arrogant saying that we were the best in the previous class. Now, we are most certainly the worst in class! HAHA! I am the newbie and all the other people are repeaters. They are all so much better than me, and so - very - fast!

It was so awesome to be challenged. We did a 16 sequence jumpers course with my first serpentine. Man was that hard. The start jump actually faced away from the second jump- so that was very difficult. Just an overall tough course! But we made it through quite sloppily, just happy to make it.

We then moved to the standard course at 19 obstacles. Lots of tricky stuff here- man... way to much to really describe. Just an overall difficult course. But all my classmates got through it pretty well, and we were able to just make it. I still have a ton of work to do on weaves (we're only to 4 poles, with an offset on each) and the course had a full 12 pole set. We also need to start getting real about contacts.

Even so- all my classmates said they were impressed and felt we would fit well in the class. So encouraging!

Oh yeah- lastly- there's a couple Border Collies in the class. It's sick. So very sick. I watched them run, looked down at Pimg (who almost as if she had the same thought- looked up at me) and I told her: "Wow- you're slow." haha!

Here's our courses for today. Obviously not to scale, but I am confident I got the angles all correct and distances relative.

Standard:


Jumpers:

[Whiteshepherds]

Originally Posted by wildo

Oh yeah- lastly- there's a couple Border Collies in the class. It's sick. So very sick. I watched them run, looked down at Pimg (who almost as if she had the same thought- looked up at me) and I told her: "Wow- you're slow." haha!

LOL, poor Pimg.
Sounds like you had a great time!

[wildo]

Oh yeah- it was a very fun class. I kept thinking to myself- "Wow, this is NOT easy. And I love it!" There's so much to learn. Tonight I realized that agility practitioners are masters at quickly processing stimuli. I told me instructor tonight that I think my mind goes totally blank while I am sprinting to keep up with my dog. I think I will front cross here, rear cross there, and in the end I kinda just stumble on through... LOL!

[MaggieRoseLee]

WOW, those courses look really hard to me..... glad you got thru them.

The BIG problem I ran into when I started agility (and all my classmates) is that we started to focus way more on 'doing a course right' and getting the dog thru successfully.

No longer WATCHING THE DOGS AND THEIR SPEED/ATTITUDE! Because when a course gets harder and 'twisty' it seems we start yelling more, getting more confused, calling our dogs OFF and away from what they were headed for, being way more aware of where WE have to go (and not where the dog is).

Frankly, when we start doing the above, it starts slowing our confused dogs down (why is Mom always YELLING at me now???) which makes is SEEM like we are now doing WAY better! Look, now we are clean, now my dog is with me, now we get thru all the obstacles. At the same time our dogs suddenly are thinking everything they are running to is wrong wrong wrong (bad dog bad dog bad dog!)

But what I was also doing was UNmotivating my dog and sucking all the fun out of agility. What she used to love to tear thru cause we were having so much fun, became something she'd rather trot thru cause that assured success, mom wasn't constantly in the way, and no more yelling! So THIS is what agility must be for all time in the future!

So I know NOW that it's all about breaking MY skills down to control my dogs at speed. And if I have to break down a course of 18 obstacles to mini-type courses in my mind so it FORCES me to stop and REWARD REWARD REWARD REWARD and keeps my dog at speed.

Funny cause I actually prefer class now when it's made up of short sequences that make me learn the handler stuff and look forward to those. But that's me!

Good luck and keep having fun!

[JakodaCD OA]

I guess all places have different ideas on what to 'call' their classes..Those courses look more intermediate/advanced to me vs calling it Beg 2

I agree with MRL, I like to do more sequencing vs running full courses in the beginning, time to work on contacts, crosses, not only the dogs skills but MY skills.

If you can get a hold of any Greg Derrett DVD's, they are a great learning tool as well. I like his approach to things..

Glad you are liking your new class tho! Have fun (and heck those borders look fast and are fast, but they can demolish a course just as a fast

[wildo]

Wow- that's not really the responses I thought this thread would elicit. I'm not sure it's fair to judge the class based on the class name. Yeah- the courses were REALLY hard, but only one person in the eight person class (ME!) struggled to get through it, and I'm the new guy. So that alone should be enough to gauge the level of the class, regardless of the name of the class.

MRL- I am confused by your post. You said:

Originally Posted by MaggieRoseLee

Because when a course gets harder and 'twisty' it seems we start yelling more, ... being way more aware of where WE have to go (and not where the dog is).

Frankly, when we start doing the above, it starts slowing our confused dogs down

So I know NOW that it's all about breaking MY skills down to control my dogs at speed.

Did you not just contradict yourself? What I liked about the longer course is that we got to walk it, think for ourselves, try it out how we thought, and then learn about how to do it better. Of course the instructor didn't just tell us to go do the course and then class was over... Of course we broke down each step, learned new methods, and tried it over and over.

For me, it's nice to have things broken down- but when they are broken down to the point where they lose scope with the big picture, then they are no longer helpful. I very much enjoyed the opportunity to think for myself, inevitably fail from lack of experience, and then learn the new/better ways to handle the course. For me, this was the optimal way to learn.

[JakodaCD OA]

Willy I wasn't putting down what they called the class, not my intention at all. Those are the types of course I would "like" in a class, challenging and make you think.

[wildo]

No worries Diane. It can be really tough to decipher tone via written communication. I was just surprised a bit by the responses- mostly by MRL's. I respect her opinion, but am confused by her response. I'm sure she wasn't intending to contradict herself, and I am hoping she can provide some clarity.

In rereading her response, I still think there is a contradiction there- but I also see that I misread it. I think she was saying that she breaks the course down in her head so that she can focus on sections. I took this to mean that she disliked working long sequences in class and that doing so was a bad way to learn. I think I just mistook her.

I think you've recommended the Greg Derrett DVDs to me in the past. I've checked out one "foundations of agility" (a Moe Strenfel one- this one). It was helpful, but I haven't yet implemented everything in there. There's so much to work on initially, it's hard to focus on one thing. I probably should consider doing more foundation work though!

One thing my instructor told me on our first run (the Jumpers course) is that Pimg looked great, but *I* made a ton of mistakes. For this reason, I was also considering getting a handler skills DVD like this. But still- maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get the Greg Derrett foundations video.

[EDIT]- Opps, I guess that Linda Mecklenburg one is a book. But Greg Derrett does have a handler oriented DVD.

[JakodaCD OA]

willy it is always US the handlers that mess up the dogs, usually the dogs know exactly what to do, but until we get "our" act together, we definately can confuse our dogs)

Foundations is a good place to start as well.

I tend to break down courses in my head as well (when walking one)..I always found it easier in the end, to remember the WHOLE course if I broke it down into sections.

I always liked to run a course as straighforward as possible. When I started agility , many moons ago, it was in it's infancy, the courses were pretty straightforward as well, you'd see alot of say novice courses, that were set up so that the handler NEVER did back crosses, Reverse flow pivots, front crosses, blind crosses )

As agility progressed, the courses became more difficult/challenging, and we would 'have' to adapt to all those "moves" they've thrown in. Sometimes people forget those "moves" can help you or kill you

Tho I rarely compete anymore, I still try to break down my full courses, walk them the way I "think" will make that course easiest for my dog vs myself. I think alot of competitors over analyze their courses, but that's just me.

The reason why I like Greg Derrett's stuff is he tries to show how "easy" it can really be for both dog and handler. I LOVE his "box" stuff..I took a seminar on it once and it was great...he basically sets up 4 jumps in a 'box' shape,,there are sooo many different things/moves you can do with just those 4 jumps..

alright I'm done rambling)

[MaggieRoseLee]

Originally Posted by wildo

MRL- I am confused by your post. You said:

Sorry if I confused you... it's hard to write what I'm thinking sometimes. And it's just my experience from my classes and my dogs.... (and my classmates).

When we do shorter sequences it much easier to reward the dog, praise the dog, make the dog know things are going well, and fit the handling in without affecting the dog. And they learn all the foundation skills (and I learn them ) at speed with the JOY of agility included.

When I get into more confusing courses (for me) I STOP being quite as aware of my dog cause I'm all involved with being late/early/wrong place... watching my dog tear over to the wrong thing (usually with me screaming her name). When I'm late with commands my dog jars into her turns. When I'm in her way, she's having to avoid crashing into me.

All of those issues in the 'bold' are things I have to avoid with my greener dogs for the first few years. And ALL of that is what comes up when we start more complex courses. Doing that stuff will end up with an EXTREMELY accurate dog that I'll always run a clean course with. When I started with my first dog, this is what I got, I thought my dog was brilliant and we initially did VERY well in both classes and trials.

But

But

What it turned out I accidentally was teaching my dog is that agility really isn't so fun anymore and they better slow down. Because 'suddenly' there are course changes. 'suddenly' mom is in the way. 'suddenly' she is screaming at me.

But when my dog ran slow............there was no yelling no abrupt sudden changes no problems at all! Nice flowing SLOW courses that were absolutely perfect. Well, almost perfect. Cause we didn't make time anymore.

So it's just something to be aware of that happens to many of us when we start up with our first dogs. Not all of us. But if you are aware of it, then you can make sure to remember that the MOST important thing is your dogs attitude, joy and willingness to 'whats next whats next whats next' when you are out there. Your goal should NOT be primarily to do an entire course clean.

And if you DO have that attitude with your dog, then it doesn't matter how tight/twisty/confusing the course is...........you'll both do fine.