Webb Anderson Clinic and Lessons ...

Interesting weekend for me - boring as could be for my ever suffering hubby I'm sure .. Webb Anderson came to town to run a clinic and lessons. For the clinic we reviewed his general principles of PATH (P- performance management, A- analysis, T - training and H - handling). We spent most of our time in the analysis/handling quadrants - walked courses in many many different ways and broke down little sections with lots of thinking. I thought a LOT; my brain still aches. I must tie back my hair when I run agility. I must stand up when I run Brody.

I ran Brody 4 times and Sally 2. Overall I was pleased with both - Sally was in a little deep but coped well. Brody was quite happy to be back at it.

Some of the things that resonated with me most strongly on Saturday were the concept of walking from the dog's perspective FIRST - reminded me of my early agility days in fact .. I began to be able to think through handling options again too - it's time to get focussed on the big picture stuff again if I want to get serious about this sport.

For me with Brody I need to get quiet, get focussed and get my brain back together.
I didn't get a ton of feedback for Sally honestly and that's ok. Not sure my brain could have absorbed too much specific information. It was informative to put things together for her.

Today was lesson day - I shared a lesson with Sophie (Sally's sister) then split one between Brody and Thea. the first lesson we ran dogwalks, aframes, teeters, wove a bit and jumped one jump a few times. Worked a LOT on foundation skills - need to drag a touch plate back out and sharpen up the contact work. Learned (maybe) how to teach the aframe properly - finally!

I like the game of having two touch plates down and rewarding her for pinging back and forth. Looking forward to trying it :)

Brody played next - Webb set up a very nice course and let me walk it til I was comfortable .. Brody ran it beautifully and then I ran it again as if Brody was Sally - adding some front courses - it was fun. We talked at length about Brody and keeping him in agility. Webb suggests keeping Brody in the game partly to give me the patience to go slowly with Sally and Thea. Thinking of him as a transition dog as it were; Webb further suggested running 2/3 of courses with Brody as if it were one of the speedy dogs. Every 3rd run for Brody and I but 2 of 3 with additional crosses to control the flow. Makes sense to me.

Thea ran last - and I warned Webb that she just needed to play - so he set up a little nascar challenge - 2 jumps at the end of a long straight tunnel - I warned him she would outrace me - he was FINE with that - and man did she ever - I am a slow old chick! We did some ping ponging aroudn the jump and just blasting - was a HOOT. I need to start working on my fitness some. We then worked on a teeter. Neat way to start - right up at the top .. 7 days+ of that then repeat in a down for 7 days+ then repeat with movement for 7 days+ then run up from bottom and start all over ... it makes a LOT of sense to me - expect further reports ;)

I had a really wonderful weekend ... very inspiring and very motivating ... wrapping my head around the idea of getting back to it ...