Here's my friend Ashley. You might also know him as Ashley Deacon, big agility world champ gold medal winner. He's teaching Susan about Decel in this picture in a seminar in San Francisco. Inside a building. This fact alone was a trip-agility inside a building! I know that's how some of you always do agility, but this was a first for us. The floor was made of lovely blue mats that were like running on spongey clouds. Many walls everywhere. It was a little weird to be indoors with no grass or trees, but we had a great time and turns out, dogs love doing agility in buildings as much as outside.
The whole thing was very high tech. Does everybody in agility everywhere have iThings crawling around everywhere now? iStuff were everywhere. My friend iPad took notes for me and videos. This photo is not me though, in case you thought that was my new hair.
Actual note taken in iPad. I have lots and lots of these with little drawings of stick people standing quietly and not running.
My videos are hysterically funny to watch, in a dog agility geek way, since you can see and hear Ashley patiently explain to me where I should be running to and why, and I'm all nodding my head and, "Right!" and then do it wrong.
Over and over again. I guess I am unteachable. But now have endlessly more ways to entertain myself with my iPad.
Ashley did have us deceling in the right place by the end of it all, though. So not totally. I just need multiple do-overs. Who knew just looking slow for a minute was so complicated? I always have thought decel means run fast to get somewhere and stop, or slow down. It sort of does, but there is a bit more precision involved in selecting where you need to do this. The when and where are more key than the slow.
Agility is hard.
Something to keep working on. No matter, Gustavo ran great. Otterpop ran just a little and she ran great too. I guess they like indoor agility. Doing the decels in the wrong places most of the time just meant lots and lots of agility, the dogs liked this part. So we all had a great time, and Gustavo's wide turns should be gone sometime in the year 2021 at this rate.
Ashley will be teaching seminars like this in San Francisco every few weeks until the big AKC Nationals in Reno trying to tune everybody up. Or just anybody that wants tuning up, AKC Nationals or not. He could teach a seminar near you, too, just ask him! You will have very much fun and I know he'll help you as much as he helped me.
1 comment:
OMG look at all those people I know in the seminar! I am going to be SO behind now in getting my decel in the right place! I am so embarrassed that I missed that this was The Place To Be! But I think that being told by certain other trainers for 16 years that I'm doing it wrong is probably enough for me. Maybe I would get it right if one more person told me. I suppose I'll have to find out someday.
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