This weekend it was my turn.
I can be a great worrier and often about things that are not my concern. Even now I feel embarrassed for asking the visiting head of the secondary school we were going to go to if the boys needed to wear black or blue trousers! Well nobody else was asking any questions and I thought it was rude not to ask something. It was the only thing that came to mind. He very unkindly made me look even more stupid than I felt the second the question left my lips :(
At shows there is so many things to worry about as we discover in the seminars.
Two major ones for me are inappropriate queues - not keeping to rough numbers then not letting people join because the queues are too long and missing a class. The latter can be a because you have been back and forth several times and not been able to join the queue and then don't hear the final call as happened to Mark on Saturday.
Rhyme's name is Devongem Dante - Dante is the poet that wrote
We started the day will Rhyme running off to chase a ball with the people with 2 collies using a chukka in the small exercise area. He has a higher chase drive than recall skills. Another thing I had thought I conquered last year. Something else to have fun practicing more of.
After lunch I checked with the G4-5 jumping class and was told yes, if I got my dog I could join the queue. No mention they were near the near of the class. I explained I didn't have my dog and would go to get him. His running order was earlier in the agility so I thought I should run him in there first. I went to get him and whilst warming him up the the exercise area I heard an announcement saying that if you were in the agility queue to let the ring party know and they would get the jumping ring to hold the class for you. I had not heard a call out for dogs or the end of the class. One of my worst nightmares.
I could not rush with Rhyme as further excitement would make him uncontrollable so I had to keep calm and accept that if we didn't get to the far ring where the jumping was in time we would miss our run. That was a big mental challenge for me.
The good news was that we made it and not out of control either. The bad news was that although I had not been ticked off the running order somebody had run on my ticket :(
I am sure I would not be alone in being nearly hysterical about that usually. This is where the mental skills training really came into it's own and it happened nearly on autopilot. Instead of being emotional I accepted that things can go wrong, the ring manager was great and calmly they found the initial ticket and wrote out a correct one for me. The other person had had time faults and I defended myself in case they thought I was cheating (that is an even worse nightmare) by saying "If you've seen my dog you would now he is capable of various things, time faults not being one of them" LOL The ring manger said yes he had seen my dog and agreed.
During all this Rhyme had been near the beginning of the queue seeing dog after dog go past him to the start and being released to run without me being able to distract him. I did mentioned the chase drive earlier.
Last time I had run in this ring at Ribble I was distracted after having won the G4 Agility and done a lovely controlled agility clear in the other class and thinking this agility lark is easy. The resulted was a disaster of a round.
I had words with myself that I would not on any account have the same experience this time and in spite of everything Rhyme switched straight into work mode on the start line. Heaven part again :)
I walked to my start point and concentrated and focussed just on the run, just on getting him round the correct course, just on giving him good well timed commands, just negotiate the last few obstacles and we went clear.
Overwhelming success on my mental skills ability.
The RM cheekily confirmed I was clear 10 seconds quicker than my last run!
I was still so focussed that I then went and joined the agility queue without checking his result on the score sheet etc and it wasn't until later that I heard our name being called and found out we had actually WON.
It is amazing that it was Rhyme's first grade 5 show and he won a grade 5 jumping. It was even more amazing the way my mind was so able to park all the issues.
I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to all the course participants as along with your learning I have created the correct pathways to help my own performance. Not so much leading by example more, come on guys this stuff does work and if I can do it so can you :)
We already have confidence of the power of our minds and how our courses help. This performance only adds strength to it.
It does require practice and we can all come across failure (those on the Inner Agility group will know of mine around setting goals LOL) so keep on working at it.
We are happy to catch up at shows or email or even on the Inner Agility Facebook group if you have been on a seminar.
We are already taking bookings now for next Autumn/Winter seminars so please contact us if you are interested or if you want a follow up with a group that came this time.
