Clean Run Magazine - June 2010 - 65

Action! Lights!

ideo! V

Using Video for Analyzing Your Agility Runs
By Kip Kirby

Ever have an agility run that’s almost perfect? Where everything goes right? Well, I had one of those moments recently. (You really should have been there: it was awesome.) Well, there were a couple of glitches—an unexpected start-line break and a dropped bar in a tricky pinwheel toward the end—but everything else was perfect. (That dropped bar was only from my dog’s enthusiasm.) Best of all, I ran like a nationals finalist. Especially impressive was my three-jump lead-out, and the perfectly timed front cross I executed just before the pinwheel. Cue the applause, please. Yeah. Right.
That’s exactly how I felt when I came out of the ring after that run. I was on cloud nine until I pushed the “play” button on my video camera. That’s when perception turned into reality. The video showed a very different run from the one I remembered. It exposed how poorly positioned my lead-out actually was, and how one hand inadvertently appeared to be signaling my dog to take the first jump, causing her to break prematurely. It all too clearly illustrated how late my front cross before the pinwheel was. And on the tape, you could hear me calling my dog’s name while she was still in the air over the jump. No wonder she turned her head, dropped her rear legs and brought the bar down. Unlike memory, a video isn’t subjective. It doesn’t have a hidden agenda. It doesn’t pat us on the back for good intentions or ignore our screw-ups to bolster our self-confidence. A video camera merely records, visually and aurally, what took place. It records our great runs as well as our less-than-perfect moments. Video solves the mystery of “How on earth did that happen?” That’s why competitors and instructors rely on videos as a training tool and a second pair of eyes. They understand that videos show what
June 10 | Clean Run

they’re doing well, the skills they need to work on, and how to correct the flaws in their training programs. Videos may well be agility’s most valuable secret fix. Yet surprisingly, many handlers never discover what they’re missing.

Using Videos Successfully
Anyone in agility at any level can use videos successfully. You’re never too new (or too experienced) to benefit from video self-analysis. But here are a few things to remember. • Rule #1: Get over yourself. This is not the time to agonize about your permgone-bad or the 20 pounds you packed on last winter that make you look like a rolling marshmallow in Ditas. Nobody likes how they look on video, okay? On the other hand, if you suddenly notice that you never smile at your dog while you’re working or that your commands are all delivered in a harsh, grating tone, this is valuable information. Dogs are highly sensitive to facial expressions, body language, and vocal tone. You may think you’re out there having fun, but your videos may show something else entirely. Rule #2: Don’t make excuses. Videos don’t lie. If you see it on your videos, guess what? It happened. Rather than trying to justify mistakes and missed opportunities, accept them and let what you see be a wake-up call toward better training and handling on your part. Use videos to analyze why problems are occurring and what you can do to fix them. Rule #3: Don’t beat yourself up. Watching video playbacks can make handlers hypercritical. Don’t go there. The point of video isn’t to make you feel worse about problems; it’s to provide you with an efficient road map for improvement. Letting that little voice in your head insist you’re the worst handler who’s ever set foot in the ring won’t accomplish anything. Every handler out there has had an occasional mental lapse in the ring, overrotated in a front cross, lost her footing and stumbled, or called out a wrong obstacle name to her dog. But they don’t obsess about it, and neither should you. Move on.
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Clean Run Magazine - June 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - June 2010