Clean Run - July 2012 - 15

Agility Mind Gym
See Success
By Kathy Keats Last time we talked about the technique of visualization. This month we are going to focus on the various ways you can use visualization in agility to really ramp up your success rate. There are several components to running a course well. You have to read the course correctly, you have to remember it, you must have the skills to meet the challenges, you must be able to execute your plan; and, ideally, you must be flexible enough to change on the fly if necessary. This month we will focus on reading and remembering courses. actually “see” whether or not you can make it to your preferred handling choice. Essentially people who can feel whether or not they will make it to a cross are picturing it in their mind’s eye with the dog in the picture. Very often when people walk a course, they walk it only thinking of themselves and their handling, not relative to where the dog truly will be at any given moment. Try the Agility Mind Gym exercises in the sidebar of this article to learn to feel whether you can make it to a cross or not. while standing off to the side of the ring, you can essentially do that. Just walking the course repeatedly doesn’t help, because it becomes like driving home from work—at a certain point you aren’t processing the course any longer. Have you ever driven home from work and suddenly realized there was a new building put up on your route and you didn’t even notice? If at any point in your visualization, you hesitate or go blank, you will likely do the same thing on course. Go over that point in your head several times, then redo the whole course in your mind again until the hesitation is gone. You may also notice places where the course doesn’t seem to flow or you just can’t seem to smooth it out in your mind. Pay attention to this “feel” as your intuition may be kicking in, and you may be sensing your dog is going to do something different than you expect. This is your subconscious seeing a problem with the course that you haven’t recognized consciously.

Remembering a Course
Remembering a course to the point where it is automatic is critical. It frees up your brain to focus on your dog and to perform without analysis, a key component to “getting in the zone.” We memorize a course in different ways. Some people remember patterns, some remember by their handling choices, other handlers remember the order of the challenges, and yet others like to simply recall the sequential flow. We can backchain memorizing a course by learning the last obstacles first or we can memorize it initially from a course map. There are other ways as well. We all joke about how good we would be if we were able to run a course more than once. By visualizing the course

Reading a Course Correctly
To read a course accurately, you have to see the various ways to handle the course and then decide which ones are the most viable for you and your dog. This includes taking into account your dog’s strengths and skills as well as your own. A large percentage of handling mistakes are made because the handler doesn’t make it to a handling position she thought she could get to, or the dog does something unexpected the handler didn’t see as a potential problem. This is a huge topic and I have written a book dedicated to the subject called The Art of Reading Agility Courses (www.theagilitycoach. ca), but suffice it to say that if your visualization skills are strong, you can

Changing Your Mind
Most people agree you shouldn’t change your plan, and for the most part I also agree, especially if you are simply doubting yourself because you saw someone else walk the course differently. Generally speak

The exercises this month will help improve your ability to memorize courses, if you practice.
July 12 | Clean Run 15

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Clean Run - July 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - July 2012