Browing in the wind

Since we are back from one month of Europe adventure, we had no time to rest, 
Dean and I just needed to work hard all the time to catch up.

The most unfortunate reality is Koto is back in injured again. 
We were expected her to be totally back in shape after the one month of break. 
but she torn her back leg tendon again.  Not just little one - required little surgery with ACP injection. It has been very emotional couple of month, driving to the vet twice a week. 

She is nearly 9 years old. but still handful and still crazy. she really is amazing and fun girl but we just want her to be healthy and happily run everyday.  So much frustration. 
Agility high season and training started november, so many agility seminars and competitions...but Niah is still not perfectly in good shape.  
This made me to think about having one month of dream travel also risk our dog's health and happiness.  My dogs are not in good shape, Feels down and exhausted from frustration.  But  I will always keep my self positive and focus on great and happy things we are doing right now :) Because I love my dogs and I love my life in Australia.

Busy October and November passed like a wind.  

Niah Trial High lights - RC and new handlings-

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I am so proud of my boy’s big effort in this year, since we have started many new things in the trial and I feel that Niah and I are grown up together as agility partner.

I think we are overcoming confident issue, motivational issues..

and my slow and clumsy handling is also improving :)

Our journey is taking a long time in many ways, and we are both not amazing to watch… 

but slowly and slowly…confident, handling and speed are improving and look at his happy face in the end of video with serious happy running!    

We hope we will have even brighter agility year in 2015.

And I strongly hope Koto will be back in Trial next year! 

We miss running agility with her so much!

今年は1年間コンタクトの再トレーニングで休んでいたアジリティに復帰して、ランニングコンタクトを始めたり、OMDやJouniから習った オンラインコースのハンドリングをトライアルで使ってみたりは徐々にですが新しい事にチャレンジできた年になりました。

得にニアはよくがんばっていたなぁ　

まだまだ教えないといけない事が沢山だけど、モチベーションが低くて恐がりで、ちんたら歩きだった頃のニアのドッグウォークに比べたら雲泥の差。

後ろ足が開かない、スピードが出ない。。でもあの頃と比べたら本当に成長してる。

ニアも私も一緒に成長した気がする。

色んな事に自信がついて来たし、ハンドリングも少し成果が出て来ているし、なんといってもスピードが出て来た気がする。
来年は出来れば琴に沢山力を入れて、ディーンと琴がトライアルに復帰できたらいいなと思っています。とにかく健康で楽しく一年を過ごせたら一番ですねー！

Orenius/Emanuelssonl Course2-1 with Tricia

I spent the most perfect/beautiful 25 degrees Saturday morning with my agility friend Tricia,  at her agility field in Daylesford. 
She lives in the most gorgeous property, and her agility field is surrounded by forest with many birds, and occasional alpaca visit! 
Not much photo of her place but we train o/e course1 together.
I've been only training at my little backyard in small section, so it was great to run in a actual setting, and Niah was very efficient with my que, He is not a fast runner, but I am very happy with him!

土曜は25℃、晴天と最高の天気！　久しぶりにアジ友達のトリシアとSassyと一緒に
o/e（Orenius/Emanuelsson Online course）のトレーニングをしてきました。
彼女のアジリティフィールドはステートフォレストに囲まれていて 鳥達がいっぱい。
馬やアルパカもたまにフィールドを覗きに来てくれんですよ：D
写真は殆ど取っていませんが　コース1は無事に完走できました〜
ニアはあまり速い犬ではありませんが、彼は本当に私の動きをしっかり見て
無駄な動きはせず、すごく敏感に動いてくれるので　ありがたい事に
本当に走りやすいのです。
最近琴とアジができていないので　速い犬とのアジの感覚を忘れてしまいそうですが、
ニアとならハンドリングの練習が効率よくできます（笑
私にはパーフェクトなんです！

o/e online course 2-1

We are slowly starting next Orenius/Emanuelsson online course.
Again, it's full on- super running course, but very inspiring as always!
There are difficult challenges in every 3 obstacles.
1st course had very good explanation of How to choose Blind cross or German turn, AND I learn so much!! Thank you Jouni! Such a great instruction!

Jouni＆Isabelleのコース、少しずつやってますが、、うーん。
今回も
むじゅかしゅぃぃ〜。

得にこのコースを　マップとおりに設定するとなんと　27メートルx18メートル。
なのに一体どれだけ走らせるんですか〜？（笑
なのに9−12みたいにコースの端からRCで端まで。。こんなのばっかりです！
ウチの庭では本当に少しのシーケンスしか出来ませんがシーケンスでしか出来ないかも。。だから丁度いいのかもですね：D
今回はブラインドクロスとジャーマンターンの詳しい説明と、トレーニングビデオは
Push+Pull, それからS-LineChallengeという楽しいおまけ付き！

そしてこれがSラインチャレンジのマップ。
25秒の間にPush+PullのようなSラインの動きをいくつ出来るかを競います。
なんの動きをするのかを覚えるのが大変だったけど、とっても楽しかった：）
いい練習になりました〜

S-Line Challenge

O/E online course summery

The last 3 month, I've learn agility from Jouni & Isabelle, Finnish/Swedish coach.  Advanced and " real running" course! It was really fun!  so much fun :)
More to come on next course

3ヶ月間のJouniのオンラインコース、楽しかった　♥
次もがんばります

Front Cross 90° turn v.s. 180° turn

レッスン3はジャンピングコース
以下に書き出したハンドリングを含むとぉぉぉーっても難しいコース。。
でも練習してみたらようやくタイミングと身体の動かし方が解って来ました。
それにしてもJouni さんのフィードバックはいつも細かい所まで丁寧に説明して貰えて
本当に勉強になる！熱心で完璧主義者のJouniと私の動きが遅くても身体が柔らかくてタイトターンが出来るニアのお陰で　随分このコースは楽しい♥のです

それにしても洗濯物干さえ無ければもう少しマシなコース設営が出来るのですがねぇ。。
どうにかしたいなぁ〜。。

そしてもう一つどうにかしたいのはフロントクロス！今回ヨゥニに詳しいフロントクロスのステップバイステップを指導してもらいました。Classic Aussie style front crossから抜け出して　Stylish European front crossが出来る様になるぞぉ。

I need to improve my Front cross! I just received Online class, Lesson3's feedback from Jouni :) His feed back is always great advice with small detailed explanation, always talk about position, timing, tempo, and how to improve what am I currently doing  :) 
This lesson3, we had 

• Double Blind Cross

• Tandem turn

• Forced Front Cross

• Ketshker

• Front Cross

I'm really happy with having a incredibly generous and perfectionist coach 
AND super flexible with tight turn dog Niah with decent speed! (Not too speedy!)
They are just perfect to me :) 

Wish we don't have that Clothing line in the center!! But well, better than not trying it and we love it:)
I really want to stop doing "Classic Aussie style front cross" with too much steps and spinning, I am mastering this "very efficient/stylish European front cross" with minimal 1-2-3 steps. 
Okay! Can't wait to practice Front cross and report back to Jouni! 

Feedback comment:
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Obstacles 1-5
There is really no time difference between the two options here and this is good. Some dogs have better speed when doing alot of blind crosses but Niah has good speed no matter the option so you can just choose the one that feels best.

The timing is tricky with the blind crosses. The first time your second cross is too early and you can see how quickly Niah reacts to that and takes jump number 3 form the wrong side. The second time you are starting to find the timing but you kind of forget to keep on moving towards the next jump. It tells alot of your own timing when you look at Niah´s route from number 3 to jump number 4. There´s still a litlle hesitation between the jumps when you do the blind crosses for the third time but the fourth and last time your crosses are very well timed and Niah has good speed throughout the sequence. You also have enough distance to easily handle jump number 4 where you had some troubles before. One more thing is your own movement which is really good as well - you are really running fast yourself cause you no longer have to focus so hard on the blind crosses as they start to come more naturally. Very nice work

Obstacle 4-20
Great job with the tandem turn after the weaves. The problem in the beginning - at least for most of us - is once again the timing of the movement. Either you start the movement too early and the dog also comes out too soon or you are late and the dog turns towards you. But you really got it working quickly, very nice!

The first time you are late and since Niah is not yet familiar with the move she turns towards you like she has always done before after the weaves. The second time your timing is better and Niah now turns the right way but there is still some improvement to do so that you will be on time at jump number 10. The third time the tandem turn looks even better but stil you have problems in making it to number 10 or Niah at least does a bit wide turn after the jump. Remember that you should start the tandem turn as Niah enters between the third and the second last weave poles. This when you quickly turn towards her and continue moving back where you came from. Right now you are slowing down  or almost stopping before you continue moving so try not to do that and and start running even quicker!

On the third last jump (what would be jump number 18) you turn really early towards Niah and run backwards using only your opposite hand to point the obstacle. Now Niah gets insecure and is almost going for the tunnel (your body actually points towards the tunnel here). Sow instead of running backwards you should again time your movement so that you are moving forward until Niah is committed to the jump. In fact you don´t have to take more than one step backwards when you do the front cross here. Think that you do the front cross using 3 steps. The first step is a step towards the jump (in this case with your left foot). With this step you are sending Niah to the jump and your left hand is guiding her towards it. The second step is s tep backwards parallel to the jump. Here is when you the tempo change to make her collect before the jump. At this point you are also turning your upper body towards the dog. The dog side hand is still guiding the dog but also the opposite hand is turned towards the dog ready to take over. The third step is again a step forward with the left foot towards the next obstacle. At this point you have dropped the left hand the right hand has taken over and guides the dog towards the next jump.

Since Niah mostly has tight turns I think that doing the fcs this way will work good with her and you can avoid the kind of hesitation that you had now at jump number 18. Try it.

Eventually both the fc at jump 18 and the ketschker before the tunnel work really well. But as with the fc you need to be careful not to do the ketschker too early before the tunnel cause this might cause her to turn away from it. On the other hand she will become more familiar with the movement as you do more repetition and you will be able to anticipate the movement more.

Here is my Summery, After reading Jouni's comment
How to improve Front Cross 90° turn: 
From Jouni's explanation
(images are from OMD's video to visualize it)

1. The first step is a step towards the jump.  With this step you are sending dog to the jump and your right hand is guiding her towards it.

2. The second step is step backwards parallel to the jump. Here is when you the tempo change to make her collect before the jump. At this point you are also turning your upper body towards the dog. The dog side hand is still guiding the dog but also the opposite hand is turned towards the dog ready to take over.

3. The third step is again a step forward with the Right foot towards the next obstacle. At this point you have dropped the Right hand the right hand has taken over and guides the dog towards the next jump.
 

Push Back Front Cross
180° turn
Jump No.7

Front Cross Feet movement is drawing Triangle shape

Dog leading foot (on this picture left foot) STEP INTO THE JUMP, Direct dog to push back position

Then ONE STEP backward, PARALLEL to jump with other foot
(Larger step than 90° turn to get away from dog's line)

And then, the dog leading foot is now is looking towards to next obstacle direction

  Moving towards to next obstacle