Springtime's Biggest Adventure - AOH - 20-21.04.2013

A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work. - Colin Powell



After two weekends of great results, a booming self-confidence and HUGE expectations to the first run of the weekend, Leija pulls out the sign of all signs; "Lower your expectations and have fun"!!!!

She shows me with her entire bodylanguage and behaviour that she thinks I am to serious, and I refuse to take the signs. I've got my head on the "clean-run" goal and I am dead-stuck on it. No one can convince me otherwise... We will win this course and show everyone that we have improved alot.

Honestly, in retrospect, I see all the signs and I see all the mistakes I do in the run..

First of all;

- I start her with my body totally the wrong way, "forcing" her to get a refusal! Did I do that in the course-walk? NOT AT ALL!!!!!

- Between 6 -7 I was planning to do a front-cross change, but got a back-cross change instead, which gives Leija the excellent line towards the A-Frame that is on the outside of the course. I of course react wrong to that, getting really frustrated and I show this very clearly to Leija.

- I use the wrong hands and body position to guide her into the weaves, showing Leija that she can do the weaves from whatever entrance she wants. I do the same when I make her start again, but she luckily for me goes in correct.

- I go too far out after weaves to generate a turn, due to the fact that I was trying to safe-it in the weaves, deliberately not going "lefty" on weaves..

- Because of this, she just runs into the tunnel where she is not supposed to be.

- Result; Disqualified

After a few hours contemplating my actions, getting my head out of my ass, and relaxing with Leija, we tried again in the agility-class. I started the warm-up period a little bit to early with Leija, thus burning some of her energy before the run. However, I also see that Leija is skeptical on going full speed in this run, and I think this is because of my reactions earlier in the day. I see that very easily in the movie, where her speed picks up greatly at the end of the run, when we just run for fun :)

One key note to bring from this competition and one of the main focal points for our training in the time forward to our next competition, is zee-zaw practise. Some how there is some sort of phantom-syndrome going in Leija, which I have no clue how got there. She practically refuses to go over the zee-zaw and it's difficult to pull her across. We have our biggest time-loss on this stuff.

However, we got some good results from this run. The movie I haven't got yet, but I will add this to this post as soon as I get it.

The result list from this weekend then looks like this:



We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort. - Jesse Owens

Tommy & Leija