Monday, January 3, 2011

And on the mental management end of things

appropriately, was flipping through a borrowed Clean Run last night and came across a great article by Lance Bassham (Olympic Medallist and mental management-expert) - entitled "Handling Disappointment"

Some highlights:

"The first step in dealing with disappointment is that things are not always what they seem.... Let's look at disappointing events and see if we can learn other valuable things from the experience."

"What should we do when we are disappointed? I have three suggestions. First determine if you are responsible for the disappointment. If so, accept responsibility for your actions. Ask what you need to change about yourself to get through this and to reduce the chance that it will happen again.Then let the worry and concern over the damage that this has caused to your journey toward your goals be replaced by a renewed effort toward rehabilitation. Protect your self-image by thing and talking about what you need to do, not about what you did wrong. "

"Second, protect your attitude...contentment tends to make a person successful before long. You can't keep a good man down because he gets up quickly and moves on toward his goal."

"Finally, see if you can find any benefit in the situation before you determine that your life is no longer worth living. Remember, people value things in direct proportion to the p;rice paid for them, so maybe you will value success much more if you fail a bit in the process. "

So... Our first AAC trial was a mixed blessing. Our first class (jumpers) was a complete train wreck from start to (a very fast) finish. I was a little scattered in our start line routine, and Soph wasn't at all connected with me from the get go - and soon as she was released and over one jump she was like a cannon zooming around mugging every ring crew and the judge over and over and over again. Brat. So finally snagged her on the third zoom past and retired from the course. Time to regroup and rethink things. I did have a lovely course planned and visualised, but Soph wasn't on the same page... onward and upward.

Next was a steeplechase course - a nice flowing course that curved into the middle of the ring - great, away from the ring crew along the sides! Good, that gave us the opportunity to start off with a solid 3 obstacle sequence (jump, jump, aframe) that we were able to successfully complete. Bit of a hairy moment as she posed on top of the aframe, gazing down at the judge and I could see her contemplating "Should I jump on her head or would it be better to mug her from the solid ground?" Thankfully she decided to bail off halfway down (missed contact) but I was able to get her back after one jump on the judge and over the next jump. Unfortunately, I was flustered and kept going forward to jump 10, instead of doing the hard turn back towards jump 5. Tried to get her back to the correct jump which was a mistake - we did manage to get back onto the 6-7-8 line of jumps but had run out of time at that point. S'okay, we managed to keep things sorta-together and worked as a team.

Time for lunch, a massage for Soph and a break for us both... soph in her crate and me as ring crew for masters snooker. Enjoyed watching our classmates having much success in the ring.

Final course was our standard run. Again, this course began in the middle of the ring, with a jump-frame-3 jump sequence in a fairly straight line, away from the crew. Soph required a lot of coaxing down the frame, and she did drift off in the middle of the following three jumps, but I got her back on course turning her onto teeter #6 (held contact, YAY!) and turn onto the table (quick down, YAY! held her down and didn't bark, double YAY!). Then 6 weaves - she missed her entry and I had a heartstopping moment moving her back - will she bolt or can I get her back in the weaves? YES I can get her through them on the 2nd try .. now we can super-charge down the side in a straight sequence - tunnel, tire, jump, turn past the gate jump back to the centre chute, curve into the tunnel and wrap back over the dog walk and a jump to finish and we FINISH THE COURSE. And it's not pretty and we're way overtime but we held it together and DID IT.

SCT is 64 seconds, our time 112.58, 83.55 faults and a first place in 16inch specials ..

Video to follow. :)

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