Tag Archives: weaves

Jumping (Post 312)

  By Leanne | February 11, 2010 - 9:49 pm | Agility, Dylan, Training
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Dyl was fantastic in training this week. I’d be dancing if I knew he was going to run like that in competition, because it really was brilliant! Super smooth, super fast, and just smoked everything. We played weaves and jumping, and left the contacts alone for another week. I know I’m going to regret that (we really need to do some dogwalk training especially) but there’s only so much we can focus on in 45mins.

I did some weave games, since he popped those last two poles at the weekend, but I couldn’t get him to break out. He was also nailing his offside entries, even at 90-120, which was pretty awesome to watch. I’ve been quietly niggling at that one for a while, and I love it when the work pays off. By the end of the night I was sending him to 90 angles from around 20ft away, which was fun and meant I could be lazy.

We had some straightforward jumping sequences, and we also had a slice grid set up (which is now my new favourite exercise. It’s so much fun watching the dogs figure it out!). We worked the slice grid first, since I know this is something we have a problem with anyway. Dyl jumped it initially as he tends to in competition; cautious, tucked, collected strides. He got more and more confident every time, until the 5th time around when he blazed through, just as confident as Kim if not quite as smooth. He’s not fully extending over the angle yet but he was clearly figuring out what needed to go where and adjusting to it.

Same story with everything. Lots of lovely extended jumping, twisting into his wraps and actually moving with complete confidence and pace, and the more we did the smoother and more fluent Dyl’s jumping got. I can see a couple of lingering issues even when he’s moving and jumping as well as he is, and I think that’s probably the genuine source of his problems. He misjudges takeoff points occasionally, but because he’s rolling he just throws a massive jump in and stretches to clear it. I am currently theorising that in competition, because he’s not moving as fast, he doesn’t have the momentum to throw those big jumps in and save himself, so he instead he slams on the brakes, throws another stride in and then pops over. That would account for his over-collection on the ground and his compacted appearance when he’s jumping. I like this theory, it feels about right, but I have no idea how to improve it. More work needed, I think …

Can’t Won’t Fail

  By Leanne | December 9, 2009 - 6:01 pm | Agility, Dylan, Training
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Training

This is what we worked on at training this week. It was fun! It was also not intended to be as difficult as it was; on paper, we thought it was pretty simple, but then we all tried it and suddenly it was not quite so easy.

Everybody initially ran it with the handler basically stationary at the top wing of 2, pushing out to 4 and then bringing the dog across your feet to 5 and then pulling back for 6 and wrapping the right wing of 6 to the weaves. This method? Did Not Work. Nobody managed to successfully pull their dog through the gap smoothly. The back of 2 was just way too tempting, and there was no good way for the handler to block it off clearly whilst stood on the bottom side of 5.

We all stood and frowned for a while, so Emma and Bailey went and did it perfectly so we all hated her for a while. Why would you want a Medium dog with amazing weave entries and 100% running contacts who can turn really tightly without losing any speed? We couldn’t fathom it either, but there you go.

The next attempt was to handle 1-2-3 the same way, but to step through the gap and front cross to flip the dog over 4 to 5. The back of 2 immediately stopped being tempting and none of the dogs took that one, but Dylan really struggled to turn wrap the left wing of 4, so we sacrificed a lot of speed to keep the turn tight.1 (Emma and Bailey did it this way too, perfectly. We hated them some more). At this point, we also decided that flicking the dogs around the far wing of 6 was quicker when handling on the top side.

Cue lightbulb moment.

Third time lucky … 1-2 with the dog on the right, turn to pull them through to 3, front cross to take them over 4. Wrap the dog around the right wing of 4, bring them back alongide 4 and then flick them out for 5 and 6 and away. Everyone sees the light. It’s the longer way around, but it was so much faster and smoother.

No one had any problems with the weave entry, which was good!2

1This is my fault. I have been trying to teach Dyl to wrap wings ala Silvia Trkman for months, and we fail. Dyl is afraid to turn his body mid-air in case he falls over (or even worse, knocks a pole). I’m working on it, I promise!
2I call these soft sided weave entries. Apparently they are also called flat weave entries?

Agility Training

  By Leanne | June 25, 2008 - 11:50 am | Agility, Dylan, Kim
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None of us really wanted to be at training last night, but equally we wanted some distraction. We left the contacts and just did some simple jumping courses instead. I ran Dylan with the new dogs as it does him good to go back to basics and boost his confidence. We definitely did that as he really enjoyed himself and ran nicely, although we both need to work on our timing and response to FC’s at tunnel exits. We also worked on weave entries for a while, which is something we always need to practise.

Kim and co. worked on the W-sequence from Nancy Gyes‘ Alphabet Drills, which went down well. Kim made some very uncharacteristic errors early on, messing up her weave entries and popping the last two weaves, but we finally got back in gear and she worked nicely towards the end. She’s skipping training next week as she has Otley at the weekend and I’ve always found she works better in competition if we miss training the week before. Dylan isn’t entered but he’ll probably be getting measured there (as if he needs measuring!), providing his KC registration comes back in time.

We’ve finally lawned the garden, and the dogs love it. Here is Dylan playing with his football, which has miraculously survived for over a month since we found it floating downstream. It does look a bit worse for wear!

Dylan playing with his football

Training at the Park

  By Leanne | February 15, 2008 - 3:31 pm | Agility, Dylan, Dylan's Blog
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Dylan and I are finally clicking!

We had such a good training session today, even with minimal equipment! I managed to take 1 jump and 6 weaves to the park, and the boy was flying. He’s got crazy-fast weaves, and we’re able to read each other better so he understands what I want him to do and I understand what I’m doing wrong if he doesn’t. I’m so pleased that the hard work has paid off.

Weave entries are something I really wanted to work on today, so I began with a straight jump-weaves run, but with the jump 15m or so from the weave entry. We then worked with the jump at about 5/6m away, but on an angle, which was great for practising rear/front crosses and directionals, plus it was nice to be able to throw in some trickier weave entries. I finally finished with the jump at minimum distance from the weaves, which was harder for Dylan, but he still hit the entry and worked through the weaves well.

Jump & Weave exercise, 15/02/08

I’m so excited about finally being able to train regularly with him when the clocks go forward, he loves agility! We worked for 30mins or so today and he was so switched on and responsive. It’s very strange for me to run a dog who doesn’t get bored and doesn’t question every command. I love running Kim, but she’s very headstrong and very stubborn, and although she loves agility she wants to do it on her own terms. Dylan just wants to work and be happy.

As usual, I meant to take the camera and completely forgot. So still no decent video!

Dylan’s Blog – Weaves, again

  By Leanne | February 8, 2008 - 6:13 pm | Dylan, Dylan's Blog, Videos
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Finally got a day suitable for practising on the weaves, and the boy did good!Check out my curly eyebrow whiskers ...

He definitely seems to understand weaving, and if anything he’s a little overenthusiastic! The only problems I’ve encountered are when I leave him in a wait and move on ahead. But this is a problem I have with other obstacles, not just the weaves. At the moment he is watching me so closely he isn’t focussing on whats right in front of him, but he’s definitely improving and I actually managed a couple of straight recalls through the poles today, which I’m thrilled about! This was the one area I thought we might have serious problems with, but I can see now that I just have to make sure he is focussed when I leave him in the wait.

Speaking of waits, we proofed those as well today. He broke one towards the end, but that was my fault – I turned my back on him for too long trying to work out where I was and he got worried.

Anyway, I meant to take my camera and then forgot, so I set the weaves up on my driveway when I got back for a quick video. The first set of weaves is from the beginning of January, when I also had to set up on the driveway to get the video! Running on concrete doesn’t exactly show the poor lad to his best advantage, and it’s certainly not something I like doing, but here’s the video anyway:

http://www.undermybed.co.uk/images/dylanweaves.wmv
(click and it should open in Windows Media Player)

We also worked on hitting the weaves at speed, which is something I haven’t really done until now. Dylan surprised me again! He’s getting pretty good at adjusting his stride and getting the entry. We started out from about 10m and then worked back to about 20m, either leaving him in a wait or racing him to the first pole.

I guess the next thing on the list is weave entries, which I’ve always partially done, but never any particularly severe angles. I also need to start proofing the weaves elsewhere. Dylan is almost 100% in our usual training spot, but he’s not as solid when we train at Wakefield. Unfortunately I can’t get up to training this weekend, but I think I might be able to snag half an hour in the local park on Sunday morning. But it is flyball tomorrow, for the first time in ages, so I’ll have to see how tired he is!

One last photo of him, taken after our weaving session, on the left. He’s not stood quite straight so he looks a bit weird, but I couldn’t get him to stand wait whilst I was trying to take a photo.