The last couple of weeks have found me spread a bit thin. And, I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean my junk has been literally spreading out all over the world. Like most things, though, I’ve got all my stuff back together again, and it makes for a good story. One thing I’ve learned over the past 15 years is that really, adversity is just good storytelling material; it’s hard to come up with good stories that don’t involve SOME sort of adversity.

Recently, I headed to Australia for a week, to teach.  I was there last May, and I was looking forward to reconnecting with those I’d met last year.  Last year, getting there was exhausting, and I was in a daze for a few days when I arrived.  And, I arrived without my luggage, which arrived the next day. This year, I arrived feeling pretty normal, AND with my luggage.  Also, last year, I had some things going on in the background with a particularly special friend of mine that detracted somewhat from the experience.  This time around, I travelled with a clear conscience.

Anyway, Australia was great fun, as usual.  The people are fun, and I even got to run one of my hostess’s dogs in a trial! We got fourth place.  I tried to run another dog for another friend, but I was pretty wiped out, more tired than I had thought, AND my legs were killing me from a bit of exercise, so when I fell mid-course, I decided I’d better not press my luck, and that was it for runs for me.  The trial didn’t start til 8pm in any case, and apparently didn’t end til 2AM….but we were long gone by then

So, the trip to Australia was fun, uneventful, and in keeping with my newfound hobby, collecting pub shirts, I got a shirt from a pub in Fremantle. I also got a bunch of cool red white and blue gear, some even custom made! Alas, I made it all the way home to Seattle a couple of days ahead of my luggage, which wasn’t apparently checked through all the way.  Seriously? This was a little bit of an issue, as only 48 hours later, I turned around and flew to South Carolina for another seminar I was scheduled to teach.

My trip started out in an auspicious manner – David’s car broke down on the way to the airport, and I had to catch a ride with Oscar, who, luckily, was around to come get me. My flight to South Carolina connected in Atlanta, and I was so out of it that when they called for boarding from Atlanta to SC, I got up and left my purse underneath my seat in the gate area.  Credit cards, wallet, ID, **PASSPORT**, all left behind.  ACK! I got to SC and was out of the airport and at a local Wal-Mart with my SC Hostess before I realized I had no purse! I had my phone, so a call to the airport revealed I had NOT left my purse on the plane.  Then it came to me…I’d left it under my seat in Atlanta! Yikes.

Well, of course lost and found was by this time closed – it was well after midnight. So, the next morning, I called, and was very happy to discover my purse, and all the contents, were found! Yippee! So, whatever the cost, I told the Atlanta folks to ship it overnight, Saturday delivery, so it would get to me before my early morning flight Monday.

Well, they marked it for Saturday delivery, but it turns out the town I was staying in didn’t HAVE Saturday delivery. DOH! Saturday came and went, and no purse. So, tired and not completely rational, I had no idea how I was going to get back through TSA to get home.  Nevermind that probably hundreds if not thousands of people have this problem every day.  So, I called David, as I recalled that he had made passport and ID photocopies prior to our last overseas trip together.  Of course, at the time, I thought he was being overcautious, and I told him so. So when I called and asked him about it, his response was:

“Well, who’s the grasshopper now, and who’s the ant who prepared for the loooooong WINTER?!”

Gotta love David.  It was pretty funny, the way he said it, and it made me laugh

Well, long story short, I of course made it back home.  TSA simply pulled me aside and called some secret number where some secret person asked me a bunch of secret questions, to which I had the right answers.  This all went according to exactly what my friend Julie, who works for TSA, told me

would happen (and she told me not to worry, so I didn’t). And, my suitcase arrived from Australia the same day I left for SC, just hours after my SC bound plane took off. And, this past Wednesday, my purse and all its contents showed up. The $300 that UPS wanted to charge me for the delivery of said purse was largely reversed as well. Phew! And, in addition to having all of MY stuff back together, I also have some booty from my trip(s):Yes, I brought home some Vegemite from Australia.  It was on my list of foods to try, and when Simone put some on buttered toast for me, I fully expected to gag. But, surprisingly, I finished it….and the next day, didn’t turn down MORE.  I bought a jar to bring home for David to try.  He’s not been brave enough to try it himself, but I continue to eat it. Who knew? It’s a byproduct of the beer brewing process – and it’s so salty, it’s like beer bouillon.  Strangely good.

I didn’t make it to a pub in South Carolina, but I did make it to a piggly wiggly, and got a cute shirt with the above pig on the front, and “I’m Big On The Pig” on the back.  Cute.  I also brought home some of these:

Yes, the little duffel bag I used for my trip, since I didn’t have a proper suitcase, was stuffed with clothes and grits.  My hostess’s husband made cheese grits for breakfast, and my god, they were manna from heaven.  This morning I had fried grits with fried eggs.  YUM.  So much good food in the world!

So, between Facebook friends, seminar hostesses, husbands, friends, baggage crew, airport staff, and UPS, I’ve come and gone on another ‘uneventful’ trip.  Oh, what about the seminars, you ask?

Well, those were of course the high points of the trips (except for the grits, maybe, they were probably right up there on top, along with the burger with beets I had in Australia).  Always meeting new people who are wonderful, nice, eager to learn, and in love with their dogs and the process in general.  Some real talented people out there in the world; I’m lucky to get to work with such people!

I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly motivated person, and yet I find myself in the position to be able to coach others on goal setting and the mental game – two topics that are arguably of interest to those who are either already motivated, or motivate to BE motivated. I never have thought of myself as a risk taker, and yet I put myself and my dogs on airplanes, fly to other countries, and all for 30-40 seconds of potential glory. I love to sleep 8-9 hours a night, or at least I think I do – right before my own eyes, I’m sleeping less and less, feeling compelled to go to bed later and later. And I get up in the morning and work. It’s obsessive, I can see that it’s obsessive, and yet, I feel driven to do it, even though I’m pretty sure it’s not like me to sleep so little.
I don’t believe in any supernatural force or higher power, but at the same time, I don’t believe that my behavior, or anybody else’s, is entirely a product of free will, at least not in the sense of conscious decisions being made. All too often, I feel as though I’m riding along in a train car on those train tracks, rather than controlling the engine. I do feel as though I’ve gotten pretty good at going with wherever those tracks lead, since in the past few years I seem to have an uncanny and subconscious ability to jump the tracks when necessary. But it’s a little unnerving to not be entirely sure of where I’ve come from, how I got to this moment, or what the next moment will bring. You’re probably thinking, “Well, you got to this moment because you made smart decisions and worked hard”. But, I don’t think it’s as simple as that. At a number of junctures in my recent history, I can think of smarter decisions I might have made, in hindsight, and yet, at nearly every turn, the choices I have made to date seemed like the overwhelming right thing to do. There’s the “me” that makes decisions about things that seem pretty mundane, and then there’s the “me” that seems to be guiding my hand. Sounds hokey, I know. But even those mundane decisions that I think I’m at leisure to be 100% consciously in control of seem to be guided by my own inner hand, who at this point I’ve come to just trust as having a better intuition than the “me” that I think of as me.

This rambling on doesn’t have much to do with dog agility – but I do feel lately like I’ve neglected my blog, which started out as a personal blog, not a dog training blog. Then, as I tried to develop myself as a self employed entity, a point came along where I started to feel like I had to blog, and I just sort of avoided looking at it. But, I think given all the changes I have experienced in the past decade, I would be disappointed to let more experiences pass by without documentation. It’s exciting to think of all of the formative experiences I’ve had in the past few years – I can’t imagine what is next on the horizon in terms of what will shape my person, and how, but that’s the fun part, the not knowing, the watching to see where things will lead. The process is the thing.

EDIT: I did end up watching a movie, and of course, predictably, cried.  Meh.

I’ve done a lot of head shaking over the past few days, that’s for sure…

Jester did quite well, even winning a couple of the classes, which is no small feat, as there are also a lot of really great 20″ dogs that show up for this competition.  Eight years old, and still going strong.

I got a pretty decent response. Of course, there are a lot of factors that go in to what we pay for a working or auditing spot in a seminar; how much the seminar presenter is charging, how much it costs to get them to the seminar site, the rental fees for the arena or building where the seminar is being held.  Those are just the basics.  Then there are other costs; assuming that the organizer has done a lot of legwork to put the whole thing together, it’s reasonable that they should not have to pay $$ for the seminar themselves, as they’ve already paid in other ways.

The rest, in my mind, gets less clear.  Well, not really, I’m pretty sure how I feel about it, but I can’t really take a firm stance, since in some cases, I’m not entirely aware of the costs to bring me in.  But, when I heard last night that a local facility is charging nearly $400 for a working spot in a two day seminar, my own reaction made me realize I should be more aware of the costs all around.

Teaching, for me, is an enjoyable activity. It’s a mental exercise, not always easy, but very rewarding. Maybe it’s my background as a public educator, maybe it’s just me, but I really have a hard time with the idea of education as a business. I left my job as director of a pretty neat physical facility partially because I couldn’t stand the constant pressure to bring in more and more and more income from an activity that is in my mind about quality, not quantity. An activity that, by its very nature, you decrease the quality of by increasing the load or quantity of instruction asked of an educator, and there’s the rub. Teaching is an activity and profession that isn’t, by its nature, very scalable.

There are ways to make more of your time as an instructor or coach. If you’ve got good material that will stand the test of time, you can put it in print, or on a DVD, or some other format that allows you to distribute your material in a more asynchronous format (meaning, you and the learner don’t engage at the same time).  But even so, will you be available to answer questions from the learner as they arise? There are only so many questions one can answer in a day.

Online classes are another type of either synchronous or asynchronous learning that allow the educator to give more of themselves, and also allows for broader access to the educator by the learners.  But at the end of the day, the educator still lives by the same 24-hour clock as the rest of the world, and time is a limiting factor. At a certain point, if the educator doesn’t limit access to themselves, the quality of the education they provide will go down.

So, back to my question of whether or not $400 for a two day working spot in a dog agility seminar is high.  It’s a subjective question and the responses were subjective.  For some, $400 is not too high; their geographical location, local or regional economy, personal finances, competitive stage and history, and a host of other factors lead to an answer of NO. For others, the answer is YES. Here are some of the things I’d take in to account when deciding how to spend my money at a seminar:

• Does the presenter have any history or credentials as an educator?
  There’s a lot more to it than just standing in front of a group of people and talking.  Some people are naturally talented educators, so this is not a deal breaker for me. Also, there are some seminar presenters out there who have been teaching a LOT longer than me, and since they’re still at it, I think it’s safe to assume they’re good at what they’re doing.
• How long has the seminar presenter been doing what they’re doing?
  Again, this isn’t a deal breaker for me, but I think it’s important to recognize that somebody who has been doing agility for ten or more years has been around long enough to get a better idea of the big picture with respect to the change and growth occurring in the sport than somebody who has only been around for a short time.  I’m not discounting new information, and you shouldn’t either – there could be somebody out there who has been in the sport for only a year or so who is a very talented handler and instructor, but I’d maintain a healthy skepticism about whether or not what they’re offering will stand up to the test of time.
• How many different canine personalities has this presenter worked with successfully?
  Somebody who has worked successfully with dogs with a lot of innate drive as well as dogs that need more coaching and coaxing is going to spark my interest more than somebody who has one talented dog. Take my dogs, for example.  Fly and Solar, Solar in particular, are or were AMAZING agility dogs.  Solar does well often enough at big events that the both of us get noticed.  But really, it’s Jester and Juno who are making me a better trainer and handler, one who can help a broader audience.  Jester has done his fair share of winning, but he’s not quite as flashy or spectacular, so he doesn’t get noticed quite as much. Juno is currently following along somewhat in his tracks more than Solar’s.  If I hear that a seminar presenter has placed a dog because the dog wasn’t a good agility dog, you’d better believe that’s a deal breaker for me.
• Does the seminar presenter focus on the group or the individual?
  In a group setting, I’d expect that the seminar presenter tries to present information that’s applicable to the whole group. I’d expect that they tried to address the group even while I’m out there with my dog.  I’d expect also that they will try to give me feedback specific to my dog and to me, but that they’d always be trying to show the broader applications of my specific instruction to the group. I’d also expect that if a team is having an issue that takes up more than the average amount of time and it’s not something applicable to the group, it wouldn’t be addressed as thoroughly as somebody with an issue that is applicable to the group.
• How much $ am I paying per minute of actual instruction applicable to me? Could I get the same information in another way?
  Whether I’m on the floor with my dog or not, how many minutes of actual instruction applicable to me do I expect to get? This question, unfortunately, is often better answered in hindsight, and if you’re less experienced yourself, you may not know enough about the seminar presenter and his/her similarities to your own style to know whether or not you’ll get a lot of information out of it. But, if the same presenter IS available for private lessons, or online instruction, it may be that there are other ways to get quality instruction from that instructor, at a lower $/minute cost.

Personally, as a seminar presenter, I’d prefer as much as possible to not have to force seminar hosts or potential participants to be faced with the choice of deciding if they’re charging or paying too much.  But, that’s a pretty idealistic view. Still, I know I’m happier sleeping on somebody’s couch if I know I’m saving everybody a few bucks; it works out in the long run for everybody.

Because I just can’t help myself, I’m making this available as a podcast as well

My newly wavy hair is sort of a metaphor for my life over the past few years.  In 2007, when I left Oregon and headed up to Washington, I threw a lot of balls up in to the air, and I feel like I tossed those balls HIGH, and some of them are still way up there, on their way down. Who knows what they will look like when they land. The only thing that has been constant in my life over these last few years is CHANGE. Changing my location, changing my employment status, changing how I view relationships, changing how I seek balance in my life, CHANGE.

2011 was a year of a lot of attainment for me

Attainment is accomplishment + “becoming”. I’m a different person in a lot of ways than I was in January of 2011, and not just the wavy hair.  I’ve learned a lot this year, and that learning has been folded in to my being to become part of who I am. I coauthored a book, self produced a video and DVD, launched an Online Classroom, and started a Podcast.  But, as is typical, most of my “becoming” had to do with more intangible accomplishments, lessons learned the hard way…

I learned that mental management has its limits. I’m not invincible.  I can’t sustain mental control with respect to performance if I fly to three continents in three weeks. Those trips in March of 2011 took a toll on me and had consequences that lasted for months throughout the rest of the year. I humbled myself with those experiences.

I learned that relationships can change even when you don’t want them to, right before your eyes.  There are a lot of different ways to define relationships; friends, partners, spouses, lovers, coaches, mentors, peers, teachers… Sometimes, the definition of a relationship NEEDS to change, and sometimes, the nature of a relationship changes without your even knowing it.  If you’re operating within the framework of one type of relationship, and the other person is operating within a different framework, things can get tricky fast. Hearts get hurt, but in my case it was worth the effort to see things through.  Trying to hold a relationship in a static state is unhealthy for both parties – change is good and necessary. You’d think I’d GET that by now. There are a few people on this earth that I have a lot of love in my heart for, outside of my family; it’s sometimes difficult to not put those people behind a glass case, and try to keep them the same in my heart and mind, but anybody kept in a glass case will eventually suffocate.

I learned that being afraid of something unlikely to happen is a waste of time and energy. I spent a good portion of my year worrying myself in to a state of near inactivity about something that, in the end, was nothing to worry about at all. I humbled myself with all that worry that in the end came to nothing.

I learned that going forward, I will be hard pressed to compromise my pedagogical principles. I moved up to Washington, lured by the pretense that I would have the opportunity to run a business owned by somebody else as my own.  It was foolish of me to believe that lure; as a business owner I would never let somebody else run it as their own, and I would never promise them such a thing. I have a lot of respect for the teaching and learning process, and for those honestly involved in it, dogs and humans alike.

The entire experience of serving as training director for a large training facility has given me some pretty clear ideas of what I won’t do in the future, as well as some pretty clear ideas of what I will do in the future, and I’m grateful for having had that learning opportunity, despite the fact that I’m now living in a house in the suburbs, in a state I don’t really want to live in, with no training facility to call my own. Both my husband and I would very much like to head back closer to Oregon at some point; that’s where our hearts and minds are.

Goodbye 2011

Going forward in to 2012

I’ve no idea what will come in the year ahead.  I have some projects on the drawing board that I’m already working on, but as far as personal growth, I can’t even venture to speculate where I’ll be at this time next year. If I had my druthers, by this time next year I’d be sitting on a piece of property with a training arena, inviting people to come enjoy the place with me, but, that’s a dream at this point, something I’m working toward in the next decade. In some respects, I’m living a magical life, one so far off the beaten path and so custom tailored to my skills and desires and dreams that sometimes I wonder how I possibly even made it to this point.  I couldn’t possibly be motivated and driven enough to have gotten myself here, I feel so lazy most of the time, and yet, here I am, living this life.  On the other hand, I’m so far off the beaten path that there IS no path, except that which I create for myself.  I can look back and see the path I’ve made, but looking forward? It’s mostly wilderness – frightening, lonely, beautiful, amazing wilderness. I comfort myself with the knowledge that those dear to my heart will be with me, helping me forge that path.

I’m very lucky to share my life with somebody willing to forge in to the wilderness with me
- thank you, David.

To the rest of you, Happy Training, Happy New Year.  I wish you all a year filled with growth, change, and learning, all the same things I wish for myself.

Last night, he convinced me to watch a few videos that I thought I would share with you.  In my mind, they illustrate perfectly the concept of how what you THINK you’re communicating isn’t necessarily what is being received by the other creature you’re communicating to.  Of course, I’m looking at this in the context of dog training, but it has broader application as well.  Still, I’ll avoid getting in to any other realm than dog training here

First, a little BACKSTORY on the person behind these videos. Fascinating.

And then…..a video for your holiday enjoyment.

For more, visit HERE. Note that there are several others doing this aside from the original BLR person; I can’t vouch for their under-18 age appropriate content

Well, so, Monday night, my trainer had something come up and we had to reschedule.  Determined to make a go of it, I headed to the gym to participate in a class at a time that would suit me (and by the way I *did* manage to also get out for a hike on Monday AND Tuesday…).  The class? Latin Dance.  Why not? I’m up for an experience. Plus, my hip flexors are always tight, surely some Latin Dance moves will loosen me up.

HA. HA HA HA HA HA. A thousand times. I took a spot in the back of the room, and it was a good thing.  That instructor, she was moving parts of her body that I didn’t even think there were joints that could move. I tried to watch and mimic, but she was going so darned fast.  I could watch and mimic one body part, say, her left arm, but then I was just standing there waving my left arm around.  Or, I could try to mimic whatever it was that she was doing with her hips, but that’s all I could move.  Wow. Epic Fail. Five minutes in and I was ground to a complete standstill, overwhelmed by trying to watch and think and do at the same time.  I spent the next 15 minutes limply waving my arms around, trying not to panic, trying to figure out how to get OUT of this class, and of course, the doors were at the front of the room.  Sigh.

So finally, I bolted. I figured with the loud music, and the disco ball lights, I wouldn’t be noticed. WRONG. I got called out.  “THANK YOU”, I heard the instructor belt out.  I kept walking. “THANK YOU!” she said again.  Oh my, if I could have melted through the floor, I would have.  I kept walking, right out the door, and right down to the free weights room.  Aaaah, now I am back in a comfortable place!

On the way home, I called David to tell him my story, and of course, knowing me, he was laughing hysterically before I was even done, incredulous that I’d even gone in to such a class.  He said he would have paid good money to see that one.  And, he couldn’t wait to tell his parents.  Sigh. So, I’m not much of a dancer.

And that’s not all….

That’s the second such experience I’ve had this week.  I love to sing in my car.  I crank up the stereo and belt it out. I’m pretty sure I’m in tune, and I did play the clarinet in high school, and in the Southern Oregon Youth Symphony, and in college, and I wasn’t half bad, even did pretty well at state one year in high school.  So anyway, I’m thinking, what fun would it be to download a karaoke version of one of my favorite songs, and then dub my voice over? Yes, this is what I do for fun. Sad, I know. So, as a test, I put my headphones on, crank up the volume on my mac, and start singing in to my microphone, curious to know what my voice sounds like.

FAIL.

Wow, I sounded horrible.  It was shockingly demoralizing, even more so than the Latin Dance class – I should have known better about that one.  I sounded flat on about every 6th note, thin and tinny, and….naked. Why I even bothered to do that, I’ll never know.  I couldn’t even sing in the car for the next day, which is sad, because I really get a lot of joy out of that activity. On long trips I’ll sing till my throat is sore. I’ll stick to the spoken word; I’m perfectly okay listening to my voice on my podcasts, but singing? I’ll stick to doing it in my car when the volume is turned WAY up.

Well, I guess we all have our moments, and after all, it made for a good story, right? It’s kind of a thrill to really struggle like I did in that Latin Dance class, even though I didn’t struggle very long before I bolted.  It was pure sensory overload…

Tuesday night, I went back for a more “traditional” group workout situation – and I’m happy to report that I’m nice and sore. Mission accomplished!

December Snowberries, but no snow

Jester is always happy to take it slow and enjoy the sights and smells.

Mutt and Jeff, Frick and Frack, Batman and Robin, Tweedledee and Tweedledum...

Jester doing his Blair Witch Project bit:

But, there is one big way in which I do tend to be set in my own way…and that’s that I have a really hard time following orders. If somebody tells me to do something with no logical reasoning to back it up (and sometimes even if there ARE good reasons), I tend to balk. If somebody suggests, or asks, that’s different.  I just don’t take orders well, especially if the reason is “because”. I’ve been that way since I was a little kid. And, as my life as a self-employed person has evolved, I’ve come to rely on my own intuition more and more, which means I’m even more skeptical of those who want to tell me to do things “just because”.  I’m more than happy to do things YOUR way, as long as I can do it MY way – does that even make sense?

You might think that seems awfully hypocritical, given that my life is all about instructing other people how to do things, but it’s not.  You see, I expect each and every student I come across to behave the same way I do.  Of course, I shouldn’t assume that, but since I think being skeptical and asking questions helps the learners, I continue with that assumption in the hopes that the learner will get closer to behaving that way.  I assume you’re going to ask WHY, and like a two year old, keep asking WHY, until you get an answer that makes logical sense to you. Unlike your exasperated parents, I try very hard NOT to say “because”.  That’s such a lame answer. And, by the way, if you’re in one of my Online Classes, take note; my expectations for you are the same, so get hopping, start being skeptical about everything I present, start asking questions!!

I’m posting right now as a means of taking a break from my task du jour: getting all my equipment ready to take to a barn where at long last, I’ll be teaching a couple of classes again. MY way. MY equipment. MY students. How liberating! The only downside is that since I *have* sort of started to recognize my limits in terms of personal bandwidth, I will be teaching fewer classes than there are students lined up to take them. But, I’ve come to grips with that, and all I can do is hope that people won’t jump to the conclusion that I’m “playing  favorites”.

I will admit, though, there are a few people (or rather, types of people) who are on my will-not-teach list. I’m no longer interested in teaching people who aren’t interested in giving back to the teacher-student dynamic; I want to get out of it as much as I give. Yes, I’m charging money for these classes, but the real benefit to me is the opportunity to participate in that dynamic on a regular basis with a group of learners. I couldn’t care less whether or not those learners ever even step in to the competition ring, although I do enjoy helping people learn more about the goal setting and mental management issues that are more of a factor in the ring than out. Luckily, given the limited number of slots I have available for the classes I will be teaching means that I don’t have to worry about turning away those types who would be on my will-not-teach list; there are a lot students who I would love to teach who I will unfortunately have to turn away first

Looking forward to setting up these babies and getting a picture of all the red, white, and blueness!