Only the beginning

There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world- you realize that there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.

I am my own hero. This is my story after all. You'd be a fool to think I'll ever again let myself fall damsel to the distress, I will have none of that. I want to fight with crashing blows. Let's see those sparks fly, feel the weight of the blade in my hand ready to strike again. Send a dragon my way, I'll hop on and gladly fly into battle. I once considered ducking for cover, but to give up now? Failure isn't an option. I want the risk, the thrill, I want to not know if I'll come out alive. These are my battles, my struggles to overcome. Don't expect me to tuck my tail at the peak of war, I will push back for the story must go on.

This tale isn't just a battle though, there are whole chapters devoted to learning and travelling into the unknown, to surviving. This life is one of adventure. You know how I know that? Because this is my story. Not only about me, but by me. I put the pen to the paper, I choose the words, the characters, the plot. I simply cannot put it down, we must always write on. The only thing I can't control are the reviews, and it's cute that you think I'd even give those the time of day.

Ruining someone else's story won't make yours read any better - I have decided this, even the villains creeping through my pages will never know the need to fear me. I am my own hero, and I will not use such darkness. You may wound me, but I will heal. There will be some dark that leaks into me though, like when you hold your pen down to the paper too long and an ugly blotch seeps out. But if I turn enough pages I will find myself trekking though a distant land far away from that ink blot. The sound of thundering hooves will hum in my ears as we fly across the land, ahead the mountains hide their peaks in the highest of clouds. I have always wanted to climb a cloud you know...

And to think, this is only the beginning. 

Onward

It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.

I always thought life would go up from here, that we could just keep climbing. But each mountain has a peak, and from there we go down. I was afraid for a little while what down would mean, as if it could undo the greatness of up. I have found that it is more the unwinding of up to go down. You can now see your rope, all its kinks and knots pulled so tight they are woven into fate for good. These are the lessons we take to the next leg of the journey, for we can never go up enough. I am settled though in this time to see that I am not yet ready to climb again. We are pushing forward in a different way, growing stronger every day. Simply waiting to stumble upon a challenge to stump us. I want to be confused and frustrated. I want to fall and fail and not understand again.

Onward has become an important place for me to travel to, these last few months have been magic. I shall not explain the place I was, but it was stagnant filled with unwanted vibes of the negative kind. With some removing of people, I was able to look up again to see what was ahead. Except I couldn't...I saw more though, I still see more. I see now. I see the happy every day. I see what I've come from and how far away it is. I see the clouds crashing through the sky like great waves that never hit shore.  I see the sunlight peak through the leaves when we get lost on purpose in the woods, I could hike forever if life would let me. I can enjoy these things, these things of now. I talk a lot about the future, which is hogwash really. There is only now, only this moment and what we do with it. Every now I will step forward and one of those steps will lead up again. Perhaps I will be too busy with life and love to see it happening, but when failure hits I'll be ready to get back up.

And up, and up we shall go embracing the struggle as an old friend, ready to duel once again. 

Sweet Certainties

There is a certain sweetness in this world brought to life by a dog.

For all my troubles, Whim has always been my reason to smile. She is my happy, and she never fades. We go with the flow, this journey is far from perfect and we know it. The language we speak cannot be studied or taught, it has been built. Miss steps don’t happen because we have no routine to follow, we either understand or we do not. On occasion she cannot read me, and more often than not I say the wrong thing. Perhaps there have been moments when cues are lost in translation, but despite this barrier we persist.We push on, push back. We take it one step at a time, and go every step of the way. We roll with the punches, and hang on tight.

Things will not always go as planned; this can be terrible if we are willing to see it as such. I would never tell you that failure doesn’t bother me. I want nothing more than to converse on course with ease, but this does not mean I have to be upset. If we look we can see the beauty in failure, and the lessons behind miscommunication. Simply put, we do not aim for boxes in this journey. We only wish to learn.

There are two certain outcomes here at the EO for Whim and me, the first being that we will leave understanding more than before. The second is a look…that shared smile at the end of each run. The look I get every night when my girl comes in for snuggles. The look I see each morning I wake up to kisses. This look will persist. My happy will never fade this I am certain of. 

And all that you are is all that I need

One Day

This past weekend I was asked if S'more was my next world team dog. 

I've come to the conclusion that no, she is not.

If we are ahead of schedule- maybe -we will tackle novice next summer. Maybe one day we will do 26", just maybe. Right now she is 15" tall...so we are quite a ways from teaching her to jump. We will learn lots of things, and jumping is sure to be one. But first comes the important stuff, like not herding the shelties, and walking on leash, and mastering fetch. We are quickly being educated on why you do not jump on the little mean sheltie, turtle. (She bites). We will learn how to chase and then not to chase rabbits like Whimzy. Oh, learning to not launch full force at mom would be helpful. 

A face full of S'more is only good in theory.

I unfortunately did not buy a world team dog. All I have is a bombproof wannabe tri, who amazes me in every way. Which is exactly what I intended to buy. We don't know agility yet, and agility doesn't know us. We won't get acquainted for quite some time. The truth is I've never bought a world team dog, although I hear some people have. Or they say they have, personally I find it a bit hard to look that far ahead. I simply have a puppy, we will be young and grow together. No expectations, she isn't to further my career or a ticket. I would never imagine that this is what someone means when they ask - "Will she do 26?" or "Is she your next international dog?"

I am certain that these questions are not meant in a malicious way- but to me putting that pressure on a puppy is too much. Maybe some people can buy a world team dog, raise it a world team dog, and go be world team. But I already have the world- a whole new one. A creature I will become beyond obsessed with, a partner in crime. One day we will share a journey to faraway places with big dreams and a whole lot of heart driving us forward.  We will stumble, and I'll mess up when it really counts. It'll be funny, and a little disappointing too. But we will learn to run like blue fire. We will chase down the magic. But one day is not today for my S'more. Today we learned to stay, even when mom throws the toy.

She rocked it. 

S'more 3 Months- Video

There are No Mistakes

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

There are no mistakes. No take backsies, no redos, no "oopsies". What we encounter are choices, and sometimes we make bad choices. We flub up, it happens. What shouldn't happen is regret, whatever has happened has already happened. It's over- like I said there are no take backsies or redos. We either learn, or we live in the past...or even worst we live to repeat the past, again and again.

This would be a lesson I learned from my mother, even though I didn't always realize it I learned to think the way I think because of her. There are people who think change isn't necessary, they clearly did not encounter my mother's wisdom. They think that they are perfect just the way they are. Personally we would call that an inflated ego... but to each his own. I used to think these people could be helped, that maybe if you suggest change or even insist upon it that they could see how growing is the answer. I am still too young, too foolish perhaps to have realized this is a bad choice. Attempting to initiate change for someone else is an impossible task, and keeps you living in the past.  The only thing we encounter are choices- our own choices. We can watch old tapes and ponder the "what ifs" off the past, or we can move on to create an opportunity better than the last for ourselves. We can choose to change, to learn, to grow. Just because someone can change doesn't mean they will, and certainly not unless they have the willpower to do so.

We may not control all the circumstances, and we cannot control the outcome of someone else's results. But I know that I will always be in control of my own choices, that I can make bad ones and still learn something from it. I will not live in the past mourning over poor handling, a bad call, an "oopsie". Because there are no mistakes, and there is no point treating this life as if it is full of flaws. To those of us who see a future brighter than yesterday, those flaws are perhaps the key to understanding how to step forward even stronger than before. 

All it takes is a step towards something new- something to look forward to. 

Take It

A negative mind will never give you a positive result.

Negative results come from internal negativity- from nerves and anger and hastiness. It is simple to see the difference in our dogs, in our results.

While teaching I have the ultimate pleasure of annoying dogs and handlers with distractions until we hit a breaking point. Break it to fix it, an easy way to improve. But often I find that the behaviors are not externally caused, but are entirely an emotional response. A nervous handler produces a dog pushed to edgy, anxious, restless and uneasy. They can hear our emotions in our voice, in the way we move; too nervous, too angry, too excited- before we step to the line we’ve already NQ’d.

We have a rule in my house- if you’re not in the mood to play, don’t play. There is true value in agility to being happy- all it takes is a deep breath and a smile.

Deep breathing has calming effects- your body receives more oxygen, your heartbeat is lowered, and stress is reduced. Smiling has a happy effect- your body releases endorphin and serotonin just from a simple smile.

I am the first to say that when I was younger I was not the best competitor…my first step to fixing this was with a smile. I smiled for agility, for my dog.  Even if I didn’t feel like smiling, I smiled. Even if I felt beyond frustrated and disappointed, I really tried to smile. I taught myself to not get mad- what a horrid feeling mad is during agility... it is negative, it is stagnant and it does not help. Agility requires calm and happy to move forward, to learn. You don’t have to burst into song after every run or party after an NQ- but there is value in a laugh at yourself, a smile and a deep breath.

Here we find the balance between outrageous and doubtful. Being so jazzed up you can barely think straight is just as detrimental as doubting your performance of every obstacle. There is a place for each of us in calm- the mental state where both the positive and negative are in clear focus.

The other day we ran a Sascha Grunder course in preparation for tryouts. A late front cross, a wide turn, an almost off course- I stopped running here…this was not the run I wanted, not the run I walked.  I took a breath and smiled, I clapped for my girl- she got treats and praise and I got a second chance at the sequence I flubbed. Practice makes perfect- not just for agility, but also for mentality. I am still learning, still practicing this aspect of a mental game. In a state of frustration I know I am unable to assess my mistakes, but taking a moment to save the experience makes the difference. Positive results flow from positive thinking- learning needs to be a positive experience. A bigger send and a better collection cue fixed my poor handling- we learned, we were happy, we were successful.

Take a breath. Take a smile. Take the experience for all it is worth. 

Push Back

You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards and when you reach beyond your limits, that is real joy.

We were pushed outside our comfort zone last weekend by an unfortunate bar and some miscommunication. I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't upset, I very much was. I handled the turn poorly and Whimzy hung her feet over the jump, it sucked. For the most part I was certain we were out, done, over...but we did have a choice: quit or push back. I'll be honest in saying I had little hope, pushing is a recently developed skill of mine. But the little hope I had saw an opportunity to develop a skill we are still mastering as a team. We had no choice but to push on, and push we did.

It is easy to back down from a challenge when you can play it safe, but success is pushing your limits and watching them back down.  It is easy to play inside your comfort zone, but nothing great ever came from comfort zones. Easy is stagnant, it is complacent. Happiness comes from challenges, they are our opportunity to take back the journey forward. That's all I want, forward motion. With every step we will push back the limits, whether we fail or succeed does not matter. Pushing back is an experience, and a thrill, to show you where your limits are so you can push on them again, and again.

Get Pushed. Push Back.