Day 36 or AKC Nationals Day 1 (ISC)

Good evening. I hope you have been following the live feed from the AKC National Championships. I was busy all day, supporting Leslie and Zoom, coaching clients, cheering Schnauzers, walking 17, 0000 steps, and generally living on caffeine for the past 18 hours. So, after all of that I am here to report that Leslie and Zoom survived and looked great in both of their runs, just a little bit of getting used to the surface and the excitement of the NAC.

The ISC class for the 14 inch class was very interesting and I have all of the video to prove it. I noticed that the leaders all had their own style, but had common attributes. These attributes were the speed and turning ability of the dogs and the ability of the handlers to select (pick) correctly for their team. With this in mind, I studied the videos this evening and see that this is the most important thing we do in agility. If you have the abilities to do your handling and performance management and the dog is trained well, it is the analysis that is the difference. All of the teams that I coached today discussed the analysis at length, not is the dog going to get it's contact or is the handler going to get in the front cross. So, if I learned anything today about myself and what I need for my success at WTT09, it is that I need to get my foundations and specialization areas of my training and handling down to the point that I am not only confident, but comfortable! Talk to you tomorrow.

Travel Day - Day 37

Good afternoon! Well, today has been full of travel and rain! It has rained the entire way from BHM yesterday and from ATL to Concord today. But, I am happy to report, we have the sun peaking out this afternoon and it has finally warmed up!

I am blogging from the MH at AKC Nationals 2009. It is great to see old friends and to see the excitement in the air. It is tough being here and not being able to run, but I know it is the right decision for Nigel and for me.

I have inspected the rings and like the surface. The dirt looks great and will make for a fast surface. I am ready for my work for the day, which is supporting Lele and to start plan for my next cycle for Shine and my training.

This phase is called specialization and will in compass several areas of work. I will be continuing to work on Shines contacts and weaves along with his start lines and finish speed. I will be working on my speed work along with several handler drills that will work on my foot speed and overall fitness. I will use the courses set from this weekend as part of my analysis and handling work for next week, as they are designed with the WTT 09 in mind to test the dogs that are trying out in May. Also, I have been studying the competitors for the demeanors and how they react to the situations. I love people watching and really love studying competitors!

Well that is all now from Concord. I am headed out to see some old friends and have a beer or two!

Here we go!

Good morning! This is the place that you can follow Shine and my journey thru the final preparations for the AKC World Team Tryouts 2009 (WTT 09).

It is day 37 in the countdown and I plan on updating this daily as we are preparing all of the different aspects, training, handling, analysis and Performance management for our ultimate performance in Minn. in May.

Today is a day off for both Shine and me, as I am leaving for ATL today in the Motor-home. AKC NAtionals is this weekend and I am in more of a support role this year as Nigel is not going to be running. Well, I should say, he is not going to be competing. He and I will do a victory/retirement lap on the round that they announce his bio, as this his his last Nationals and we are retiring him from competition. So, coaching will be my main focus, but I will also be videoing and analyzing the 14 inch class during the international day (Friday). This will be my first real look at the competition that will be at WTT 09 and I need to get a feel of the skills and speed that we are seeing out of theses dogs.

I look forward to giving you regular updates as each day progresses! You can also follow me on twitter at WebbA and on Facebook at Webb Anderson.