Your Mental Game

Some level of physical fitness is key in agility not only for your dog, but for you.  However mental fitness is not to be overlooked.

It's natural to get aggravated or upset, but in training and competing, these can be a real setback for many teams.

This sport is a fun game. Take the fun out and your left for negative thoughts and/or actions.
"Success" and "failure" are words put in to our heads and stuck there to create an outline of ourselves and what we expected a particular outcome to be.

Expectations.
If you go in to your first trial with your green dog and set expectations,  odds are that something will not fit your expectation and in turn bring you down mentally or emotionally.
If you go in to your first trial with your green dog and don't set any expectations,  you are more likely to recognize and celebrate all of the little brilliant moments in each run, Q or NQ.

Setbacks
With all trainers/competitors,  you are bound to find at least one setback in your training or in trials. Whether it be your dog not listening to you yelling "touch!!!" on the dogwalk during trials, bars starting to come down frequently,  broken start line stays, naughtiness or something else, something will arise. No one is perfect and having a setback doesn't make you the worst handler ever or mean you should give up. Take that setback as a guide to strengthening your team, instead of dwelling in your so-called "failure".

Too Serious - Too Selfish
Competitive people exist, you may be one of them.  Nothing is necessarily wrong with being competitive, but be aware of who is around you.  Don't be the asshole handler who gives their competition insulting remarks, nasty glares or attempts to distract the dogs running against them. Winning can be fun, but if you're not having fun,  what is the point? Also remember you have a teammate who doesn't care or know anything about placements (because they're dogs). They're doing most of the work anyways,  so stop acting like you have a constant spotlight on *you*. If you take a more fun, leisurely approach, you may just Q more or be more happy with an NQ. No one likes a grouch complaining about their run all.day.long.

So how do you stay positive,  even when you just NQ'd every single run of the day due to broken start lines messing up your line?
Relax and take a deep breath.  This isn't your last trial and maybe you weren't ready for it to begin with. You can't always be on top of your game and Q every run.
Go in to your next trial with no expectations (though that can be difficult). Run like you train and hang on. Pick out the brilliant moments, there is always something, even if it is as small as not barking at the start line.  Embrace those brilliant moments.  Don't hang on to those speed bump moments or errors in your handling. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone occasionally forgets a cue or trips over a wing. It's not the end of the world, unless you bet your life on a Q... but if that's the case then you seriously have deeper issues.

Go out, take a deep breath, run like hell and have fun. Embrace the little things and don't sweat the mistakes. Take a positive approach to every course and have a blast running and challenging your team to anything that crosses your path.

Look at your teammate and smile before AND after each run. Every team has greatness inside them, don't let a negative mindset ruin yours.

It's Just You and Your Teammate

If you know me, you know that I'm not one to ever post song lyrics as a status or as some creative caption for an instagram photo... However,  being stuck in one of the university centers while studying for finals last week, I got to hear a lot of music and one lyric stood out to me more than anything else. Heard in John Legend's "All of Me" -
"Even when I lose, I'm winning"
I find this powerful, not necessarily in his context, but when applied to agility.
When you're entered in a trial, you're clearly running against others for the best time with a clean run. You are competing for placements... or are you competing for another reason?
I guarantee someone will not answer the question of "why do you compete in agility?" with the answer of "because I'm competitive and I want to beat everyone". Why?  Because agility is not just the physical game,  but the mental game. It's a learning and bonding experience.  It's a game we play with our dogs.
Back to this lyric, I truly believe it reflects how I personally feel every time I step in to the ring or even on my field at home. It's not about beating my competitors.  It's not about first, second, or third place. It's not about showing off. Winning is fun, exciting and a great confidence boost, but what is losing?  Is it giving up? Blaming your dog? Admitting defeat? Absolutely not. Who says you have to be the best all the time? Who says you have to be the best at all?
You may have a dog who struggles to even make time on the course,  but your small victories such as a hit contact or no knocked bars - that is winning.
Every single run is winning because we all have little issues to overcome, improve or learn. Someone may always be "better" than you,  but never forget that you're winning every time, even if a numbered score shows you're not.
Physically, you have competition.
Mentally,  your only competition is yourself.

Strive to improve,  to learn from every experience and most importantly - appreciate the little things and know that there is no such thing as 'losing'.