Six Practice Sequences With Video

16 Oct 2008Steve Schwarz

It has been ages since I’ve setup any courses in my backyard, so I decided to “riff” on this section of a Dana Pike course. I video taped the different handlings for that section of the course to aid that discussion. For this article I came up with six sequences for a small area that let me work on some of the issues we’ve been facing in recent trials.

Here’s the setup (of course you should tweak it to make it harder or easier):

Course Setup With Obstacle Coordinates

Obstacle Legend

Now, for the first time on video, AgilityNerd speaks! I’ve taken a stab at narrating my video and showing both successful and unsuccessful handling attempts. So it is longer than usual but maybe it will be more interesting. Let me know what you think. It is surprising how long it took to edit the video, but it might have taken less time than diagramming everything. Running six sequences multiple times almost back to back meant I didn’t always use the best handling, but in retrospect I didn’t do anything too dumb. I was a little sore the next day from all the exertion :^)

Sequence 1

Obstacles 4-8 in this sequence mirror the section I pulled from Dana’s course (for which there are many handling options). The opening is a 180 with a straight on weave entry. Which side of 1 and 2 to be on?

You might want to run Sequence 2 before this sequence to make the off course to the wing jump more challenging.

Sequence 2

The opening now goes to the opposite side of the tunnel to give a off side weave entrance and there is a PinWheel after the weaves. Looks to me handling it so you end up with your dog on your right from 7-8-9 might be best…

Sequence 3

The opening is changed to a Threadle Mary Ellen Barry on Threadle Handling The Connection Between Threadles and Back Sides Single Sided Threadle Handling Traditional Threadle Handling Threadle Sequence, I’m thinking I want to be on the tunnel side of jumps 1 and 2. Now we take the PinWheel the other way around with a JumpWrap Jump Wrap Handling Tips Jump Wrap Handling - With Video Jump Wrap/Wrap around the wing jump. Need to get past jump 7 on the way to jump 9 without an off course.

Sequence 4

Open with a Serpentine-ish Serpentine Handling Techniques Serpentine Sequence sequence and after the weaves it is a “flatter” version of sequence 1 right into the tunnel. This time I think I want to be on the weave side of jump 5 driving down the line to the tunnel. Then dog on left to jump 9.

Sequence 5

The same opening as sequence 4 except we finally don’t take the (obvious) weaves coming out of the tunnel. I’d probably wrap jump 6 to the dog’s right to get into the weave poles. Then Front Cross Learning the Front Cross - Video Front Cross the weaves to get to the start of the final 180.

Sequence 6

This opening is interesting. If I was running with my dog I’d be thinking dog on right and Front Cross between 2 and 3 and lateral motion 3-4-5. Or lead out to the Front Cross location between 2 and 3. Out of the weaves the first time I’d Front Cross to the tunnel. Then fade laterally in the weaves and Front Cross over jump 8 or stay near the weaves and run and pull over 8 moving laterally to 9.

Here’s the video, I’m not claiming that these are the handling approaches but they might give you some ideas. I hope you give these a try and have fun!

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