Going Positive

Welcome back. This is the new home of the agility addict formerly known as Agility Spaz, now Agility Muse. Right around the time I last posted to my Agility Spaz blog, I got thinking about the power of the positive, especially as it applies to my teamwork with Viva. I didn't post much in 2008, initially because I was overwhelmed by our success at the 2007 AKC Agility Invitational in Long Beach, California. Coming in first in the FSS/Misc. Group blew my self-image as Agility Spaz. It's not that our runs at the '07 invitational were free of handler error. Some of my handling felt overcautious; I didn't always run the way I wanted to. But leaving the invitational, I had to acknowledge that I wasn't a novice handler anymore. I was better than I thought I was, and much of the success that weekend came from thinking positively. Inspired by Lanny Basham's story of shooting in snow for the first time at the world championships, I paced around the convention center muttering affirmations that seeped into my subconscious mind far enough to keep my conscious mind from sabotaging myself or my dog. Returning home, I wasn't sure I wanted to keep going as Agility Spaz. I also wasn't quite ready to assume a new mantle, a positive one, at least in such a public space as a blog. (Okay, so my public here may be a tiny one, but anyone can read this who runs across it.) A year later, I'm ready. It's not that my posts will be more positive than they were at Agility Spaz (the Agility Spaz posts were pretty positive), but I want to affirm that I can handle smoothly, confidently, and effectively, and staring at the "Agility Spaz" moniker on a frequent basis seemed counterproductive. So, welcome back to the home of thoughts and comments on the general topic of me-and-Viva, now reframed as ongoing musings. Maybe this will keep me from falling off the blog wagon the next time we experience more success than my conscious mind expects.