Trust Issues

Viva and I had the good fortune last week to be at a Stacy Peardot-Goudy seminar. During the debriefing of a course, I was asked about a front cross placement -- not why I did a front cross, or whether I should have done a front cross, but why I put the front cross where I did. I answered, "Instinct," because it was the only thing I could think of at the time. I walk every course first for Viva's path, then for my general path, and then I put my analytical mind to work. I know where I want Viva's lead to change, I know where I need Viva to collect and want her to extend, and sometimes, after I've thought through the options, certain placements just "feel" right to me. Instinct.

Seminars being seminars, I had some time to unpack my answer, and "instinct" unpacked into something powerful indeed. The reason the front cross placement had "felt" right in my imagination was that I wasn't confident that the place I analytically wanted to put the front cross would allow me to send Viva over the previous jump. I didn't trust our ability as a team to execute my first-choice plan, so my subconscious took me to a second-choice plan, one that intuitively felt more comfortable. Lateral and forward sends are not new to Team Viva, but they're new enough (lateral in particular) that I still have strong memories from last year of pulling Viva off jumps or sending her too far when I didn't get my timing, motion, or position right.

When I do get my act together with a send, the effect is magical but scary. As an extremely tactilely- and kinesthetically-oriented individual (there's a reason I became a pianist), I often associate my ability to control with my ability to manipulate objects with touch. I depend on this. Agility might thus be considered an odd sport for me, because I don't get to touch my dog or hold onto her physically in any way. The on-course dog-handler connection in agility exists, profoundly, but does not ever get to be about clutching, gripping, or otherwise laying hands on the beast. (If it does, and the clock is still running, something has, without a doubt, gone seriously wrong.) We use the terms "pull" and "push" to describe handling actions, and sometimes I feel as though I am actually "pulling" or "pushing" on Viva's line, but this is ephemeral; there is neither dog in my hands nor at the other end of a leash. Consequently, I often have the vague and unsettling sensation that I am without hands. Sure, they get to point; they go up and down and extend and change direction at the ends of my arms, but nothing touches Viva -- on course, we are two islands in a sea of air. I can trust this other island, I can send it (and I do), but these acts of trusting and sending run counter to my nature. My default is to clutch, grip, and, failing my ability to do either without breaking all the rules, micromanage. Surely, if I am careful, Viva will take this jump here. Surely, if I am vigilant, Viva will come right to me there. Surely . . . but then the run is awkward, lines drift, the dog slows. To do our best, to run with great joy and abandon, I must let go and trust. Trust my training, trust my handling, trust my timing, trust my dog, trust myself.

Not coincidentally, the only other time I have felt as though I had no hands was during a trust exercise. You've been there; this was the one in which everyone stood around in a circle, one person stepped into the center, and gently fell. The group of "trustees" was supposed to support the individual, or "truster," who could then relax and experience the warmth of this support. I was criticized the first time I was the "truster" because I didn't relax. I couldn't. I had never wholly trusted anyone; what on earth would possess me spontaneously to trust a circle of strangers? My inclination was to trust that one of the "trustees" in the circle wouldn't be paying attention (or worse), thus landing me as the "truster" painfully and inelegantly on the floor. What I was reminded of during the agility seminar is that Viva trusts me wholly. Moroever, and perhaps more importantly, she is giving me the opportunity to treat her in the same fashion, indeed is pushing me to trust her on course the way she trusts me. No wonder she barks when I give her bad information! As the "trustee," I've let her as the "truster" end up on the floor.

Trusting Viva on course means trusting her on line, trusting her on contact obstacles, trusting her to find and stay in the weaves, and trusting her whenever and wherever I'm turning. It took me three runs this weekend to achieve the first (trusting that she would stay at the start line, instead of leading out carefully and morosely, as though I expected her to fail) but by the time we got to Sunday's Jumpers with Weaves course, I was primed. I led out happy, trusted her to stay (which she did), ran and trusted her to react to my body language, and we had one of our best runs ever. I sent her into a bonus tunnel, but she still had one of her fastest runs ever. And we ended as happily as we ever have. I trust she enjoyed the post-run cookies.