Mental Prep

As I once again prepare to trial one of my dogs, my mind is focused not so much on the physical abilities of my dog (I know he knows how to do it), but more so on my mental preparation. Mental prep is such a big part of our success in dog sports. So much so that I have become consumed with thoughts of how to improve my mental abilities before I compete so that I can "keep it together", so to speak, for my dog. I have unfortunately had years of practice "doing it badly", meaning that I have allowed my mind to negatively affect my performance with my dog. I think that proper mental preparation leading up to and during competitions is seriously lacking in my dog training circles. Sure I have lots of help teaching my dog how to indicate articles, how to do a send out, how to do a hold and bark, how to do weave poles, how to do front crosses... but I find that there seems to be very little opportunity around to discuss the importance of positive mental prep before a trial. This whole idea is becoming more and more popular, as I feel that poor mental prep before a trial affects quite a few people, and they are recognizing it and want to improve their mind's ability to deal with stress related to dogs sports. Many have researched on their own and found valuable resources to help improve their mental performance. I still feel that I am in the novice or beginner stage when it comes to learning about good mental preparedness for competition. And I am even further behind that when it comes to "practicing" good mental control at a competition. I have just had too many years practicing "bad mental behavior, thoughts, and images" that it has become a very, very hard habit to break... at least for me. I often refer to Susan Garrett's training blog, as she has some good ideas and words of wisdom. I am amazed at her ability to keep mentally focused and also her ability to "recover" after an upset in performance.

Here is one of my favourite posts from her blog... "How many of you lose your concentration partway through a run you when you are otherwise acing it? Likely it is a really important run, say the last leg of a double Q or a big qualifier or perhaps even a “finals” class. Things are going along swimmingly and then you let your “conscious mind” know how good you think you are doing. I have done it myself many times. When you allow your conscious mind to play a role in your run it will immediately say things to you like “wow, don’t screw up now” or “if you can just not make any errors you can go clean.” Once thoughts like that enter your head, your focus has been taken away from your run and more often than not it is difficult to get it back without a “hiccup” in the run. That hiccup can be your downfall, that is when you are out of position or cue a turn incorrectly and disaster flows." from this page of her blog, http://susangarrett.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/wii-and-dog-agility/ .

I have done this particular thing to myself many times, and subsequently blew what was otherwise a clean run, usually near the end, with only 2 or 3 obstacles left on the course. Mental prep and performance is so important to our success in dog sports, I'm surprised that more attention is not paid to this critical aspect of success. Perhaps it comes more naturally to others and they are able to master it with little help? Perhaps they feel that experience alone will eventually correct the problems? I don't really know what the answer is, but being relatively new to the dog sports world I feel that I myself need some help and coaching in the mental prep department. Especially as my dogs progress in their respective disciplines and move on to higher levels of competition, I am finding it increasingly more difficult to harness and control my thoughts surrounding a competition.

More on this later... Now I move on to researching ways to improve my skills at mental control.