E284: 메건 포스터와 리즈 조이스(Megan Foster and Liz Joyce) - "어질리티 핸들링 옵션 늘리기"

Um, I'll give you guys a chance to just share a little bit about it. Liz, you want to go first? I know you're, you're new to FDSA. So. Yeah, I am. I'm so excited to be here. Um, the workshop that I have coming out is, well, it's for sale right now, actually. It's about handler speed development. So in the workshop and the webinar, I guess the recorded presentation, we talk all about the different things that can limit handlers speed and also, you know, information's fine, but if there's no action plan, it's not that useful. So there's a ton of gems and easy to put into play, um, drills that can fix up very common, you know, mechanical issues that do limit people. So I'm really excited about it. I've been coaching this material for a couple of years now and the changes in people's movement and the speed they're able to generate is incredible. It's exciting. Megan, what you got coming up? So next on my plate is a webinar that is called essential skills for stopped contacts. And in my mind, that is the prerequisite games that I play with my own dogs and my students dogs to prepare them for training stopped contacts later on down the road. And so it kind of breaks down everything that I do that's not directly contact training, but is indirectly in contact training. Gotcha. And it leads into the class you got coming up, right? It does because I am teaching my teeter training class for the October term. So it does kind of help you out there, get a little precursor of what's going to happen in the class too. Sweet. And you guys know each other pretty well, right? Um, you want to share a little bit about that? I do. Um, end of 2020, Shade Weitzel, our colleague at FDSA, and she's also become a very good friend of mine was basically telling me everyone has to work out with Liz for the rest of their lives. She's amazing and everyone needs her in their corner. And so I did. And, you know, Shade is a very brilliant woman and I respect her immensely. So when she says to do something, I believe her. And that's, she was a hundred percent correct. So Liz has been coaching me since then. Uh, and I, I was hopefully a helpful role in her kind of dragging her into this online space. And yeah. And, and we've become good friends over the last couple of years too. Thanks for saying such nice things. We work really well together. Um, you and I, Megan and yeah, Megan also has been instrumental in developing all of these courses that I'm have put together and we'll be putting together like out at nine o'clock in the morning on frosty grass, trying drills. Does this feel like it's hitting the mark? Okay.

Does this feel like it's hitting the mark? Um, from there all the way to like, you know, picking platforms. She's just been an like invaluable resource. I just thank you so much, Megan. And also a very inspiring client to work with. And yes, we've become great friends. So I really appreciate our time together. I do feel like Liz, uh, every time I talk to somebody else, uh, lately, they've seen your name seems to come up. So it's good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's exciting. It is good. Yeah. I've talked to Megan a bit about this before, but, um, I think it's easy for agility handlers to kind of overlook their role in the sport, um, to kind of focus on training the dog skills and just forget about their own entirely. So, um, can you each talk a bit kind of about how trainers can increase their options, um, in agility by improving their own skills or like kind of focusing on themselves a little bit? Liz, you want to go first? Sure. Uh, well, I'm going to come at this obviously from kind of a fitness perspective and a body care perspective. I see a lot of space for people to improve, you know, even just simple things like being able to run more courses and being as strong on the last run of the day as they were on the first run of the day is a huge deal. I'm also getting a lot of feedback from people saying that they are able to even increase their dog speed on course because they can support them better. They're stronger. Um, and I also really loving that at the beginning of course, as people are working their way through that kind of 12 week program, at the beginning, there's kind of some growing pains that can happen. And towards the end of the course, people that leave it are feeling so strong and powerful and confident. And I love all the things about that and how it kind of bleeds into their life like that. But I think, you know, overall, there is definitely room for people to, on a general sense, improve their handling in a way of, you know, being able to support their dog, get to obstacles faster and in a safe manner that doesn't cause injuries for themselves. Megan, you want to kind of add your, your other side of that, that coin? I do. And like, first I want to like my whole thing, my whole coaching career has kind of been banked off of that. I don't coach people to run faster. That's not advice that I give because it is such a limiting factor for so many and myself included. Like there's only so much faster you can go. And then I met Liz and she knows how to make people stretch that limit and stretch that threshold.

So I will never tell you that running faster is the answer, but if you believe that running faster is in your goal set and what you want to work on, Liz is the answer to that. Because my side of things, the handler's role is about using your current ability and your current skillset in the smartest way possible to be the most efficient and to be there for your dog in all of those ways. So that that's one way that we work really well together. And I kind of think of it like the more skills you have, the less limitations you have the same. And I can draw the parallel to dog training and that if your dog has independent obstacle skills, you have a lot more freedom on course than if you have to stay right next to your dog. So that same thing can be said for the running mechanics and the fitness skills and also just your ability to plan a handling strategy on the course. So the more kind of robust repertoire of skills that you have in all of those areas, you're going to look at any course and go, yeah, I've got this because you have so many options. Mm-hmm. I love that. I like that too. I mean, I just, I think, I think kind of the idea of expanding your own skillset is like so, it's important to think about it from that concept, from that angle, right? Like there's this, the more options you have when you're trying to figure out how you want to run the course, the more options you have when you're actually running your dog, if something goes wrong or changes in the middle of a run, you know, sometimes it's just helpful to be able to either put on that burst of speed or have other skills under your belt that you can pull out. Absolutely. Yeah. So Liz, I know, I know your workshop, you're talking about both mechanics and speed for the human teammate. Is handler training for lack of a better term, one size fits all, like a program that kind of everybody can follow or that everybody should follow. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Yes, I do. And I would love so much to say that the answer is yes, because that would just be so clean and simple. Definitely not. Yes. But, you know, it just takes a little bit of not a little bit. It takes quite a lot of experience and strategic planning and, you know, taking feedback from hundreds of people over a long period of time to figure out how can you accomplish the same end goal, but accommodating for different, you know, physical limitations, injuries, body shapes, you know, fitness levels, all types of things. So, yeah, it isn't a one size fits all, but I think that if, you know, I do a great job of

curating programs and courses that take people from a variety of different fitness levels and all those other factors that I just listed and bring them together so that the goal they're achieving is the same. But, you know, maybe one person has a very high impact and intense variation of something that they would do that would work towards that end goal and someone else would have very low impact variation of that so that they don't get hurt, but the other person can explore their limits at a more rigorous sort of fashion. So I would love to say yes. And the answer is definitely no. Fair enough. Are there small changes that handlers can make or things that like, you know, some piece of advice maybe that can make a big difference in a relatively short period of time? I was thinking about this for the last couple of days, you know, just on my own. And there are a couple of things, you know, if we're talking about the human's long term comfort in their body, the people that I see is like my oldest client right now is turning 91 in a couple of weeks. And I've trained all kinds of age ranges. And the people I see that age the most comfortably in their bodies are people that maintain a good mobility routine and keep their, you know, joints mobile. That is definitely the thing that will help people age the most comfortably in their bodies. But the things that they can do to make a big difference right now is pick the thing that they want to work on and then make sure that it's appropriate for their fitness level and just be consistent at it. Just keep practicing. Like if your goal, for example, is speed and you're currently, you know, walking for exercise or maybe jogging, I would just encourage you to think about what your end goal is and have your training or your workload look like it's heading in that direction and practice often consistently. Imagine that it's almost like in dog training. It's almost, it's almost the same. The things you work on are the things that get better. It's true. But, you know, it's like a little bit complicated for people sometimes and they, you know, really love what they do. Well, it's still running, but it's not sprint training. And if you want to sprint, you have to practice. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so Megan, I know you've got your, uh, stopped contacts webinar coming up. Um, do you want to talk just a little bit about why a team might choose stopped contacts versus running contacts and kind of how that factors in maybe to some of what we've been talking about? Uh, sure. I, I definitely encourage all agility competitors to kind of sit down and decide what their version

of agility looks like before making huge decisions about stop versus running contacts. And when we kind of unpack what our version of agility looks like, we have to consider our goals and what types of courses that we're going to be running on, because there's such a wide variety in the challenges spread across the different organizations and also how high up the ladder in those organizations you care to aim for, because that might be a big factor in what you choose, because obviously, uh, running contacts may have an advantage over some, over time, right? Time on the course. And we also have to consider your version of agility when it comes to time as your most valuable resource. I do think that running contacts takes up a little bit more time than stopped contacts, but it also takes up a little bit more access to equipment, which is tied into your time. If you have to drive somewhere to access equipment or rent somewhere to access equipment. And we also do have to consider the handler's abilities, both out there on the course. And as a trainer, I believe that running contacts and stopped contacts do require quite good training skills, but it's much easier to see stopped contact criteria than running contact criteria. Right. It's just easier to observe if the dog stopped in a position versus hit a very small spot of the entire contact with their very fast feet. And that gets much harder if your dog's feet are a certain color. And if they blend in, like it's yeah. White feet on yellow is actually kind of hard sometimes. And, and so there, there's just all these things that I want everyone to consider if they really want to go down the route of training one over the other. And then of course, most of us, if we choose running contacts for one, we, we all need some sort of stopped behavior on the teeter. So there's definitely going to be both happening potentially in your life. And so you just have to decide if that's right for you overall, big picture, very big picture thinking. Can you share a little bit about kind of how you break down stopped contacts? Like what the pieces are there? Yeah, of course. So when we visualize a really good stopped contact and it doesn't matter which obstacle we're talking about the dog walk or the a-frame or the teeter, we kind of see in our head, a dog that confidently and as fast as they can climbs the board, descends the board and just stops in that perfect position, either two feet on the ground and two feet on the board or all four feet on the board. So we have all of those components there.

So we've got speed across the board, confidence on the different planks, knowing when to stop and how to stop and when to go again. And so I break it down, all of those kind of concepts away from the equipment themselves. So we've got Q discrimination, right? So when to stop versus when to go. We have ignoring the handler until you've been told to go again. You've got speed. You've got the mechanics of how to stop. You've got what position to stop in. You've got some bravery games in there. There's all these little pieces that we can pick apart and train separately. And that's exactly what I do. Fair enough. I know it's not necessarily in the list of questions, but if somebody is going to train running contacts, a lot of the foundation skills sound like they would still be useful to have, even if ultimately you decide to have running contacts on your A-frame. Yeah, I had written it down in my notes for today, but absolutely. So many of these concepts overlap for any stationary behavior. So they're also the same concepts that I may use for my start line training, but also the Q discrimination and ignoring the handler. Those specifically also help with running contacts and we pull training and all sorts of things. I'm a firm believer that it needs like the skills you train need to work over time for you. Because if I'm going to put time and effort and prioritize these skills, I need them to show up in a lot of different places for me. Yeah. Yeah. And train smarter. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Because I have to have to have time for my sprint workouts now. I can't be training my dog all the time. Because I have to do things now. I have to train. And Megan, get in the gym myself. I know. Go do your workout, Megan. Go do your sprint training, Megan. I don't have time to train different things to the dogs anymore. But you can get there. That's true. So I think one of the kind of neat things about what both of you kind of have on the schedule at the moment is that they're agility skills, but they can actually be worked a fair degree away from the actual agility field, right? Do you guys each want to just talk about that piece a little bit? Kind of what people need and where they need to be or what they need in terms of space or materials or what have you to kind of work on this stuff, Liz? Yeah, I'll go. I love so much that both of our courses are things you don't need to go to an agility facility or have a lot of equipment for. So my course, you need like seven. Well, for the sprinting thing, you need like 30 to maybe 50 meters of space. It's like a meter wide just to run in kind of a straight line.

Preferably, it'd be on the similar type of footing as you experience on course. But grass, pavement, tracks, whatever like that is totally suitable. What I love about that is that people can do it in a lot of different places. And a big thing that I do very carefully and thoughtfully is make it as accessible for people as possible. So I think that it's important and you don't need any equipment. You know, some people even do their workouts with no shoes on at all. So it's like very, very minimal, very minimal things needed. Cool. Megan? Yeah, I've always kind of joked about agility training as if it's a skill that cannot be taught in my living room, in my pajamas with the beverage of my choosing, it's not worth training. Like everything that I teach my dog starts there. Like the very first skill my puppies learn is do not knock over my beverage. Like because there will be one nearby, whether it's coffee or bubbly or some other variety of beverage. There will be one nearby. Please do not knock it over. So I do really enjoy making sure that I can train when I don't have access to equipment. And again, like Liz was saying, that accessibility, if we can break these skills down into the smallest piece possible, we don't need the equipment and we don't need the space. But we can still be improving our skills because dogs are amazing at piecing things together. So particularly for the skills that we're going to talk about in this webinar, you might need a platform or even just a mat, just something that the dog can kind of target and stop on. And a cone or just anything that you have lying around the house that the dog can kind of go around and you just need a lot of rewards, your dog's favorite stuff. And all of that can be done really, really easily in a small space with things that you have around the home. And that's really important to me. Is there anything kind of that we haven't talked about that listeners need to know about your upcoming workshop, Liz, or the webinar, Megan, or just kind of the topics that we've been talking about as a whole, maybe to help them decide if they want to join you guys? Megan, you want to go first? Yeah, I want to mention that the skills presented in this upcoming webinar are both really puppy friendly and really retrain friendly because we're not going to be working on the actual equipment. So from a puppy perspective, where all of these exercises that I'm going to cover are low impact and can be trained in very small spurts of like 30 seconds of training and then give them a break.

So everything can be made to kind of fit the puppy's brain space and then built upon until you're until the dog is ready old enough and mentally aware of enough to actually start the obstacle training. But also when you're talking about retraining a skill, it's incredibly important to get creative and rebuild those skills away from the obstacle itself because the obstacle has all of that history kind of packed into it. So we need to write a new story, so to speak, before we reintroduce the obstacle. So it's very friendly for both of those situations. Liz, anything else you want to share on your workshop or kind of the topic? I do, yes. I think this workshop's important for a lot of different agility handlers. And I think the thing that I really like about this particular workshop and how I've laid it out is that I was very careful to accommodate as many fitness levels and injuries as possible with the patterning drills that I have put together to improve people's mechanics and speed development. And also there's homework that comes with it. So there's included like a training plan and a sample workout week. So people could take this webinar, audit it. And in the feedback, while there are drills that are in the webinar that are on a YouTube playlist, I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve. And I will be adding in different videos and drills as needed. And those will all be included in the YouTube playlist. So I did my best to make this kind of one-stop shop for speed development and all the patterning drills and homework and sample workout weeks that people can take with them and just start their speed training journey at home by themselves fairly quickly. Awesome. All right. So final question here. So if I asked you guys to kind of sum up our conversation today into a final piece of advice or kind of a takeaway you want people to have after listening to this, what you got, Liz? I want to go straight inspiration meme and say something along the lines of you're more powerful than you think you are. And you can show yourself just how strong you are with just a little bit of effort and consistency. You will be shocked at the improvements that you can make at any fitness level and any injury history with a smart thought out plan. And you can do it. And all you need to do is just be consistent and keep trying your hardest. And I think that's what I want to say. Awesome. I think that's a great reminder for everybody kind of as we close things out. Megan, what about you? Well, I completely agree with what Liz just said.

And mine is a little bit similar that really excellent training, no matter what you are training, your own skills or your dog skills, doesn't need a whole lot of access to fancy things or full courses or loads of equipment. It only needs consistency and a little bit of creativity. And the good news is, is that Liz and I have done the creative part for you. And so you just need the consistency part, right? This is the bonus of having access to you can train with whoever you want to on the internet now. And so the creativity is out there. And once you kind of get started in kind of both fields, you'll figure out how you want to tweak things and work things around for your own individual needs. So it will also help you in the creativity department. Awesome. Thank you both so much for coming on the podcast. This has been a fun chat. So thank you. And I'm glad you can both make it. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Don't miss it. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in. And happy training. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you.