E423: 줄리 플래너리(Julie Flanery) - "뮤지컬 프리스타일 루틴 만들기"

i think most people now at this point have seen musical freestyle it didn't i wouldn't because i didn't use to consider it a mainstream sport but i think now i consider it a mainstream sport i think most have heard of it or seen it and there are several organizations now offering titling opportunities but basically the dog and handler team choreograph and perform routines to music and those routines include obedience and tricks and sequencing skills um it's a sport where the dog has almost as much to say about what goes into the routine as the handler um and together they have to work through what works for each of them and the the one cool thing about freestyle is that the uh judge doesn't know what the team is going to present in the ring and while we hope that it all goes as planned uh if it doesn't and often it doesn't as long as we keep moving we can get back on track and finish out the performance and no one is the wiser because they don't know what we're going to perform so that's kind of that's kind of an interesting thing about freestyle that is different from other sports um aside from competition freestyle is also a really great sport to show in therapy dog visits or community events like pet fairs or just a really really fun way to train and interact with your dog so when you're starting to work on a new routine um where do you usually start do you usually start with a key trick with a particular song with a story you want to tell so how you start your routine can vary from person to person so in general you want to have a few tricks uh or behaviors and some experience with a bit of heel work to start but really your inspiration for starting to develop a routine can come from anywhere it might be a song you heard that inspires you it might be a really cool trick or as you said it might it might be a story you want to tell or it might be a costume or a prop that you saw at the thrift store um and you want to maybe build a routine around that so it could be any of those things it could also be your dog's personality or maybe something you're going through in your life freestyle and developing a freestyle routine can be very cathartic it's a very emotional kind of sport once you have your inspiration though um you'll need to decide on your music and once you have your music you have a starting point from which to build the routine from from kind of the ground up and start to choose your your behaviors and where they're going to go within the piece of music how important is it then to kind of pick the

the right music and maybe what what makes music like a good fit particular for a particular team yeah um so it it's important and it isn't important i mean it is important it is it's a sport built around music and moving to music so if you are competing in freestyle then yes your choice of music will impact your score and part of your score is affected by how well you and your dog move to the music how well you interpret that music through your choice of behaviors your choice of handler moves your props your attire and your overall presentation so in that regard it's important that you choose music that has a rhythm or a beat that you and your dog can easily move to and that the judge can see your movement and the sequences match the tempo and phrasing of the music you want the routine to be visually appealing to the audience as well as something that your dog's movement is showcased so by choosing music that you and your dog can easily move to that's one piece of choreography that you that won't feel or look forced or unnatural um thankfully there's a lot of music out there and usually the problem isn't that it's hard to find music it's that it's hard to narrow down the choices to something that you really really want to work with so having said that though music is a really personal choice and in freestyle your motivation may not be high scores but rather that emotional impact and working with a particular song that emotional impact um is often conveyed to the audience as well and it's it's rare that i don't see an audience affected by the emotional impact of a song so that may have a bearing in what you choose as well um most certainly you want to choose music that you can listen to over and over and over again that you can really learn it like the back of your hand and still want to listen to it because you're going to be listening to it a lot uh routines can take weeks it can take months or even a year or more to develop so choosing a song that is either very meaningful to you in some way or another that inspires you certainly or at least one that you don't mind listening to a lot um you might have other motivations for choosing a particular song a kind of a funny story when i was first developing my very first intermediate routine with one of my dogs um it was with a an organization that i don't compete with now but it was one that i was competing with several years ago and their requirement at the intermediate level was that you not use any any hand cues at all that all of the behaviors were on verbal cue and at that time you know this was 20

years ago or so at that time the primary method of training for positive reinforcement trainers was lure reward training and so all of my behaviors were taught through luring and then transferring to a verbal cue and for a lot of handlers that can be really difficult and dogs as well that when we are under stress or we are under pressure it's easy to fall back into using those hand cues again even if your dog doesn't need them necessarily they're they act as a bit of security for the handler as well to make sure oh i know my dog will do it on hand cue i'm not so sure he'll do it on a verbal cue and knowing that in order to qualify at that particular time i needed to minimize or eliminate my hand cues so i chose a piece of music that i really really really did not like at all and the piece of music that i chose was the macarena because i could learn the dance moves to the macarena and i could do those throughout my routine and if i was doing the dance moves to the macarena then i was not giving my dog hand cues so that's what i did and um we qualified and did quite well but what's interesting is that while at the start i did not like that song i didn't like the song at all but you know it was a really fun song and it was fun learning the arm movements and it was a fun song to do with my dog and it was very upbeat and by the time that i actually um finished out with that routine i actually really really liked the song so and to this day if i hear the macarena start i can i can go right into the arm movements without any trouble whatsoever they're so ingrained it's kind of funny but yeah yeah so you know music is um it's a it's i don't want to say it's a huge decision a big decision but you do want to consider it carefully uh some pieces of music you are a little bit harder to choreograph in terms of presenting um a theme or an interpretation so a song might be difficult to find costuming for or attire for that's going to fit the theme so when you're listening to the music and you're trying to determine well what piece of music do i want to choose over this or that certainly you want something that you and your dog will move easily to and well to but also consider how are you going to develop a visual a performance around this piece of of music what are you going to be wearing what props if any what moves you're going to choose to convey um you know whatever it is you want to convey in this in this music so so yeah a lot of times people will choose a piece of music and they'll start to choreograph and then they're not quite sure what behaviors to choose what

costuming to wear what props they might put into their routine how to interpret this music so that the audience can enjoy the music as as well so yeah yeah it it does matter but um like i said it's a very personal choice we don't always know uh when we view a routine what the handler's motivation was in that choice um so the the most important thing i think is that to make sure you and your dog can easily move to it so how do you decide like when you're thinking about the routine itself how do you decide like which trick or behavior should be at what point in the routine right and if you only have a couple of like really wow kind of tricks or behaviors where in the routine would you place them um so i break my routine when i develop my routines i break it up into i have heel work i have main moves or tricks which include my wow moves i have transition behaviors which are moves that allow us and the dog to move easily from behavior to behavior or sequence to sequence our transition moves are what create flow and smoothness in our moves um the the goal in freestyle is to have your behaviors or tricks or sequences match with the phrasing of the music it's what we call musicality so that plays a really important role in where we place our behaviors including our wow behaviors um so like basically when we start to choreo or when i start to choreograph a routine and freestylers different freestylers have different ways of doing this but i map out my routine through the lyrics or if the song doesn't have lyrics then i will use like the instrumental phrasing and that will go on paper first and as i listen to the music i will start to um literally see in my mind's eye behaviors or sequences that might match the musicality or the phrasing of that piece and i'll just note that down on my paper about it where in the music i would want to put that and so i don't start from the beginning and work down or or from the middle and work out it varies from song to song i might start at the beginning with an opening pose or i might start making notes um in the middle of the routine uh and then we start to flesh it out from there um in you know routines don't have to be full of wow behaviors there is a lot of risk in putting big wow behaviors into a routine and especially when you're first starting out there really isn't a need to add a lot of difficulty or risk to your routine um if there are behaviors that i want to use that are likely to wow the audience i often tend to put them um in the middle and then again at the end i like to build up to them um and

then have them be like one of the last thing a judge remembers um and two if we put too many hard things in the beginning of the routine remember we're gonna be out there cueing our dogs and asking them to do behaviors for two to three even four minutes um two minutes about as average for a newcomer entry-level routine and if we start doing a lot of difficulty at the start of the routine the further we go into the routine the harder it's going to be on the dog um i try to make the wow behaviors as you refer to as something the dog really enjoys as well so as we get into the routine and in the middle part of that routine we might have a wow behavior and then as we continue at the end we have another one and as i said it let you uh as the music builds you can add in behaviors that start to match how the the um music builds but there you know there is no hard and fast rule on where you put your wow behaviors it's it's really more important that the behaviors you choose have um have a reason for being included in your routine that they aren't just added gratuitously like for example you maybe have a slower melodic love story and right in the middle of the slow part you throw in a flashy rebound or a speedy set of spins just because your dog likes them so it often can make it look mismatched to the overall theme or the genre or the totality of the performance so so when you when you start to develop when you start to choreograph your routine generally that music guides you as to where and what behaviors you're going to include in that routine that makes a lot of sense is there you know are there any tricks maybe to avoiding a routine that feels really repetitive or even really chaotic just like two all over the place um so even if you're using the same kinds of behaviors throughout the routine it doesn't need to appear repetitive there are many basic tricks or foundation tricks or behaviors that you can create simple variations of so they look different even though the main behavior is the same and that allows you to provide a lot of interest and variety without needing to do a lot of different behaviors or train a lot of different behaviors so say in a two-minute routine that's a long time you might have you know 30 40 50 cued behaviors in a two to three minute routine and those do not all have to be different nor should they be different um you know maybe your dog only knows how to do a spin or circle around you or a weave a pass through your legs dozens literally dozens of behaviors can be

built from just those three foundation skills and then once you add in your heel work then you have a really nice little newcomer or entry-level routine so people shouldn't feel pressured or like they have to build a huge repertoire of tricks more important is that you get some base behaviors really solid so that it's easy to build off of those and create more complex or difficult tricks based on those foundation skills um more often we do see routines that are going to appear a bit chaotic or rushed and i think that's from a lot of beginners try to put too many moves into a routine uh they they've learned a lot of things they think they're all really cool and they've you know they just want to they want to pack it all in there that is really really hard that's hard on the handler it's hard on the dog and it does start to look very chaotic or choppy um or they they don't really understand how to use transitions as a way to smooth out the sequences and allow for better flow within the routine um or they eliminate the heel work you want to have heel work within your routine it provides a respite for the dog it provides a respite for the handler provides a respite for the audience from you know if you have a lot of stuff packed into your routine it can uh you know be like you said very chaotic and and very um not appealing to the eye very jerky uh so you don't want to really try to do a lot of complex or difficult moves at the beginning levels especially when the team isn't ready especially when they don't have the experience of what it's like to try to do that full two minute three minute routine um without reinforcement all the way through because we practice in segments and rarely are we going to work our whole routine all the way through so so yeah i do see new handlers new freestylers try to put way way way way too much into their routines matter of fact oftentimes even uh experienced freestylers when i choreograph and i have my notes down on my paper all too often i may have my notes but once i start to check those sequences with my dog you know kind of ask my dog the question what do you think of this is this going to work for us i end up having to take out a lot of stuff because we might have this vision in our head of how this is going to look and what we end up finding out is that our dogs don't quite have the ability to hear those cues and process and execute those cues as quickly as we have in our so it's not uncommon to remove uh behaviors or moves from a routine that we're just starting to

develop because it can just get too too much really really quickly that makes a lot of sense kind of thinking about um performing right i'd imagine a lot of trainers maybe feel intimidated by the musical part where uh they actually have to dance so how much do you need to know how to dance to do freestyle well okay you do not need to know how to dance i do not consider myself a dancer i couldn't tell you one dance step from another i do enjoy music and it obviously helps um that you enjoy music that you be able to hear a beat hear the phrasing and step in time to the beat or the rhythm of the of you know any particular song um and you know really maybe don't even need to do that you can figure out what is your natural movement so say what what is your steps per minute and then match that up to a song that has the same beats per minute and as long as your dog is comfortable moving at that same pace you can start that way and then learn to hear the the beat learn to listen to the music and step in time to the music so um you don't need to learn how to and i totally understand that that can be very intimidating i think sometimes what's more intimidating is the thought of getting out there and not dancing but dancing in front of someone having someone actually see you dance with your dog and i think that may be the more intimidating part i would bet that a lot of people dance with their dog in private quite a bit but it's the getting out and doing it in front of somebody that can be a little bit intimidating what do you tell students who maybe are worried that their routines aren't going to be good enough to actually compete or to share yeah so um i have found that people think they need way more than they think they do to succeed in competition did i say that they they think they need more than they actually do to succeed in competition so you know they they look at the freestyle routines online they look at the crust routines or even the top freestylers in this country and and that should be an inspiration to you not a roadblock that says i have to be that good or i have to have a bunch more tricks or i really need some of those wow fancy tricks um you know my healing needs to be more precise the overwhelming majority of first-time freestylers qualify so that that should be encouragement for people i don't know of any dog sport where novice handlers are expected to be experts or top performers and in my experience people like viewers are in awe of anything you put out there that has anything to do with dancing with

your dog i mean who else does that it's cool and it's fun and it's entertaining and no one is looking at you thinking anything but good thoughts and well wishes and that has truly been my experience in the freestyle world that this is an incredibly welcoming community that want to help you in any way that they can so if you could give kind of somebody's listening to this they're kind of interested in getting started or maybe they're new to freestyle right if you could give one tip to somebody who's kind of just in those early stages um what would it be one tip all right julie what you got okay um you know freestyle is a very uh it's a fun sport it's it's a complex sport but um if i had to give like just one tip uh i would say work at the appropriate level for you and your dog if you're an entry level or newcomer work at the entry level not at the advanced level don't feel like you'd need to try to put a bunch of advanced tricks or behaviors into your routine your dog will thank you and your freestyle career will be longer and stronger for it um one of the the best things i think you can do is just get involved join a club get into a facebook group my favorite facebook group is the rally free for all group they are super welcoming super helpful uh take a class uh if you're intimidated by the music aspect of it start with rally free rally free is a sport uh that combine that actually uses those freestyle behaviors but on a rally style course so there's no music involved and it allows you to learn the skills and and allows you to learn how to sequence those skills before trying to put it to music so that's a really user-friendly way and it still includes a lot of the creativity that freestyle has in rally free you get to choose um 25 percent of your rally course you get your rally free course you get to choose and you get the course 10 days in advance of the time that you need to video so uh you get to to some time to practice and choose those what we call free choice behaviors um uh before you actually submit your your video or uh compete live um so yeah that that allows you to kind of get your feet wet meet some people learn about the sport a little bit more ask questions um and and don't be shy just don't be shy step step right up so one of the reasons that we're chatting about this is that you're offering a webinar on musical freestyle for us on the 28th at 3 p.m pt um you've also got your foundation skills class and your joy of healing class in the calendar for the october term so do you want to just kind of give us a

little information about each of those things and maybe who might want to sign up for which yeah yeah i'd love to um yeah so you mentioned my webinar coming up it is a rerun of one that i did a couple of years ago but i am looking forward to being there and answering any questions anybody has uh and it will kind of give you a really good overview of the process and let you kind of just decide do i really want to get involved in this um and then i have my ra 500 which is the intro to rally free and musical freestyle and we teach all of the basic behaviors and the behaviors from the novice rally free course which is what we encourage people to use in their starters or entry-level freestyle routines um and so that uh introduces people to what kinds of behaviors and and gets you started on those so that starts as you said october 1st and then also my joy of healing rocket like a freestyler course also october 1st um people don't often think of healing as part of freestyle but it really is part of freestyle and it's a beautiful part of freestyle and it's what allows you to move fluidly around the ring and in between your main behaviors um having like a home base position that your dog loves to be in and wants to get to will make your and your dog's life so much easier when it comes to freestyle uh if you get lost in your routine your dog always knows how to get back on track by seeking out that heel position so it's also great for other dog sports where we want our dogs to really show some animation and energy in their heel work and and find that joy and healing so to speak so we use lots of games and other really fun exercises to get you there so fun stuff all right any uh final thoughts or key points you kind of want to leave folks with julie uh yeah so yay for you for listening today and wanting to learn more about freestyle uh freestylers are a super fun and welcoming group of folks and they love newcomers they love sharing about freestyle um when i first started in freestyle there was no one near me that taught freestyle and there was no internet at that time i happened to see freestyle at a demo at an apdt conference and i thought oh my god i have got to do that with my dog and when i started to try and find someone that could teach me there was nobody i there just wasn't anybody so a lot of us old timers are self-taught um thankfully there were a couple of vhs tapes out there that we could learn from um and i didn't want to do this alone so i gathered up a few students and started a friday night fun with freestyle group where we all learn together and

that is still happening all over the u.s today that one or two people want to learn about this sport they can't find instruction near them so they get together and they learn together and thankfully they have the opportunity to learn online now they they don't have to do it alone um and from that friday night fun with freestyle we grew into one of the largest freestyle clubs in the u.s and those that were part of that early friday night fun with freestyle group are still club members today uh 25 years later and all still very close friends so freestyle creates a bond between you and your dog but also you and your fellow freestylers that is really really hard to match so yeah join us join us we'd love to have you and i hope to see you guys at the webinar or in one of my classes fantastic well thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking about all this thank you melissa it was really fun and freestyle is always one of my favorite things to talk about heck yeah and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in we'll be back next week this time with michael shikashio to talk about the canis conference and his upcoming webinar on arousal and aggression if you haven't already subscribe to our podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice they have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available today's show is brought to you by the fenty dog sports academy special thanks to denise fenty for supporting this podcast music provided royalty free by bensounds.com the track featured here is called buddy audio editing provided by chris lang thanks again for tuning in and happy training you