30 years of yoga practice, founder of , voted Favourite Online Yoga Platform or App 2023.
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Successful dog sports competitor in multiple dogs sports with 2 Obedience Champions and making history with the UK's only IGP3 Aussie!
In our live training yesterday on the Mental Mastery for Dog Sports course we went through pre-competition strategies, competition strategies and visualisation. The importance of listening to our own dogs and our own emotions when we’re coming up with training and competing plans. And yes, keeping dogs cool at shows is something we used to do when we used to have summers 😂. What does your competition plan include?
The most lovely thing is that whilst I've been struggling, my Mental Mastery group is really seeing me through!! It's just lovely being able to share real joys and breakthroughs from a few of our members who are competing for the first time in years, or starting to feel joy training again. And this is ONLY WEEK 2 of the training!!! I really am living through our members and LOVING seeing so much joy in training and competing for Founder Group of Mental Mastery Mentees! Great work, everyone! If you've ever struggled with finding the joy in training or competing, what was it, or who was it, that helped you to bring the joy back?
Lessons learned. I’m going through a massively sh*tty part of life. Having just lost Shanti, I’m now really worried about MeMe. I had hoped that going to the show would distract me, I wanted to do it because I could. I knew that Gracie was on top form, so why on earth not go. Well because I’d been a mess yesterday and was in tears at the show ground. Yes, during the round I forgot all my worries. But for Gracie, seeing me in that state and so not together and in the zone on the showground, during the drive, must have massively effected her. She uncharacteristically lost attention during her heel work, shaking when it started to rain during a sit position, and just losing it. This just isn’t her. I pulled her out of the competition, didn’t let her continue. And on reflection, this was entirely my bad. I put her in a position where she was needing to cover for me. I wasn’t in a fit state to be there and shouldn’t have put her in that position. But am I blaming myself? No. But will I learn from this. Yes. Until I’m feeling back on form, and in a good place emotionally, I won’t be working or training her. And that’s my end of the bargain. I do think that in our training we need to uphold our end of the bargain and can’t possibly blame the dog for going wrong when we weren’t mentally right. And learning is what it’s all about. What’s next for me? Get some support. Know when some things are too big to deal with them on my own. So I’m cancelling all plans and coming back up to Scotland to my lovely friend Deb tomorrow.
Feeling incredibly grateful today. Yesterday we had so many ah-ha moments and breakthroughs in our first live training session with our Mental Mastery founding group. But the best thing is how really supportive, friendly and accepting everyone is on the group and in our community private pages. All supporting each other on our journey to train and compete our dogs with enjoyment and confidence. It really is magic. So today we had a treat of coffee and cake at a wonderful cafe where we were all made to feel so welcome. Felt appropriate ❤️
Last night I shared a live on our private Mental Mastery group on dogs making noise when they’re working! It’s interesting to note what emotion is causing the noise, what they’re trying to communicate and when they’re making noise. Thank you Shanti and living with noisy Aussies for giving me such a thorough knowledge of how it feels as a human, when dogs make noise, and the different emotions the dogs might be feeling when they’re shouting. So fascinating hearing people’s experiences. I’m loving our small group, ah-ha moments have already dropped, and teaching doesn’t even start til next week. Fascinating stuff and I’m loving combining my love of dog sport and mindfulness/yoga.
I’m so proud of my fabulous dog sport student Julie Roach. She went and smashed it!! Top honours at her very first obedience show!!! Massive congratulations Julie!!
One thing that can really get in the way of our performance is negative self-talk and self criticism. But just saying not to do it isn’t so useful. Tonight I did a little live on the Members group about where these voices are coming from… what negative self-talk do you find yourself saying when you’re working your dog?
This weekend I’m competing in obedience for the first time this year (apart from crufts!) and the first time since Gracie’s last trial which was the FCI qualifiers in IGP. So I’m going into it a bit obedience ring rusty, but also in the knowledge that Gracie loves a challenge, loves doing something new, I’m getting a handling lesson today so I’ll feel prepared. I KNOW that she can easily do this. So I won’t be worrying about the outcome. Instead I’ll be focusing on my gratitude for this little dog for all she’s given to me, no matter what happens this weekend 😊
Do you find that your emotions can get in the way of training your dog, or that you don't enjoy competing because of the way you feel? Or that your dog simply doesn't perform as well in competition as in training. Learn how to gain mastery over your mindset and shift your thinking to gain confidence when you compete and train with your dog.
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Interesting to contrast to the last reel. Where hw is the first exercise, this quite jolly but brisk and matter of fact way of handling her worked much better. She got her sneezes out the way and went onto get a good place in a competitive ticket. Getting our plans is all about listening to the dog and seeing what works for them, with the type of round that they’ll encounter. In our Mental Mastery training we’re on a journey to get to know ourselves and our dogs to come up with optimal performance plans, not leaving anything to chance!!
As part of our Mental Mastery for Dog Sports programme we’re looking in detail at our training and competing strategies. The strategies have to be based on what works for you and your dog, and have a real basis on how the dog feels. Looking back on this video from one year ago I can see that this round wasn’t going to go well. I can see that I hadn’t got her in the right state of mind, she wasn’t ready to go in the ring. She wasn’t thinking and wasn’t in drive, and was disengaged by the whole thing. Can you see this? Do you look at videos, and being very honest with yourself, can you see right from the start whether the round will go well or not? That’s what making a strategic plan is all about - looking at our emotions and our dogs emotions and seeing how we can plan to get us all in the right state of mind for success!!
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