Train Like an Athlete – Success in the Juniors Ring

By William Given

“Twenty minutes of focused training (on stacking, baiting, or gaiting, etc.) will be a far better use of time and will make training more sustainable. It will also serve to dramatically increase your handling proficiency. Additionally, it will be much easier to keep your ring partner interested and focused with shorter sessions.”

All highly successful athletes share a simple secret. They train, they train often, they train smart and they make training an important part of their daily life. Just like making your bed and eating breakfast every morning, as well as doing your homework and talking to your best friend every evening, training with your ring partner has to be integrated with all of the activities currently having a place on your daily schedule.

ESTABLISH A TRAINING LIFESTYLE

Most young people have absolutely no idea how good they can get at something by practicing just twenty minutes a day, every day. To achieve a greater level of skill and success, you have to find a way of making training one of your activities of daily living.

Let us take a quick (because I do not want to bore you) look at learn- ing theory, specifically, “distributed learning” versus “block learning.” Block learning is the style of learning used in middle school and high school. It is my belief that distributed practice will prove much more effective than block learning for mastering the skills necessary to win with consistency in the juniors ring. Instead of a continuous two-hour block of training on a Thursday evening or Saturday afternoon, it is far more effective to master skills by distributing that two hours over the entire week, split your training into twenty minutes and work on those areas where you and your dog lack mastery.

Twenty minutes of focused training (on stacking, baiting, or gaiting, etc.) will be a far better use of time and will make training more sus- tainable. It will also serve to dramatically increase your handling pro- ficiency. Additionally, it will be much easier to keep your ring partner interested and focused with shorter sessions.

Another benefit to shorter training sessions is that you can more easily test or evaluate your performance. Consider this, when you and your ring partner are warmed up, you typically perform better. When you distribute your practices over time, you can assess your first presentation (whether in practice or in the ring) while your mind is still cold. This is how it may be at your next show. You cannot always count on being warmed up and ready for each and all of the many things that could go wrong. The ultimate goal of training is to be able to apply the skills you have learned to mitigate the impact of mishaps in the ring or to seize the opportunity to take advantage of a competitor’s handling error.

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Posted by Alex on Feb 22 2018. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.