Accelleration....Deaccelleration

So, all of a sudden, Fin doesn't know how to do contacts any more. It is the weirdest thing. All my trainers and friends say, "This is a good thing...get it out of the way and it won't happen in competition!"

Good thing my ass! I want my beautiful, fast, edgy, barely there, speed demon, crazy, contacts back! Instead I get, is this it? how bout this? This is it, I know. Ok not that, how bout this?

The picture you see is a dog stopping at the top of the A frame and looking at me, stopping halfway down, looking at me, jumping off running by two jumps into the tunnel, looking at me. Me saying calmly, "No, lie down." Her saying in a sing song voice, "I don't hear you!"

God help me. Why oh why.

OK, I know they'll come back. Back to basics with a target. We'll get em back. It's just, come on, we've already been here!

Enough whining or I'm going to have to go into rehab. Let's talk about what this Blog is about.

Today we are going to talk about indicating a turn. What really indicates a turn? Well in my class yesterday, a light bulb went on.

I've been worried that Fin is going too wide on her turns. Even though I've been working on acceleration and deceleration for a while now. Last night I worked on it with Fin without alot of voice (the toughest part for me) and low and behold Fin understands that when I start to slow down, I'm indicating a turn. If I start to slow and cross behind I'm indicating a turn away from the side I'm on, if I decelerate and stay on the same side it is a turn to that side. I don't have to yell anything. How cool is that?

Ok, not cool enough to give up my contacts, but pretty cool nonetheless.

So what I learned in a short 30 minute session is that her going wide was all my fault (did anyone have any doubt that it wasn't my fault?). It was due to me not using proper acceleration/deceleration. One of the tips my trainer suggested (something I should probably know) is when walking my course to not only look for where the turns were and determine the best way to indicate the turn (FC, RC, threadle, Serp), but also to look for where you will accelerate and decelerate. Good advise.

Now I'm going to go work on my contacts.