Drill Team Practice

While I haven't talked about it much lately, our drill team practices have continued. We hit a bit of a wall a little while back and we ended up having a sit down meeting to go over several things to figure out why things were feeling so disjointed and what would get us back on track and making forward progress. I felt really good after that meeting and I think that what we discussed has served to help keep our group moving forward and making progress.

We found that while it would be ideal to meet on a weekly basis, it was really difficult to have all four members available every single week on Saturday evenings (Andrea and Brody were no longer able to continue on with the drill team due to scheduling conflicts). So we figured out a rotating practice schedule that so far is working out well. We also discussed a way in which to work through the routine that would most benefit us as a group. Additionally, we talked about how to start figuring out the last half of our routine. As of right now, it's not written and we're not entirely sure what we're going to do. By combining input from everyone in the group, we at least have an idea now of how to tackle this problem.

The past two practices have been really productive! Last night, the work that we did at the previous practice really paid off! We walked through the first half of the routine without the dogs and it went well. Then we went through the same chunk of the routine a few times with the dogs and I am really happy to say that it went the best it has ever gone!:)

The dogs were put up again and we started walking through the next portion of the routine, which is admittedly trickier than the first half. It's going to look so neat when we get it all worked out! We ended up not walking through that portion of the routine with the dogs because we realized that there were still some things that we needed to work through and figure out before throwing the dogs into the mix. This section involves all four handlers being at the corners of a square and doing a crossing pattern in the middle so that we end up on opposite corners. As you can imagine, this involves good timing as well as exact foot work and everyone knowing where they need to be and when, in order for it to go off smoothly.

We're also working on a couple of movements that we may add into the unwritten portion of the routine. There are a lot of cool things that we could do, but we need to make sure that what we put in is appropriate for the level that we will start competing at as well as making sure that everyone in the group can execute them with their dogs. It's trickier than it seems! We've come up with a lot of great ideas, but a fair amount of it is stuff that we will have to wait until we get past the novice level to include.

My weekend has otherwise been deliciously lazy. I've done some cleaning, which has been nice. I can actually see the top of my desk now! Bess is slowly getting her brains back. The dogs still have to be separated for about the first half of the day because Bess is still such a hussy, but they are usually settled enough after the morning that it's not quite so bad. While they're separated I have been reminded of why Heffner doesn't do so well as an only child (Bess has been baby gated into the craft room so that she at least has some room to roam and sprawl out). The boy is obnoxious! Without Bess to entertain him, I have become the focus of his attentions. And he's had more zoomies than normal. And he's been pouncing on everything like some sort of giant cat! It's entertaining until it gets turned on me.LOL

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!