My little girl has so much drive!

We just came back from the field not too long ago, and WOW, Mika had so much drive today! We practiced the A-frame with stride regulators, and a distance exercise with a 90 degree on-side weave entry (12 poles). She was zooming through the whole exercise, like really ZOOMING!

I'm feeling very proud of myself now! :) The whole time we trained today, I never unintentionally told Mika that she was wrong, not once! When we practiced the A-frame (two reps) I sent her into a tunnel before the A-frame to get some speed on the A-frame... She went into the wrong end of the tunnel both times, but I quickly adjusted to get into position to run ahead of the A-frame even though she went in the wrong end. And in the distance/weave exercise (again, 2 reps), she entered at the 2nd pole of the weaves both reps and popped at the 11th pole both reps (because she had a wrong entry), but I threw her food tube for her both times! (They were awesomely fast weaves, by the way) Very happy with myself right now, which doesn't happen often...I sometimes worry that I stress Mika, but today, I didn't do anything to make her stress!! :D

I'm not worried about her wrong weave entry, even though she never did get it today. I stopped after 2 reps even though she never got it right (but she doesn't know that...in her mind, everything she does is right!), sticking to my rule of no more than 2 reps, just like I stuck to my rule of never letting Mika know that she made a mistake. Mika isn't the best at 90 degree on-side entries, because when I trained her weaves two and a half years ago (using hand gestures to direct her through straight poles) I only trained 0 degree, or straight, entries. So when we encounter 90 degree (or more) on-side entries, I try to handle the entry for Mika and push her out to help her get the entry from an easier angle. Today I didn't push her out enough, so that's why she didn't get her entry. Completely my fault! (As it always is)

Wall-e's fun match is tomorrow. In his first run, I'm planning on just training his teeter, since it's a great quality teeter at this venue. In his second run, we'll run the jumps and tunnels on the Standard course, skipping all the other obstacles since I haven't fully trained all his obstacles yet.

~Nat