Parkour (7/8)

We had a substitute instructor. This is the last class of the session and we were told our next session would start an hour earlier. This session was 15 minutes earlier than before. Apparently they have huge enrollment for STAR Puppy classes and so we get moved to accommodate the puppies. If they don't move us and put the puppy classes before and after parkour, she says all the parkour equipment has to be moved an extra time. I'm not sure this makes sense. It has to be set up and then taken down each time, since there is only one parkour class on Wednesday, so whether it happens before the puppy classes or between them - it seems like the same amount of work to me. Perhaps there is some other factor that wasn't shared with me.

I'm going to try the earlier time, but I'm not sure how well it will work. I'm already cutting a work day short to get there, because I have to leave so early to beat the rush hour traffic. I usually have to wait 45 minutes for class to start. If I try to leave later I get stuck in rush hour and arrive halfway through class. Perhaps I can just leave half an hour earlier. I'll see how it goes.

Warm-up-A video - The Akita person is working in the foreground, so it's hard to see what we're doing. I wasn't sure how Gimme would do with the other dog out working at the same time, but she was fine with it. The Akita's owner is very careful, which you can see from time to time when she stops and stands with her dog behind a divider. It sure helps knowing she's not going to do anything dopey like less experienced classmates are prone to.

We started working on some warm-up using the elevated ladder walk and the pvc ladder on the ground. Gimme also had to figure out to go around the tree and "thru" the barrel, with the goal being for me to not pass the tree (so no body blocking the gap). The challenge is that I also use "thru" to mean go between two things, so she was correct to think I meant go between the tree and the barrel. I used "chute" to cue the collapsed tunnel in agility, which she understood. Since she hasn't done agility in almost 3 years, I'm amazed she remembered it.

Warm-up-B video -
We switched sides with the Akita team. This was a short little sequence of: below, walk-on, around and thru. Gimme did it well and completely ignored the Akita working nearby.

"Walkies" video - This was short and sweet.

Sequence 1 video - This was a nice little sequence, bringing together most of what we'd already done. Then we did it in reverse.

Sequence 2 video - The instructor added the narrow board to make it more challenging for Gimme. The Akita still won't get on any board higher than his elbows. He's really young and so clumsy and it's part of parkour philosophy to not push him beyond his comfort zone. Unfortunately the last 2 props are outside camera view.

Sequence 3 video - This is mostly the same, except the instructor wanted me to add a front cross in a spot where it didn't work and there were two more props added - again outside camera view.

Elevated back-up video - We put the ladder down on the ground so I could work with Gimme about stepping backwards through it. I didn't really expect she would do much, rather I wanted her to be really conscious of her feet.

From there we went to the ladder, which is also a bit elevated. This was challenging because she needed to step between the rungs and when she got all four feet in one rung space, it pushed her hocks against the next rung. Rung height was just above her point of hock, so in order to take another step back she had to pull each back foot forward and then step back with it. Sadly this was outside camera view, so you don't get to see it. Right at the end, she backed through two rung spaces. She was (and always is) fabulous.

Just sayin...