Whether you are looking for the best possible instructor to take you to a new level in competition, or are instructing yourself and want to be the next Big Name on the ever-growing international circuit, read on for Lauren’s thoughts on what it takes to make the best instructor.

All of us have known the challenge of finding a really good instructor. We may start with who ever is closest and available at the times we are free to train, but unless we’re lucky enough to have an international trainer on our doorstep, who trains 24/7 at the local location and doesn’t take months off to train abroad, pretty soon, we’re going to start looking further afield.  With the world to choose from, and no longer limited to location and time, what are our next criteria when it comes to spending our hard-earned money on what is, for most of us, a hobby?

With a plethora of names and training styles and a broad range of costs, we need to know how to look for the best, and how to recognize when we’ve found it or we’ll spend months, if not years, ricocheting around the country from class to class, confusing our dogs and ourselves looking for the person where the chemistry clicks, the ‘perfect instructor’ who gives the most to her or his classes, keeps sane under pressure, stays refreshed, keeps on top of all the latest developments in the sport and in training theory and is excited every time they see you  – and everyone else they train.

So what makes a top instructor?

• Is a successful competitor automatically a successful instructor?
• Is it their love of people, communication and  how to teach agility, or simply the understanding of how to teach; the application of learning theory to people as well as to dogs?
• Is the instructor balanced and fun in what they do with a good grounding and knowledge of the sport?

For myself, when I am looking for a good trainer – and seek to increase my knowledge base, then the athletic ability – or otherwise – of the instructor as a competitor is far less important than her ability to train a dog – and not just my dog – any dog.

I remember a friend being told early in her career that her dog was just not the type the instructor liked -  which was the end of that relationship.  ‘One breed’ instructors may be good if you have that breed, but there’s probably a reason why they don’t dare stretch their own boundaries, and they may not be able to stretch yours.

As important as the ability to communicate with a variety of dogs, is the instructors skill – and passion -  in her or his communication with people.  I have never really thought about this in depth. But when I was working with a good friend/colleague of mine he commented on my absolute passion for people. It really made me re-think what I’m doing: after all, every dog trainer likes dogs but how many dog trainers really enjoy their owners?  I’ll leave you to ponder on that one…..

The other compromise I think you may have to consider as a true competitor is the balance between the love of winning love and the joy of teaching.

Sometimes this can be compromised, I am not saying often or even for every instructor but it is certainly a consideration for all instructors/pupils. Years ago, when I had individual lessons with Greg Derrett, I made it on the 2006 FCI GB team when he did not which must have been a hard pill to swallow, but he was not only immensely gracious, but thrilled at my success and my respect for him as a trainer grew as a result. He has been the best and certainly the most giving and honest trainer I have had the pleasure to train with to date.

So is your trainer going to cheer you on when you step beyond them? Or are they likely to hold back a little, to be sure you don’t outshine them?

The more lessons I share the more I seem to learn and the more doors that seem to open for us here in Devon so for me personally sharing all information is what we strive to do.

So if you’ve found the Perfect Instructor, the next question is the type of lessons you want. Most people nowadays offer a mix of 121 or group lessons and both can be valuable. Your choice may be limited by when you can train, but if you can manage it, I’d encourage you to try both: not all dogs thrive in a group setting, while some only really come to life when there’s that sense of competition that other dogs give them.

How does your trainer divide your time when you’re training?  In groups, do you spend three quarters of your time standing in a queue while ten other people run the course you’ve just done? Or are you split into pairs or threes and given time to practice in frequent short bursts with enough down time for your dog to absorb the latent learning, but not so much that it becomes bored.  In 121 lessons, is your dog pushed hard for a full hour, far beyond its capacity to learn? Or are you and it taught in bite-sized chunks that you can absorb, with a change of pace in between?

If you’re the instructor, then your role is to ensure that learning is optimized both for groups and singly.  In groups particularly, you have to balance your time carefully across the group so that you’re not spending too much time with one student.  You need to remain pro-active and punchy, and yet you need to understand that not all people learn at the same rate and if one student is consistently slow to take their turn, you need to understand the reasons for that.  You need to be sure you have clearly articulated the criteria and goals for the lesson and that you have a structured lesson plan before you start.

Which brings us to a major point that seems to be lost along the way: an instructor is essentially a public speaker who can multi-task: someone who is confident leading a group and has the ability to monitor the owners as well as the dogs on a number of different levels.  If you’re making the transition from being a student to being a trainer, it’s worth remembering that it will be a lot more draining – but at the same time, it’s a privilege and a joy and if you’re not learning with every lesson you teach, it’s time to do something else.  Remember too, that new blood protects you from burnout, so make sure you go on training events, camps and have fun training yourself too. Look after yourself so you can look after others…..

So: as a pupil in what we might call ‘live’ training, you need to be sure that you understand your instructor, and that you are being taught at a level that stretches you enough, but not too far, by someone who loves teaching you and your dog and who genuinely understands what makes you both tick.

As an instructor, you need to love the job, and have eyes in the back of your head (!)

Online instruction takes a different kind of commitment on the part of both those constructing the courses and those taking them.  The material needs to be presented clearly, and to cover the widest possible range of abilities, both of dog and owner. It needs to express the basics of learning theory – why we are doing what we’re doing – as well as the detail of the current lesson.

On the part of the student, it takes the commitment to read and learn and practice, often without the immediate positive feedback of the trainer as well as the ability to sift out those parts of the lesson that above or below your current learning standards.  You need to be sure, also, that it’s not contradicting the lessons you are taking in real life, so that you and your dog are not confused.

With courses such as the Ultimate Handling course and the new up and coming Ultimate Foundation course, there is always going to be an element of ‘one size fits all’ so you need to be aware of the times when you might need to ask individual questions of the trainers and they need to be able to answer the question that was asked, not the one they would have liked you to have asked!  That’s the ultimate test of a good instructor: do they listen?  And  the test of a student is: can they hear? With the Ultimate Online courses Greg and Laura have answered all of the questions that have been raised in relation to the course no matter how difficult or challenging they have been. This seems to be keeping the clients (YOU) very happy and is certainly the single most complimented aspect of their thorough and crystal clear online tuition.

And at the end of the training day, online lesson or seminar, have you both learned, have you both enjoyed it, and is your understanding of how you and your dog make a team greater, deeper, stronger than it was?

That’s what makes the best instructors – and the best students.

Food for thought, have a good training session…….

Everyone says that 2012 is going to be a year of huge change, and here at Ultimate Agility, we’re not going to buck the trend: in the midst of economic turmoil and unprecedented change, we believe it’s more important than ever that we and our friends and students are able to make the most of the training time we have with our dogs. When everything is being squeezed, every second becomes precious.

So our commitment for 2012 is that our videos will continue to be as clear as we can make them, that we’ll offer as much personal feedback as we can to our questions and we’ll put together our lesson plans based on the feedback we have from you. And so as we say goodbye 2011, and review our successes and mistakes of the last year, our resolution for 2012, as it was for 2011, is to train more, learn more, build closer relationships with our dogs… and to have fun. Our next online course is carefully being planned and prepared as we speak, keep your ears and eyes on our site as sign up will again be limited so that we can continue to deliever a great service.

We’ve set up Ultimate Agility so that we can share that fun and that learning with all of you, and as we head into the new year, we thought you might like to see some of the feedback we’ve had in the past year. If you find something you wrote in here, take it as a big ‘thank you’ from us, and we hope to hear more from you in the new year. (and no, we haven’t just edited out the bad ones – there were no bad ones, which helps us to know that we’re on the right track – thank you!)

Gratefully yours,

All at Ultimate Agility

“Greg, Laura and everyone else behind the scenes I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying this course. It is wonderful to get this opportunity to train with you guys so thank you so much for putting it together.”

“Woohoo! A bonus!”

“LOVING the videos with different dogs and different size dogs!! Massive thank you! Your informative reply helped me a lot to put things into perspective.”

“Great Nice exercise. My dog struggles with this. Great way to break down the concept and confirm understanding. Thanks!”

“I really enjoy the way this course is moving forward, and I love the awareness I am gaining that the handler/dog team is never too experienced to go back to basics!

“I really like that answer Greg, I’ve picked up lotsa good stuff this week but this so far is the best!”

“Most certainly I feel, already at this point, that the course has been a worth of every penny. I am extremely grateful that Greg and Laura have provided informative answers to all questions posted myself and by other ultimate handlers.

“I enjoy the way the lessons are presented I am very visual so I typically skim the written word, watch the video and go back to the written part to be clear what I saw is what is written……really liking the simplicity and clarity in the lessons, nice job “splitting not lumping” the lessons!!!”

The goal of this event is to provide an arena where Dog Agility competition is the sole focus, with Finals for ALL levels of dogs. No longer will our sport be seen and treated as a sideline show. An event purely for British Agility, the Grand Finals will be live streamed as well as filmed for a DVD for handlers to have as a lasting memory of this competition.

We are delighted to announce that Lee Amos and Chris Symons will be the 2011 Grand Final judges.

Live streaming will be available for the whole event so that you don’t miss a thing, but if you can’t watch it live there will be a catch up service where you can watch it in your own time for a limited period.  Simply sign up to 1 of the 3 subscription plans to get access to the catch up service for that plan.

The streaming will include:

• Uninterrupted coverage of all 9 finals
  Course Plans
  Results Tables
  Winner’s ceremonies
• Catch Up Service

To view the finals timetables please click the links below

Saturday

Sunday

Streaming will be available to purchase with access to either Saturday or Sunday on a day rate or it can be purchased for a weekend rate.

To get access to the live stream please visit www.ultimateagilitystreaming.com

We hope you have all had time to read and ingest the invaluable information in ‘The Competitor vs The Trainer In All Of Us.’ If you have not read or received your free article for whatever reason please get in touch with us as soon as possible. We love imparting the information we have to help agility and dog training worldwide improve and progress.

We also want to take this opportunity to announce the new, unique Ultimate Handler online course. This is a one off sign up opportunity and once we have closed registration we will not re-open until next time we are able to offer this e-learning chance.  Registration is open from now until 6pm (UK time) on Sunday 6th of November, ready for your first lesson on Monday the 7th of November.

By joining the Ultimate Handling course you will receive 30 thought provoking lessons and the best thing is it works out cheaper than most of us pay for our weekly classes, is this for real? This is madness, it’s cheaper than most weekly classes and you will be taught at world class level. To find out how to register and for more information please visit the Ultimate Handling page on our website or click here. Registration is now open for this limited period only so ensure you don’t miss out, can you really afford not to enrol?

Here is what will be on offer

• Acceleration and deceleration training.
• Positional cues: what they are, how to teach them and how to use them in training and competition.
• Detailed explanation of the key handling manoeuvres. Front cross, rear cross, serpentine, threadle (pull) and 270.
• Daily exercises to practice to improve handling, timing and dog training skills for these key handling manoeuvres.
• Foot work training.
• Drills to incorporate the skills you have learnt.
• Troubleshooting: how to spot problems before they arise – and what to do about them.
• The daily updates will contain text of the day’s lesson plan as well as daily video footage of each new concept. The online resources will contain a FAQ, updated as we answer your question, top tips from Greg and Laura on training, handling and competition, fact sheets and links to other online resources.

Click here to find out more information and to register ULTIMATE HANDLING

Alright, in the last post we gave you a brief insight as to what we are trying to achieve with Ultimate Agility.  A website that will bring you the very best in dog and agility training right to your computer screen and deliver it in a way that will inspire, motivate and improve your own training skills through innovative teaching and dog training.  Now, we also realise that in order for us to do all of the above we need to bring you content that you as agility handlers and dog trainers want.  So with that in mind we would like to get views and opinions on what you would like from our up and coming online course Ultimate Handling.

For those of you that are familiar with the Greg Derrett system, you will know that it offers handlers the ability to take on any course, no matter what level you are, and enables you to tackle it efficiently whatever the challenges. So what we need are your ideas, it doesn’t matter whether you have been using the GD system for years or you are simply fancy some new ideas. Let us know what would make this course invaluable to you as a handler? What nugget of information would allow you to go from good to great? How can we help you? The course is almost ready to deliver however we want to deliver over and above so need your help. Get in touch with all of your ideas through the website or the FB page. Get on it!

The Ultimate Agility Team

You may be asking yourself what is Ultimate Agility all about? Well, let us give you an idea.

Ultimate Agility aims to inspire and motivate you with all agility and dog training. We will be dedicated in bringing you the very best and most up to date methods of training that will be delivered in various different formats from blog posts to articles, newsletters to online courses and many more.

So with that in mind why not take your first step forward to becoming a better dog trainer and handler by signing up the Ultimate Agility website newsletter and you will receive a free article titled The Trainer Vs the Competitor in all of us. This invaluable article written by FCI silver and bronze medallist Greg Derrett, who also has an Advanced Studies Diploma in Animal Behaviour shares his thoughts on how you as dog agility handlers can find a balance between being a great dog trainer whilst still competing at your best.

Don’t forget to also check out our first online course that will be on offer soon. Ultimate Handling will be brought to you by Greg and Laura Derrett and will be fantastic for anyone wanting to learn a handling system that is consistent, efficient and best of all can be applied if you are just starting out in this sport or are a seasoned pro.  ULTIMATE HANDLING

Now, how exciting is that?

Thanks, from all of us at Ultimate Agility