NADAC Trial

I went to a NADAC trial this weekend with the goal of proofing contacts. I did meet my goal. We got to do and redo a lot of contacts. We are still having trouble with contacts at trials. After some initial improvement in January - February, we seem to be back to a pretty low rate of seeing the so-called 2 on, 2 off contact at trials. At home and in our class, it is very difficult to get him to fail.

I did a pretty good job this weekend but was not 100% consistent in expecting a 2 on, 2 off. In fact, I blew it on our first "chances" run as I kept outside the distance tape and kept going when I saw him hit the yellow (but not a 2 on, 2 off). I should have forgotten about the distance and just went out there to practice contacts. The great thing about NADAC is that you can redo your contacts a few times if you miss them.

I studied video last night and did not see a real pattern but it looks like in trials, he just hops off sometimes. I think when he has stress, he is hypersenstive and I can pull him off sometimes by the slightest body movement or voice command. So I have been trying to keep really square to the contact and keeping my upper body "quiet".

Speed also seems to be a factor. I think I need to really slow him down BEFORE the contact and not at the END of the contact, which is what I tend to do. In that case, he seems to jump off when my body moves...

We did have one of those runs you don't forget for a while. It was our first open jumpers in NADAC. He took off like a rocket but I was able to call out obstacles way ahead of time. [There were tunnels at the end of a few long runs of jumps.] I sent him way ahead to one tunnel and had plenty of time to call him over the opposite side of the start of a serpentine. We got third place and a really fast time (missed second by .02 seconds).