More Bang for the Buck

Here is one of the sequences from Dawn Weaver's book, Knowledge Equals Speed (p.42), and two of the additional sequences I created.  (Note: In the original sequence the hoops were winged jumps and there was no tunnel.)

Original Sequence

The point of the original sequence was to demonstrate how to communicate the 180 by your lead out positioning.  Dawn's suggestions will be familiar to those who follow Linda Mecklenburg's handling system.

My Exercise 1 - A variation on the original.

The exercise at the right is my first variation on the original sequence.  When I first worked on this one, I wanted to handle the 180 from the "take off" side of #2.  I wasn't pretty, especially with Dusty.  Since I wanted the dogs to wrap #3 to left, I couldn't get into the gap between 2 and 3 without drawing Dusty into a back "jump" of #3.  Handling the 180 from the "landing" side of #2, made the job a lot easier.

My Exercise 2 - Two Threadles

The sequence on the left features a fast opening followed by two threadles.  My original plan was to do a push for the first threadle, but that proved to be quite hard for us to execute correctly.  However, when we managed to do it, doing a push for the first threadle seemed to put me in a better position to handle the second threadle and the closing.  

Additionally, when I used a pull for the first threadle, I managed to mess it up more than once by failing to pull the dog into the gap with the correct arm :-(  Also, it made running a smooth line for the second threadle and the close quite difficult for me.  This is definitely a sequence the dogs and I will be trying again in a day or two.