Training Tuesday: Strategy or Execution?

How to differentiate between the two and excel at both of them.

This podcast is shared with permission from Bad Dog Agility.

In this podcast, Sarah, Jennifer and Esteban define strategy and execution while exploring the difference between them.

You will learn:

• The difference between strategy and execution.
• How to use course maps to develop your strategies.
• How to develop strategies without course maps.
• Why visualization can help your strategic planning.
• How instructors can tailor classes for strategy or execution.
• Why execution applies to dog training as well as handling.

Listen to the podcast:

Excerpt from the podcast:

"... The goal is definitely to be good at both [strategy and execution.] I think that's what you see a lot of the top handlers able to do is differentiate the two and excel at both of them but when we talk about the difference between the two, we're often thinking about the kind of mental part of developing the plan, the course walk through the strategy, you're walking your course, you're determining, are you going to front cross, are you going to rear cross, kind of how it's running through in your head. What your game plan is to get from one to 18. And then the execution is how it all plays out when you get out there with your dog, right? Everything's now going faster, clock's running, dogs going fast, maybe things don't go exactly as you planned, execution is your ability to do it. So where I think of the two coming into play and what I often see and why I've highlighted these two elements so much in my teaching is I'll hear a handler come off a run out of trial whether it's a student or somebody I don't know and I'll hear something like, "Oh, I knew I shouldn't have done that front. I knew I should have done the rear cross." And the question becomes, was it really a bad strategy? Was it really a better decision to do the rear than the front? Or was it just the execution that may be the execution of the front cross was the problem that the strategy of doing the front cross wasn't what was at fault, but the execution wasn't quite there, it was misplaced. It was mistimed. And that's where I think the two really come into play from a teaching standpoint is in thinking about, when a mistake goes wrong, which aspect was it? And then trying to be proactive about training handlers for both aspects...."

Bad Dog Agility provides high-quality agility training online and hosts the Bad Dog Agility Podcast, which has over 1.5 million downloads. For free help with your training problems, visit https://baddogagility.com/.